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This article uses theoretical approaches from cognitive psychology to examine the basis for entrepreneurial alertness and to connect it to existing theories of attention in strategic management and decision-making. It thereby provides a theoretical basis for understanding how entrepreneurial alertness leads the individual to pay attention to new opportunities. A model is developed to show how attention and entrepreneurial alertness work together to support the recognition or creation of opportunities. Entrepreneurial alertness is believed to be a manifestation of differences in the schemata and cognitive frameworks that individuals use to make sense of changes in the environment. This suggests that entrepreneurial alertness mediates the impact of observed phenomena upon the situated attention of individual decision-makers.

Alertness is a foundational concept in current understandings of the spotting and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities. Yet, despite being identified as a key theoretical construct of individual entrepreneurs, its cognitive features are not fully described in the literature. And as a result, the existing instruments for measuring this cognitive feature of entrepreneurs do not fully reflect the broad nature of this concept. In this study, the cognitive theoretical basis of alertness is reviewed and a new scale, which better reflects the broader cognitive features of entrepreneurial alertness, is presented. This may assist the validity of future empirical studies that involve entrepreneurial alertness.

The scope of corporate entrepreneurship (CE) is broadening as firms embrace CE to survive and succeed in dynamic, uncertain markets. Although scholars have focused on the organizational factors necessary to foster CE, it is important to understand not just what the organizational context must look like, but also to understand how entrepreneurial alertness may facilitate CE activity. Contrary to most studies on CE, this study takes place in a non-Western context, where a survey is used to collect data from 784 respondents at South African firms. Results reveal it is the organizational antecedents of reward and reinforcement, time and resource availability, and flexible organizational boundaries that positively influence CE innovativeness. Additionally, when entrepreneurial alertness is added into the equation, the amount of variance explained in CE innovativeness is increased substantially. These findings highlight the relevance of focusing on firm-based entrepreneurial behavior as opposed to only independent startups in an Africa context.

This article examines the extent to which institutions and entrepreneurial alertness influence and interact to improve the venture performance of female entrepreneurs. Having established instrument validity and reliability, hypotheses are tested using multiple regression analyses based on survey data from South African female entrepreneurs. Results reveal that it is the normative and cognitive institutional dimensions, rather than the regulatory dimension, which have an effect on venture performance. Several positive interaction results are also noted between entrepreneurial alertness and the different institutional factors in terms of their effect on performance. Development support agencies should encourage more female entrepreneurship by supporting evidence-based programs designed to foster higher levels of entrepreneurial alertness and provide a mix of institutional conditions that directly support female entrepreneurs. By linking an essential individual-level entrepreneurial factor (alertness) with institutions, the study widens the theoretical reach of these factors to the domain of female entrepreneurship in the South African context.

Although scholars have recognised that alertness is critical in identifying and exploring opportunities, empirical studies exploring when alertness drives innovation are lacking. Drawing insights from the cognitive and contingency perspectives, this study addresses this gap by arguing that variations in firm product innovativeness are a function of the degree of entrepreneurial alertness and levels of internal firm capabilities and environmental conditions. Data were collected from 385 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Ghana. This study used the hierarchical regression estimation technique to analyses the data and found a significant positive relationship between entrepreneurial alertness and firm product innovativeness. Moreover, the findings showed that entrepreneurial alertness is beneficial for firms to innovate when pressures from customers and competitors are intense. Finally, the results revealed that stronger market information sharing and technological opportunism also amplify the alertness-innovativeness relationship.