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  • 1.  A more fruitful and agreeable alternative to “Objective, pre-existing, actor-independent opportunities”

    Posted 07-08-2018 09:39

    Dear colleagues,

     

    Almost everybody agrees that external changes like new technologies, demographic shifts, social movements, changes to the natural environment etc. are important to our field because they obviously open up room for some new businesses to be attempted and to flourish. However, even Scott Shane (AMR, 2012) admits (and laments) that limited progress has been made under the notion of "objective, pre-existing entrepreneurial opportunities".  Critics have rightly pointed out weaknesses to that conceptualization, but the alternatives they have proposed typically ignore external factors that exist independent of the entrepreneurial agent rather than incorporating such factors in a less objectionable and theoretically more fruitful manner. Alternatively, studies focus on one, particular external change and its entrepreneurship consequences but stop short of theorizing across instances and types of external change.

     

    In our article "External Enablement of New Venture Creation: A Framework" (recently accepted by AMP) we try to overcome these shortcomings. The notion of "External Enabler" recognizes that all significant changes to the business environment will be favorable-sometimes essential-to some new ventures. However, the framework also acknowledges the need for agential action and does not make problematic assumptions about the pre-existence of complete packages of circumstances with inherent, guaranteed success potential. All enablers that prove essential to a venture's success need not exist or be perceived by the agent at the start of the venture creation journey and some may have effects without ever being perceived. All that is assumed is that some ventures will be somewhat better off due to the existence of external enablers than they would be without them. Further, our framework shows that the External Enabler construct has rich potential for theorizing precisely how, when and for whom a particular enabler provides benefits as well as for how different enablers combine to produce beneficial effects on venture- and aggregate levels of analysis.

     

    I first suggested the External Enabler construct in my 2015 "opportunities" critique and reconceptualization in JBV. However, it was not until we applied the construct to a set of new technologies in our ETP paper on the surge in IT hardware startups that I realized that the construct has much more potential than I realized myself back in 2015.

     

    I apologize for the self-promotion that some of you will find inappropriate, but I honestly think we are on to something quite important here and we hope that some colleagues will agree and further refine and test our ideas about External Enablers and their characteristics, mechanisms and roles in their future research.

     

    Best Regards,

     

    Per 

     

     

     Per Davidsson | Professor | Director & Talbot Family Foundation Chair in Entrepreneurship, Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research (ACE) | QUT Business School (Management) | QUT | https://research.qut.edu.au/ace/ | Phone: +61 7 3138 2051 | Email: per.davidsson@qut.edu.au CRICOS No. 00213J

     



  • 2.  RE: A more fruitful and agreeable alternative to “Objective, pre-existing, actor-independent opportunities”

    Posted 07-08-2018 20:10

    Thanks to Per for sharing the paper summary and links. Nicolai Foss and I have a paper forthcoming in the same AMP symposium (which emerged from the terrific 2016 "Opportunity Wars" AOM session organized by Sharon Alvarez). Our perspective is very similar to Per's though we use different terminology and emphasize different aspects of the problem. We argue, like Per, that entrepreneurial beliefs (about present conditions, possible futures, and the entrepreneur's ability to bring about a preferred state of affairs) are tacit, subjective, and personal but market conditions, scientific and technical considerations, and other external conditions are objective. As the saying goes: reality bats last. Of course, the results of entrepreneurial action must themselves be interpreted, subjectively, for adjustments to be made. But both internal, subjective factors and external, objective ones are at play.

     

    We differ from Per in our recommendation to drop the opportunity construct altogether. Our concern is that the language of opportunity draws attention away from the fundamental uncertainty that surrounds all human action and the role of understanding, interpretation, and intuition -- we use the Knightian term "judgment" -- in entrepreneurial action. We suggest "Beliefs, Actions, and Results" as an alternative conceptual framework (but we find Per's concept of external enablers very useful).

     

    Our approach, while radical, helps navigate the thicket of recent opportunity debates. As we put it in the paper: "Do entrepreneurs discover? Yes: they discover resources, customers, competitors, and causal relationships. Do entrepreneurs create? Yes: they create firms, products, business plans, interpretations of mechanisms and relationships, and so on. But no one discovers or creates 'opportunities'!"

     

    The paper is not yet on the AMP in-press site but there is a copy on SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3126527.

     

    Peter

     

    Peter G. Klein | Entrepreneurship | Hankamer School of Business

    W. W. Caruth Chair and Professor

    Director | Entrepreneurship PhD Program

    Associate Editor | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal

    Baylor University | One Bear Place #98011 | Waco, TX 76798-8011

    p  254.710.4903 |  e  peter_klein@baylor.edu | w  baylor.edu/peter_klein

     

     






  • 3.  RE: A more fruitful and agreeable alternative to “Objective, pre-existing, actor-independent opportunities”

    Posted 07-09-2018 10:49

    Peter (and others),

     

    We actually agree also on abolishing opportunity construct altogether as a label for empirical entities. The plural "opportunities" is particularly deceiving as it conveys an image of a fix number of distinct, pre-existing entities. As per my JBV 2015, I only use "opportunity" in the notion of "opportunity confidence", which is the degree to which a particular actor subjectively assesses a particular stimulus (a venture idea or an external enabler) as an "opportunity". I have no problem with "opportunity" in lay conversation or in our teaching, but as a research construct it obstructs progress in most applications.

     

    We are in full agreement that entrepreneurial agents both discover and create.

     

    Best Regards,

     Per

     Per Davidsson | Professor | Director & Talbot Family Foundation Chair in Entrepreneurship, Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research (ACE) | QUT Business School (Management) | QUT | https://research.qut.edu.au/ace/ | Phone: +61 7 3138 2051 | Email: per.davidsson@qut.edu.au CRICOS No. 00213J