IMPACT OF OPPORTUNITY CONFIDENCE ON NEW VALUE CREATION INTENTION: DOES EXPERIENCE MATTER?

Entrepreneurship is a costly and uncertain activity. Even when an entrepreneur perceives an opportunity, in the context of a lingering doubt as to whether s/he could successfully exploit it, the intention to pursue is underpinned by the perceived desirability and feasibility of the expected outcomes. Recent discussions of the entrepreneurial process emphasize the creation of value as its key developmental focus. We build upon this insight by directing attention to the explicit intention to create new value, captured by the construct of new value creation intention (NVCI). This paper examines how this intention is shaped by the entrepreneur’s experience and opportunity confidence. An experimental survey of prospective entrepreneurs in the ICT industry, from university incubators in Iran conducted. Results show that opportunity confidence has positive impact on new value creation intention for both experienced and novice entrepreneurs. However, experience does not moderate this relationship (neither makes the relationship stronger nor weaker). The arguments (findings and discussion) offer novel insights when taken as a whole, particularly given the extension of entrepreneurial intention to the role of experience through the quantitative evidence.