It's Hard Not To Be On Your Own Side!

Why might undergraduate business students view the lack of similar operating hours competition as sufficient basis for supporting a new venture opportunity? Over the last six years, seniors in a capstone entrepreneurship course have been doing just that. When presented with an integrative examination case study asking that they provide a structured analysis of the facts underlying a fund/no-fund determination, three-quarters of these learners choose to fund the enterprise, despite admitting in writing, there is an absence of solid competitive research or related strategic evidence that might assure marketplace success. Instead, they tend to argue for underwriting, primarily based upon motivational features associated with the case study’s fictional entrepreneur! What factors might lead students to an assumptive rush to fund, when they have previous examples, tools, data, and training to produce a more reasoned determination? How might this pattern be interrupted to better support learners in completing a more critical comprehensive business analysis?