Research On The Driving Factors Of The Entrepreneurial Synergistic Effects Of Effectuation And Causation

In entrepreneurial practice,most entrepreneurs are short of resources,and the production and operation almost completely depend on their personal decisions.Therefore,the study of how entrepreneurs make decisions has become the focus of the entrepreneurial field.Previous studies have made it clear that entrepreneurs will use two kinds of reasoning logic in the decision-making process: effect logic or causal logic,but all believe that the two kinds of logic are mutually exclusive and cannot coexist.In the subsequent research,scholars found that in entrepreneurial practice,entrepreneurs also used effect and causal logic in the same time or alternately,and called it the synergistic effect of effectuation and causation.However,there are few studies on the topic of synergistic effect between effectuation and causation,and the only few papers mainly discuss the postpositional variables of this synergistic effect,focusing on the influence of the combination of effect and causal logic on factors such as entrepreneurial performance and innovation behavior,ignoring the antecedent mechanism of this synergistic effect.There is no clear answer to the question of what motivates entrepreneurs to use both logic in their decisions,or to alternate between them.Psychological research shows that emotions affect and regulate individual cognition and behavior.And the decision of entrepreneurs is bound to be accompanied by emotional participation.The type and intensity of emotions perceived by the entrepreneur and his cognitive processing ability for these emotional conditions will have different degrees of influence on the behavior.With the continuous development of emotion research,scholars increasingly attach importance to the role of complex emotions and introduce emotional complexity into the field of entrepreneurship.According to the theory of affect as information,various emotions experienced by entrepreneurs can provide entrepreneurs with various kinds of information about external things,so as to bring positive or negative,safe or dangerous warnings to entrepreneurs,help individuals to expand the focus of attention,and improve the adaptability of behavior to the dynamic environment.As another mode of thinking for entrepreneurs to deal with uncertainty,the synergetic effect may be closely related to complex and diverse emotions.So,this paper attempts to explore the influence of emotional complexity on the synergetic effect from the perspective of emotion.In addition,studies have confirmed that both positive and negative emotions have effects on cognition.And the cognitive processing mode determines how entrepreneurs view and judge things,and affects the entrepreneurs' choice of decision-making mode.Thus,this paper introduced the cognitive flexibility as intervening variable.This paper expounds the synergetic effect of effectuation and causation,and build the mediation effect model,explore emotional complexity of decision logic synergy mechanism,especially the role of cognitive flexibility between them.Through the questionnaire survey of entrepreneurs in Sichuan province and the empirical analysis of 184 valid samples,this study has drawn the following conclusions: Entrepreneurs' emotional complexity has a significant positive effect on the synergetic effect of effectuation and causation and cognitive flexibility;Cognitive flexibility has a positive effect on the synergetic effect of effectuation and causation;Cognitive flexibility plays a fully mediating role in the relationship between emotional complexity and the synergistic effect.That is to say,emotional complexity influences the synergetic effect of effectuation and causation in the decision-making through the mediating effect of cognitive flexibility.From the perspective of emotion,this paper obtains an antecedent variable of decision logic synergy,and reveals the positive promoting effect of entrepreneurs' emotional complexity on the effect of the logic synergy.Meanwhile,the mediating effect of cognitive flexibility is demonstrated by using cognition as a bridge.This research not only enriches the existing studies on the synergetic effect of effectuation and causation in the entrepreneurship field,but also enriches the application of complexity in entrepreneurial management.At the same time,the study provides a valuable reference for entrepreneurs about how to better use the synergetic effect of effectuation and causation in decision activities,which will help them improve the scientific and adaptable of decision-making.