Opportunity Beliefs Research Articles

Dispositional Beliefs and Opportunity Beliefs as Cognitive Competence Mediated by Entrepreneurial Mindset towards Entrepreneurial Behavior

The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of cognitive competency, which includes dispositional and opportunity beliefs, on entrepreneurial behavior, as mediated by an entrepreneurial mentality. Gender is used as a control variable. This study utilizes a quantitative approach and examines data from alumni of XL Axiata’s CSR program, XL Future Leaders (XLFL) Batch 6-10. Data is collected via an online questionnaire and analyzed using PLS-SEM. The results suggest that dispositional beliefs and opportunity beliefs directly influence entrepreneurial mindset, which positively impacts entrepreneurial behavior. The significance of the relationship between the variables also affected by the gender. When gender is added as a control variable, the association between dispositional belief and entrepreneurial behavior becomes insignificant. This research also explains further on individual cognitive competence that is shaped through family background. The research contributes to the understanding of the complex interplay between cognitive competence, entrepreneurial mindset, and entrepreneurial behavior. Future research possibilities include investigating the moderation effect of gender and using longitudinal designs to acquire a more detailed understanding of these interactions.

Perception of hypotheticality in technology-based business ideas: effects on Opportunity Beliefs from a Construal Level Theory perspective.

This research investigates how entrepreneurs perceive the hypothetical nature of technologies (based on situations that are often imagined or theoretical) as a foundation for entrepreneurial endeavors and how this perception influences the formation of business Opportunity Beliefs. Drawing on the Construal Level Theory, we explore the relationship between the perceived hypotheticality of technologies and Opportunity Beliefs. Two experimental studies are conducted to examine these relationships, with Study 1 (n = 177 entrepreneurs) focusing on the perception of innovative technologies as more distant or hypothetical, and Study 2 (n = 404 entrepreneurs) delving into how the perceived distance to technology influences Opportunity Beliefs. The results indicate that entrepreneurs view more innovative technologies as more hypothetical and that hypotheticality mediates the relationship between the perceived degree of innovation and Opportunity Beliefs. We find evidence that Entrepreneurs tend to view the feasibility and fit/alignment of business opportunities more favorably when they perceive the psychological distance (hypotheticality) of the opportunity as closer rather than more distant. However, the difference this difference is nonsignificant in how they evaluate the desirability of the opportunity in any psychological distance. These results provide insight into the cognitive processes of entrepreneurs and offer implications for understanding how entrepreneurs perceive and evaluate business opportunities.

Where do opportunity beliefs come from? Implications of intergenerational social mobility for beliefs about the distribution system in China

People’s understanding of the drivers of inequality is a function of their position in the social structure. Nevertheless, the ways in which intergenerational social mobility is associated with opportunity beliefs remain under researched. Recent findings in cultural sociology suggest that individuals seldom update their beliefs, and that settled dispositions lead people to reproduce their beliefs in their adulthood. This study used a probabilistic and representative survey of Chinese citizens to explore how intergenerational social mobility relates to opportunity beliefs. China presents an interesting context to explore this question, since Chinese society is considered to be highly unequal yet highly tolerant of social inequalities. Our results indicate a U-shaped relationship between social class and opportunity beliefs. The upper class and farmers exhibit stronger meritocratic beliefs than middle-classes. Moreover, upwardly and downwardly mobile individuals show greater weights for origin and destination, respectively. Thus, opportunity beliefs are explained by the social class where they rank lower. These findings suggest that when beliefs are updated through social mobility, they interact with the mobility trajectory. In addition, the stronger meritocratic beliefs of the farmers’ class and the greater weight of social origin for upwardly mobile individuals could help explain the dormant social volcano in China.

Does opportunity co-creation help the poor entrepreneurs? Evidence from China.

