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Few researchers and even fewer practitioners would deny that serendipitous events play a central role in the growth process of firms. However, most international marketing models ignore the role of serendipity in the opportunity discovery process. The authors provide a nuanced view on international opportunities by developing the role of serendipitous opportunities in the foreign market entry process. The authors develop a model integrating the notions of serendipity, entrepreneurial logic, experiential knowledge and network knowledge redundancy. From the study’s model, the authors condense three sets of hypotheses on the relationships among experiential knowledge and entry strategy, network knowledge redundancy, entry strategy and serendipity.

The authors confront the study’s hypotheses with data collected on-site at 168 Swedish firms covering 234 opportunities, and to test the hypotheses, the authors ran ordinary least squares (OLS) regression tests in three steps.

The results of the study’s analysis reveal that experiential knowledge and network knowledge redundancy both lead to a logic based on rigid planning and systematic search, which in turn reduces the likelihood that serendipitous opportunities will be realized in the foreign market entry process.

This is the first study that develops a measure of opportunities that are the outcome of serendipitous events. In addition, the authors integrate network and learning theories and internationalization theory by establishing antecedents to, and outcomes of, the entry strategy.

Management research on serendipity, which is defined as a search that leads to an unintended discovery, has increased considerably over the last three decades. In this article, management research on serendipity (up to the end of 2021) is reviewed and synthesised.

A bibliometric analysis was conducted on 85 peer-reviewed articles extracted from the Scopus database, which was then integrated with a systematic literature review.

The bibliometric analysis revealed that management literature on serendipity is framed around four main thematic areas: conceptual boundaries, conditions favouring serendipity and outcomes, foreign market entry and the relationship between serendipity, networks and assets. A systematic literature review was then conducted on each of the identified clusters.

The present article offers a systematised view of the extant body of research on serendipity in management studies. Based on the findings, the main implications and future research agendas are discussed.

This paper aims to investigate the distinctive role of serendipity in opportunity exploration. The study specifically explores how serendipity happens and the pattern of its occurrence. The paper attempts to break new ground in the study of serendipity within the entrepreneurship area. Serendipity is quite established in scientific literature and investigating this concept in the context of entrepreneurship contributes towards the discourse on why some firms are able to discover and realise opportunities that seem to present themselves sometimes out of nowhere.

The study uses multiple case studies, cross-country approaches and the causal mapping method.

The findings suggest that serendipity is likely to take place at the early stages of firm formation. In addition to the three patterns of serendipity that are well-known in accidental scientific discoveries, the authors identify and introduce “entrepreneurial serendipity” as a distinctive pattern in entrepreneurship, whereby entrepreneurs look for any opportunity to start a business and explore an appropriate opportunity that comes along.

This research has several limitations that offer new opportunities for future research. Further research can be undertaken to compare successful fast-growth firms with unsuccessful firms to determine how entrepreneurs were exposed to serendipity and to what extent they were able to exploit and realise opportunities. A comparative study would also enhance the authors’ interpretation of the role of serendipity in these two types of firms and demonstrate the different levels of serendipity they are potentially exposed to. The debate on serendipity could benefit from quantitative research and some tangible measures of serendipity can be developed.

The findings help entrepreneurs understand elements involved in opportunity exploration. The role of serendipity and its sources offer some suggestions on how entrepreneurs can potentially expose themselves to serendipity. The role of networks is crucial to doing business, and entrepreneurs should be aware of expanding their personal and business networks. Being engaged in friendly, professional and academic networks helps in finding new opportunities. Perseverance, being alert to changes in the environment and commitment to clients in terms of high-quality products and services are other elements that may open new windows of opportunity.

This paper provides empirical evidence that serendipity does play an important role in nearly every investigated business, regardless of their size and age. Serendipity potentially leads to new opportunities and entrepreneurs can explore them to achieve growth. By investigating grown firms in New Zealand and Iran, the authors identified a new pattern of serendipity in terms of opportunity discovery. This unique pattern, entrepreneurial serendipity, is characterised by finding an unspecified opportunity through an orderly or haphazard search, which could happen with either high or low levels of knowledge.

This paper aims to explore how researchers in general, and field researchers in particular, might respond to systems of governance of the researchers' activity in ways that can support rather than distort the quality of the research.

We draw upon literature on serendipity to develop a framework for engaging with the positive and negative potentials of systems of governance. We ground our analysis in discussion of participation in the field comprising two parts: first, the examination of our own activities and second, the accounts of participation found in two career-autobiographical interviews with emeritus professors of management accounting from Japan.

