Abstract

Scholars have discussed both the profit motive (Simons and Astebro, 2010) and a broader set of motives (Elkington, 1997; Becker, 1993; Balog et al., 2014) when studying entrepreneurial behavior. Some of these are internal and underlie how entrepreneurs perceive and experience risk and reward, costs and benefits. These motivators that may affect an internal return on investment (ROI) calculation can also be examined through a neuroentrepreneurship lens. Day (2014) takes a first step in this through framing the issue, identifying a set of potential costs and benefits, and surveying an entrepreneur to develop a hypothesis for how these may be ranked in order of importance. As with any theory or model presented, the next step is to empirically test and refine the model. In this chapter we present a first step in the empirical testing of the ROI model presented in Day (2014). We identify existing data that measures these costs and benefits to varying degrees, then present results from our preliminary regression analysis and hypothesis testing. Then we discuss the future research necessary to build upon this moving forward, and providing specific suggestions for corresponding neuroexperimental research designs.