Search results

The link between social interaction and entrepreneurial activity has attracted considerable attention in the entrepreneurship literature. In this study, we focus on individual cultural values, shaped by interactions in the social space, as they relate to opportunity evaluation, a cornerstone of the entrepreneurial process. We test our predictions in India, a non-Western society that has sustained one of the highest rates of entrepreneurial activity in the world. Our findings suggest that value orientation of high power distance is negatively associated with opportunity evaluation whereas uncertainty avoidance, collectivism, and femininity are positively associated with opportunity evaluation.

In order to answer which opportunities are better to pursue, the purpose of this paper is to propose and empirically test a decision-making model for evaluating and selecting entrepreneurial opportunities.

First, the authors identified common evaluation criteria through a systematic review of 45 high quality articles published in top entrepreneurship and management journals between 2000 and 2017. Second, fuzzy screening technique has been employed to offer the decision-making model. Third, the authors used data of six evaluations provided by five experts at a medium-sized biotech firm to test the model.

The study shows that common decision criteria for evaluating entrepreneurial opportunities fall into seven categories. According to these criteria and using fuzzy screening technique, a multi-expert multi-criteria decision-making (ME–MCDM) model has been suggested for evaluating and selecting opportunities.

This model can be served in situations in which decision makers should select a small number of opportunities among the larger set with regard to opportunity profile and minimal information. More opportunities and more decision makers can be included in the model. When the number of opportunities and decision makers are high, it is possible to use programming for fast, accurate and easy calculation.

This study is the first systematic review of opportunity evaluation criteria. It is also the first considering opportunity evaluation as a multi-expert decision-making process.

This paper adds to the ongoing debate on judgements, opportunity evaluation and founder identity theory and shows that founders vary in their prioritisation and combination of judgement criteria, linked to their respective social founder identity. It further reveals how this variation among founder identity types shapes their perception of distinct entrepreneurial opportunities and the forming of first-person opportunity beliefs.

This study uses a qualitative approach by presenting three business scenarios to a sample of 34 first-time founders. It adopts a first-person perspective on their cognitive processes during the evaluation of entrepreneurial opportunities using verbal protocol and content analysis techniques.

The theorised model highlights the use of similar categories of judgement criteria by individual founders during opportunity evaluation that followed two distinct stages, namely search and validation. Yet, founders individualised their judgement process through the prioritisation of different judgement criteria.

The authors provide new insights into how individuals individuate entrepreneurial opportunities through the choice of different judgement criteria that enable them to develop opportunity confidence during opportunity evaluation. The study also shows that first-time founders depict variations in their cognitive frames that are based on their social identity types as they assess opportunity-related information and elicit variations in reciprocal relationships emerging between emotion and cognition. Exposing these subjective cognitive evaluative processes provides theoretical and practical implications that are discussed as well.

The purpose of this paper is to explore mindfulness as a cognitive construct that affects the identification and processing of information during market analysis leading to opportunity evaluation.

This paper draws from theory on entrepreneurial cognition and introduces the concept of mindfulness in market analysis to better understand the entrepreneurial mindset at the opportunity evaluation stage of the value-creation process.

Based on a review of the literature on entrepreneurial cognition and mindfulness at the marketing/entrepreneurship interface, a detailed description of the concept of mindful market analysis is presented. In addition, propositions are developed regarding the moderating effects of mindful market analysis on the relationships between various personal and psychological factors and information processing outcomes related to opportunity evaluation.

Much research exists regarding idea creation, entrepreneurial action, opportunity discovery and recognition and entrepreneurial traits. Taking a different approach, this research focuses on opportunity evaluation and the role of market analysis at this stage of the entrepreneurial process. Overall, these contributions help to fulfill the call for more research on the intrapersonal cognitive processes of entrepreneurs and their role in opportunity evaluation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine franchisees’ business start-ups from an entrepreneurial perspective, adopting a process representative of entrepreneurship to examine opportunity identification and evaluation by franchisees and to analyse factors that influence this process.

A qualitative study was employed and data collected using semi-structured interviews with a sample of service industry franchisees in Macau.

The study identifies that social networks play a key role in opportunity identification and that franchisees’ goals influence the criteria used and information search activities undertaken while evaluating franchise opportunities.

The study makes two contributions to franchise literature. It identifies that social networks can serve as substitutes for lack of prior knowledge in franchise opportunity identification. It also identifies the interrelated nature of franchisees’ goals based on the activities and criteria used to evaluate franchise opportunities, and the importance of relational criteria when franchisees lack prior industry knowledge. It therefore also contributes to franchise/entrepreneurship literature by identifying the interrelated nature of the factors contributing to the dynamics of franchise chain growth.

Franchisors should explore how to better use franchisees’ social networks and identify the longer term goals of prospective franchisees to support market penetration and franchise chain growth. Franchisees are advised to use independent information sources to evaluate franchise opportunities using goal-informed objectives and demand and relational criteria.

The study presents a more comprehensive understanding of franchisees’ decision-making process when joining franchise chains by identifying the activities undertaken and criteria used to identify and evaluate franchise opportunities.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate effects of policy initiatives on entrepreneurs’ opportunity evaluation decisions.

Factors were selected from real world policy initiatives. The model pricing power as a traditional economic base rate attribute and then considering how variance in use fees and reporting requirements changes the base rate relationship. The factors served as decision attributes in a conjoint analysis experiment. A total of 126 entrepreneurs made 2,268 opportunity evaluation decisions.

