Opportunity Recognition Process Research Articles

Exploring the relation between individual moral antecedents and entrepreneurial opportunity recognition for sustainable development

When dealing with complex value-driven problems such as sustainable development, individuals need to have values and norms that go beyond the appropriation of tangible business outcomes for themselves. This raises the question of the role played by individual moral antecedents in the entrepreneurial process of opportunity recognition for sustainable development. To answer this question, an exploratory empirical research design was used in which 96 would-be entrepreneurs were subjected to real-life decision-making processes in an online environment. The participants were guided through the process of opportunity recognition for sustainable development. Furthermore, they were subjected to several tests linked to individual moral antecedents. The mixed methods design used to analyze the results led to the conclusion that pro-environmental behavior values and moral competencies are important indicators of the ability to recognize opportunities for sustainable development. These results provide useful insights about relating moral antecedents to idea generation for sustainable development and can help researchers, higher education institutes, and sustainable entrepreneurs to further develop the concept of sustainable entrepreneurship and its underlying processes.

Doing Well and Good: An Exploration of the Role of Mindfulness in the Entrepreneurial Opportunity Recognition and Evaluation Process

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to integrate two previously disparate areas of research: mindfulness and the entrepreneurial process. This present study conceptualizes the impact of mindfulness on the choices entrepreneurs face. Specifically, the research theorizes the positive effects of mindfulness on the opportunity recognition process, including evaluation of entrepreneurs. Furthermore, we propose that metacognition mediates this relationship, and emotional self-regulation moderates it. This conceptual research also suggests that mindfulness is positively related to the ethical decision-making and opportunity recognition and evaluation. Finally, compassion is proposed as a factor that mediates the relationship between mindfulness and ethical choices in opportunity recognition.

Opportunity recognition and international new venture creation in university spin-offs—Cases from Denmark and Ireland

Extant research suggests that the founder’s activities and interactions are considered pivotal in driving the opportunity recognition process leading to international new venture emergence. This paper aims to explore the opportunity recognition process and international new venture emergence in the context of university high-technology spin-offs that are internationally market driven from inception. University spin-offs (USOs) are defined as ‘new firms created to exploit commercially some knowledge, technology or research results developed within a university’ (Pirnay et al., Small Bus Econ 21:355–369, 2003). To address this inquiry, this study imports theory from the entrepreneurship literature on organizational emergence, opportunity recognition, effectuation and the principle of individual self-efficacy. Drawing on empirical case data from four case USOs from Denmark and Ireland, this paper finds that the inventor-founders are typically engaged in opportunity recognition processes that are characterized as creative, driven by scientific innovations. It is indicated that the process of USO emergence and continuous development involves activities and interactions similar to typical international new ventures. The scientific knowledge that created opportunities for the emergence of INV-USOs across our cases endorses the view that innovation and internationalization are strongly correlated. Insights are provided on inventor-founders’ entrepreneurial intention demonstrated through activities and interactions in the on-going processes of creating the USO. Findings further highlight that self-efficacy of the inventor-founder(s) and access to specific resources (means at hand) are salient determinants for international new ventures to materialize. The study concludes with a proposed conceptual framework for further research on the creation of INV-university spin-offs. Conclusions and implications are drawn at the end of the article.

Exploring The Use of Imagination by Experienced High-Tech Entrepreneurs

Using a grounded theory approach, we study how thirty-one high- technology entrepreneurs use their imagination in opportunity recognition and strategic decision-making processes. We find that entre...

Entrepreneurial Information Search Behavior for Opportunity Recognition:Scale Development

How entrepreneurs search for information influences entrepreneurial opportunity recognition processes like the amount of opportunities recognized by entrepreneurs. The odds of entrepreneurs to successfully recognize promising opportunities increases if we advance our understanding of entrepreneurial information search behavior. However, despite its imputed relevance, academic understanding remains limited particularly due to empirical issues. Existing scales attempting to measure such search behaviors lack sufficient distinguishability between the different types of information search behavior. Thus, it is almost impossible to assess what construct is actually being measured. This entails the need for a valid, reliable and applicable new measure. By building on opportunity discovery and information search theory, we develop and validate a scale of information search behavior. We found proof for three distinct types of information search behaviour, namely, passive, proactive and systematic search.

Doing Well by Doing Good: Opportunity Recognition and the Social Enterprise Partnership

This paper contributes to social enterprise theory by furthering understanding of the process of opportunity recognition within partnership settings. Using opportunity recognition as the central construct, and drawing on case study evidence, the paper explores a social enterprise partnership (SEP) in an effort to uncover the drivers for its creation, identify factors influencing its success, and highlight its social value. Findings reveal that the nature of the opportunity exploited, alongside recognition of its mutual problem-solving potential led to the partnership's success. It is suggested that a SEP of this nature can be of particular value in economically deprived areas where resources are constrained and collaborative approaches are critical. A framework for analysing opportunity recognition and exploitation in SEP contexts is proposed.

