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The purpose of this paper is to explore one of the cognitive processes whereby persons develop intentions to enact entrepreneurial behaviours via exploring entrepreneurial identification as a significant influence on an individual’s intentions to recognise and exploit opportunities.

In this conceptual paper, insights from Ajzen’s theory of planned behaviour are utilised to develop propositions regarding the influence of entrepreneurial identification on intentions to search for opportunities and commit resources to exploiting opportunities. The role of two behavioural controls – entrepreneurial munificence and domain relevant knowledge – are discussed as influencing both an individual’s ability and desire to recognise and exploit opportunities. Opportunity recognition and exploitation are also suggested to reinforce an individual’s entrepreneurial identification, creating a recursive relationship between identification and entrepreneurial behaviour.

The lack of insight into cognitive processes has contributed to what some have labelled the “death” of intentions research in entrepreneurship. In exploring identification, this study suggests that measuring identification – in place of attitudes toward entrepreneurship – may actually refine analytical models based on Ajzen’s theory of planned behaviour.

Ajzen’s theory of planned behaviour has often been applied in entrepreneurial studies, but for the voluminous body of research devoted to intentions, little has delved into the cognitive processes whereby people develop intentions to entrepreneurial behaviours. This paper provides a conceptually unique marrying of identification with entrepreneurial intentions in an attempt to redress this gap in the entrepreneurship literature. This study also speculates as to how practitioners – educators, legislators or managers – might profitably use this study to guide their efforts to reinforce entrepreneurial behaviours in the classrooms, organisations and communities.

Taking entrepreneurial opportunity identification activity as a starting point, the purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the differences within the social background of the Chinese nascent entrepreneurs and to illuminate differences in the success of their economic activities.

This study will analyze the impact of the nascent entrepreneurs' social class identity and prior experience affiliation on entrepreneurial opportunity identification and the moderation effect of opportunity identification modes. The empirical study was conducted with the data from the “Chinese Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (CPSED)” project, especially targeting new technology venture samples.

The findings indicate that the social class identity and prior experience affiliation of nascent entrepreneurs (pre‐determined factors) have a significant impact on the innovativeness of their entrepreneurial identification. Because they determine opportunity identification results, these pre‐determined factors play a much more important role than the mode of the opportunity identification.

The findings provide a theoretical contribution to the transitional study with the unique data of the CPSED project. This study could be taken as the comparison for transnational cooperation and provides suggestions to government and entrepreneurship supporting agencies.

Studies of entrepreneurial action often distinguish between different phases such as opportunity identification, evaluation, and exploitation. Yet, the richness of past contributions masks the absence of an integral framework to organize, in a theoretically consistent ensemble, the different kinds of cognitive processes that underpin entrepreneurial action. In this chapter, we draw from research on human action and cognition to offer an integrative model of the cognitive processes that foster entrepreneurial action. By presenting a more specific articulation of when, how, and why different cognitive processes operate, we provide theorists and empiricists with a more complete picture of how entrepreneurs’ thinking evolves from the emergence of an opportunity idea to the initiation of concrete entrepreneurial acts. In addition, our framework draws attention to cognitive inflection points that entrepreneurs must navigate in their journey toward entrepreneurship. By explicitly locating these inflection points and specifying the changes in mental processing that occurs at each point, we highlight that for entrepreneurial action to ensue, entrepreneurs must shift from one type of cognitive processing to another. Along this line, our model draws attention to the entire set of cognitive “skills” entrepreneurs must master for successful completion of each phase and successful transitions between phases.

Guided by the proposed opportunity and resource integrative entrepreneurial growth model, the purpose of this paper is to explore how different opportunity type firms grow integrally and what the laws for different opportunity integration growth modes are.

A multiple case study on six firms in information and communication technologies industry in China is conducted.

Three types of entrepreneurial opportunities exist. These are identification type opportunity, discovery type opportunity, and creation type opportunity. Entrepreneurship among the three types of entrepreneurial opportunities operates under different laws. For each type of entrepreneurial opportunity, firms need to balance the two growth modes, namely, the opportunity identification and assessment/resource allocation mode and the opportunity utilization and resource identification/acquisition mode, in order to achieve a leveraging effect.