Extreme poverty can be alleviated through entrepreneurship, but starting a business can be elusive among impoverished people, partly due to a lack of access to entrepreneurial opportunities. In the current literature, the source of entrepreneurial opportunity for the poor remains unclear. To address this knowledge gap, we used the opportunity co-creation perspective to examine the impact of opportunity co-creation on the entrepreneurial performance of the poor and its various influence pathways. We developed a chain multiple mediation model and surveyed 330 poor entrepreneurs from the Wuling Mountain Region, which used to be one of the 14 contiguous poverty-stricken areas in China until the end of 2020 when the country announced the eradication of extreme poverty. Data analysis was done using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results suggest that opportunity co-creation has a direct positive effect on the entrepreneurial performance of the poor and an indirect positive effect through the chain mediating effect of opportunity beliefs and entrepreneurial behavior. The findings confirm that opportunity co-creation is a critical factor for entrepreneurs in poor areas to overcome the lack of entrepreneurial opportunities and can also contribute to a better understanding of opportunity beliefs and entrepreneurial behavior. Furthermore, these results have important implications for poor entrepreneurs and provide opportunity co-creation solutions for poverty reduction through entrepreneurship.

Opportunity beliefs in internationalization: A microhistorical approach

We propose the concept of opportunity belief as a means of understanding individuals as the interpreters of their contexts over the internationalization process of a firm. To illustrate the concept, we conducted a microhistorical analysis on one of the largest forest industry MNEs with an internationalization history of more than 150 years. Historical archival data and rich secondary material provided access to the reasonings of individuals over the firm’s internationalization. This allowed depiction of different types of opportunity beliefs as the drivers of internationalization actions within particular historical contexts. We portray opportunity belief as a complementary lens to current internationalization models focusing primarily on firm-level development.

Resource Orchestration and Opportunity Beliefs in Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives for Sustainability

Our world is increasingly faced with wicked environmental sustainability challenges, requiring entrepreneurs to work in multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) to address these challenges. Network orchestration is essential for these MSIs to realize their sustainability goals and make an impact. The concept of opportunity beliefs is central in understanding the actions taken by these entrepreneurs. However, the current theorization of opportunity beliefs formation is individual-centric. Furthermore, there is little understanding of how orchestration influences the opportunity beliefs formation in multi-stakeholder teams. We build on the framework of McMullen and Shepherd (2016), who presented a two-stage model of how third-person opportunity beliefs transform into first-person opportunity beliefs. We advance two contributions by using a single case study and applying the Gioia method to code and analyze the data. First is a two-stage model consisting of the formation of joint first-person opportunity beliefs that suggests that value-aligning and informing resource orchestration activities are essential in this process. Second, we advance the idea that the resource orchestration activities have both enabling and adversely constraining effects impairing the formation of joint first-person opportunity beliefs under conditions of organizational pressure.

Opportunity Identification Training and the Form of First-person Opportunity Belief

In this research, we argue that opportunity identification training is a training of self-regulated learning, and investigate the impact of training on forming first-person opportunity beliefs. Drawing on the theory of self-regulated learning, we suggest that feedback seeking behavior is a central mechanism through which training takes effects, and individuals’ metacognition and engagement are important moderators affecting the training outcomes. We conducted a two-stage field experiment with 152 working professionals aspiring to become entrepreneurs and found support for our predictions. Our findings shed new light on research about entrepreneurship training, and research about opportunity identification processes.

The role of opportunity feasibility beliefs and bribery on resource acquisition speed and new venture emergence

Venture creation is an entrepreneurial process initiated by nascent entrepreneurs to identify and exploit opportunities. Beliefs of opportunity feasibility are found to facilitate new venture emergence in developed economy contexts. This paper examines how opportunity beliefs influence venture creation in an emerging economy context. The results of the Chinese Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics show that opportunity beliefs are negatively related to new venture emergence and the speed of resource acquisition, respectively. Further, entrepreneurs’ bribery behavior moderates the relationship between opportunity beliefs and the speed of resource acquisition. Our research provides important theoretical and policy implications for entrepreneurs and policy makers, especially in emerging economies.

The role of affect in international opportunity recognition and the formation of international opportunity beliefs

Despite the significance of individual factors in how entrepreneurs recognize international opportunities either by active search or passive discovery, prior research has typically focused on cognitive aspects overlooking affect as a critical driver of this process. Drawing upon broaden-and-build and affect-as-information theories, we explore how courage, hope, fear of failure, and anticipated regret, as stable affective dispositions, can influence entrepreneurs’ active and passive international opportunity recognition (IOR). Also, based on the mental model theory, we examine whether both processes can lead entrepreneurs to differently form opportunity desirability and feasibility beliefs to judge the opportunities recognized in the foreign market. Based on data from a sample of 172 international entrepreneurs, we find that hope and anticipated regret are positively related to active IOR. Hope and courage are positively related to passive IOR, and fear of failure and anticipated regret are negatively related to passive IOR. Moreover, active IOR better informs opportunity desirability and feasibility beliefs than passive IOR, which indeed only predicts feasibility. These findings are original and novel and thus add value to the flourishing literature on the individual-level factors that influence IOR processes and the emerging literature on how international opportunity desirability and feasibility beliefs are formed to evaluate IOs.

