Strategic Entrepreneurs at Work: The Nature, Discovery, and Exploitation of Entrepreneurial Opportunities

What do entrepreneurial opportunities look like? How do firms discover and exploit these opportunities to create value and sustain competitive advantage? This paper reviews the strategic management and entrepreneurship literatures to identify the nature and character of entrepreneurial opportunities...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Small business economics 2007-04, Vol.28 (4), p.301-322
Main Authors: Companys, Yosem E., McMullen, Jeffery S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Business community
Business innovation
Business management
Business networks
Business strategies
Business structures
Business studies
Competition
Competitive advantage
Corporate strategies
Economic resources
Economic theory
Economic value
Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship
Exploitation
Governance
Innovations
Opportunity
Product innovation
Schools
Small and medium sized enterprises
Social innovation
Strategic management
Studies
Technological innovation
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Summary:What do entrepreneurial opportunities look like? How do firms discover and exploit these opportunities to create value and sustain competitive advantage? This paper reviews the strategic management and entrepreneurship literatures to identify the nature and character of entrepreneurial opportunities and the entrepreneurial strategies that firms employ to seize and commercialize these opportunities. Three emerging schools are identified. The economic school argues that entrepreneurial opportunities exist as a result of the distribution of information about material resources in society. The cultural cognitive school argues that entrepreneurial opportunities exist as a result of environmental ambiguity and the cultural resources available to interpret and define these opportunities. Finally, the sociopolitical school stresses the role of network and political structures in defining entrepreneurial opportunities. We integrate these perspectives to offer a way to improve understanding of the opportunity creation and exploitation process.
ISSN:0921-898X
1573-0913
DOI:10.1007/s11187-006-9034-x