How Can an Alert Entrepreneurial Engineer Recognize Business Opportunities? When the entrepreneurial mental models matter

Abstract

Every entrepreneurial process starts with opportunity recognition. We know that entrepreneurial alertness makes individuals more prone to discover opportunities. Also, we know that individuals’ mental models impact their alertness capability. How does that process occur in engineering students? We made a mixed study to explore the relationship between engineers’ opportunity recognition capability, alertness process, and entrepreneurial mental models. We made a self-applied questionnaire. Response options are analyzed quantitatively and later triangulated by a semantic analysis of the item statements. We infer a nonlinear relationship between those entrepreneurial cognitive structures and processes like a virtuous circle. We make theoretical and practical contributions to entrepreneurial cognitive research.