Vertical comparison is missing.

Firms need to balance the two growth modes, namely, opportunity identification and assessment and resource allocation mode and opportunity utilization and resource identification and acquisition mode, to achieve leverage effect.

This paper integrates system theory with entrepreneurship research and proposes the opportunity and resource integrative entrepreneurial growth model. This model is helpful, both in aiding firms to follow the laws for entrepreneurial opportunities and to identify entrepreneurial opportunities. The business model plays a vital role in entrepreneurship. Firms taking advantage of the Internet of Things are more likely to gain a competitive advantage and to achieve success in their entrepreneurial activities.

This paper aims to highlight the possibility that the same cultural and/or institutional environment can differentially affect each of the two moments of entrepreneurship – opportunity identification and opportunity exploitation. It is possible that the cultural and institutional environment in a particular place may encourage opportunity identification, but discourage opportunity exploitation, or vice versa. Specifically, this paper argues that understanding entrepreneurship in Trinidad and Tobago requires that we focus on how Trinidadian culture and institutions differentially affect both moments of entrepreneurship.

To examine how Trinidad and Tobago’s culture and institutions affect entrepreneurial opportunity identification and exploitation in that country, the paper uses a qualitative approach. In total, 25 subjects agreed to interviews, conducted in July and August 2009 in Trinidad. The questions were geared at understanding attitudes toward work and entrepreneurship in Trinidad, and how politics, culture and ethnicity interacted with those attitudes. The paper also examined institutional indicators from the Economic Freedom of the World: 2013 Annual Report and the World Bank’s 2016 Doing Business Report.

The research identified features of the cultural and institutional environment in Trinidad and Tobago that help to explain why opportunity identification is relatively common among all ethnic groups there, but why opportunity exploitation appears relatively suppressed among African–Trinidadians. In particular, the research finds that the inheritance of British institutions, a post-colonial political culture, a post-colonial business culture and ethnically based social networks all have positive and negative influences on each moment of entrepreneurship.

Further research would involve an analysis of a wider set of both formal and informal entrepreneurial activities in Trinidad and Tobago, across industries and periods.

This paper has implications for understanding the complex nature of entrepreneurship, which many policymakers try to encourage, but which is shaped by deep cultural and historical factors, and also indirectly influenced by state policies and laws.

Ethnic patterns in entrepreneurship shape the way groups see themselves and others.

While authors writing about opportunity recognition/identification and opportunity exploitation have captured the important dimensions of entrepreneurship, they underestimate the possibility of a disconnect between entrepreneurial identification and exploitation. Focusing on instances where the disconnect exists allows us to move away from characterizations of cultures as progress-prone or progress-resistant, and instead allows us to focus on these gaps between identifying and exploiting entrepreneurship across cultures.

Entrepreneurial opportunity (EO) identification pertains to the core processes of entrepreneurship and innovation. The initial phase of this process starts with individual cognition, which is why cognition has been established as a critical theoretical perspective.

Knowledge and new information have been confirmed as essential cognitive impact factors. However, it is not understood well, how individuals apply those factors and how they actually identify innovative and economically viable EOs. To address the limitations of current research, this chapter investigates the current literature on underlying cognitive processes of opportunity identification.

The literature analysis demonstrates that there is not a single cognitive process but rather a magnitude of different micro-mechanisms that are necessary for the successful identification of EOs. The findings are grouped to four categories of cognitive processes and entail their micro-mechanisms: pattern recognition, information processing, and creative thinking. Furthermore, the analysis reveals that those micro-mechanisms have seldom been related to each other within the scope of opportunity identification. This chapter closes this gap by discussing and contrasting and the different process categories and respective micro-mechanisms and suggests an integrative theory development and avenues for future research.

