Description
In this particular brief illustration regarding how overconfidence influences entrepreneurship.
REVI EW Open Access
How overconfidence influences entrepreneurship
Ioannis S Salamouris
Correspondence:
[email protected]
Hellenic American University, 22
Massalias Street, Athens 10680,
Greece
Abstract
The only thing certain in economic life is that most of it is conducted into an
uncertain environment; that raises a question though: what makes individuals pursue
entrepreneurship which engages too much risk for an unsure, or too little, return?
Research has shown that people tend to be optimistic when a decision is made
under uncertainty (Taylor and Brown, Psychological Bulletin, 103:193–210, 1988) and
exhibit overconfidence in judgment (DeBondt and Thaler 1995). Overconfident
individuals tend to overestimate their relative ability (Svenson, Acta Psychologica
47:143–148, 1981); therefore, their perception about their actions, probabilistically,
appears to them to be safer than that of others who exhibit no overconfidence. A
sample of 2,994 entrepreneurs provides us with interesting findings (Cooper et al.,
Journal of Business Venturing 3:97–108, 1988): 81% consider their chances of success
to be at least 70%, and 33% believe their chances of success to reach a probability of
100%. In reality, about 75% of new businesses no longer exist after 5 years. Is it that
entrepreneurs are incapable of seeing the risk or/and measure it, or is it that they
consciously perceive a different dimension of risk involved in their actions? A more
recent study (Wu and Knott, Management Science 52:1315–1330, 2006) showed, in
general, that entrepreneurs are more cautious than most of us would think or
believe, and the belief that entrepreneurs have bigger tolerance for risk is rather
unsupported according to their findings. Although there are some cases where
entrepreneurs appear to be more risk averse than average, still it does not prevent
them to bear risk. Such finding sounds controversial, but in reality it is not.
Entrepreneurs seem to set different dimensions for uncertainty; thus, the oxymoron
suggested above actually justifies their actions. Entrepreneurs believe that
uncertainty has two dimensions: the market uncertainty and the uncertainty
regarding ability. Similar to the majority of people, entrepreneurs detest the market
risk but, on the other hand, they much appreciate their own abilities(overconfidence)
that compensate for their dislike of risk. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the
impact of overconfidence in entrepreneurial behavior.
Keywords: Entrepreneurship overconfidence, Uncertainty, Behavior
Review
Psychologists show that, mainly, people are overconfident about their abilities and
about the precision of their knowledge (Fischhoff et al. 1977; Alpert and Raiffa 1982;
Lichtenstein et al. 1982).
Overconfidence creates a state of mind where individuals underestimate possible di-
mensions of potential outcomes not because they do not assess them as important but
rather because they overestimate their ability to deal with those when and if the time
comes. Overconfidence has been documented in many cases and in various forms.
© 2013 Salamouris; licensee Springer. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.
Salamouris Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship 2013, 2:8http://www.innovation-entrepreneurship.com/content/2/1/8
Most of the evidence that exhibits overconfidence occurs from calibration studies. Sub-
jects are presented with a series of general knowledge questions: for instance, which
river is bigger, Amazon or Nile, or prediction problems, who will win the elections. In
addition, the individuals were asked to assess the probability of their answer to be cor-
rect. In the majority of such studies (Taylor and Brown 1988;Svenson 1981), individuals
assessed the probability of their answer to be correct as very high, though the outcome
of their answers was not in accordance with the probability stated earlier. This finding
clearly suggests that people perceive their knowledge to be more accurate than it really
is and assess their ability better than average. Consequently, the element of overconfi-
dence could be playing a vital role in the decision-making process. Similar results oc-
curred even when individuals were asked to stake money on their answers, not
exhibiting any change on their answers or the assessment of how accurate they think
their answers are. Even in more extreme cases where individuals said that they were
certain regarding the accuracy of their answers, only 80% were in fact correct. The
overconfidence phenomenon persisted again. Even when individuals were exposed to
the correct answers, still the level of their overconfidence was not affected. The ques-
tion that arises is thus: do people not learn out of their mistakes and try to correct their
overconfidence?