RE-CONTEXTUALIZING OPPORTUNITY AS ARTIFACT SIGNALLING FOR ENTREPRENEURIAL ACTION

In exploring entrepreneurial action as a response to opportunities, this paper uses signalling theory to provide new insights as the entrepreneur moves from perception to recognition to enactment. We adopt a dynamic approach to how entrepreneurs perceive opportunities and form initial opportunity beliefs, recognizing that, over time, beliefs change. The perceived potentialities from the signals arising from opportunities also change. Strength of the initial opportunity beliefs, morph-ability of opportunities, frequency of opportunity appearances, multiple interpretations of opportunity, latency of opportunity, observability (intensity, visibility, strength and clarity), distortions of opportunity and false opportunity are topics that are not sufficiently addressed in research on entrepreneurial opportunities. We argue that the signalling effects open new avenues of inquiry related to the central role of opportunity in the entrepreneurial process. Instead of seeing opportunity from either the discovery or creation approaches, opportunity should be viewed as an artifact with embedded perceived potentialities. Implications are drawn for the developmental context.

Exploring factors that contribute to human trafficking in Ethiopia: a socio-ecological perspective

BackgroundA number of individuals in Ethiopia are involved in illegal types of transnational migration, namely human trafficking and smuggling. The magnitude is not declining despite efforts to curb it. An in-depth understanding of the reasons for trafficking is needed to control human trafficking and its consequences.MethodsThe study included four focus group discussions and 44 in-depth interviews conducted in three border towns, five trafficking-stricken areas, and the IOM transit center for returnees in Addis Ababa. Participants were victims of trafficking, emigrants, community members, police, immigration personnel, and staff of labor and social affairs offices and non-government organizations. Based on the social-ecological model framework, content analysis was implemented using opencode-4.03 software.ResultsFactors identified as possibly encouraging acts of illegal migration included community attitudes such as having a child abroad being considered a measure of status, and the reluctance to do certain types of works associated with low social status when at home. There was, however, willingness to do similar work abroad, which was coupled with the belief that wages for such jobs were better abroad than at home and a lack of knowledge regarding differences in working conditions in the two settings. Further reasons given were poor government service provisions, ineffective immigration policies, political instability, government focus on reactive and poorly coordinated control rather than on sustainable prevention of human trafficking and corruption. Corruption was said to be the underlying factor for the poor coordination among government agencies, communities, and individuals. These factors, among others, led to the loss of trust and belief in local governance, resources, and opportunities to build one’s future at home, thereby creating fertile ground for illegal migration, including smuggling and possibly trafficking.ConclusionsIndividual lack of trust and belief in local governance, resources, and opportunities to build one’s future was the main reason why people resorted to migrate in a manner subjecting them to human trafficking. Thus, comprehensive and coordinated efforts involving government agencies, communities, and other stakeholders are needed to help curb human trafficking and its consequences.

Entrepreneurial mindset: Dispositional beliefs, opportunity beliefs, and entrepreneurial behavior

ABSTRACT Research on entrepreneurial mindset (EM) has proliferated in recent years. Its importance rests on a key assumption: EM matters for entrepreneurial behavior. However, to date, EM conceptualizations remain fragmented, and theories delineating the relationship between EM and the behaviors underpinning entrepreneurship are limited. In this article, we conceptualize EM as a goal orientation formed through dispositional beliefs about entrepreneurship and opportunity beliefs, which results in entrepreneurial behaviors. We draw upon recent advances in entrepreneurial orientation (EO) research at the individual level as a model for dispositional beliefs. Further, we theorize the origins, mechanisms, manifestations, and effect of EM. Finally, we discuss important implications for stakeholders interested in leveraging EM to stimulate entrepreneurial activity and lay out a research agenda for future development of our disposition-based framework.