KoldKraft Pakistan: An Entrepreneurial Journey

The case describes the entrepreneurial journey of Tariq Siraj. He is a mechanical engineering graduate from UET Lahore and started his entrepreneurial journey right after his graduation. The sequence of events enabled him to discover his entrepreneurial mindset. The case starts with the opportunity recognition, evaluation and refinement process followed by the resource acquisition process for the new start-up. The case discusses the various influencers who helped Tariq to plunge into an entrepreneurial journey. This case is well suited to apply the Opportunity + People + Resources = Fit (Timmons model) to the case analysis. KoldKraft continued growth by diversifying its product and services portfolio and taking the business to wherever there was need for cooling and refrigeration solutions. The current economic circumstances however, left the business quite stagnant. The case further discusses the management dilemmas being faced by Tariq. This case adds value towards the entrepreneurship literature in Pakistan as it describes the pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities in the much ignored agriculture sector of the country. The use of technology to add value in the agriculture business in a creative and resourceful manner is a key lesson of the case.

Opportunity recognition by growing SMEs: a managerial or entrepreneurial function?

This paper identifies different ways in which growth-minded SME owner-managers can recognize realistic opportunities for their companies. The entrepreneurship and marketing fields of study are investigated to create an understanding of the opportunity recognition process of owner-managers. Research using a qualitative methodology consisting of in-depth interviews with owner-managers of 20 SME's that had clearly demonstrated a desire to grow was carried out. This study found that management of opportunity recognition in owner-managed SME's is as much a management function as an entrepreneurial one. Opportunity recognition in SME's requires innovative individuals, but this does not mean that they are necessarily entrepreneurs; it requires marketing skills in the strategic sense but does not need professional marketers or functional marketing expertise. Opportunities can best be recognized by owner-managers with relevant market knowledge, and can be gained through experience or analysis and needs a trigger or motivating propensity.

A systematic literature review of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition: insights on influencing factors

In the last three decades, research studies investigating how individuals recognize entrepreneurial opportunities have advanced rapidly and have become a key topic in the modern entrepreneurship literature. To advance this important concern further, we present a systematic literature review of the entrepreneurial opportunity research field and its status. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this research suggests that the field is fragmented and empirically underdeveloped. A comprehensive literature analysis shows that only a handful of authors have contributed specifically to developing dialogues related to opportunity recognition and that the topic is considered primarily as an ancillary issue by many authors and academic journals. Based on analyzing 180 articles, we classify existing contributions into six influential factors: prior knowledge, social capital, cognition/personality traits, environmental conditions, alertness, and systematic search. Moreover, by developing a framework, we communicate critical insights regarding the opportunity recognition process. The contribution of individual articles to the proposed factors is presented in a research synthesis table. We conclude by presenting several directions for future research related to opportunity recognition.

Opportunity recognition processes of black entrepreneurs

The reasons for the long-term lagging rate of black American entrepreneurship are not well understood. Rather than look at financial factors, as most of the limited literature that has explored the disparity has done, we examine the opportunity recognition processes of black entrepreneurs. Using data collected from 147 black entrepreneurs, we found the entrepreneurs in our study – all of whom had achieved moderate success – were much more likely to have pursued internally stimulated opportunities than externally stimulated opportunities. The important practical and academic implications are discussed and future research directions are offered.

Entrepreneurial opportunity recognition: an empirical study of R&D personnel

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the antecedents of, and the relationships between, entrepreneurial opportunity recognition, and individual‐level innovation performance.Design/methodology/approachQuestionnaire data were collected from 268 senior R&D project team members (response rate 64.58 percent) along with 83 R&D managers who evaluated their employees' innovative behaviors in one science park in Taiwan.FindingsThe results show that an individual's self‐efficacy, prior knowledge, social networks, and perception about the industrial environment on opportunities all had positive effects on entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. Also entrepreneurial opportunity recognition contributed significantly to individual‐level innovation performance.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings show that perception about the industrial environment on opportunities variable was the most important predictor among all four of the antecedents of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. That is, individual characteristics and traits cannot fully explain the entrepreneurial opportunity recognition process. Because the data were limited to high technology industry, future studies need to validate these findings in other industries.Practical implicationsFindings of this study suggest that to increase R&D employee's innovation performance, it is critical for high technology firms to invest in developing and enhancing employees' entrepreneurial opportunity recognition ability.Originality/valueThe process of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition has been viewed as a black box. Although the literature has explored various antecedents that influence entrepreneurial opportunity recognition, there is limited empirical research that has examined the linkage between entrepreneurial opportunity recognition and potential outcome variables.

