The effect of culture on opportunity recognition: a qualitative study of immigrant and native-born entrepreneurs

Abstract

Several studies have highlighted the effect of culture on decisions and behaviours of entrepreneurs. Building on this research stream, this paper suggests that comparing immigrant entrepreneurs and native-born entrepreneurs provides a fruitful setting to examine the effect of culture on entrepreneurship in general and opportunity recognition in particular. Through qualitative analysis of matched pairs of seven immigrant and seven native-born entrepreneurs, this exploratory study reveals that immigrant entrepreneurs exhibit a higher tendency towards recognising entrepreneurial opportunities through the opportunity discovery process rather than the opportunity creation process.