Learning Based On Key Events Of Smes: A Cognitive Perspective

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) which play an important role in GDP, have grown so fast and showed promoting power in China's economy. Both practical and theoretical results bring us that critical incident is unavoidable and crucial to SMEs. Critical incident can lead to terrible consequence without being dealt in time. Otherwise, it may motivate the entrepreneur to think and learn. So it is meaningful to connect critical incident and entrepreneurial learning by using a cognitive-theory method.It is important to analyze what critical incident is and how it affects the entrepreneur. The dissertation defines critical incident and classifies it into three kinds, namely, eruption, watershed and catalyst, depending on two factors which based on theoretical research.In the entrepreneurial cognitive learning part, the dissertation focuses on how the cognitive factors and critical incident mutually affect entrepreneur on dealing with problems and learning. Founded on some hypotheses and Cognitive Resources Theory (CRT) review, firstly, the dissertation discusses the motivation mechanism of entrepreneur's cognitive learning; then it analyzes the features of obtaining and using entrepreneurial cognitive resources. Moreover, with in-depth case analyses, the dissertation puts up the different learning at different critical incidents. In the empirical part of this research, we deduce some hypotheses from our previous theoretical discussion and try to prove them with empirical data collected by questionnaires. Results confirm most of our hypotheses and also indicate some alternations for the model.From the discussions above, policy implications are outlined to improve entrepreneurial learning on the basis of distinguishing critical incident and dealing with it. Finally, research conclusions are summarized and future research directions are also noted.