Entrepreneurial Alertness and Opportunity Identification: Where Are We Now (original) (raw)
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A theory of entrepreneurial opportunity identification and development
This paper builds on existing theoretical and empirical studies in the area of entrepreneurial opportunity identification and development. It utilizes Dubin's [Theory Building, (second ed.). Free Press, New York, 1978.] theory building framework to propose a theory of the opportunity identification process. It identifies entrepreneur's personality traits, social networks, and prior knowledge as antecedents of entrepreneurial alertness to business opportunities. Entrepreneurial alertness, in its turn, is a necessary condition for the success of the opportunity identification triad: recognition, development, and evaluation. A theoretical model, laws of interaction, a set of propositions, and suggestions for further research are provided. D
Entrepreneurial Alertness and Opportunity Identification 3.0: Yes, We Can Talk Empirical
In 2008, we closed our literature review about entrepreneurial opportunity identification with a call to the discipline that " the game's afoot! " 1 It was clearly evident that the global market process had entered a period of creative destruction with financial markets experiencing meltdowns at the same time that new industries such as cleantech were emerging. These are moments in time that most social scientists dream of: naturally occurring phenomena that allow science to pit competing theories against each other to assess which, if any, provides the most useful explanation of the phenomena. In particular, we challenged the structurationists to make predictions about how the cleantech industry would organize itself and then, carefully and thoroughly chronicle what unfolded; we challenged the advocates of social cognition theory to conduct longitudinal studies about the development of the mental models and decision processes entrepreneurs used to make sense of the emerging industry and the opportunities they perceived it did or did not present; we challenged the social network theorists to conduct longitudinal studies regarding the networking behaviors of the entrepreneurs who introduced new products, services, processes, and business models in the emerging cleantech industry. Frankly, it wouldn't really matter if it turned out that none of these theoretical approaches to entrepreneurial alertness and opportunity identification proved useful because, regardless of the outcome, we would learn so much in the process of systematic empirical observation and testing.
Distinguishing entrepreneurial approaches to opportunity perception
International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 2017
Purpose Whether opportunities are discovered or created by entrepreneurs is a foundational question in entrepreneurship research. The purpose of this paper is to examine women entrepreneurs in high-growth new ventures and explore the cognitive resources that distinguish between three approaches to opportunity perception: opportunity discovery; opportunity creation; and a combined discover-create (ambidextrous) approach. Design/methodology/approach Using questionnaire responses from 165 women entrepreneurs in high-growth new ventures, K-means clustering was used to determine three approaches to opportunity perception. The cognitive resources associated with each approach were then identified using multiple discriminant analysis. Finally, multivariate analysis of variance was conducted to examine the relationship between opportunity perception and growth expectations. Findings These results demonstrate different approaches to opportunity perception among entrepreneurs in high-growth n...
A Brief Review of Opportunity Recognition in Entrepreneurship Research
Entrepreneurship is multidimensional in nature. The purpose of this paper was to gather and summarize the plethora of research on opportunity recognition and revealed the constructs specific to entrepreneurial opportunity recognition along with its antecedents and consequences. The study was based on the literature review of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition with emphasis on the leading prominent literature from authentic and well-reputed journals. This study employed the strategy majorly based upon empirical data over the last two decades i.e. 2000-2020. This review indicated that the field is empirically underdeveloped and numerous inconsistencies are existent in research conclusions. The study summarized the phenomenon of opportunity recognition which is referred to as the self-defined field of research. Moreover, the study suggested future research directions to recognize and exploit the business opportunities.
The Discovery of Opportunities: Extending the Economic Theory of the Entrepreneur
Small Business Economics, 2007
Shane (2003) [A General Theory of Entrepreneurship: The Individual-Opportunity Nexus. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar] has shown convincingly that modern theories of entrepreneurship perform reasonably well in explaining the empirical results obtained in different areas of research upon the subject. His book also shows that the cognitive aspects of entrepreneurship in general—and opportunity recognition in particular—are important areas that warrant further research. This paper argues that the concept of opportunity is closely related to the concept of a project, as an opportunity is essentially a project that would prove beneficial if it were exploited. It is suggested that modelling individual search across potential projects, and the screening of projects by the use of symptoms, holds the key to the successful modelling of entrepreneurship in terms of opportunity.
Journal of Small Business Management, 2009
The role of opportunities in the entrepreneurial process remains relatively underdeveloped. To address this issue, we develop a definition of an entrepreneurial opportunity and draw upon a distinction from the domain of knowledge management to suggest a continuum of entrepreneurial opportunities ranging from codified to tacit. Though both traditional and contemporary research has examined how individual differences relate to the identification of opportunities, we focus instead on the importance of differences in the opportunities themselves. Specifically, we examine how relative differences in the degree of opportunity tacitness relate to the process of opportunity identification. We find that relatively more codified opportunities are more likely to be discovered through systematic search, whereas more tacit opportunities are more likely to be identified due to prior experience. These findings contribute to an increased understanding of the role of the opportunity in entrepreneurship research and have important implications for economic theories of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial learning, entrepreneurial networks, and entrepreneurial education.