Clearly, people do learn when the consequences of their errors are frequently
presented to them, and sometimes from being overconfident they become less
confident. But in general, people tend to be biased toward overconfidence. Pro-
bably, a significant part of overconfidence is forgetting about contrary evidence
or underestimating unfavorable results, considering them as unique or extreme
cases.
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of overconfidence in human
behavior and emphasize how overconfidence is affecting entrepreneurial behavior in
particular.
DeBondt and Thaler (1995) suggested that ‘Perhaps the most robust finding in the
psychology of judgment is that people are overconfident.’ Overconfidence is the driving
force that encourages individuals to take on ventures that other individuals might not
undertake. Some might say that such decisions engage some level of irrationality, but
recent studies have provided significant evidence why such an irrational behavior can,
and most of the times do, persist.
In the last decade, work in economics and finance (e.g., Delong et al. (1991),
Daniel et al. (1998), Odean (1998)) area suggested that overconfidence triggers a
behavior that theoretically is irrational but practically is highly applicable. Nume-
rous examples can be found in the behavior of investors and analysts in the stock
market, where people exhibit irrational behavior just because they overestimate
their ability or perceive that the probability of being wrong is very small. Griffin
and Tversky (1992) stress that in cases where predictability is very limited, as in
securities markets, experts may even be more inclined to overconfidence than no-
vices. In other words, the uncertainty that evidently exists in a stock market may
be compensated by a high level of overconfidence in order for a decision to be
made. In theory, decisions should be made when information is sufficient. In prac-
tice though, when decisions should be taken and the information does not suffice,
overconfidence steps in to rationalize a decision.
Salamouris Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship 2013, 2:8 Page 2 of 6http://www.innovation-entrepreneurship.com/content/2/1/8
Overconfidence and entrepreneurs
Overconfidence among entrepreneurs has been documented in the work of Cooper et al.
(1988). More specifically in a sample of 2,994 entrepreneurs, 81% of them, approximately
2,450, believe that their chances of success are at least 70%. Of the sample, 33% believe in
an absolute 100% chance of succeeding, while 75% of new businesses will fail shortly after
inception or will not make it within the next 5 years.
Another research by Busenitz and Barney (1997) revealed that when entrepreneurs
were asked a question related to whether cancer or heart disease is the leading cause of
death in the USA, against other individuals, entrepreneurs present a level of confidence
in their answers which was significantly higher than those of others while the number
of correct results were equally dispersed.
Entrepreneurs frequently exhibit the tendency to underestimate the likelihood of un-
favorable results to occur. The chances of a new venture to fail or the profit that a firm
will earn, as also the reaction of the competition, have been underestimated because
the entrepreneurs show overconfidence in their ability to prevent all unfavorable things
to happen.
Palichand Bagby (1995) and Busenitz and Barney (1997) indicated that while the ma-
jority of managers are overconfident, entrepreneurs exhibited greater overconfidence
than managers. This finding suggests that several launches of new ventures were the
outcome of the overconfidence that entrepreneurs show. Equally, overconfidence could
be to a degree responsible for the fairly high incidence of new venture failures, given
that overconfident entrepreneurs are expected to overestimate their ability to make cor-
rect decisions in launching and developing their new businesses.
It follows that if entrepreneurs normally display overconfidence, also young entrepre-
neurs may possibly exhibit overconfidence when shaping their intention to start their
own businesses.
Several studies (Douglas and Shepherd 2002; Fitzsimmons and Douglas 2005) sug-
gested that the purpose to become self-employed has a high level of dependency on the
individual’s feelings to independence, ownership, and risk. In other words, because of
their perceptions, individuals may be encouraged to proceed with a new venture.
Hence, a question arises as to whether entrepreneurial intensions are affected inde-
pendently by overconfidence or whether overconfidence operates as a moderator of
these entrepreneurial intentions.
Both instances, in my belief, work complementarily. The sense of independence, own-
ership, and risk may be facilitated by becoming self-employed, while in not exhibiting
confidence about your own ability to succeed, the attempt will fail.
