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To streamline the process of opportunity recognition and make it more effective by clarifying the meaning of opportunity and making its elements explicit.

Clarifying opportunity is effected by providing a model and illustrating its effectiveness through application to examples and to SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis.

Provides support for the practical benefits of applying an explicit model for recognizing opportunity.

The model facilitates opportunity recognition by encouraging avoidance of common dead ends, including mistaking catalysts for opportunities, associating opportunities with negative conditions, equating options with opportunities and the circular process of defining opportunities in terms of strengths and weaknesses.

Strategic management research has shown growing interest in understanding the dynamic resource reconfiguration processes through which firms grow, evolve, and sustain profitability. The goal of our study is to understand how dynamic resource reconfigurations enable firms to pursue growth opportunities. We use the methods of inductive theory building from case studies to elaborate current theoretical understanding about how firms draw on both internal and external resources in the pursuit of growth. We examine the patterns of resource reconfigurations through which Yahoo and Google powered their early growth strategies in their first 10 years of existence. We analyze a total of 192 new product launches in 43 markets by the two firms to capture how they reconfigured resources dynamically. Our analysis reveals that both firms developed highly dynamic strategies exhibiting both surprising similarities and differences. These similarities and differences provided the basis for our theoretical insights about the development of what we term “dynamic resource platforms,” comprising of (a) dynamic resource shifts; (b) targeted resource orchestration; and (c) complementary processes balancing dynamism and capability development. These ideas contribute novel theoretical insights to current strategic management research on dynamic capabilities and on resource reconfiguration and redeployment.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the changes in perceptions and actions taken on post-disaster entrepreneurial opportunities.

Utilizing worldwide data on natural disasters (EMDAT) and entrepreneurial perceptions (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM)), the authors apply analysis of covariance to compare entrepreneurial opportunity perceptions and actions before and after a disaster took place.

The study found that natural disasters have a significant and positive impact on entrepreneurial opportunity perceptions and actions but not on perceptions of self-efficacy, fear of failure and entrepreneurial intentions.

One limitation of the study is the use of the secondary data. While the GEM data as well as the EMDAT data are country specific, disasters usually have a direct impact on a region of a country rather than affecting the whole country’s behavior.

The results hold important policy implications. The fact that disasters increase entrepreneurial action implies that local government institutions should include entrepreneurial action as part of the post-disaster recovery process. By providing assistance and access to resources, government institutions could further increase entrepreneurial action and could increase the number of opportunities perceived by individuals which would lead to new and innovative businesses, in addition to the rebuilding of pre-existing firms.

Natural disasters are frequently considered to be the cause of small business failures or an obstacle to their performance, while simultaneously thought to be a vital component of post-disaster reconstruction. To date, few researchers have attempted to understand the impact of these events on entrepreneurial tendencies, behaviors and activities, even though the authors barely understand how they could serve as a source of entrepreneurial opportunity and innovation. This research is one of the first attempts to shed some light into this interesting and important phenomenon.

Digital twins provide enormous opportunities for smart buildings. However, an up-to-date intellectual landscape to understand and identify the major opportunities of digital twins for smart buildings is still not enough. This study, therefore, performs an up-to-date comprehensive literature review to identify the major opportunities of digital twins for smart buildings.

Scientometric and content analysis are utilised to comprehensively evaluate the intellectual landscape of the general knowledge of digital twins for smart buildings.

The study uncovered 24 opportunities that were further categorised into four major opportunities: efficient building performance (smart “building” environment), efficient building process (smart construction site environment), information efficiency and effective user interactions. The study further identified the limitations of the existing studies and made recommendations for future research in the methodology adopted and the research domain. Five research domains were considered for future research, namely “real-time data acquisition, processing and storage”, “security and privacy issues”, “standardised and domain modelling”, “collaboration between the building industry and the digital twin developers” and “skilled workforce to enable a seamless transition from theory to practice”.

All stakeholders, including practitioners, policymakers and researchers in the field of “architecture, engineering, construction and operations” (AECO), may benefit from the findings of this study by gaining an in-depth understanding of the opportunities of digital twins and their implementation in smart buildings in the AECO industry. The limitations and the possible research directions may serve as guidelines for streamlining the practical adoption and implementation of digital twins for smart buildings.

This study adopted scientometric and content analysis to comprehensively assess the intellectual landscape of relevant literature and identify four major opportunities of digital twins for smart building, to which scholars have given limited attention. Finally, a research direction framework is presented to address the identified limitations of existing studies and help envision the ideal state of digital twins for smart buildings.

The purpose of this paper is to set forth a less-costly, more flexible approach to teaching the analysis of international business development opportunities.

The approach capitalizes upon the high-quality business condition metrics, which are necessary to inform the development decision, that have recently become freely-available through a set of institutions that gather and distribute these metrics.

Critical thinking skills in this area are developed here not just by understanding the tools of analysis but also by having participated in a series of active classroom activities focused upon private investment decisions in a set of disparate countries.

This approach develops rising business professionals with refined critical thinking skills who will be able to immediately contribute to international business development decision-making.

Opportunities for students to learn these critical thinking skills can be far more available because the traditional method by which these skills have been taught has been by finding a partner business with the resources to pay for such data. In exchange for allowing students to use the data experientially the partner firm benefits from the work product of the students who study the international business development project at the firm’s offices.

The approach set forth provides an accessible alternate for those on-campus students and distance-learning students who do not need to have the flexibility to travel to the site of a business partner – where most of this learning has heretofore been arranged.

