The Power of Sustainability in the "Black Swan" Event: Entrepreneurial Cognition of Top Management Team and Dual Business Model Innovation

In the dynamic environment where "Black Swan" events occur frequently, the dual business model innovation (DBMI) which has both proactive and reactive characteristics is the core force for the enterprises to turn crises into opportunities and achieve their survival and sustainability. However, prevailing views do not clearly explain how to drive dual business model innovation. Based on the upper echelon theory, this study developed a multiple mediation model, which links entrepreneurial cognition of the top management team (TMT), knowledge search with dual business model innovation. By taking the data of 217 TMTs, the hypotheses are verified. The results show that TMT's configuration cognition, willing cognition, and ability cognition all have a positive effect on both proactive and reactive business model innovation. Knowledge search acts as a "bridge" between TMT's entrepreneurial cognition and DBMI. Greater entrepreneurial cognition can guide exploratory and exploitative knowledge searches and promote the DBMI. The results also show the mediating effect between different entrepreneurial cognition and DBMI is not completely consistent, and a partial mediation effect exists associating configuration cognition with DBMI, but a full mediation effect is present between other cognitions and DBMI. These results provide more understanding to the formation of dual business model innovation under the impact of COVID-19.