The level of confidence that individuals exhibit will perform as long as it becomes a
conscious belief. According to Forbes (2005), a distinction is made between overconfi-
dence and self-efficacy. More specifically, Forbes clarifies overconfidence as a measure
of accuracy of an individual’s ability, while entrepreneurial self-efficacy measures the in-
dividual’s perception of their abilities. Such distinction suggests that overconfidence be-
comes a subconscious phenomenon, whereas entrepreneurial self-efficacy evolves into
a consciously held belief. In addition, Forbes (2005) claims that an individual’s entrepre-
neurial self-efficacy varies to different levels of over-inflated opinions about their abil-
ities. In such cases, the more over-inflated opinion, the higher the probability for
individuals to demonstrate overconfidence in their abilities. Based on that, several
Salamouris Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship 2013, 2:8 Page 3 of 6http://www.innovation-entrepreneurship.com/content/2/1/8
entrepreneurs, with past business successes, will inevitably turn out to be more over-
confident because their self-efficacy level is very high. Thus, overconfidence seems to
act as an independent variable that holds the relationship between entrepreneurial self-
efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions.
Overconfidence replaces lack of information by overestimating ability. Langer (1975)
has observed that the more difficult the task, the greater the chance of overconfidence to
kick in and increase. On top of that, individuals that successfully completed tasks in the
past experience an increase in their confidence regardless if this confidence is justified or
not. From a point onward, individuals tend to disregard the information or the risks asso-
ciated to a task and are based solely on their over-inflated ability, which is built up on past
incidents which might not have been always successful, Lichtenstein et al. 1977.
When entrepreneurs are overconfident, they exhibit the tendency to follow their own
information, down-weighting the publicly available information or ignoring the
complete lack of any information whatsoever. The rest of the individuals that observe
such behavior tend to believe that entrepreneurs are fearless of risk or that they have a
higher level of risk tolerance. Such perception existed for many years and mainly was
considered to be one of the distinct characteristics of entrepreneurs. A study by Wu
and Knott (2006) provided contrary information to that belief. More specifically, Wu
and Knott (2006) observed that entrepreneurs are more cautious than most of us think.
In several cases, entrepreneurs appeared to be more risk averse than the average, without
though being discouraged in undertaking new ventures and obviously risk. Such a finding
seems contradicting but actually is not. The explanation to that is based on the perception
that entrepreneurs place to risk. The majority of individuals identify risk as the level of un-
certainty of something to happen or not; therefore, the greater the uncertainty, the greater
the risk. Entrepreneurs set different dimensions for uncertainty, which allow them to
proceed with tasks, which for the majority of individuals appear very uncertain.
Entrepreneurs believe that uncertainty has two dimensions, one is the well-known
market uncertainty (systemic risk) and the other is the uncertainty regarding ability.
Like the majority of people, entrepreneurs dislike risk but, on the other hand, place
great value on their ability. The appreciation of their ability comes in and compensates
for the market risk; thus, any new venture becomes less risky and possibly more
appealing.
Such findings imply that, as long as there is a great appreciation in the ability of the
entrepreneurs, no venture is risky enough to discourage them. Conversely, if a high de-
gree of uncertainty exists regarding ability, entrepreneurs will avoid entering in such
ventures because their perceived lack of ability will never overcome the systemic risk.
It appears then that the volume of information which could reveal the level of uncer-
tainty in a venture somehow becomes insignificant. Non-entrepreneurs try to be ra-
tional by supporting their decision not only on private but also on public information.
Entrepreneurs do the same but place more weight on their own information which is
the outcome of their ability and reduce the value of public information.
Conclusions
In this paper, it is argued that overconfidence is something that characterizes human
behavior in most cases. People tend to appreciate their knowledge highly even in cases
Salamouris Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship 2013, 2:8 Page 4 of 6http://www.innovation-entrepreneurship.com/content/2/1/8
where prior experience is contrary to that. The literature suggests that such overconfi-
dence is something to be expected and most probably in cases where little information
is available, but the impact of overconfidence on people’s behavior may differ depend-
ing on their perception about uncertainty.