While increases in pricing power result in a positive upward base rate opportunity evaluation, government mandated use fees and reporting requirements diminish the base rate toward the negative. This suggest that that even though the likely profits are much higher with the significant pricing power opportunity, entrepreneurs heavily discount these opportunities because they view the combination of economic costs of paying high use fees and the non-pecuniary costs of reporting requirements as unappealing. Further, the authors find entrepreneurs’ disproportionately discount higher margin opportunities when the regulatory burden is higher revealing the importance of policy factors in new product introduction decisions.

Policy has traditionally focussed on the macro-level effects of initiatives and how they directly affect issues like economic growth. This study reveals that this is only part of the equation because changes in government policy impact entrepreneurs’ opportunity evaluation decisions that underpin macro trends. In order to be effective, policy makers need to pay greater attention to not only the economic, but also the non-pecuniary costs that policy changes evoke. This is especially true for those policies like reporting requirements that may be perceived as threats to entrepreneurs’ sense of autonomy.

This research brings to the foreground the relationship between the policy environment and the cognitions and decision of individual entrepreneurs whose collective actions move the economy. The net effect is new insight regarding how policy factors coalesce to influence entrepreneurs’ assessments of opportunities, often in ways that negatively affect these assessments beyond what simple economic calculations would suggest.

This paper seeks to detail an exploratory examination of a multidimensional, creativity‐based theoretical model of opportunity recognition originally proposed by Hills et al. and later refined by Lumpkin et al., but never empirically tested. The paper also aims to examine the relationship between individual dimensions of the model and creativity.

Analyses were conducted using AMOS software on a sample of 145 entrepreneurs. One structural equation model (SEM) and three confirmatory factor analysis models were tested.

The five‐dimensional model – consisting of preparation, incubation, insight, evaluation, and elaboration – was determined to be the best fitting model. The SEM model also indicated that incubation and elaboration were significantly related to creativity. Overall, a multidimensional, creativity‐based approach to modeling opportunity recognition is supported by this study.

Cross‐sectional data do not allow for testing of the process aspect of the model; however, they do provide evidence that the model can stand up to empirical tests of the five elements of the model. Future research should examine opportunity using multiple dimensions and a creativity perspective. Additional research is needed to examine the process aspects of opportunity recognition.

Fostering opportunity recognition processes that are iterative and involve multiple stages is likely to promote more creative entrepreneurial outcomes.

This study provides one of the few examples of a multidimensional perspective on opportunity recognition as well as an empirical examination of a creativity‐based theoretical model of opportunity recognition.

Drawing on transaction cost economics, the authors conceptualise brand licensing as a form of alliance. Its performance may be affected by a licensee’s potential opportunism resulting from an imbalance of specific investments in brand-building prior to signing the licensing agreement. From the licensor’s perspective, brand licensing represents a trade-off between brand protection and additional revenues. This study aims to examine how this trade-off shapes licensors’ evaluations of the attractiveness of brand licensing opportunities.

In a vignette study, 121 brand licensing professionals evaluated the attractiveness of up to eight hypothetical brand licensing opportunities with different levels of risk and profitability.

From a licensor’s perspective, high brand quality and distribution risks decrease the attractiveness of a licensing opportunity, although the latter risks are more pronounced. High potential profitability has a positive and significant effect on attractiveness.

The risks outlined in this study refer to licensee behaviour. The licensor may also behave opportunistically. The authors encourage research designs that enable a dyadic evaluation of licensing opportunities because a comparison of a licensor’s and a licensee’s assessments of the same scenario would be illuminating.

The findings enable the development of an evaluation template that directs brand owners’ attention to the risks and gains of brand licensing opportunities. It supports licensors in choosing the “best” opportunity.

This study identifies risks emanating from a licensee’s potential opportunism from a licensor’s perspective. It juxtaposes these risks with the potential profitability of brand licensing opportunities. It is thus one of the first studies to address a licensor’s decision-making trade-offs in a large-scale empirical setting.

This paper aims to analyze how different experts in entrepreneurship perceive their surrounding environment and business opportunities. The authors suggest that people act the way they do not only because of different interpretations of the environment but also because of the relative importance they give to the context and themselves in their mental scripts.

A Mann–Whitney U non-parametric test and principal component analysis were conducted to examine the national expert survey from the global entrepreneurship monitor database of Chilean exports.

When experts in entrepreneurship are compared, entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs differ in their use of certain cognitive resources about past or current events, but they map out future situations similarly, suggesting that their mental simulations may converge into similar patterns.

This study provides useful insights regarding the impact that mental representation has on experts’ perception, by discussing how experts who are entrepreneurs perceive the entrepreneurial ecosystem and current opportunities differently than experts who are not entrepreneurs. The specific context plays a key role in the way entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs analyze their surrounding environment but not necessarily opportunities.

This paper aims to present the challenges faced by a small startup as entrepreneurship and marketing intersect to influence the success or failure of the venture. The entrepreneurial marketing focus of the case provides a deeper understanding of the practice-based interface of these two disciplines. The case focuses on the vision of two entrepreneurs and how they use the value creation process of opportunity recognition, evaluation and development to design a consulting service for Canadian firms that want to do business in China. It also provides insight on the difficulty of creating, communicating, selling and delivering a new consulting service to the Canadian business community.

The case is based on extensive interviews with QiaoLinx Inc.’s founders, relevant others and secondary data including press releases, social media and promotional material.

The events, issues and questions presented to track the entrepreneurial actions and marketing process of a startup from concept to market to tipping-point. The case is intended to serve as an instructional platform that encourages deductive reasoning in analyzing and synthesizing the application of entrepreneurship and marketing theories.

This teaching case can be used in undergraduate or graduate courses in entrepreneurship, marketing, new venture creation and international business. Researchers, faculty, practitioners and students can use the case to engage in a discussion on the underlying theories of entrepreneurship and marketing.