Cognitive and contextual configurations in entrepreneurial opportunity evaluation: insights from fsQCA

Individuals with entrepreneurial experience evaluating opportunities in uncertain contexts rely on complex cognitive and social processes shaped by their psychological dispositions and perceptions of the environment. This study adopts a configurational perspective to examine how combinations of technological awareness, risk-taking, social influence, effort expectancy, and perceived innovativeness influence the psychological evaluation of technological opportunities. In doing so, the study advances methodfological practice by implementing an integrated, fully theory-driven fsQCA design at the individual level—a methodological approach that remains rare in entrepreneurial cognition research and enables the systematic identification of complex cognitive patterns underlying opportunity evaluation. Using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) on data from 404 individuals with prior or current involvement in technology ventures, each randomly assigned to evaluate one vignette describing an opportunity in artificial intelligence, fintech, biotechnology, or smart textiles, we identify three configurations associated with high Opportunity Beliefs (OB) and two with high Expected Returns (ER), along with two additional configurations explaining their negated outcomes. No single condition emerges as necessary for either outcome, underscoring the conjunctural and asymmetric nature of cognitive evaluations under uncertainty. A representative configuration leading to high OB combines elevated technological awareness, strong risk-taking, and social influence with high perceived innovativeness and prior entrepreneurial experience. Conversely, low OB and ER are primarily linked to heightened effort expectancy coupled with reduced social or technological awareness. These findings illustrate the principle of equifinality, showing that distinct cognitive–contextual combinations can produce similar evaluative outcomes—both positive and negative. The study contributes to cognitive and social psychology by demonstrating that integrated patterns of attentional, motivational, and social mechanisms—rather than isolated variables—underpin opportunity evaluation processes. By adopting a sample of self-identified individuals with entrepreneurial exposure rather than a verified founder population, the study offers theoretically grounded and ecologically valid insights into the cognitive configurations underlying opportunity assessment in technology-related contexts.