Non-entrepreneurs exhibit overconfidence up to the limit on which the information
is considered insufficient; therefore, the task in hand becomes uncertain. Entrepreneurs,
on the other hand, exhibit similar overconfidence regardless of the available informa-
tion. The driving force is the self-assessment of their skills and ability which appears to
be unrelated to the level of information. Their ability is enough to compensate any lack
of information. Clearly, when entrepreneurs over-assess their ability or believe that
their ability will suffice to overcome objective difficulties, then the probability of failure
increases significantly. Prior failures do not discourage them because part of overconfi-
dence is isolating unfavorable results, thinking of them as out of the norm.
Entrepreneurs behave in a rational manner, contrary to what other individuals may
think, under the influence of overconfidence which apparently characterizes human be-
havior. A question for further research that arises is when or under what circumstances
is entrepreneurial ability not sufficient to overcome the risk in any new ventures.
Competing interests
The author declares that he has no competing interests.
Author’s information
IS is an Assistant Professor of Finance at Hellenic American University (www.hauniv.us). In addition, IS is the Director
of the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment (OIRA) of the University. IS is also the President of a Social
Enterprise for Education and Lifelong Learning (www.knowl.gr). Last year, IS has become a Member of the Policy
Committee of the Federation of Hellenic Associations of Young Entrepreneurs (http://www.esyne.gr).
Received: 20 November 2012 Accepted: 7 May 2013
Published: 27 May 2013
References
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& A Tversky (Eds.), Judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases (pp. 294–305). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Busenitz, LW, & Barney, JB. (1997). Differences between entrepreneurs and managers in large organizations: biases and
heuristics in strategic decision-making. Journal of Business Venturing, 12(1), 9–30.
Cooper, AC, Woo, CA, & Dunkelberg, W. (1988). Entrepreneurs perceived chances for success. Journal of Business
Venturing, 3, 97–108.
Daniel, K, Hirshleifer, D, & Subrahmanyam, A. (1998). A theory of overconfidence, self-attribution, and security market
under- and over-reaction. Journal of Finance, 53(5), 1839–1886.
DeBondt, WFM, & Thaler, RH. (1995). Financial decision-making in markets and firms: a behavioral perspective. In
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doi:10.1186/2192-5372-2-8
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In this particular brief illustration regarding how overconfidence influences entrepreneurship.
REVI EW Open Access
How overconfidence influences entrepreneurship
Ioannis S Salamouris
Correspondence:
[email protected]
Hellenic American University, 22
Massalias Street, Athens 10680,
Greece
Abstract
The only thing certain in economic life is that most of it is conducted into an
uncertain environment; that raises a question though: what makes individuals pursue
entrepreneurship which engages too much risk for an unsure, or too little, return?
Research has shown that people tend to be optimistic when a decision is made
under uncertainty (Taylor and Brown, Psychological Bulletin, 103:193–210, 1988) and
exhibit overconfidence in judgment (DeBondt and Thaler 1995). Overconfident
individuals tend to overestimate their relative ability (Svenson, Acta Psychologica
47:143–148, 1981); therefore, their perception about their actions, probabilistically,
appears to them to be safer than that of others who exhibit no overconfidence. A
sample of 2,994 entrepreneurs provides us with interesting findings (Cooper et al.,
Journal of Business Venturing 3:97–108, 1988): 81% consider their chances of success
to be at least 70%, and 33% believe their chances of success to reach a probability of
100%. In reality, about 75% of new businesses no longer exist after 5 years. Is it that
entrepreneurs are incapable of seeing the risk or/and measure it, or is it that they
consciously perceive a different dimension of risk involved in their actions? A more
recent study (Wu and Knott, Management Science 52:1315–1330, 2006) showed, in
general, that entrepreneurs are more cautious than most of us would think or
believe, and the belief that entrepreneurs have bigger tolerance for risk is rather
unsupported according to their findings. Although there are some cases where
entrepreneurs appear to be more risk averse than average, still it does not prevent
them to bear risk. Such finding sounds controversial, but in reality it is not.
