A Study on the Impact of Cultural Awareness on Entrepreneurial Opportunity Exploration: Focusing on the Moderating Effect of Cognitive Exploration Tendency

The purpose of this study is to empirically understand the relationship between college students' cultural awareness and the search for start-up opportunities, and the moderating effect of cognitive search tendency. The MZ generation has been around since the late 1980s, and it is a generation that is familiar with the use of digital technology and social media. Therefore, there is more interest in self-directed development and start-ups that can run one's own business than in general workplaces. Against this background, verification of the effect of MZ college students' cultural awareness on start-ups and the moderating effect of cognitive search tendency were considered an important part of the analysis of MZ generation college students' start-ups. In this study, the effect of cultural awareness of MZ generation college students on entrepreneurial opportunity search and whether the relationship between the two variables had a moderating effect on cognitive search propensity were verified using a moderating effect model. SPSS 22 was used as a research analysis tool. As a result of the study, first, cultural awareness was found to have a significant positive effect on opportunity recognition and opportunity evaluation for entrepreneurship opportunity search. The MZ generation is a generation that grew up in a digital and online environment and has a high understanding and awareness of various cultures, so it seems that cultural awareness can help the MZ generation to find and evaluate start-up opportunities by reflecting various cultural factors. Second, it was found that cognitive search tendency plays a controlling role in the influence of the MZ generation's cultural awareness on the opportunity recognition of entrepreneurship opportunity search. This indicates that when the MZ generation recognizes opportunity, it has the ability to evaluate and select opportunities not only in cultural aspects but also in various aspects such as economic, technical, and social aspects according to the cognitive search tendency. Therefore, it is necessary to actively utilize the MZ generation's cultural awareness and cognitive exploration tendency when evaluating opportunities for the MZ generation to explore start-up opportunities, and in particular, programs related to start-ups should actively reflect the MZ generation's cultural understanding and cognitive exploration tendency to organize programs and present active and professional evaluation methods.