A Longitudinal Assessment of Opportunity Recognition with a Mentor: The Effect of Goal Orientation

The knowledge that is acquired through a mentoring relationship could stimulate the novice entrepreneur’s ability to recognize new opportunities. At the same time, a mentee’s learning goal orientation (LGO) influences mentoring relationships by increasing mentee outcomes. The aim of this research is to verify whether a novice entrepreneur’s learning can help him develop his ability to recognize business opportunities and whether the entrepreneur’s LGO has an impact on this relationship. Based on a sample of 360 mentees and a longitudinal follow-up for 106 of these respondents, results show that mentoring supports the opportunity recognition process, as well as LGO, but that a high LGO decreases the effect of mentoring on the ability to recognize opportunities, which confirms the moderating role of LGO in the relationship between these variables.

Overcoming the walls that constrain us: The role of entrepreneurship education programs in prison

Although research has shown that entrepreneurship education can help prepare and motivate people to act entrepreneurially, less is known about why some people who are most in need of such education programs drop out while others persist and generate benefits well beyond those that are solely career related. Using a longitudinal multiple case study method to analyze participants of a 20-week entrepreneurship program in prison, comparisons of successful program participants and drop-outs show, first, that making sense of one’s past and the motivation to move forward activate opportunity recognition processes that facilitate persistence in an entrepreneurship educational program. Second, those who persist with the entrepreneurship education program are transformed—not only are beliefs about their entrepreneurial abilities strengthened but we also find that the program changed their attitudes toward both imprisonment and others, both of which have implications beyond career-related outcomes. Finally, we discuss the implications of the study for future research on management- related education of “high risk” individuals.

Determinants of Academic Entrepreneurial Intentions in Technology Transfer Process: An Empirical Test

Policy makers are increasingly recognizing the central role of technology transfer from Universities into academic spinoffs that commercially exploit the research results and new technologies developed within academic scientists. The ability of universities to stimulate entrepreneurial activity and creation of new ventures would influence the economic growth through knowledge regeneration and exploiting academic inventions.Due to the early stage and embryonic nature of university technologies (Agrawal, 2006; Jensen and Thursby, 2001), is important to understand the predictors inside University context that influence the creation of academic spin offs. The technology transfer process is an extended course of actions that start with opportunity identification that is clearly an intentional process (Krueger et al., 2000).The aim of the paper is to focus on the determinants of academic entrepreneurial intentions of a sample of PhD students employed on the science faculty and department of University G.d’Annunzio. This research purpose is to test the validity of a theoretical model of academic-entrepreneurial intentions (Prodan - Drnovsek, 2010) to add an empirical contribute in this field.In Academic Entrepreneurship studies, some scholars have pointed out that additional research is required at individual level (Lockett & Wright, 2005) in order to investigate the relevance of academic founders’ incentives, motivations and capabilities in developing successful academic ventures (Shane, 2004). Academic scientists and in particular PhD students play an important role in determining whether spinoffs will be founded to exploit an invention.Prior studies on opportunity recognition process, when opportunity to create future goods and services are discovered, evaluated and exploited (Shane & Venkataraman, 2000), focused on the necessity to analyze entrepreneurial intentions as a predictor of planned behaviour to create new venture (Ajzen, 1975). The academic entrepreneurial intentions, based on entrepreneurial intentions model (Bird, 1998; Kruegel, 1993),would depend from the ability to execute an intended behaviour and from other variables that are a direct consequence of different environmental characteristics (Prodan & Drnovsek, 2010). In order to highlight the orientation of the academic entrepreneurial intentions of sciences research area in University G.d’Annunzio, was sent a questionnaire to PhD students s to test the robustness of the model. We empirically test the model using structural equation modeling and a robust dataset collected in academic settings.Furthermore the finding of the paper tested in the technical faculties can adds new insights where there was a lack of empirical study to confirm and improve the theoretical model.

The recognition of international opportunities among Italian SMEs: differences between European and Chinese markets

This paper investigates how opportunities in foreign countries are identified by SMEs. The study aims to address the following research questions: 1 How do previous international knowledge and network of relationships influence SMEs’ recognition of opportunities in international markets? 2 Are there differences in the approach about opportunity recognition towards psychic distant countries compared to close ones? The methodology is based on a multiple case study of Italian SMEs operating in the manufacturing industry. Data collection involved semi-structured interviews to companies’ entrepreneurs. The findings suggest that while in close markets the lack of an extensive prior knowledge and experience leads to passive networking and unexpected discovery of business opportunities rather than a purposeful search for them, within psychic distant countries, the pattern of opportunity recognition differs and does not appear to be influenced by the stock of information and resources already possessed. Even though these results cannot be generalised, the study identifies a possible model of the opportunity recognition process, in which the different roles played by prior knowledge and the networks combined with psychic distance are stressed.

