The Entrepreneurial Compass
Entrepreneurs today face environments that shift suddenly, resist prediction, and demand constant recalibration. This open access book offers a clear, human-centered guide for navigating that uncertainty by focusing not on rigid plans, but on how people actually think, feel, and act when the stakes are high. Drawing on decades of research across entrepreneurship, psychology, and management, it shows how effective founders learn to recognize opportunities, make fast yet disciplined decisions, manage emotional highs and lows, and enroll others in an uncertain future. Readers are introduced to a practical way of organizing action that balances experimentation with judgment, ambition with care, and growth with responsibility. Along the way, the book illuminates entrepreneurship in resource-constrained, non-Western, and socially oriented settings, highlighting how ventures can alleviate suffering as well as create value. Written in an engaging and accessible style, this is a resource for scholars, students, founders, and anyone interested in how entrepreneurial action truly unfolds in the real world.
Dean A. Shepherd is Ray and Milann Siegfried Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Mendoza College of Business at Notre Dame University, USA. He investigates the decision-making involved in leveraging cognitive and other resources to act on opportunities, responding with resilience to adversity, learning from experimentation (including failure), and the dark side of entrepreneurship. He is Fellow of the Academy of Management. He is past Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Business Venturing. He has authored over 20 books and 180 publications in top management and entrepreneurship journals with over 80,000 Google cites.
Holger Patzelt is Professor of Entrepreneurship at Technical University of Munich, Germany. He conducts research on business ventures, strategic entrepreneurship, and start-up failure. His work covers both psychological aspects, such as cognition and decision-making by entrepreneurs, and economic factors, such as the behavior and success of entrepreneurial organizations.