Entrepreneurs seem to set different dimensions for uncertainty; thus, the oxymoron
suggested above actually justifies their actions. Entrepreneurs believe that
uncertainty has two dimensions: the market uncertainty and the uncertainty
regarding ability. Similar to the majority of people, entrepreneurs detest the market
risk but, on the other hand, they much appreciate their own abilities(overconfidence)
that compensate for their dislike of risk. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the
impact of overconfidence in entrepreneurial behavior.
Keywords: Entrepreneurship overconfidence, Uncertainty, Behavior
Review
Psychologists show that, mainly, people are overconfident about their abilities and
about the precision of their knowledge (Fischhoff et al. 1977; Alpert and Raiffa 1982;
Lichtenstein et al. 1982).
Overconfidence creates a state of mind where individuals underestimate possible di-
mensions of potential outcomes not because they do not assess them as important but
rather because they overestimate their ability to deal with those when and if the time
comes. Overconfidence has been documented in many cases and in various forms.
© 2013 Salamouris; licensee Springer. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.
Salamouris Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship 2013, 2:8http://www.innovation-entrepreneurship.com/content/2/1/8
Most of the evidence that exhibits overconfidence occurs from calibration studies. Sub-
jects are presented with a series of general knowledge questions: for instance, which
river is bigger, Amazon or Nile, or prediction problems, who will win the elections. In
addition, the individuals were asked to assess the probability of their answer to be cor-
rect. In the majority of such studies (Taylor and Brown 1988;Svenson 1981), individuals
assessed the probability of their answer to be correct as very high, though the outcome
of their answers was not in accordance with the probability stated earlier. This finding
clearly suggests that people perceive their knowledge to be more accurate than it really
is and assess their ability better than average. Consequently, the element of overconfi-
dence could be playing a vital role in the decision-making process. Similar results oc-
curred even when individuals were asked to stake money on their answers, not
exhibiting any change on their answers or the assessment of how accurate they think
their answers are. Even in more extreme cases where individuals said that they were
certain regarding the accuracy of their answers, only 80% were in fact correct. The
overconfidence phenomenon persisted again. Even when individuals were exposed to
the correct answers, still the level of their overconfidence was not affected. The ques-
tion that arises is thus: do people not learn out of their mistakes and try to correct their
overconfidence?
Clearly, people do learn when the consequences of their errors are frequently
presented to them, and sometimes from being overconfident they become less
confident. But in general, people tend to be biased toward overconfidence. Pro-
bably, a significant part of overconfidence is forgetting about contrary evidence
or underestimating unfavorable results, considering them as unique or extreme
cases.
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of overconfidence in human
behavior and emphasize how overconfidence is affecting entrepreneurial behavior in
particular.
DeBondt and Thaler (1995) suggested that ‘Perhaps the most robust finding in the
psychology of judgment is that people are overconfident.’ Overconfidence is the driving
force that encourages individuals to take on ventures that other individuals might not
undertake. Some might say that such decisions engage some level of irrationality, but
recent studies have provided significant evidence why such an irrational behavior can,
and most of the times do, persist.
In the last decade, work in economics and finance (e.g., Delong et al. (1991),
Daniel et al. (1998), Odean (1998)) area suggested that overconfidence triggers a
behavior that theoretically is irrational but practically is highly applicable. Nume-
rous examples can be found in the behavior of investors and analysts in the stock
market, where people exhibit irrational behavior just because they overestimate
their ability or perceive that the probability of being wrong is very small. Griffin
and Tversky (1992) stress that in cases where predictability is very limited, as in
securities markets, experts may even be more inclined to overconfidence than no-
vices. In other words, the uncertainty that evidently exists in a stock market may
be compensated by a high level of overconfidence in order for a decision to be
made. In theory, decisions should be made when information is sufficient. In prac-
tice though, when decisions should be taken and the information does not suffice,
overconfidence steps in to rationalize a decision.