We highlight the potential for a productive tension between two contrasting perspectives that researchers might take on governance of their activity. A contractual perspective sees the value of targets and detailed pre-planning. A reflexive perspective sees the value of exploring the unexpected and considering many alternatives. We offer a framework for considering serendipity and the conditions that facilitate serendipity to help researchers maintain a productive tension between these perspectives.

We build upon retrospective accounts of two successful individuals whose careers evolved in a specific context. The intention is not to set out what might be generally achievable in a research career, nor to propose specific lines of action or planning in relation to specific systems of governance, since these vary across countries and over time. Rather, the paper draws on these materials to illuminate the more general challenge of preparing for serendipity in a way that goes beyond simple opportunism.

We analyse how researchers' mindfulness of serendipity and the nature of contexts that facilitate serendipity can encourage a productive tension between contractual and reflexive perspectives on governance of academic activity.

This paper aims to explore challenges and opportunities of shifting from physical to virtual employment support delivery prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic. It investigates associated changes in the nature and balance of support and implications for beneficiary engagement with programmes and job search.

The study draws on longitudinal interviews conducted with beneficiaries and delivery providers from a neighbourhood-based employment support initiative in an English region with a strong manufacturing heritage between 2019 and 2021. The initiative established prior to the Covid-19 pandemic involved a strong physical presence locally but switched to virtual delivery during Covid-19 lockdowns.

Moving long-term to an entirely virtual model would likely benefit some beneficiaries closer to or already in employment. Conversely, others, particularly lone parents, those further from employment, some older people and those without computer/Internet access and/or digital skills are likely to struggle to navigate virtual systems. The study emphasises the importance of blending the benefits of virtual delivery with aspects of place-based physical support.

Previous studies of neighbourhood-based employment policies indicate the benefits of localised face-to-face support for transforming communities. These were conducted prior to the Covid-19 pandemic and the more widespread growth of virtual employment support. This study fills a gap regarding understanding the challenges and opportunities for different groups of beneficiaries when opportunities for physical encounters decline abruptly and support moves virtually.

How and why does serendipity plays an important role in a relatively small percentage of entrepreneurial successes? The concentration of entrepreneurs in the transition economy of Mongolia stimulated the authors’ desire to research these questions and to attempt to discover instances where serendipity played a major role in an entrepreneur’s success. This study does not pertain to the deliberate search for serendipitous innovation (those that are not a result of pure luck) or where mistakes play a prominent role in accounts of serendipity, e.g. Viagra, Teflon, Post it Notes and a plethora of others. This paper aims to relate to accounts of pure luck as in being in the right place at the right time.

The authors conducted one intensive face-to-face interview (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia) and two brief clarifying sessions conducted over Skype (Melbourne, Australia). During the face-to-face interview, open-ended questions were asked, copious notes were taken and electronic recordings were made. Recordings and notes were transcribed and used to develop this paper. During the Skype interviews, the authors took the opportunity to cross-check and verify responses from the face-to-face interview. This technique allowed the authors to accurately recount stories, points-of-view and to quote the respondent directly. Using qualitative data from the interviews enabled the authors to circumvent exaggeration and to preserve the probity of content within this study.

Serendipitous lightning is a rare phenomenon that has been acknowledged in scholarly papers but not fully researched. There are many samples of people finding something new and valuable, but are they attributable to serendipitous lightning? Little has been said about the phenomenon that begs the questions: Is it something that is too difficult to analyse and explain? Can you look for it? Can you plan for it? With no scientific basis, is it unexplainable and best left alone?

Although Mongolia has experienced an upsurge in entrepreneurial activity since the collapse of the Soviet Union and its economic support, Mongolia may not have been a suitable location for this study. It was a matter of convenience as the authors were there on another project at that time. The scope of the study was limited by the lack of suitable respondents in a city of only 1.3 million inhabitants, which is over half of the total population of Mongolia. Time and costs were major considerations that limited this study. Examples of serendipitous lightning were extremely difficult to identify with the authors finding one suitable interviewee from a total of 55 scoping interviews. This equates to a 0.02% strike rate for the sample; however, there is no suggestion that further examples would not be forthcoming from a larger sample size.

Serendipitous lightning is a rare phenomenon that has been acknowledged in scholarly articles but has not been fully researched. The authors’ intention was to stimulate discussion of serendipitous lightning and to entice more people to become engaged and interested in researching the phenomenon. In addition, the authors contend that it is serendipitous lightning that ignites the fuse and whether the “flash of brilliance” is recognised and acted on depends heavily on the entrepreneur’s alertness and propensity to act swiftly. As such it is felt that there is evidence supporting the extension of existing theory on serendipity.