Family firms: A research agenda and publication guide

This paper develops a framework for future family firm research based on the types of family entrepreneurs, process of opportunity recognition, type of organization, environment and interactions among the aforementioned elements. In addition, future research on both economic and non-economic outcome variables is discussed. We conclude with a discussion intended to help facilitating family firm publications.

A multidimensional examination of a creativity‐based opportunity recognition model

PurposeThis paper seeks to detail an exploratory examination of a multidimensional, creativity‐based theoretical model of opportunity recognition originally proposed by Hills et al. and later refined by Lumpkin et al., but never empirically tested. The paper also aims to examine the relationship between individual dimensions of the model and creativity.Design/methodology/approachAnalyses were conducted using AMOS software on a sample of 145 entrepreneurs. One structural equation model (SEM) and three confirmatory factor analysis models were tested.FindingsThe five‐dimensional model – consisting of preparation, incubation, insight, evaluation, and elaboration – was determined to be the best fitting model. The SEM model also indicated that incubation and elaboration were significantly related to creativity. Overall, a multidimensional, creativity‐based approach to modeling opportunity recognition is supported by this study.Research limitations/implicationsCross‐sectional data do not allow for testing of the process aspect of the model; however, they do provide evidence that the model can stand up to empirical tests of the five elements of the model. Future research should examine opportunity using multiple dimensions and a creativity perspective. Additional research is needed to examine the process aspects of opportunity recognition.Practical implicationsFostering opportunity recognition processes that are iterative and involve multiple stages is likely to promote more creative entrepreneurial outcomes.Originality/valueThis study provides one of the few examples of a multidimensional perspective on opportunity recognition as well as an empirical examination of a creativity‐based theoretical model of opportunity recognition.

Opportunity characteristics enabling commercialisation in high-tech environment: a study of Indian telecom start-ups

Existing entrepreneurship research has viewed opportunity recognition from varied theoretical lenses with cognition and learning forming the core of most scholarly work. However, prior work has focused on end result (success/failure) only and more recent work has focused on opportunity recognition process only. But both the aspects need to be analysed and assessed simultaneously. We explore telecom sector in the present paper within an Indian context with the understanding that insights could be utilised by other sectors as well. We employ a detailed case study based approach to identify four characteristics of opportunities that shape the evolution of the opportunity recognition process on its path towards commercialisation. We also bring out the linkages between characteristics identified by us and existing paradigms in strategic management literature. We further propose that mental heuristics of entrepreneurs is guided by the characteristics identified by us. Our work thus contributes to both theory and practice of entrepreneurship research.

Opportunity Characteristics Enabling Commercialization in High Tech Environment: A Study on Indian Telecom Start-Ups

Opportunity recognition forms the core of entrepreneurship research. Existing entrepreneurship research has viewed opportunity recognition from varied theoretical lenses with cognition and learning forming the core of most scholarly work. However, prior work has either focused on end result (success or failure) only or more recent work has focused on opportunity recognition process only. But both the aspects need to be analyzed and assessed simultaneously. Moreover, high tech sector is different due to a high component of knowledge intensiveness inherent in it and has been surprisingly ignored in most work. So, we explore a specific high tech sector (telecom sector) in the present paper within an Indian context with the understanding that insights could be utilized by other sectors as well. We employ a detailed case study based approach to identify four characteristics of opportunities that shape the evolution of the opportunity recognition process on its path to commercialization. We also bring out the linkages between characteristics identified by us and existing paradigms in strategic management literature. We further propose that mental heuristics of entrepreneurs is guided by the characteristics identified by us. Our work thus contributes to both theory and practice of entrepreneurship research.

Bounded Opportunity: A Knowledge-Based Approach to Opportunity Recognition and Development

Abstract This article is premised on the underlying notion that knowledge is crucial to the opportunity recognition and development process. Springboarding from the insights of Atkinson and Stiglitz (1969) on the localized nature of knowledge accumulation, we define a feasible solution space and examine the implications of entrepreneurial knowledge in the recognition and development of opportunity within this space. Distinguishing between two forms of entrepreneurial knowledge, namely context dependent idiosyncratic knowledge or tacit knowledge, and codified knowledge, the primary aim of this article is to propose a knowledge-based model of opportunity within a bounded solution space. Our discussion of this model includes elaboration on how the composition of entrepreneurial knowledge predicts major path differences for the expansion and development of opportunities.