dr. M.N. (Magdalena) Cholakova

Magdalena Cholakova is an Assistant Professor of Strategy & Entrepreneurship in the Department of Strategic Management & Entrepreneurship at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University.

The research lines she is currently pursuing include:

• Effective decision making heuristics under high uncertainty; She studies this topic in the context of angel investing (using verbal protocol analysis techniques) and crowdfunding (using quasi-experimental techniques).

• The role of counterfactual reasoning in successful entrepreneurial idea validation; She studies this topic by using experiments with entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial populations, as well as by collecting longitudinal qualitative data from early-stage companies. She also develops conceptual work on the role of different types of entrepreneurial reasoning in the process of early-stage idea validation.

• Microfoundations (cognitive and affective) of institutional complexity; She has studied how individuals with different levels of self-complexity perceive and respond to conflicting institutional logics differently. The work is both conceptual and qualitative.

• Crowdfunding and the role of pecuniary and non pecuniary incentives in investment decisions. Her work here is based on quasi-experimental techniques.

Magdalena holds a PhD in Business Administration and Management from Bocconi University, a MPhil in Organizational Behavior from Trinity College Dublin and a MSc in Statistics from Trinity College Dublin. Her research has been published in the Journal of Management, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practrice Journal, International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior, and the Entrepreneurship Research Journal.

Research Interests: Cognition, Decision Making Heuristics, Knightian Uncertainty; Institutional Complexity, Self and Identity Complexity, Angel Investing, Crowdfunding, Entrepreneurial Reasoning.