Entrepreneurial regulatory foci and startup firm strategies

Regulatory foci, a personality variable, differentially regulate the way in which individuals pursue goals based on different levels of pain avoidance and pleasure pursuit tendency. This variable is particularly relevant to entrepreneurial processes. This is because entrepreneurs, similar to other individuals, tend to frame many sub-tasks in the processes as either gain vs. non-gain or loss vs. non-loss games. Thus, the mechanism with which regulatory foci influence individuals’ decision making and choices similarly applies to those of entrepreneurs and their startup firms. Despite this high relevance, this variable has received inadequate attention from entrepreneurship scholars. This study tries to fill in this research gap by examining how an entrepreneur’s regulatory foci influence various aspects of strategy processes and strategy content of new venture development.