Encouraging bureaucrats to report corruption: human resource management and whistleblowing

ABSTRACT Although notoriously hierarchical, rigid and impersonal, bureaucracy has recently become the unsung hero in the fight against corruption. Recent studies suggest that countries whose public service reflects characteristics of a Weberian bureaucracy – particularly, permanent careers and merit recruitment – exhibit lower levels of corruption. Uncertainty exists, however, over which qualities are most important, as well as how these lower corruption. This article advances research by examining the relationship that various human resource management practices have with a central mechanism of thwarting corruption: whistleblowing. Using survey data from Australia, the results from various regression models show that bureaucrats’ belief that recruitment within their agency prioritises merit as well as their belief in opportunities for promotion have a positive relationship with whistleblowing. Meanwhile, reporting corruption does not seem to be affected by bureaucrats’ belief in the permanency of their job, satisfaction with remuneration, turnover intention or organisational commitment. The external validity of the findings is considered by comparing the nature of bureaucracy in Australia with some Asia Pacific and Anglo-American countries.

Relationship between human capital, new venture ideas, and opportunity beliefs: A meta‐analysis

AbstractResearch summaryWe meta‐analyze the structural relationship between human capital, the ability to generate new venture ideas, and the favorability of opportunity beliefs to address divergent theoretical predictions and inconsistent empirical findings. We test a two‐stage process model of entrepreneurial opportunity identification, distinguishing between the ability to generate new venture ideas and the favorability of third and first‐person opportunity beliefs. We also distinguish between two categories of human capital: general and specific human capital. Our results suggest that general and specific human capital are positively associated with the ability to generate new venture ideas. Furthermore, only specific human capital matters in influencing the favorability of opportunity beliefs, yet the ability to generate new venture ideas is far more important than human capital for the favorability of opportunity beliefs.Managerial summaryHow does an individual's human capital relate to the attractiveness of opportunities identified? In this study, we review the body of literature on this topic and analyze the relationships between two types of human capital—general and specific human capital, the ability to generate new venture ideas, and the attractiveness of opportunities. We find that both general human capital—primarily education and work experience—and specific human capital—industry and entrepreneurial experience—are useful for generating new venture ideas. However, only specific human capital is useful when assessing which new venture ideas can turn into attractive opportunities. We also find that the ability to generate new venture ideas is more strongly associated with the attractiveness of opportunities than either type of human capital.

Re-contextualizing Opportunity as Artefact Signalling for Entrepreneurial Action

This paper reviews the concept of entrepreneurial actions arising from the opportunities using signalling theory as the building blocks to discuss the process from perception, recognition to enactment. By adopting a dynamic approach to study how entrepreneurs see opportunities, particularly the initial opportunities beliefs, change over time. The perceived potentialities from the signals arising from opportunities also change. Strength of the initial opportunity beliefs, morph-ability of opportunities, frequency of opportunity appearances, multiple interpretations of opportunity, latency of opportunity, observability (intensity, visibility, strength and clarity), distortions of opportunity and false opportunity are topics that are scarcely addressed in entrepreneurial opportunities studies. We argue that the signalling effects open new veins of inquiry related to opportunity and entrepreneurial actions. Instead of seeing opportunity from either the discovery or creation approaches, opportunity should be viewed as opportunity-as- artefact with embedded perceived potentialities.

A Dynamic Model of Entrepreneurial Opportunity: Integrating Kirzner's and Mises's Approaches to Entrepreneurial Action.

We highlight the important role that time plays in conceptualizations of opportunity in entrepreneurship research. Through two longitudinal case studies, we introduce a more dynamic understanding of opportunities than portrayed by current theorizing, which tends to emphasize “opportunity discovery.” By adopting a dynamic temporal perspective, we integrate Kirzner’s and Mises’s approaches to entrepreneurial action to generate novel insights about how entrepreneurs view opportunities as initial opportunity beliefs, how these beliefs change over time, and how these changes help inform scholarly research of opportunities. We argue that taking the role of time into consideration opens up new questions related to opportunity and the dynamics of its development.

Is that an opportunity? Global versus local processing of technological and socioeconomic constraints

ABSTRACT Opportunity beliefs lead entrepreneurs to explore or walk away from opportunities. The dominant process for explaining opportunity beliefs is structural alignment theory’s analogical problem solving of information. Information can be conceptualized according to its structure with some information presented as separate pieces of information (local) and others as aggregated information (global). We conducted an experiment with 116 upper-level managers and engineers, and found that structural and procedural similarities between technologies and socioeconomic conditions of markets drive opportunity beliefs. We found that the constraining effects of technological and socioeconomic differences on opportunity beliefs are contingent on individuals’ global versus local processing.