This study chooses to look at early-stage entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial activities from the perspective of university graduates. More specially, this study takes the stance of integrated role of structure and agency, examining how university graduate entrepreneurs recognize, review and activate their entrepreneurial opportunities, and what implications can be drawn in response to the integration of the in-building of the Greater Bay Area (GBA).

This article is drawn upon 12 case studies of small-scaled (within five permanent personnel) graduate enterprises based in Shenzhen and Hong Kong. The fieldwork was conducted in 2019, including enterprise visits, analyzing the enterprises documents and interviewing the graduate entrepreneurs. Participants were accessed through snowball sampling, and personal privacy and ethnicity were guaranteed during data collection. All founders of the graduate enterprises are university graduates within five years, regardless of their last achieved academic degree.

In this study, the objectivity–opportunity is interpreted as external enablers that are recognized by graduate entrepreneurs. Due to lack of experience, graduate entrepreneurs are more dependent on existing external opportunities in the market, instead of creating new inspirations. However, lack of experience does not mean the subjectivity–agency is missing. Instead, the subjectivity–element of entrepreneurial opportunity identification is the continuous evaluation in activating the external enablers, which is interpreted as self-evaluated challenges during entrepreneurial opportunity identification. These challenges function as sources of hesitation, modification and termination during their decision-making, as well as reflections of the current graduate entrepreneurial environment.

By date, no sophisticated study in literature is found analyzing the entrepreneurial opportunity identification of university graduates. Additionally, regardless of the rising attention, no agreement is achieved in the literature on measurement of entrepreneurial opportunity, influential factors of entrepreneurial opportunity and sub-elements of the identification process. This implies that more research to be conducted in diverse contexts, sub-entrepreneurial groups and in-depth analysis of selected variables regarding entrepreneurial opportunity, as elaborated in this article.

Motivation can serve as the engine that turns intention into action, and, as such, is indispensable in the early phase of the entrepreneurial process, where opportunity recognition and exploitation are key. However, research in this area has so far shed a selective spotlight on specific facets of entrepreneurial motivation, whereas the consideration of basic motives has been widely neglected. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to illuminate the basic motivational foundations of one core aspect of entrepreneurial behavior, namely opportunity recognition.

The study examined how motivation influences the process of recognizing and exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities in a sample of 312 managing directors and managing partners of small and medium-sized enterprises. Opportunity recognition and exploitation were assessed by two different measures: one evaluating the objective number of recognized and realized business opportunities, the other assessing the perceived proficiency in identifying and exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities. Implicit and explicit facets of basic motivation were measured using a comprehensive assessment of human needs.

Findings show that entrepreneurs' achievement motive is an important driver in both the identification and exploitation of opportunity. The power motive affects the perceived ability to exploit business opportunities. Interestingly, the explicit affiliation motive showed an inhibitory effect on the perceived ability of opportunity identification, whereas implicit affiliation motive is affecting the number of recognized and realized business opportunities positively.

This research clearly highlights the preeminence of basic motivational factors in explaining individual early-stage entrepreneurial behavior, making them a prime target for training interventions.

Entrepreneurial alertness is a key factor in business opportunity identification. Scholars have determined that successful entrepreneurs have high levels of entrepreneurial alertness, but only a limited number of studies are available on the concept. One of the major reasons identified is the fragmented constituents and less knowledge of the components determining the level of alertness. The present study aims to integrate the varied research on entrepreneurial alertness, identify its core components and develop the understanding of the concept of entrepreneurial alertness.

The study is based on a systematic review of secondary research. The first stage involved identifying relevant publications and applying practical screening. In the second stage, the resources were screened for the inclusion criteria, and in the final stage, the articles meeting the inclusion criteria were read in detail for the final analysis.

The review resulted in identification of the following core components of the alertness construct – sensing and searching information, cognitive ability, personality factors (like creativity and self-efficacy), environment, social networks, knowledge and experience. The review also highlighted that cognitive ability plays a central role in alertness.

Based on the review of literature, the study proposes a model of the alertness construct, which attempts to draw a relationship between the identified components. The review also uncovers several unexplored areas, which still need to be addressed in the area of entrepreneurial alertness.