Dear colleagues,
Like the others in this chain, I am unable to attend the Academy meeting this year. I'm sorry to have missed this session. I'm curious to hear what came out of it.
From my point of view (for what it's worth), through reading opportunity-related papers since I started the PhD program 15 years ago, I've been frustrated with the use of the word "opportunity" (see "Opportunity: an 11-Letter Word" for example). What I've seen clearly is that scholars have been debating what "opportunity" is for ages, and of course are not close to settling it. However, when you dig into the definitions and operationalizations of opportunity you can find a plethora of other constructs, upon which we are much more likely to agree. (Refer to the tables listing elements in the Hansen et al. paper Per was kind enough to link below). For example, many people use a variation of the Casson definition, which involves the introduction of new products, etc. We can debate whether or not that is "opportunity", but it doesn't get us very far. I think we could all agree, though, about what introducing a new product, etc. means. Whether or not it should be labeled "opportunity" seems beside the point. Likewise, other parts of definitions/operationalizations, such as ideas, business models, creativity, markets, evaluation, knowledge, etc. are also components of "opportunity" for some people and are terms that are not so disputed. I suggested many years ago that we stop using the very ambiguous word "opportunity" and just be more direct in what it is we are studying – introducing new products, searching for unmet needs, combining resources, etc. We can use the umbrella term of "opportunity" as more of a broad category of research, rather than a specific construct. Per has done a much better, more articulate job of making the case for moving discourse away from "opportunity" than I have. And of course I haven't followed my own advice, but when you're trying to get published and tenure, you go with the flow.
I realize this is too late to include in the PDW session, but I hope that the session was just a beginning stage in the discussion and that I can add in my 2 cents here and there.
Regards,
Dave
David J. Hansen, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship
College of Charleston
Associate Editor of the Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship (JRME)
Editor of the Special Issue in JRME on "The Business Model Canvas and Customer Development"
From: Entrepreneurship Division Listserv [mailto:ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of "Chihmao HSIEH"
Sent: Friday, August 05, 2016 12:05 PM
To: ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: [ENTREP] Opportunities are dead! Long live opportunities!
Dear all,
Like Peter and others, I'm sympathetic to the conceptual criticisms of opportunity as the focal unit of analysis.
Late last year I published a paper in IJEV to address this topic in one particular way.
Specifically, I drew from Drucker's quote that incongruity is a symptom of opportunity. Just as a doctor can't successfully identify a disease case without investigating and making judgment about tangible medical symptoms, the entrepreneur can't be entrepreneurial without making judgment about economic symptoms. In my opinion, incongruity is conceptually closer (more amenable?) to judgment than opportunity.
Surely incongruity is related to Kirznerian and Penrosian gaps and errors.
But the concepts of gaps or errors are very poorly researched, especially from a developmental/prescriptive standpoint. In contrast the identification of incongruity is absolutely fundamental to the science of humor.
I review the humor science literature and draw some parallels with entrepreneurship.
Maybe it can offer another angle:
http://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1504/IJEV.2015.073646
Cheers, -chihmao
p.s. won't be at Academy this year!
| Regards, -chihmao -------------------------
Chihmao Hsieh
Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship
Graduate School of Information
Yonsei University (UIC) website: www.chsieh.com
tel: +82 032 749 3085 |
-----------------------Original message-----------------------
From: "Klein, Peter G. "<Peter_Klein@BAYLOR.EDU>
To: ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Sent date: 2016-08-05 13:01:29 GMT +0900 (Asia/Seoul)
Title: Re: [ENTREP] Opportunities are dead! Long live opportunities!
Thanks Per for continuing the discussion. I too will miss the PDW, so I'm taking the liberty of sharing the last two paragraphs from a forthcoming AMR dialogue essay by Nicolai Foss and myself, responding to Ramoglou and Tsang's very interesting 2016 paper. Although we use different language, our position is very close to Per's.
Cheers,
Peter
Our position is that all the important phenomena of interest to entrepreneurship scholars-entrepreneurial cognition, founder characteristics, the acquisition and combination of resources for new products and ventures, the choice of individuals between self-employment and paid employment, the organization of innovation, the effect of institutions and the competitive environment on entrepreneurial outcomes, and so on-can be explained with reference to the entrepreneur's beliefs, actions, results, and adjustments. There is no need to invoke the nebulous and elusive concept of opportunities when what we mean are expectations, plans, efforts, and outcomes.
Ramoglou and Tsang devote considerable effort to distinguishing among realized opportunities, unrealized opportunities, and what they call "non-opportunities," i.e. propensities toward profit that "lack[] the objective conditions necessary for profit actualization." We find this exercise cumbersome and unnecessary. When an entrepreneur's beliefs about the future are mistaken, and she takes actions that lead to losses rather than profits, what is gained by saying she "pursued a non-opportunity"? Why not simply say that she exercised poor judgment, and hence the venture did not perform up to her expectations? The idea of pursuing non-opportunities violates the ordinary-language notion of "opportunity" and hence tends to mislead researchers, students, practitioners, and policymakers.
Dear colleagues,
I am delighted to find that the PDW advertised below (as well as download and citation statistics for my 2015 JBV article) suggest that the concerns about the "opportunity" construct that I and others have voiced are being taken seriously.
Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend the AoM meeting this year and hence I will be unable to attend this exciting PDW. For those interested, my critiques of the opportunity construct can be found here and here. They are also available on RG, and in slightly different form in Ch. 8 of the new edition of Researching Entrepreneurship. Other critiques have been offered by, e.g., Kitching & Rouse and Hansen et al. If you're too short of time to explore these links I summarize some main points at the end of this message.
Have fun in Anaheim!
Best Regards,
Per
From: Entrepreneurship Division Listserv [mailto:ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Chris Welter
Sent: Friday, 5 August 2016 7:44 AM
To: ENTREP@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: [ENTREP] Opportunities are dead! Long live opportunities!
| Session Type: PDW Workshop
Program Session: 65 | Submission: 11162 | Sponsor(s): (ENT, TIM)
Scheduled: Friday, Aug 5 2016 10:00AM - 1:00PM at Hilton Anaheim in Pacific A | | | | Opportunities are Dead! Long Live Opportunities!
Entrepreneurial Opportunities | | | | |
| Discussant: Jay B Barney, Eccles School, U. of Utah
Presenter: Sharon Alvarez, U. of Denver
Presenter: Keith Hmieleski, Texas Christian U.
Presenter: Stratos Ramoglou, U. of Southampton
Presenter: David Scheaf, U. of North Carolina, Charlotte
Presenter: Matthew S. Wood, Baylor U.
Organizer: Chris Welter, Xavier U. |
| The opportunity construct has served as a fundamental entity in organizing theory development in entrepreneurship research. While the opportunity construct is relatively young, the greatest theory contributions in entrepreneurship have been related to the opportunity concept. However, there are some in the field of entrepreneurship that suggest the opportunity construct is inherently ambiguous and that theory on emerging ventures or theory on entrepreneurial judgment, would be more appropriate. However, we believe the true potential of the opportunity concept in entrepreneurship has yet to be realized and that the development of opportunity theory is intrinsically tied to the development of the field of entrepreneurship. In this PDW we will explore this untapped potential by engaging prominent theorists and empiricists to share their insights and facilitate debate on ways to move opportunity research forward as a tool for increasing our understanding of entrepreneurial phenomena and empirically studying real world entrepreneurial processes that led to opportunities. In light of recent calls for the end or replacement of the opportunity construct, what is the one thing that needs to be done/answered/determined to overcome the inherent challenges of using opportunity construct and thus move opportunity research forward? What alternative conceptualizations and operationalization may offer promising ways of capturing the phenomena? Assuming that the entrepreneurial opportunity construct is a central building block in entrepreneurship research what kinds of theory, research questions and empirical methods of examining "opportunity" are more and less useful, problematic, or simply not applicable in the current state? |
In short summary, the essence of my argument is:
1. We should absolutely continue to theorize and empirically research those phenomena commonly approached under the "entrepreneurial opportunity" label.
2. However, as a label for the early stage, micro level entities that entrepreneurs identify, evaluate and (sometimes) act on the "opportunity" notion invariably blurs one or more of the following important distinctions: external conditions vs. subjective perceptions; the agent vs. the entity acted upon; the contents vs. the favorability of the focal entity, and explanatory factors vs. that which is to be explained.
3. As a solution I suggest we work with three distinct constructs rather than just one: External Enablers for objective circumstances which may affect a variety of new venture creation attempts; New Venture Ideas for the contents of what entrepreneurs are trying to bring to realization, and Opportunity Confidence for a particular actor's subjective evaluation of either of the former two.
************************************** This message is from ENTREP which is sponsored by the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management. Please do not post messages with attached files. Commercial messages or spammed messages are not allowed on the list. The use of auto-responder "out-of-office" messages may also lead to your removal from the list. You can manage your subscription options, including joining or leaving the list here: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=entrep&A=1 If you have questions or need help, please contact Jeff Pollack (jeff_pollack@ncsu.edu) or Kevin Cox (kcox24@my.fau.edu). Ventures HO!
************************************** This message is from ENTREP which is sponsored by the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management. Please do not post messages with attached files. Commercial messages or spammed messages are not allowed on the list. The use of auto-responder "out-of-office" messages may also lead to your removal from the list. You can manage your subscription options, including joining or leaving the list here: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=entrep&A=1 If you have questions or need help, please contact Jeff Pollack (jeff_pollack@ncsu.edu) or Kevin Cox (kcox24@my.fau.edu). Ventures HO!
************************************** This message is from ENTREP which is sponsored by the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management. Please do not post messages with attached files. Commercial messages or spammed messages are not allowed on the list. The use of auto-responder "out-of-office" messages may also lead to your removal from the list. You can manage your subscription options, including joining or leaving the list here: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=entrep&A=1 If you have questions or need help, please contact Jeff Pollack (jeff_pollack@ncsu.edu) or Kevin Cox (kcox24@my.fau.edu). Ventures HO!
************************************** This message is from ENTREP which is sponsored by the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management. Please do not post messages with attached files. Commercial messages or spammed messages are not allowed on the list. The use of auto-responder "out-of-office" messages may also lead to your removal from the list. You can manage your subscription options, including joining or leaving the list here:
). Ventures HO!