Equal Opportunity Beliefs beyond Black and White American Christianity

Scholars in critical race and the sociology of religion have independently drawn attention to the ways in which cultural ideologies drive beliefs about inequalities between groups. Critical race work on “abstract liberalism” highlights non-racially inflected language that tacitly reinforces White socioeconomic outcomes resulting from an allegedly fair social system. Sociologists of religion have noted that White Evangelical Christian theology promotes an individualist mindset that places blame for racial inequalities on the perceived failings of Blacks. Using data from the National Asian American Survey 2016, we return to this question and ask whether beliefs about the importance of equal opportunity reveal similarities or differences between religious Asian American and Latino Christians and Black and White Christians. The results confirm that White Christians are generally the least supportive of American society providing equal opportunity for all. At the other end, Black Christians were the most supportive. However, with the inclusion of Asian American Christian groups, we note that second generation Asian American and Latino Evangelicals hew closer to the White Christian mean, while most other Asian and Latino Christian groups adhere more closely to the Black Christian mean. This study provides further support for the recent claims of religion’s complex relationship with other stratifying identities. It suggests that cultural assimilation among second generation non-Black Evangelical Christians heads more toward the colorblind racist attitudes of many White Christians, whereas potential for new coalitions of Latino and Black Christians could emerge, given their shared perceptions of the persistent inequality in their communities.

How design practices assist new venture teams in creating entrepreneurial opportunities

Research at the intersection of business and design has focused extensively on examining the importance of design for innovation. In this conceptual article, we explore the less considered topic of design for entrepreneurship. We start from the premise that there are similarities in the context in which designers solve problems and entrepreneurs create opportunities and that designers enact certain routinized ways of working that may enable the creation of entrepreneurial opportunities. The main contribution of this article is that we propose a conceptual framework and formulate six propositions depicting the ways in which design practices can enable three antecedents of successful opportunity creation: the ability to generate ideas, the ability to change opportunity beliefs, and the ability to take action.

Wicked problems, reductive tendency, and the formation of (non-)opportunity beliefs

Wicked problems persistently cause human suffering, endanger wildlife, and degrade the environment, and are defined by their inherent complex, uncertain, and evaluative nature. Because of these interrelated and mutually reinforcing characteristics, they are notoriously difficult to solve. We explain how the nature of wicked problems affects the way in which beliefs about opportunities to solve them are formed, and why these beliefs often prevent prospective entrepreneurs from correctly judging not only the feasibility of acting on them, but whether such an opportunity exists at all. Drawing on this research context we also help explain how unfounded entrepreneurial opportunity beliefs are formed more broadly. That is, prospective entrepreneurs making the Type I error of falsely identifying an opportunity when there is none. We draw on the ‘reductive tendency’, a process through which individuals simplify complex systems into cognitively manageable representations. While simplified representations offer benefits, such as quicker decision-making, such representations are often inaccurate as they overlook the complexities of the problem at hand. We argue that the reductive tendency can make wicked problems appear easier to solve than they are in reality, leading to the formation of what we call non-opportunity beliefs; the conviction that one can solve a problem, when in fact the objective conditions required to do so are absent. We further argue that prior experiential knowledge makes an entrepreneur less susceptible to the reductive tendency and, consequentially, less likely to form a non-opportunity belief. Our work offers contributions to both theory and practice. We extend the critical realist perspective on non-opportunities by explicating the mechanisms through which non-opportunity beliefs are formed. We further introduce and conceptualize problem uncertainty as a specific form of state uncertainty where the exact definition, boundary conditions, and causes of a problem are unknown or unknowable. This offers a more focused conceptualization of the uncertainty inherent to wicked problems that also specifically identifies problems as the starting point of all entrepreneurial opportunity. Our theorizing is also of practical importance since, in the context of socially/environmentally focused entrepreneurship, ill-conceived attempts to address wicked problems can have serious negative consequences for people and ecosystems that are already among the most vulnerable. By highlighting the susceptibility of entrepreneurs to the reductive tendency, we expand awareness of an avoidable and consequential pitfall in the entrepreneurship process. We further offer a means of circumventing the reductive tendency – through the acquisition of pertinent knowledge.