Introducing the concept of wishful thinking in entrepreneurial marketing: a semantic analysis and research propositions

Abstract

As marketers and entrepreneurs engage in effectuation and develop intuition based on low data, uncertainty, and ambiguous business environments, they are prone to exhibit wishful thinking, which may influence decision making. We outline the concept and dimensions of wishful thinking and introduce it to the decision-making process in entrepreneurial marketing. Based on a semantic analysis, we synthesise a definition of wishful thinking by borrowing from the available literature that has studied why people tend to inflate the likelihood of desirable events or deflate the likelihood of undesirable events. Resulting dimensions for wishful thinking pertains managerial expectations, a desirability bias, and probability judgement on the occurrence of some outcomes critical for ventures. We advance research proposals to understand the decision-making process in entrepreneurial marketing. We hope that other researchers engage in a fruitful debate to understand the implications from this study.

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