In this article we speak of roads taken and paths yet to be traversed. Over the past decade, entrepreneurship researchers have accumulated considerable work related to opportunities. Here we outline new possibilities opened up by that work and seek to recast entrepreneurship as a science of the artificial in three ways: understanding opportunities as made as well as found, moving beyond new combinations to transformations , and developing a new nexus around actions and interactions.
Building and using social networks is an important factor in individuals’ personal as well as professional success. In the present work, we examine how individuals’ regulatory focus relates to their networking behavior. Findings from a sample of 300 entrepreneurs across 25 networking groups showed that a general focus on motivations for growth and advancement ( promotion) predicted an increase in out-degree centrality (i.e., how much weekly, business-related contact entrepreneurs had with members in their own networking group), whereas a general focus on motivations for safety and security ( prevention) predicted a decrease in out-degree centrality. Moreover, greater out-degree centrality further predicted an increase in the revenue entrepreneurs generated from members in their networking group. These findings demonstrate how individual differences affect personal motivations for how entrepreneurs’ develop and use their business networks and highlight the importance of motivations for growth and security in relationship formation and maintenance more generally.
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