Emergence of opportunities

What is an opportunity and where does it come

from?
Favorable juncture of circumstances
A good chance for advancement or progress
Source: http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/opportunity
http://www.financial-inspiration.com

Is entrepreneurship possible without

opportunities?

The essence of entrepreneurial theory is by

many considered as the discovery or the
creation of opportunities
An opportunity is an idea which is judged as
something that can create a value for other
people.

Opportunity identification
The process by which an entrepreneur comes up
with the opportunity for a new venture and
includes the following steps:
Opportunity assessment
Creation and length of opportunity
Real and perceived value of opportunity
Risks and returns of opportunity
Opportunity versus personal skills and goals
Competitive environment

Opportunities and Ideas

To be able to discuss opportunities, we should
understand the concept if an idea.
Ideas come before opportunities, but not all
ideas grow and become opportunities.
Some ideas remain only ideas since they cannot
be converted into an opportunity
The idea should have potential to be
commercialized in order to represent the
opportunity

Theories of opportunities
Theories of opportunities deal with what
opportunities are, how they exist, what form
they can take and what the entrepreneur plays
in the emergence processes.
Disagreements about who the entrepreneur is
are also valid for discussions about what an
opportunity is.

Opportunity- created or discovered?

Opportunity versus idea
By definition an opportunity is an idea that is evaluated
to be able to create the value for others. However the
criteria for the evaluation are to decide to what extent
the idea is:
Rooted: (value proposition driven)
Attractive: others are willing to pay for the value which
an idea represents
At the right time in the right place. The environment is
receptive to entrepreneur and his/her idea
It is possible (the opportunity can be realized in practice
(Barringer & Ireland 2008)

Opportunity versus idea

The last mentioned refers to the assumption
that the entrepreneur must posses or be able to
gain access to the resources, competences,
legitimacy and knowledge that are required in
order to make the idea valuable to others.
The idea can be only judged as real opportunity
if it creates value to others

Opportunity versus idea

Idea might remain idea and never be transformed
into an opportunity.
The extent of Intentions and opportunities
In a way it is irrelevant to:
Discovering opportunities without intention
to exploit them or
Having an intention to exploit an opportunity
if they have not been discovered or created!
Discussion of Bhave (1994) on entrepreneurial
process:

Brave's (1994)
A society at given time consists of a population where
some people have an intention of taking the initiative
concerning the entrepreneurship, some posses an
opportunity, some posses both an opportunity and an
intention and others possess neither an opportunity nor
an intention
GEM- Global entrepreneurship Monitor investigates:
Relationship between entrepreneurship and economic
growth
How entrepreneurial activity varies across countries
Which national framework conditions promote the
entrepreneurial activities of a country

Types of opportunities
Defining what opportunity is according to Schumpeter
(1934) and Kirzner (1976)
Differences:
Schumpeter
Opportunities come into existence through new
combinations of something existing (Discovery channel
and bulletproof vest)- A break in existing equilibrium
(break with existing ways of doing things)
Kirzner
Finding the holes in the market- Creating a new
equilibrium

Discovery of opportunities
Kirznerian opportunity (profit holes in the market)
refers to the fact that opportunities exist
independently of human intervention and we are
not always aware of them. (example?)
Shane and Venkataraman (2000:200) The
opportunities themselves are objective
phenomena that are not known to all parties all
times (the discovery of the telephone).
Why does the privilege of discovering opportunities
only belong to individuals in our society?

Creation of opportunities
Opportunities are not concrete realities waiting to be
noticed, discovered or observed by entrepreneurs
(Gartner 2003:104)..instead..
Opportunities are something created by human
beings.opportunities and markets have to be invented,
fabricated, constructed, made (Sarasvathy 2008:181).
Without an acting human being, no opportunities would
exist.
According to Shumpeter opportunities are examples that
human action is crucial for the creation of opportunities,
new combinations of something existing.

Creation of opportunities
Opportunities depend on individual interactions with the
environment
Entrepreneurial activities, features and characteristics are not
objects given a fixed or a static ontological status as they
come into being.
Instead they are dynamic and constantly emerging, being
realized, shaped and constructed through social processes
(Fletcher 2003:127)
We need to recognize that the entrepreneurial activities of
everyday life have a great capacity to move us in new and
unexpected directions (Boutaiba 2004:24)
Opportunity creation is pragmatic part of everyday life and
everyday interactions (Pam from ebay).