Entrepreneurs make decisions that influence subsequent decisions and future performance. The dissertation studies such sequences of decisions by using dynamic programming. This approach allows one to describe the decision process over time and, in some cases, it prescribes how business performance can be improved. An analytical approach helps to contribute a new dimension to entrepreneurship research and it encourages multidisciplinary work by allowing existing methodologies from various (analytical) disciplines to be applied to entrepreneurial problems. The dissertation focuses on research questions that invoke effort allocation in sequential decision-making at early development stages of a new venture creation. The dissertation is composed of three separate research studies. What dominates the entrepreneur's decision process initially is the effort allocation problem in sharing time between an existing job and committing to the new venture. The first study describes how this time-sharing is done and characterizes when is the best time to leave the wage job and become a full-time entrepreneur. I also show that the optimal time-allocation policy is driven by the entrepreneur's tolerance for work and by how returns behave with respect to time allocation in the venture. It is important to understand resource allocations to internal activities such as product development and customer recruitment. The second study focuses on new product development and it investigates how the flow of a new venture's funding affects the development of a new product. I prescribe the optimal release time for the new product and describe how this strategy is affected by the expected amount of funding and its uncertainty. I also identify industrial and entrepreneurial characteristics that generate various behaviors for the rate of change in the return on product quality as investment in the product is increased. The newly developed product must be bought to make the business start-up successful. The third study investigates how an entrepreneur makes decisions over time in allocating effort to building and exploiting a customer base so as to maximize profit. I study what a rational entrepreneur will do when faced with the allocation of effort to different customer categories. I also provide guidelines for improving the performance of an entrepreneur who may not be acting optimally. In these three investigations a dynamic programming approach is utilized to study various sequential decision processes of an entrepreneur during the development process of new venture creation.

Can only a subset of individuals – those higher on the ability to understand the sources of emotions – determine whether to disregard or allow the effects of emotions when making decisions? I test two central predictions. First, I test whether individuals high on emotion understanding ability (EUA), one of the key dimensions of emotional intelligence, are less affected by incidental anxiety when making decisions involving risk than their lower ability counterparts. The rationale for this prediction is that individuals who have high EUA are able to correctly identify their source of anxiety and, based on perceived irrelevance, disregard incidental anxiety when making risky decisions, whereas individuals who have low EUA are confused about the source of anxiety and are more influenced by incidental anxiety when making risky decisions. Second, I test whether individuals high on EUA are more affected by integral anxiety when making risky decisions than their lower ability counterparts. The rationale for this prediction is that individuals who have high EUA are able to correctly identify their source of anxiety and, based on perceived relevance, use their integral anxiety to inform their risky decision making whereas those who have low EUA misattribute their anxiety and are less likely to incorporate their integral anxiety into their decision making. In Experiment 1, incidental anxiety reduced risk-taking among individuals with low EUA, but not among their higher ability counterparts. In Experiment 2, the interactive effect of EUA and incidental anxiety on risk-taking was eliminated when I identified the irrelevance of anxiety to the present decision, but it remained when the irrelevance was not identified. To explore the role of EUA in using the adaptive function of emotion in decision making, Experiment 3 assessed whether emotionally intelligent individuals who have high EUA incorporate integral anxiety, as measured by skin conductance responses, into their risk-taking, compared to those with low EUA. Contrary to expectations, the results of Experiment 3 showed that, when EUA was high, there was a negative effect of integral anxiety on risk-taking that was not significant. When EUA was low, there was a significant positive effect of integral anxiety on risk-taking.

This study sought to provide a theory driven model to explain how consumers make their purchasing decisions between genuine products and products they know are counterfeit. The influences of Goal-Driven Theory, Morality, and Prospect Theory were included as purchase decisions considerations. To measure their influence, while accounting for product attributes, purchasing decisions were assessed in choice sets as provided by Discrete Choice Experiment. Results found support for using Goal-Driven Theory and Prospect Theory to explain consumer purchasing decisions between genuine and counterfeit products. Morality was not a significant factor in the findings. Theoretical contributions and Managerial implications are discussed.

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