Adjusting the Sails: Investigating the Feedback Loop of the Opportunity Development Process in Entrepreneurship Training

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Why does entrepreneurship training work? We argue that the feedback loop of the opportunity development process is a training element that can explain the effectiveness of entrepreneurship training. Building on action regulation theory, we model the feedback loop as a recursive cycle of changes in the business opportunity, goals, performance outcomes, and feedback. Furthermore, we hypothesize that error orientation and monitoring can strengthen or weaken the cycle, and that going through the feedback loop during training explains short- and long-term training outcomes. To test our hypotheses, we collected data before, during, and after an entrepreneurship training program. Results support our hypotheses, suggesting that the feedback loop of the opportunity development process is a concept that can explain why entrepreneurship training is effective.
Original languageEnglish
JournalAcademy of Management Learning & Education
Volume21
Issue number2
Pages (from-to)209-235
Number of pages27
ISSN1537-260X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.06.2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This paper was supported by the German and Mexican Commission for UNESCO, and the BASF Stiftung. We thank Katharina Arriens, Svenja Berg, Gianna Henkel, and Saskia Kopf for their support in collecting the data. Special thanks go to Prof. Michael Frese as the initiator of the STEP project, and to the STEP teams at Instituto Tecnolo-gico Autonomo de Mexico, Tecnologico Nacional de Mexico, and in particular the Instituto Tecnologico de Gustavo A. Madero and the Instituto Tecnologico de Puebla.

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