Uncertainty is among the most abstract, elusive and consequential conditions confronting human judgement, yet it is also fundamental to entrepreneurship. Following Knight, this thesis argues that true uncertainty cannot be treated simply as a weaker form of calculable risk because it arises where reliable probabilities, classifications and predictions are unavailable. Entrepreneurial action under such conditions therefore depends upon judgement and, centrally, upon how individuals perceive and interpret desirability, downside, legitimacy, and feasibility within socially and culturally structured environments.
This thesis develops and tests an integrated, perception-centred framework of entrepreneurial judgement that brings together Knightian uncertainty, behavioural decision theory, the Theory of Planned Behaviour, effectuation and cross-cultural analysis. The framework positions perceived societal valuation, entrepreneurial social exposure, fear of failure and perceived behavioural control as interrelated components through which uncertain entrepreneurial situations become behaviourally meaningful. Culture is treated not as a deterministic individual attribute, but as a contextual architecture that can shape the meaning and relative weighting of these mechanisms.
Empirically, the framework is examined using Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Adult Population Survey data from 2007 to 2010 through a linked series of binary logistic regression models. The analysis proceeds sequentially from pooled baseline relationships to year-specific comparisons, region-specific estimates and formal tests of regional and temporal moderation across eight World Values Survey cultural regions.
The findings reveal a broadly recognisable architecture of entrepreneurial judgement alongside substantial contextual variation in the strength, and occasionally the direction, of its component relationships. Perceived behavioural control emerges as the strongest and most resilient proximal correlate of start-oriented entrepreneurial activity, while entrepreneurial social exposure displays a particularly consistent positive association with perceived capability. Fear of failure remains important but is considerably more context-sensitive, particularly across cultural environments and in relation to discontinuation. Perceived societal valuation shows comparatively modest direct associations and greater instability where it relates to fear-related appraisal. Formal moderation tests further demonstrate that regional differences themselves vary across the four survey waves.
The thesis therefore advances a conception of entrepreneurial judgement characterised by structural portability, contextual reweighting and temporal plasticity. Entrepreneurial decision-making under uncertainty is neither culturally invariant nor wholly context specific. Rather, common perceptual and motivational mechanisms remain identifiable across settings while their behavioural significance is shaped by cultural and temporal context. This context sensitivity is theoretically important because it demonstrates that identifying a common decision architecture does not imply that its component mechanisms operate with uniform strength or meaning across environments. It is also empirically important because pooled relationships can conceal substantial regional and temporal heterogeneity, making contextual analysis necessary for understanding when and where particular mechanisms become more or less consequential. The central contribution is consequently to show that uncertainty becomes behaviourally consequential through perception and judgement, and that entrepreneurial action depends not upon eliminating uncertainty, but upon whether actors perceive uncertain circumstances as sufficiently intelligible and manageable to permit action.
