Opportunities and Entrepreneurship

A Model of Social Entrepreneurial Discovery

“…To establish clear boundaries in this article, we focus on social entrepreneurial discovery. In the traditional sense, entrepreneurial discovery is recognition of an emergence of circumstances allowing potential introduction of new goods, services, raw materials, markets, and/or means-ends relations into a market system as an organized venture intended to generate economic value (Casson, 1982;Eckhardt and Shane, 2003). Our definition of social entrepreneurial discovery is somewhat different.…”

“…Entrepreneurial activity does not always include creation of a new firm and does not require one individual to manage all of its aspects over time (Eckhardt and Shane, 2003). Entrepreneurship, whether traditional or social, begins with opportunities.…”

“…All of these social ventures, despite their variations in size, orientation, and objectives, derived from the discovery of a single novel opportunity to generate value. However, research and theory ignore social entrepreneurship's unique aspects or focus solely on traditional entrepreneurship settings (Eckhardt and Shane, 2003;Murphy et al, 2006). Therefore, notwithstanding the prevalence and uniqueness of social ventures, the nature of the opportunities that make them possible receives no explicit theoretic attention in traditional entrepreneurship research.…”

How Do Information and Experience Play a Role in the Discovery of Entrepreneurial Opportunities? The Case of Latin-American Immigrants in Barcelona

“…Immigrants recognize opportunities based on previously acquired knowledge. Even if this knowledge differs, because Peruvians, Argentineans, and Mexicans come from different backgrounds as regards their experience and the information related to their own institutional environment (Eckhardt & Shane, 2003;Kirzner, 1997;Shane, 2000). For instance, the way to obtain information varies; they gathered information using different means and our data confirmed that information is idiosyncratic and unique in time and space (Hayek, 1945).…”

The Organizational Design of High-Tech Startups and Product Innovation

“…Having discovered an entrepreneurial opportunity, many startups find themselves in a race to realize that opportunity and to introduce new products ahead of competitors or before their funding runs out (Venkataraman, 1997;Shane, 2000). Opportunities are realized when startups decide to act upon them by deploying resources and investments in the pursuit of perceived opportunities (Shane and Venkataraman, 2000;Eckardt and Shane, 2003;Shane, 2003). An important part of this process are decisions on research and development (R&D) activities that are challenging since technologies and market conditions are by definition novel and uncertain (Amit, Glosten, and Muller, 1990) while funding sources are limited (Hall, 2005).…”