Salamouris Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship 2013, 2:8 Page 2 of 6http://www.innovation-entrepreneurship.com/content/2/1/8
Overconfidence and entrepreneurs
Overconfidence among entrepreneurs has been documented in the work of Cooper et al.
(1988). More specifically in a sample of 2,994 entrepreneurs, 81% of them, approximately
2,450, believe that their chances of success are at least 70%. Of the sample, 33% believe in
an absolute 100% chance of succeeding, while 75% of new businesses will fail shortly after
inception or will not make it within the next 5 years.
Another research by Busenitz and Barney (1997) revealed that when entrepreneurs
were asked a question related to whether cancer or heart disease is the leading cause of
death in the USA, against other individuals, entrepreneurs present a level of confidence
in their answers which was significantly higher than those of others while the number
of correct results were equally dispersed.
Entrepreneurs frequently exhibit the tendency to underestimate the likelihood of un-
favorable results to occur. The chances of a new venture to fail or the profit that a firm
will earn, as also the reaction of the competition, have been underestimated because
the entrepreneurs show overconfidence in their ability to prevent all unfavorable things
to happen.
Palichand Bagby (1995) and Busenitz and Barney (1997) indicated that while the ma-
jority of managers are overconfident, entrepreneurs exhibited greater overconfidence
than managers. This finding suggests that several launches of new ventures were the
outcome of the overconfidence that entrepreneurs show. Equally, overconfidence could
be to a degree responsible for the fairly high incidence of new venture failures, given
that overconfident entrepreneurs are expected to overestimate their ability to make cor-
rect decisions in launching and developing their new businesses.
It follows that if entrepreneurs normally display overconfidence, also young entrepre-
neurs may possibly exhibit overconfidence when shaping their intention to start their
own businesses.
Several studies (Douglas and Shepherd 2002; Fitzsimmons and Douglas 2005) sug-
gested that the purpose to become self-employed has a high level of dependency on the
individual’s feelings to independence, ownership, and risk. In other words, because of
their perceptions, individuals may be encouraged to proceed with a new venture.
Hence, a question arises as to whether entrepreneurial intensions are affected inde-
pendently by overconfidence or whether overconfidence operates as a moderator of
these entrepreneurial intentions.
Both instances, in my belief, work complementarily. The sense of independence, own-
ership, and risk may be facilitated by becoming self-employed, while in not exhibiting
confidence about your own ability to succeed, the attempt will fail.
The level of confidence that individuals exhibit will perform as long as it becomes a
conscious belief. According to Forbes (2005), a distinction is made between overconfi-
dence and self-efficacy. More specifically, Forbes clarifies overconfidence as a measure
of accuracy of an individual’s ability, while entrepreneurial self-efficacy measures the in-
dividual’s perception of their abilities. Such distinction suggests that overconfidence be-
comes a subconscious phenomenon, whereas entrepreneurial self-efficacy evolves into
a consciously held belief. In addition, Forbes (2005) claims that an individual’s entrepre-
neurial self-efficacy varies to different levels of over-inflated opinions about their abil-
ities. In such cases, the more over-inflated opinion, the higher the probability for
individuals to demonstrate overconfidence in their abilities. Based on that, several
Salamouris Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship 2013, 2:8 Page 3 of 6http://www.innovation-entrepreneurship.com/content/2/1/8
entrepreneurs, with past business successes, will inevitably turn out to be more over-
confident because their self-efficacy level is very high. Thus, overconfidence seems to
act as an independent variable that holds the relationship between entrepreneurial self-
efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions.
Overconfidence replaces lack of information by overestimating ability. Langer (1975)
has observed that the more difficult the task, the greater the chance of overconfidence to
kick in and increase. On top of that, individuals that successfully completed tasks in the
past experience an increase in their confidence regardless if this confidence is justified or
not. From a point onward, individuals tend to disregard the information or the risks asso-
ciated to a task and are based solely on their over-inflated ability, which is built up on past
incidents which might not have been always successful, Lichtenstein et al. 1977.
