New ventures going global: Cognition and context

The purpose of this study is to examine how three dimensions of new venture managers’ mindsets—cosmopolitanism, cognitive complexity, risk propensity—affect their evaluations of opportunities to expand internationally for the first time. We also consider a contingency that likely shapes the effects of mindset dimensions: the institutional risk of the country where the opportunity is located. Our focus on new ventures, risk propensity, and country institutional risk are novel in the study of managerial mindsets. We theorize that the three mindset dimensions are positively related to the attractiveness of international opportunities among new venture managers, but that country institutional risk weakens the effects of each dimension. Drawing on survey data of new venture managers in Italy, Turkey, and the US, we find general support for our hypotheses.