Explaining the role of cognitive biases on the exploitation of business opportunities with the mediation of risk perception (The Case of: female entrepreneurs of Lorestan province)

The field of entrepreneurial cognition plays an important role in motivating potential entrepreneurs to take entrepreneurial behavior and actions in the conditions of environmental uncertainty, one of the main reasons of which is the perception of less risk by entrepreneurs. Most of the studies in this field have been conducted on male entrepreneurs and the researchers' understanding of the use of cognitive biases by women entrepreneurs remains limited. In addition, the role of cognitive biases on exploiting opportunities as one of the key phases of the entrepreneurial process has been neglected. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to explain the role of cognitive biases of female entrepreneurs in Lorestan province on the exploitation of business opportunities with the mediation of risk perception. This research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-correlation in terms of method. The data of this research were collected from a sample of 184 women entrepreneurs of Lorestan province, who were selected by stratified random method, and tested by structural equation modeling method with PLS software. The findings of the research showed that the cognitive biases of female entrepreneurs, including overconfidence, illusion of control, representiveness, fallacy of planning and optimism, have a direct and positive effect on their exploitation of business opportunities. In addition, the mentioned cognitive biases through the mediating variable of risk perception indirectly has a positive effect on the exploitation of business opportunities by women entrepreneurs.