When entrepreneurs are overconfident, they exhibit the tendency to follow their own
information, down-weighting the publicly available information or ignoring the
complete lack of any information whatsoever. The rest of the individuals that observe
such behavior tend to believe that entrepreneurs are fearless of risk or that they have a
higher level of risk tolerance. Such perception existed for many years and mainly was
considered to be one of the distinct characteristics of entrepreneurs. A study by Wu
and Knott (2006) provided contrary information to that belief. More specifically, Wu
and Knott (2006) observed that entrepreneurs are more cautious than most of us think.
In several cases, entrepreneurs appeared to be more risk averse than the average, without
though being discouraged in undertaking new ventures and obviously risk. Such a finding
seems contradicting but actually is not. The explanation to that is based on the perception
that entrepreneurs place to risk. The majority of individuals identify risk as the level of un-
certainty of something to happen or not; therefore, the greater the uncertainty, the greater
the risk. Entrepreneurs set different dimensions for uncertainty, which allow them to
proceed with tasks, which for the majority of individuals appear very uncertain.
Entrepreneurs believe that uncertainty has two dimensions, one is the well-known
market uncertainty (systemic risk) and the other is the uncertainty regarding ability.
Like the majority of people, entrepreneurs dislike risk but, on the other hand, place
great value on their ability. The appreciation of their ability comes in and compensates
for the market risk; thus, any new venture becomes less risky and possibly more
appealing.
Such findings imply that, as long as there is a great appreciation in the ability of the
entrepreneurs, no venture is risky enough to discourage them. Conversely, if a high de-
gree of uncertainty exists regarding ability, entrepreneurs will avoid entering in such
ventures because their perceived lack of ability will never overcome the systemic risk.
It appears then that the volume of information which could reveal the level of uncer-
tainty in a venture somehow becomes insignificant. Non-entrepreneurs try to be ra-
tional by supporting their decision not only on private but also on public information.
Entrepreneurs do the same but place more weight on their own information which is
the outcome of their ability and reduce the value of public information.
Conclusions
In this paper, it is argued that overconfidence is something that characterizes human
behavior in most cases. People tend to appreciate their knowledge highly even in cases
Salamouris Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship 2013, 2:8 Page 4 of 6http://www.innovation-entrepreneurship.com/content/2/1/8
where prior experience is contrary to that. The literature suggests that such overconfi-
dence is something to be expected and most probably in cases where little information
is available, but the impact of overconfidence on people’s behavior may differ depend-
ing on their perception about uncertainty.
Non-entrepreneurs exhibit overconfidence up to the limit on which the information
is considered insufficient; therefore, the task in hand becomes uncertain. Entrepreneurs,
on the other hand, exhibit similar overconfidence regardless of the available informa-
tion. The driving force is the self-assessment of their skills and ability which appears to
be unrelated to the level of information. Their ability is enough to compensate any lack
of information. Clearly, when entrepreneurs over-assess their ability or believe that
their ability will suffice to overcome objective difficulties, then the probability of failure
increases significantly. Prior failures do not discourage them because part of overconfi-
dence is isolating unfavorable results, thinking of them as out of the norm.
Entrepreneurs behave in a rational manner, contrary to what other individuals may
think, under the influence of overconfidence which apparently characterizes human be-
havior. A question for further research that arises is when or under what circumstances
is entrepreneurial ability not sufficient to overcome the risk in any new ventures.
Competing interests
The author declares that he has no competing interests.
Author’s information
IS is an Assistant Professor of Finance at Hellenic American University (www.hauniv.us). In addition, IS is the Director
of the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment (OIRA) of the University. IS is also the President of a Social
Enterprise for Education and Lifelong Learning (www.knowl.gr). Last year, IS has become a Member of the Policy
Committee of the Federation of Hellenic Associations of Young Entrepreneurs (http://www.esyne.gr).
Received: 20 November 2012 Accepted: 7 May 2013
Published: 27 May 2013
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doi:10.1186/2192-5372-2-8
Cite this article as: Salamouris: How overconfidence influences entrepreneurship. Journal of Innovation and
Entrepreneurship 2013 2:8.
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