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The purpose of this paper is to clarify the distinctions and complementary of William Baumol and Israel Kirzner’s classifications of and insights into entrepreneurship, and thus providing a more complete taxonomy of the substance of entrepreneurial activity. This paper also attempts to clarify distinctions between unproductive and destructive entrepreneurship.

This paper illustrates a more complete taxonomy of the substance of entrepreneurial activity by examining entrepreneurial innovation in drug markets both legal and illegal, identifying cases of productive, unproductive, superfluous, erroneous, destructive, and protective entrepreneurship.

This paper finds that the classifications of entrepreneurship (productive, superfluous, unproductive, erroneous, protective and destructive) put forth by Baumol, Kirzner, and the institutional entrepreneurship literature are complementary. While Baumol seeks to explain the disequilibrating tendencies of entrepreneurship, Kirzner seeks to explain the equilibrating tendencies of entrepreneurship within the institutional context.

This paper utilizes case studies from legal and illegal drug markets to uniquely and better explain the six cases of entrepreneurship. This paper also contributes to the literature by clearly articulating the complementarity of Baumolian and Kirznerian entrepreneurship.

Austrians are essentialists, one of their questions being what makes a thing good? Menger and Böhm‐Bawerk gave different answers to this question. Böhm‐Bawerk directed attention explicitly to the condition of knowing how to utilise a thing. Both Menger and Böhm‐Bawerk played down their difference. The goods characteristic added by Böhm‐Bawerk to the four characteristics formulated earlier by Menger is stressed to be of value to a better understanding of modern Austrianism. A paradox that arises (the consumer is sovereign in theory but not in practice) is solved.

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.

Previous research has predominantly approached the concept of entrepreneurial opportunities from either one of two perspectives: opportunities exist as objective phenomena in the environment waiting to be discovered by alert entrepreneurs, or opportunities are subjectively perceived and even created by individual entrepreneurs. This paper aims to put forward a framework of opportunity perception which demonstrates that all entrepreneurial opportunities possess both objective and subjective qualities, thus helping reconcile both perspectives.

A conceptual framework is developed, based on previous literature and insights from entrepreneurship, economics, psychology and related disciplines.

Various perspectives presented in previous research can be combined into a coherent framework that summarizes the components of entrepreneurial opportunity perception. Testable propositions are provided for future research.

The authors show that elements of both subjective perception and objective market conditions contribute to recognized entrepreneurial opportunities. Also, they show that while the perception and pursuit of opportunity is fundamentally idiosyncratic to each entrepreneur, the success of an entrepreneurial endeavor is constrained by the objective conditions of opportunity.

The purpose of this research was to investigate using the seminal writings of Schumpeter and Kirzner as a guide – individuals who are potentially involved in entrepreneurship can be identified as being innovators or opportunity‐alert. Specifically, this exploratory project attempts to answer the following question: “Are some individuals better at being innovators, while others are better able to recognize entrepreneurial opportunities and, if so, does academic‐career training matter?”

The study relied on purposive sampling and received survey responses from postgraduate students in business and engineering. The 26‐item survey was made up of demographic indices and questions from the Schumpeter and Kirzner literature. A total of 242 business and 525 engineering students received the e‐mail from academic advisors. Usable responses were received from 36 business students (15 percent response rate) and 67 engineering students (13 percent response rate).

The research found evidence that individuals with engineering training were not as proficient at recognizing opportunities as their business‐trained contemporaries.

This is an exploratory research project which acknowledges the associated limitations. As well as contributing to a deeper understanding of two core entrepreneurship topics these findings have pedagogical and practitioner implications. From a pedagogy vantage point, instructors will be better equipped to frame courses in entrepreneurship if they better understand the propensity of their audience. The results indicate that this is particularly relevant to engineering schools. In practitioner terms, funding groups and various supporters of entrepreneurs (business angels, family financiers, and the like) will be better able to understand and work with individuals if they are aware that they are not, for example, alert to new opportunities.

This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of innovation and opportunity alertness.

Applies Kirzner’s concept of entrepreneurship to explain the economic success of Hong Kong. The city economy possesses neither natural resources, nor sophisticated technologies, and yet it has successfully developed into one of the most prosperous economies in East Asia. This study argues that Hong Kong’s industrial dynamism relies mainly on a large number of adaptive entrepreneurs who are constantly alert to opportunities, maintain a high degree of flexibility in their production and respond rapidly to change. In the textile and garment industry, firms survived by pursuing a product imitation strategy, operating at a small‐scale, extensively utilizing subcontracting networks, producing customer label garments as well as performing spatial arbitrageurship. Employing these adaptive entrepreneurial strategies, Hong Kong manufacturers have learnt from foreign firms and imitated their products. By selling improved commodities at lower prices, they have competed against the original suppliers from the western advanced countries. Furthermore, to exploit new profit opportunities, Hong Kong’s entrepreneurs have shifted their production activities from one product to another, from one industry to another, from higher cost to lower cost regions, from traditional fishing and agriculture into manufacturing, and then to finance and other services. Their efforts have brought about structural transformation in the economy and enabled Hong Kong to catch up with early industrialized nations.

Knowledge of how entrepreneurial alertness (EA) and effectuation impact small firms' performance in uncertain markets is limited. Suggesting effectuation as a mediation mechanism between EA and small firms' performance, the authors explore how entrepreneurs of small firms apply effectual logic to translate their individual alertness to market opportunities into firms' performance.

A set of hypotheses is tested by partial least squares analysis of survey data collected from small firms in New Zealand.

The results show that effectuation works as a mechanism that mediates a positive association between founders'/managers' alertness to market opportunities and small firms' performance.

Integrating EA with the effectuation theory, the authors contribute to the literature on new market opportunity development and firm performance. The authors argue that entrepreneurs concentrate on action and resources to further develop their marketing intelligence in developing new market opportunities. The authors also enhance the understanding of entrepreneurial marketing decision-making by small firms in a relatively small economy in the Asia–Pacific region.

Despite the increasing popularity of entrepreneurship among students in colleges and university, there is a surprising scarcity of theoretical or empirical research on this topic. In this article, we define the concept of student entrepreneurship, delineate its domain, and demarcate its boundaries. We propose a preliminary typology of student entrepreneurship rooted in the works of three leading economists from the Austrian School of Economics: Joseph Schumpeter, Israel Kirzner, and Ludwig Lachmann. We also identify and discuss important challenges associated with the practice of student entrepreneurship. The article concludes by advancing a future research agenda for the study of student entrepreneurship.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the miraculous rise of the mobile phone industry in China in particular and China’s impressive industrial growth in recent decades in general.

This paper uses qualitative or story-telling approach for empirical analysis. Specifically, it uses case studies to illustrate the authors’ arguments.

Utilizing the theory of imitative strategies of latecomer firms and I.M. Kirzner’s concept of entrepreneurial alertness, this paper argues that adaptive entrepreneurs in China’s phone industry survive by being alert to profit opportunities, flexible and adaptable to the changing environments. With limited resources and low technological capabilities at the beginning, Chinese phone makers conduct replication via reverse engineering. Through entrepreneurial learning and imitation, they are able to make indigenous or incremental innovation. The modified models with functions compatible to different groups of consumers and sold at low prices are able to penetrate the low-end markets in the Third World nations.

The authors’ explanation on the success of China’s mobile phone industry sheds light on broader China’s industrial growth as a result of economic reform.

Most studies on China’s mobile phone industry focus on technological analysis, without acknowledging the role of entrepreneurship. This study fills the gap.