Opportunities in the process of becoming an entrepreneur

Abstract

The role of opportunities in becoming an entrepreneur is undeniable. Gaglio and

Katz (2001) argue that understanding the opportunity identification is one of the core

intellectual challenges for the entrepreneurship. However, despite an extensive research

on opportunity, the question what opportunities are and how to identify, develop and

exploit them has no explicit answer. On the contrary, there are diverse concepts

gathered around opportunities. Some authors argue that opportunities ‘exist out there’ in

the form of unmet needs, unsolved problems, or inefficient processes and it is the job of

the entrepreneur to uncover these opportunities (Aldrich and Cliff, 2003; Kim, Aldrich

and Keister, 2003; Shane, 2003). Other approach posits that opportunities are a product

of one’s mind (Shane and Venkataraman 2000; Ardichvili et al.2003; Gartner et al.

2003), thus, the opportunity does not exist prior to the point in time in which they apply

their individual creativity and take individual action.

To follow complex and diverse opportunity process descriptive character of

opportunities identification might be already moved towards questioning their dynamics

and contingency (Gaglio 2004). However, the study of process perspective is hard to

proceed in context of opportunities. One of the solutions to reconstruct opportunity

process is to apply backward viewpoint at opportunities. As Dimov (2011) suggests the

examination of individuals who talk about their past ventures allows applying

retrospective perspective that seems to be particularly valid in researching opportunity

concept. Retrospective enables to uncover complex histories behind individuals and

their ways of putting ideas into life.

Consequently, the aim of our research is to better understand how entrepreneurs

experience opportunity process by studying their different venture creation processes.

We aspire to follow how opportunities evolve in the process of becoming entrepreneur,

recognize different phases of that process and uncover the relations between those

phases. First, we identify three different approaches to the opportunity and opportunity

process drawn from previous research. Then, by adopting multiple longitudinal case

study approach and documentary videography as a method, we try to catch retrospective

perspective to opportunity process. We take four diverse videos obtained by using

editing method and investigate how entrepreneurs understand what opportunities are in

their processes of becoming entrepreneurs and how they have proceeded in their

opportunity process. We follow their “specific paths in terms of a sequence of events or

concrete experiences” (Dimov 2011). Finally, by implementing pattern matching logic

we compare their opportunity processes to the different approaches provided by us.