This study aims to explore the serendipitous discovery of integrated reporting (IR) by Alpha, an Italian small and medium-sized enterprise (SME). Alpha piqued the curiosity when the authors discovered that it experimented with IR alongside other management accounting practices, such as the Balanced Scorecard. As the authors reflected on Alpha’s experiences, the authors had to opportunistically develop a new framework to understand the change that was taking place at Alpha fully. Thus, the authors developed the serendipitous drift framework. This study contributes to addressing the gap between management accounting research that sees change as a planned, ordered process versus research that sees it as an unmanageable drift.

The authors ground the research on a qualitative methodology based on a single case study. This methodology allows us to focus on understanding what has happened at Alpha to discover new themes and provide theoretical generalisations. The authors developed the framework using middle-range thinking and fleshed it out using empirical findings from the case study. Middle-range thinking implies going back and forth between the theory and the empirical material. Therefore, the authors develop the serendipitous drift framework from prior theories and use it to inform the empirical study. In turn, the empirical material collected in Alpha helps refine and flesh out the serendipitous drift framework. The framework explains how Alpha leveraged serendipity to steer change towards favourable outcomes for them.

The authors find that the search for change undertaken by Alpha’s managers was non-specific but purposeful. Their dispositions were sagacious enough to recognise the potential value found in management accounting practices, such as IR and the Balanced Scorecard. They chanced upon new and unforeseen practices through trial and error, iteration, internal engagement and networking.

Overall, the results indicate that Alpha’s managers shaped the disorder of management accounting changes, even though it followed unexpected, uncertain and messy paths. Indeed, appropriate informal controls can act as a frame of reference for choosing, adapting and implementing new management accounting practices to shape the disorder. Informal controls can both guide and bound the experimentation process towards desirable outcomes.

The authors contribute to management accounting change theory by developing a framework rooted in serendipity and drifting theories. The framework identifies how searching, sagacity and chance are essential for making positive, unexpected discoveries. Therefore, the authors provide novel insights on how and why IR and other management accounting practices are eventually translated and adopted in the case company. Moreover, the serendipitous drift framework has the potential to help managers frame cultural controls to actively seek opportunities for valuable serendipitous eureka moments through networking and experimentation.

The purpose of this paper is to propose evidence on the role of serendipity in business relationship. It concerns the understanding of the unplanned development of the relationship and the opportunities that may arise from taking serendipity as a “shaping” factor of relationship beginning.

The paper recurs to a longitudinal case study in the mechanical industry. In particular the development of the relationship between an Italian manufacturing company as supplier and a Chinese large customer is presented.

The case study highlights the role played by serendipity in the beginning and development of the business relationship between an Italian manufacturing company and a Chinese customer.

The main theoretical contribution of the paper is to point out how serendipity may affect business relationship development.

In “Coming across information serendipitously – Part 1: a process model” the authors identified common elements of researchers' experiences of “coming across information serendipitously”. These experiences involve a mix of unexpectedness and insight and lead to a valuable, unanticipated outcome. In this article, the authors aim to show how the elements of unexpectedness, insight and value form a framework for subjectively classifying whether a particular experience might be considered serendipitous and, if so, just how serendipitous.

The classification framework was constructed by analysing 46 experiences of coming across information serendipitously provided by 28 interdisciplinary researchers during critical incident interviews. “Serendipity stories” were written to summarise each experience and to facilitate their comparison. The common elements of unexpectedness, insight and value were identified in almost all the experiences.

The presence of different mixes of unexpectedness, insight and value in the interviewees' experiences define a multi‐dimensional conceptual space (which the authors call the “serendipity space”). In this space, different “strengths” of serendipity exist. The classification framework can be used to reason about whether an experience falls within the serendipity space and, if so, how “pure” or “dilute” it is.

The framework provides researchers from various disciplines with a structured means of reasoning about and classifying potentially serendipitous experiences.

This research seeks to gain a detailed understanding of how researchers come across information serendipitously, grounded in real‐world examples. This research was undertaken to enrich the theoretical understanding of this slippery phenomenon.

Semi‐structured critical incident interviews were conducted with 28 interdisciplinary researchers. Interviewees were asked to discuss memorable examples of coming across information serendipitously from their research or everyday life. The data collection and analysis process followed many of the core principles of grounded theory methodology.

The examples provided were varied, but shared common elements (they involved a mix of unexpectedness and insight and led to a valuable, unanticipated outcome). These elements form part of an empirically grounded process model of serendipity. In this model, a new connection is made that involves a mix of unexpectedness and insight and has the potential to lead to a valuable outcome. Projections are made on the potential value of the outcome and actions are taken to exploit the connection, leading to an (unanticipated) valuable outcome.

The model provides researchers across disciplines with a structured means of understanding and describing serendipitous experiences.