Cognitive Neuroscience and Entrepreneurship: cross-disciplinary review and future potential

Purpose: Can insights and methods from cognitive neuroscience help to understand the distinctiveness of the entrepreneur’s brain? Whilst there is a thirst for more neuroscience studies in entrepreneurship research, empirical work has not yet taken off and thus our understanding of an entrepreneur’s brain is limited and underdeveloped. This is partly due to divergent views on the core definition of cognition between disciplines.Approach: This paper seeks to integrate cognitive neuroscience and entrepreneurship research. Through systematic literature review methodology, we build on what small work has been done as a guide for future work in entrepreneurial neuro-cognition. Findings: We critically appraise the current empirical research on entrepreneurs’ (1) impulsivity and risk-taking, (2) exploration and uncertainty, (3) emotional judgements and decision-making, and (4) interpersonal trust and social cognition. We then delve into how neuro-entrepreneurship research could be furthered by researching un-tapped areas of (5) opportunity alertness, (6) creativity, and (7) metacognition.Originality: This is the first paper to highlight the discrepancy in how cognitive neuroscience and entrepreneurship scholars define cognition, whilst offering a way forward charting new lines of enquiry and methods that integrate cognitive neuroscience and entrepreneurship research.Practical implications: This paper provides a reference point for researchers to embark on cross-disciplinary work integrating neuroscience and entrepreneurship.Social implications: Understanding the cognitive and neural processes that drive entrepreneurial thinking would generate insights for educators and policy makers seeking to support entrepreneurship.