Purpose The purpose of this study is to change the level of entrepreneurial alertness from individual to group and from the group to the organizational level and apply it to international market entry. Design/methodology/approach A literature review, meth-synthesis, interview and focal group are used for the final research framework. The way of theorizing for changing levels of entrepreneurial alertness is multi-level method. A framework for international market entry, a process of internationalization and an organizational learning process was used for the final conceptual framework. Findings A new framework for international entrepreneurial alertness in the opportunity discovery of individual, group and organizational level was developed. Research limitations/implications Researchers will be able to use this framework for extending opportunity discovery and entrepreneurial alertness theories at individual, group, organizational and international levels. Practical implications Using the final framework, entrepreneurs and organizations will be able to discover new opportunities, and teachers will be able to educate international entrepreneurial alertness and opportunity discovery at individual, group and organizational levels. Originality/value The paper begins with an overview of previous researches in this area and then moves on to combine them using meth-synthesis to create a new framework for international entrepreneurial alertness in opportunity discovery. Note that the levels of entrepreneurial alertness from individual to group and from the group to the organizational level have been changed using a multi-level theorizing method.

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After Shane’s seminal work in 2000 which highlighted the importance of entrepreneurial opportunities, the number of studies focusing on entrepreneurial opportunity increased rapidly. Different definitions of this concept were provided in the field, ranging from subjective to objective ones, which gave rise to a lack of consensus among researchers and this, in turn, was an obstacle that slowed down theorizing in entrepreneurship. Taking into account the past trends in management sciences, it seems to be the right moment to re-conceptualize the core construct of opportunity. The major critique of existing definitions is their operationalization. To provide a better operationalization, the present study aimed to offer a more accurate conceptual definition. To this end, the study first examined current debates on opportunity, which revealed the major problem causing the debates. Then, through a systematic literature review, from among more than seven thousand documents in the Scopus database containing opportunity keywords, 74 papers were selected following different phases of filtration. The papers were analyzed in detail to extract different constructs. Then, using the framework of Hansen et al, they were classified along six dimensions. The concepts under each dimension were examined to finally provide a bigger picture of the construct of opportunity and offer a re-conceptualization. The results of this study highlight the gaps for future research and pave the ground for other systematic literature reviews in the field.