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Heuristics are fundamental components of the bounded rationality paradigm and influence entrepreneurs' decisions profusely. On the other hand, the affect heuristic is one of the most important heuristics. The body of knowledge on entrepreneurial heuristics is scattered on the whole and very superficial concerning women entrepreneurs, given that most studies have considered women and men entrepreneurs similar in showing heuristics. The dearth of research is more evident in the context of developing countries. Thus, to fill part of the existing research gaps, this study explores the affect heuristic in Iranian women entrepreneurs.

This paper's data were gathered by conducting face-to-face interviews with 17 novice Iranian women entrepreneurs active in biotechnology, nanotechnology, advanced medicine, aerospace, textile and food sectors and analyzed through a thematic–narrative analysis.

According to the results, the main outcomes of the affect heuristic in Iranian women entrepreneurs are delaying the final decision (including an obsession with collecting too much information, overemphasizing the role of negative information and seeking external advice before making a decision), rash decisions (including evaluations based on satisfying decision strategies, too much enthusiasm about one's venture, as well as an optimistic assessment of different scenarios) and serious consideration of quitting (including too much disappointment and anger over discrimination).

Based on this paper's findings, novice women entrepreneurs should be heedful of their fear, which could not only delay their decisions but also paralyze their capability of decision-making. Furthermore, while under circumstances such as information overload and uncertainty, positive feelings like optimism and happiness could be very instrumental by enabling entrepreneurs to shorten the process of their decisions, women entrepreneurs should be very careful about the possible biases resulting from their positive affect.

This study is a pioneer in two respects. First, it explores women entrepreneurs' decision-making heuristics, which is often a neglected area of research. Second, coming to the conclusion that most of the research on women entrepreneurs has been conducted in the Western context, this paper focuses on the context of developing countries by targeting Iranian women entrepreneurs.

Decision-making biases play decisive roles not only in entrepreneurs’ decisions but also in the fate of entrepreneurial businesses. While the extant literature in this regard is relatively rich, it has predominantly focused on certain biases like overconfidence and overoptimism at the expense of other possibly influential biases, which could influence entrepreneurial decisions. Thus, to address this serious research gap, this paper aims to explore four of the less-researched biases of escalation of commitment, the illusion of control, confirmation and the belief in the law of small numbers in entrepreneurial decisions.

By taking a qualitative approach, the data for this study were collected through face-to-face interviews with 19 Iranian habitual (experienced) entrepreneurs running small businesses and analyzed by a qualitative thematic analysis.

According to the results, the environmental uncertainty, the reluctance to lose face and the experiences of previous failures contributed to the escalation of commitment, while disregard for external factors beyond one’s control caused the illusion of control, factors like prior successful businesses in the same sector, looking for resorts to manage uncertainty, along with the decision to exploit opportunities resulted in the confirmation bias, while the expenses of conducting sweeping pilot tests in the market and the reluctance to reveal a business secret to the competitors were the main contributors of the belief in the law of small numbers.

This study is a pioneer in scrutinizing four less-researched but important biases in entrepreneurs and, thus extending the line of research in this regard.

Escalation of commitment is one of the most influential decision-making biases in entrepreneurs which may incur substantial losses and result in failure by making entrepreneurs allocate an increasing amount of resources to failing plans. Not only is escalation one of the less-researched biases in entrepreneurship but also most of the existing studies have been either limited to specific contexts or exclusively limited to men entrepreneurs. The purpose of this study is to explore the antecedents of escalation of commitment among a sample of Iranian women and men entrepreneurs to address these gaps.

By conducting a narrative inquiry, data were collected through semi-structured and in-depth interviews with nine women and 10 men Iranian entrepreneurs who were founder/owners of a small business and had introduced at least one product to the market.

According to the findings of this study, the fear of losing autonomy and fear of being blamed by one’s family were the main drivers of escalation of commitment among the women entrepreneurs, while overconfidence, sense of responsibility and hoping to gain more profits were the main antecedents of escalation among men entrepreneurs.

This study is a pioneer in studying the antecedents of the escalation of commitment among women and men entrepreneurs comparatively in the context of a developing country.

Escalation of commitment is one of the most important decision-making biases among entrepreneurs and may deprive them of valuable resources and even result in their eventual failure. Many entrepreneurs become escalated to their ongoing plans by allocating more resources, even after receiving negative feedbacks regarding those plans. Although the escalating behavior is an inherent part of the entrepreneurial cognition, previous studies have mostly ignored its antecedents among entrepreneurs. This dearth of studies is more severe regarding women entrepreneurs, whose biases have rarely been investigated. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the antecedents of the escalation of commitment among women entrepreneurs.

To explore the antecedents of the escalation of commitment in women entrepreneurs’ decisions based on their lived experiences, this paper used a narrative inquiry. The data were collected by conducting in-depth interviews with three Iranian women entrepreneurs running small businesses and analyzed by narrative data analysis.

According to the findings, bitter memories of previous failures, overconfidence and familial pressure are the main antecedents of the escalation of commitment in women entrepreneurs.

This study has a very important managerial implication for women entrepreneurs, who should know that while decision-making biases may occur unintentionally, they are able to reduce the harmful effects and enhance the benefits of biases by knowing their most common signs.

This study is a pioneer in exploring women entrepreneurs’ biases and took a novel approach by conducting a narrative analysis of women entrepreneurs’ escalation of commitment.