Corruption is a significant financial crime which is estimated by the World Economic Forum to cost about 5 per cent of global GDP or $2.6 trillion dollars. Explanations of corruption, like explanations of crime, tend to focus on the individuals who commit corruption and the wider conditions which give rise to corrupt behaviour. Approaches designed to reduce corruption usually propose stiffer sanctions, institutional reforms and the passing of new laws. The purpose of this paper is to outline a complementary perspective with which to consider corruption.

Grounded in situational crime prevention and related criminological theory, the paper argues that opportunities in the immediate environment play a causal role in generating corruption. It proposes that corruption can be minimised by removing or reducing opportunities which are conducive to corrupt behaviour. In total, five cases are chosen as illustrative examples of how situational crime prevention might usefully be applied to corruption, focussing on the Type, Activities, Sectors and Places (TASP) that comprise corruption events.

A framework is developed for the empirical study of corruption in local settings.

The paper explores how situational crime prevention can usefully inform the analysis and prevention of corruption.

This paper aims to explore Turkey’s current energy status with a on renewable energy sources (RES) cooperation mechanisms, within the framework of RES Directive 2009/28/EC. The study uses the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis for drawing results about perspectives of RES cooperation between Turkey and European Union (EU) Member States. In particular, the SWOT analysis provides a clearer view of expanding RES in Turkey, as well as the level of utilization and potential of cooperation mechanisms and renewable energy in the country.

The approach followed incorporates desktop analysis, stakeholders’ mapping and involvement, key factors’ identification and results analysis and validation. The adopted approach is based on research conducted within the context of the “Bringing Europe and Third countries closer together through renewable Energies (BETTER)” (project number: IEE/11/845/SI2.616378) project, co-financed by the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme.

Based on the SWOT analysis conducted for Turkey, there are huge opportunities for RES deployment and cooperation in the country, because of its large unexploited RES potential. Turkey is a country with strategic importance, e.g. regarding energy security. Substantial savings can occur for the EU28 Member States through this cooperation, whereas Turkey will also benefit through income and investments, as well as technology transfers and further synergies associated with the cooperation. For the above potentials to be reached, nevertheless, national policies for RES development would have to be strengthened substantially, and non-economic barriers mitigated.

The potential of Turkey to utilise cooperation mechanisms provides opportunities for RES exporting between the country and EU countries. An analysis of these opportunities for cooperation will allow drawing clearer conclusions on cooperation potentials and business cases for Turkey.

The purpose of this study is to examine the use of the strategic management tool, Strengths‐Weaknesses‐Opportunities‐Threats or SWOT analysis, and to assess how the methodology has been used as well as changes to the methodology. The findings both for and against SWOT analysis should lead to a balanced view of the technique as well as yield ideas for needed theory building.

Using the ABInform Global® database, academic peer‐reviewed articles were compiled indicating SWOT as one of the article's key index and search words.

The use of SWOT analysis continues to permeate the academic peer‐reviewed literature. Research supports SWOT analysis as a tool for planning purposes. Over the past decade, SWOT research has focused on analyzing organizations for recommended strategic actions. As a methodology for strategic positioning, SWOT analysis has been extended beyond companies to countries and industries and is used in virtually every published business case positioned for business student analysis. Additional use of SWOT is as teaching tools by consultants, trainers and educators. This paper provides a summary of the research studies and suggests paths for future research.

This paper is limited to analyzing reports found in a selection of academic peer‐reviewed business journals. However, research implications for applying SWOT analysis provides a broad spectrum of industry analysis in North America, Europe, and Asia. Additional limitations are the need to link SWOT analysis to other strategic tools and methodologies for further theory building, since past research continues to lack quantifiable findings on the success of the SWOT analysis.

A fresh view of new directions and implementations for SWOT analysis, as well as other strategic planning tools that can be combined with SWOT, provides guidance for practitioners and policy makers alike.

The article adds value to the existing literature as the first summary of SWOT research indicating its uses and limitations. Support of its usage and place in the strategic literature is validated. The SWOT methodology is pervasive, in large part, due to its simplicity. In addition, the use of SWOT as a proven developmental, results‐oriented strategic planning tool is also extended, although further research leading to theory building is warranted and recommended.

The purpose of this paper is to examine empirically whether economic freedom affects entrepreneurial activity in three groups of countries, classified according to economic development.

Data on the index of entrepreneurial activity cover the period between 2002 and 2009, and are taken from the annual GEM (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor) reports and from the Index of Economic Freedom published by The Heritage Foundation from 1995 to 2009. The same analysis is carried out, grouping the countries by development level, following the classification included in the Global Competitiveness Report 2009‐2010. A Ridge regression analysis is performed to measure the model's goodness‐of‐fit and to determine equations that can be used for future predictions.

The results obtained in the correlation analysis show that economic freedom is closely related to entrepreneurial activity. The results suggest that TEA rates, opportunity‐TEA rates and necessity‐TEA rates decrease when there is an increase in economic freedom in a country, as just two of the areas analyzed – i.e. “government size” and “fiscal freedom” – appear to foster the emergence of new entrepreneurs. When countries are grouped by level of economic development, the results for countries belonging to the “Innovation‐Driven Economies” group show that the opportunity‐TEA rates increase as the economic freedom index grows.

The study indicates that entrepreneurship by opportunity increases in the group of Innovation‐Driven Economies with smaller “government size” and more “fiscal freedom”.