What is an Entrepreneurial Opportunity (original) (raw)
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Grappling with the Unbearable Elusiveness of Entrepreneurial Opportunities
Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2011
The notion of opportunity, as currently discussed in entrepreneurship research, is theoretically exciting but empirically elusive. This article seeks to stimulate a new conversation about entrepreneurial opportunities by distinguishing two conceptions of entrepreneurial behavior—formal and substantive—and situating the construct of opportunity within the latter. It discusses three substantive premises for studying opportunities empirically: (1) opportunity as happening; (2) opportunity as expressed in actions; and (3) opportunity as instituted in market structures. These premises stimulate research questions that can invigorate and expand the study of entrepreneurial opportunities. They invite a continuous dialogue between qualitative and quantitative methodologies in behalf of understanding how opportunities emerge and evolve at the level of individual entrepreneurs.
International Small Business Journal
This article has two objectives: to critique the dominant opportunity discovery and creation literatures and to propose a new, critical realist–inspired analytical framework to theorise the causes, processes and consequences of entrepreneurial action – one that needs no concept of opportunity. We offer three reasons to support our critique of opportunity studies. First, there are important absences, contradictions and inconsistencies in definitions of opportunity in theoretical and empirical work that mean the term cannot signal a clear direction for theorising or empirical research. Our central criticism is that the concept of opportunity cannot refer simultaneously, without contradiction, to a social context offering profit-making prospects, to particular practices and to agents’ subjective beliefs or imagined futures. Second, a new definition of opportunity would perpetuate the conceptual chaos. Third, useful concepts to capture important entrepreneurial processes are readily ava...
A CONSTRUCTIVIST FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING ENTREPRENEURIAL OPPORTUNITIES (SUMMARY
2006
Research on entrepreneurship has multiplied in recent years, according an increasingly important role to the concept of market opportunities. However, this term is still often defined in an implicit manner, which often hides the wealth and complexity of the object of this study. This article aims to show that epistemological clarification allows for both: -avoidance of economists' bias, which has irrigated most literature on opportunity, -identification of the main dimensions of this phenomenon, dimensions which, until now, have been mainly ignored or underestimated.
The constructivist view of entrepreneurial opportunities: a critical analysis
Small Business Economics, 2014
The notion that opportunities exist objectively ''out there'' has been repeatedly assaulted by scholars who counter that opportunities are subjectively constructed or created. This paper intends to restore the balance by bringing the critical strands of inquiry themselves under critical scrutiny. Beyond the formulation of some original lines of critique and the drawing of attention to some foundational yet insufficiently studied issues, this article further contributes the following: (1) it juxtaposes a taxonomical ordering of constructivist approaches; (2) it identifies angles of complementarity and contradiction with the objectivist perspective; and (3) it brings subtle conceptual distinctions into prominence. Keywords Entrepreneurial opportunities Á Austrian economics Á Philosophy of the social sciences Á Constructivist ontology Á Conceptual analysis JEL Classifications B52 Á B25 Á L26 Á B53
International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2016
There is plenty of debate in the entrepreneurship literature regarding entrepreneurial opportunity. There also has been a lack of construct clarity. These two issues have combined to stifle progress in understanding this important phenomenon. We believe that across these debates there are many underlying commonalities and potential for more clear constructs. In this paper we review how scholars have defined and operationalized entrepreneurial opportunity and opportunity-related processes in order to better understand what they really mean when they say ‘opportunity’. We found a total of 102 definitions and 51 operationalisations from 105 articles published in leading entrepreneurship and management journals. A total of 81 elements were identified across the definitions and operationalisations and compiled into an integrated process model. The model incorporates what seemed to be disparate views into a single unifying model. Comparison between conceptual definitions and operationalisations reveals many elements that are missing either conceptual or empirical attention. The model will help scholars more easily identify and build upon prior research. To that effect, numerous suggestions for future research are discussed and are summarized in a table.
Defragmenting Definitions of Entrepreneurial Opportunity
We examined 19-years worth of definitions of entrepreneurial opportunity and opportunity-related processes. We found 56 articles in six entrepreneurship-focused publications, with a total of 49 conceptual definitions and 32 operational definitions. Among those definitions, we identified 25 distinct conceptual and 12 operational elements of opportunity plus 48 definitional and 39 operational elements of opportunity-related processes. We found considerable fragmentation across conceptual and operational elements. However, based on commonalities among conceptual definitions, we developed six composite conceptual definitions of opportunity and eight composite conceptual definitions of opportunity-related processes, which we hope will help reduce the fragmentation of the entrepreneurial opportunity literature.
Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research, 2009
We examined 19 years of conceptual and operational definitions of entrepreneurial opportunity and opportunity-related processes (recognition, discovery, etc.). We found 56 articles in 6 entrepreneurship-focused publications, with 23 conceptual and 6 operational definitions of opportunity as well as 25 conceptual and 24 operational definitions of opportunity-related processes. Among those definitions, we identified 25 distinct definitional elements and 12 operational elements of opportunity as well as 48 definitional elements ...
Opportunities and Entrepreneurship
Journal of Management, 2003
This article extends and elaborates the perspective on entrepreneurship articulated by Shane and Venkataraman (2000) and Venkataraman (1997) by explaining in more detail the role of opportunities in the entrepreneurial process. In particular, the article explains the importance of examining entrepreneurship through a disequilibrium framework that focuses on the characteristics and existence of entrepreneurial opportunities. In addition, the article describes
The Eureka Moment in Entrepreneurial Opportunity as an Imaginative Construct
Entrepreneurial opportunity stimulates action. Does it only stimulate entrepreneurs to action? Or to non-entrepreneurs as well? What it is, and what it is not? Who is an entrepreneur? The concept of opportunity has been a bedrock in entrepreneurship research since Shane and Venkataraman’s seminal work in 2000. Researchers have explored the emergence, the role and the purpose of opportunity since then. Despite more than two decades of scholarship on the construct that has moved us well beyond what Shane and Venkataraman originally defined and with seminal papers that have moved us toward a better and more sophisticated understanding of the opportunity, we are still asking who an entrepreneur is? Ramoglou, Gartner and Tsang argue that this is the wrong question. The definitional varieties and fragments move Davidsson to suggest dismantling the construct and re-contextualising it with a more suitable and coherent framework. Foss and Klein suggest doing away with the opportunity concept...