Decision-making biases play substantial roles in entrepreneurs' decisions and the fate of entrepreneurial enterprises, as well. Previous studies have assumed all entrepreneurs are homogeneous in their proneness to biases, therefore inadvertently creating a crucial research gap by ignoring the role of business experience in the genesis of biases. Furthermore, there is a lack of research on women entrepreneurs' decision-making biases. Thus, this paper's main objective is to explore two influential biases of overconfidence and over-optimism in novice and habitual women entrepreneurs.

The data for this study were collected by conducting semi-structured interviews with 21 Iranian novice and habitual women entrepreneurs active in four high-tech sectors of biotech, nanotech, aerospace and advanced medicine. The gathered data were analyzed by thematic analysis.

According to the findings, while habitual entrepreneurs are prone to all three types of overconfidence (overestimation, overplacement and overprecision) and over-optimism, novice entrepreneurs do not show any signs of overplacement or overprecision.

There are certain valuable implications resulting from this study that could be of use for not only future researchers in the field of entrepreneurial decision-making and women entrepreneurship but also for women entrepreneurs running entrepreneurial enterprises, especially small businesses.

This paper offers certain novel contributions to the field of entrepreneurship by not only exploring biases in women entrepreneurs exclusively but also scrutinizing biases in novice (first-time) and habitual (experienced) entrepreneurs comparatively.

Decision-making is of utmost importance for entrepreneurs. One of the most important entrepreneurial decisions is the decision to persist, which under certain circumstances such as a high level of adversity may seal the fate of entrepreneurs’ businesses. Nevertheless, the main antecedents of the decision to persist among entrepreneurs have remained understudied. This dearth of research is more obvious with respect to women entrepreneurs, especially in developing countries. To address this gap, this paper aims to explore the main antecedents of the decision to persist among women entrepreneurs.

By adopting a narrative approach, data were collected through a combination of semi-structured and in-depth questions with a sample of Iranian women entrepreneurs founding and running small businesses offering services in a variety of sectors and analysed by narrative data analysis.

According to the findings, the pandemic-emanated uncertainty, personal attachment to one’s venture as well as the reluctance of being blamed by one’s family, and the fear of the unknown future were the main drivers of the decision to persist among the entrepreneurs.

This paper offers two novel contributions to the extant literature. This paper is a pioneer not only in exploring entrepreneurs’ decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic but also in studying the decision to persist in the context of the developing nations.

Although heuristics and biases seal the fate of entrepreneurial enterprises by directly influencing entrepreneurs’ decisions, previous studies have ignored the role of gender in this regard by considering female and male entrepreneurs homogeneous in their susceptibility to heuristics and biases. Thus, this paper aims to advance the existing body of knowledge on heuristics and biases in the field of entrepreneurship by exploring two heuristics of affect and representativeness as well as three biases of overconfidence, escalation of commitment and illusion of control in female and male entrepreneurs’ entry and opportunity-related decisions.

The data were gathered through semi-structured and in-depth interviews with ten male and nine female Iranian techno-entrepreneurs active in advanced medicine and biotechnology. The gathered data were analyzed by thematic and narrative data analysis.

According to the results, while both male and female entrepreneurs show certain heuristics and biases, there are some noteworthy distinctions. More precisely, contrary to their male counterparts, the female entrepreneurs neither rely on the representativeness heuristic nor show any signs of the escalation of commitment in their decisions.

There are some valuable implications emanated from this study which could be of use for not only future researchers but also entrepreneurs, especially the ones founding and running small businesses themselves.

While there is a strong body of literature on heuristics and biases in the field of entrepreneurship, previous studies have considered female and male entrepreneurs homogeneous in their proneness to heuristics and biases. Thus, the current study enriches the body of knowledge by being the first comparative study of heuristics and biases in female and male entrepreneurs’ decisions.

This study furthers the body of knowledge on entrepreneurial decision-making, entrepreneurial marketing and female entrepreneurs by exploring practical implications of heuristics and biases in female entrepreneurs’ marketing decisions. Heuristics and biases influence many entrepreneurial decisions. Moreover, some of the most important entrepreneurial decisions are marketing-related. Given that the entrepreneurial marketing behavior emanates from entrepreneurial thinking and decision-making, one may conclude that female entrepreneurs’ marketing decisions are susceptible to heuristics and biases. This paper aims to explore the outcomes of heuristics and biases in entrepreneurial marketing decisions.

Data were collected by conducting semi-structured interviews with 19 Iranian female biotech entrepreneurs and analyzed by thematic analysis.

The findings indicate that introducing pioneering products to the market, overestimating product’s market appeal, unprepared entry, underestimating the competition, overcoming entry impediments, entry postponement, growth, success in incremental innovation and failure in radical innovation are the main outcomes of the identified heuristics and biases in the female entrepreneurs’ marketing decisions.

This paper has some precious practical implications for marketers as well as female entrepreneurs running small businesses. Generally speaking, reducing the negative impacts of the identified heuristics and biases of this study while enhancing their positive effects will increase the chances of female entrepreneurs to compete and succeed in tumultuous markets. Furthermore, our most important managerial implication is regarding overconfidence, which was very common in the female entrepreneurs’ marketing decisions by having various positive and negative outcomes. Thus, female entrepreneurs should be careful of this fateful bias in their decisions by knowing the most common signs of overconfidence.

This paper is unique because of not only identifying the main heuristics and biases but also their major outcomes in entrepreneurs’ major marketing decisions. Moreover, this paper is a pioneer in exploring heuristics and biases in female entrepreneurs’ decisions.