Entrepreneurial judgment across contexts: A cognitive process for calibrating hybridity in academic spin-offs

Academic spin-off entrepreneurs operate at the intersection of scientific research and market commercialisation, navigating multiple contexts and diverse stakeholder expectations. While previous research has examined entrepreneurial judgment and hybrid ventures, little is known about how entrepreneurs exercise judgment across contexts as they pursue both economic and non-economic objectives simultaneously. Drawing on qualitative, inductive research with 32 academic spin-off entrepreneurs, we develop a processual framework conceptualised as the entrepreneurial judgment cognitive process. It explains how entrepreneurs iteratively exercise judgment through three interdependent mechanisms: identifying, adjusting, and managing judgment. Our findings demonstrate that entrepreneurial judgment is not a static cognitive act but a dynamic, context-dependent process through which entrepreneurs interpret value propositions, align with stakeholders, and reconfigure their actions under uncertainty to calibrate hybridity throughout the venture lifecycle. We contribute to the judgment-based approach by unpacking the micro-processes through which judgment is exercised in action, and to hybrid organising by explaining how entrepreneurs sustain dual objectives simultaneously across contexts.