From Venture Idea to Venture Opportunity

Abstract

Opportunities are a core construct in the field of entrepreneurship. Despite recent advances suggesting the separation of ideas from opportunities, the field still suffers from conceptual deficiencies. This article builds on this distinction and leverages insights from creativity and innovation management literature to propose a framework that allows tracing the evolution of a venture from first insight to exploitation. It discusses real-time/longitudinal and retrospective measurement techniques from the fields of entrepreneurship, creativity, and innovation management to empirically capture the framework. Several research questions for future studies are provided, concluding with a discussion of implications for research and practice.

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“…In line with other studies, it is argued here that an essential part of the opportunity recognition process is the generation of opportunity ideas: initial ideas or envisioned futures in the mind of an individual (Lumpkin & Lichtenstein, 2005;Vogel, 2016). Respondents were completely free to choose sustainable or unsustainable opportunities.…”

“…After a number of ideas are generated, the process continues and moves toward the incubation, evaluation and exploitation stages of the model. Together, incubation, evaluation and exploitation are sub-stages of "venture opportunity development and exploitation" in the model of Vogel (2016). What role the competencies for sustainable entrepreneurship play in these later stages of the opportunity recognition process is beyond the scope of this dissertation.…”

“…Recently, Vogel (2016) published a conceptual article on the venture creation process; more specifically on how ideas evolve into opportunities over time. He argues that that the majority of existing frameworks of opportunity recognition do not build on the logic that venture ideas and venture opportunities are distinct constructs and that opportunities are developed from an initial idea over time.…”

“…This dissertation can be positioned in the venture idea generation part of the process. According to Vogel (2016), there are three triggers that can start the idea generation process, namely resource push (e.g., customer need), market pull (e.g., commercialising resources), and desire to start (e.g., entrepreneurial ambitions). He defined three paths via which ideas can be generated.…”

“…118). And finally that idea generation lays the foundation for opportunity recognition (Vogel, 2016) and is a measurable construct. In this chapter, the process of recognizing opportunities by individuals by means of idea generation is central, as it forms an important foundation for the rest of the process.…”