Opportunity or dead end? Rethinking the study of entrepreneurial action without a concept of opportunity

Abstract

Abstract:This paper has two objectives: to critique the dominant opportunity discovery and creation literatures, and; to propose a new, critical realist-inspired analytical framework to theorise the causes, processes and consequences of entrepreneurial action -one that needs no concept of opportunity. We offer three reasons to support our critique of opportunity studies. First, there are important absences, contradictions and inconsistencies in definitions of opportunity in theoretical and empirical work that mean the term cannot signal a clear direction for theorising or empirical research. Our central criticism is that the concept of opportunity cannot refer simultaneously, without contradiction, to a social context offering profit-making prospects, to particular practices, and to agents' subjective beliefs or imagined futures. Second, a new definition of opportunity would perpetuate the conceptual chaos. Third, useful concepts to capture important entrepreneurial processes are readily available, for instance, combining resources, creating new ventures and achieving product sales, which render a concept of opportunity superfluous. Instead, we conceptualise entrepreneurial action as investments in resources intended to create new goods and services for market exchange emergent from the interaction between agential, socialstructural and cultural causal powers.

Relational practices and reflexivity: Exploring the responses of women entrepreneurs to changing household dynamics

“…Our relational framework avoids looking at the household as separate from normative work spaces and the activities of women as 'economic' or 'non-economic', looking instead at how activities 'connect to each other and would not work without each other' (Glucksmann, 1995: 68). Our study on women as 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 We see broader implications for our work as it calls for a better understanding of the relational subject, which is open to non-deterministic appraisals of action (Donati andArcher, 2015, Kitching andRouse, 2016). This move coincides with efforts in neo-institutional theory to address the paradox of embedded agency (DiMaggio and Powell, 1991;Friedland and Alford, 1991;Seo and Creed, 2002).…”

A theory of venturing: A critical realist explanation of why my father is not like Richard Branson

“…Davidsson, 2017). Kitching and Rouse (2017), for example, question whether opportunity has a place in understanding venturing action at all, and they draw particular attention to the issues surrounding its ontological and epistemological use, particularly in terms of the debate on whether it is a subjective or objective referent. Either way, opportunity has traditionally been interpreted as an opportunity to increase financial yield (whether personal or on an economy) (e.g.…”

Digital Technologies as External Enablers of New Venture Creation in the IT Hardware Sector

“…This contribution outlines an approach to theorizing the influence of external, actor-independent factors without getting entangled in the problematic notion of ''opportunities'' (cf. Davidsson, 2015;Dimov, 2011;Kitching & Rouse, 2017).…”