Top

Small Business Economics

Published in:

01-01-2015

The constructivist view of entrepreneurial opportunities: a critical analysis

Authors: Stratos Ramoglou, Stelios C. Zyglidopoulos

Published in: Small Business Economics | Issue 1/2015

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config

AI-assisted search

Off

Abstract

The notion that opportunities exist objectively “out there” has been repeatedly assaulted by scholars who counter that opportunities are subjectively constructed or created. This paper intends to restore the balance by bringing the critical strands of inquiry themselves under critical scrutiny. Beyond the formulation of some original lines of critique and the drawing of attention to some foundational yet insufficiently studied issues, this article further contributes the following: (1) it juxtaposes a taxonomical ordering of constructivist approaches; (2) it identifies angles of complementarity and contradiction with the objectivist perspective; and (3) it brings subtle conceptual distinctions into prominence.

previous article Self-employment and the local business cycle

next article Running in the family: parental role models in entrepreneurship

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

One should be careful to avoid the supposition that this richness of vocabulary stands for theoretical variation. As stressed by Alvarez and Barney (2013), these words are typically used synonymously and do not signal substantive differences.

There are approaches that reify opportunities (Baron 2004), some that treat them as something quantifiable (Dahlqvist and Wiklund 2012), and others that treat opportunities as “something” more ontologically complicated (Venkataraman et al. 2012). In addition, there is noticeable philosophical confusion surrounding objectivist treatments (Ramoglou 2013).

If subjectivist scholars tend to suppose that, by virtue of being part of a socially constructed reality, opportunities do not truly exist “out there,” it appears that objectivists tend to reject subjectivist references for an equally unfounded reason: for fear that without treating opportunities as though they exist as physical objects, we are left without an adequately real domain to study (see Shane 2012).

For example, the acquisition of financial or human capital may require the skillful manipulation of symbols, creative preparation of a business plan, the deployment of rhetorical devices, and all sorts of micro-institutional processes (Powell and Colyvas 2008). And this should be especially the case if we are talking about nascent firms lacking legitimacy (Aldrich and Fiol 1994) or small businesses in eras of financial insecurity (OECD 2009).

Aldrich, H. E., & Fiol, C. M. (1994). Fools rush in? The institutional context of industry creation. Academy of Management Review, 19(4), 645–670.

Alvarez, S. A., & Barney, J. B. (2007). Discovery and creation: Alternative theories of entrepreneurial action. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 1(1), 11–26.CrossRef

Alvarez, S. A., & Barney, J. B. (2010). Entrepreneurship and epistemology: The philosophical underpinnings of the study of entrepreneurial opportunities. The Academy of Management Annals, 4(1), 557–583.CrossRef

Alvarez, S. A., & Barney, J. B. (2013). Epistemology, opportunities, and entrepreneurship: Comments on Venkataraman et al. (2012) and Shane (2012). Academy of Management Review, 38(1): 154–157.

Alvarez, S. A., Barney, J. B., & Young, S. L. (2010). Debates in entrepreneurship: Opportunity formation and implications for the field of entrepreneurship. In Z. J. Acs & D. B. Audretsch (Eds.), Handbook of entrepreneurship research: An interdisciplinary survey and introduction (2nd ed., pp. 23–46). New York: Springer.CrossRef

Alvarez, S. A., Barney, J. B., & Anderson, P. (2013). Forming and exploiting opportunities: The implications of discovery and creation processes for entrepreneurial and organizational research. Organization Science, 24(1), 301–317.CrossRef

Alvarez, S. A., Barney, J., McBride, R., & Wuebker, R. (2014). Realism in the study of entrepreneurship. Academy of Management Review, 39(2), 227–231.CrossRef

Ardichvili, A., Cardozo, R., & Ray, S. (2003). A theory of entrepreneurial opportunity identification and development. Journal of Business Venturing, 18(1), 105–123.CrossRef

Arend, R. J. (2014). Promises, premises. An alternative view on the effects of the Shane and Venkataraman 2000 AMR note. Journal of Management Inquiry, 23(1), 38–50.CrossRef

Baron, R. A. (2004). The cognitive perspective: A valuable tool for answering entrepreneurship’s basic “why” questions. Journal of Business Venturing, 19(2), 221–239.CrossRef

Bhaskar, R. (1978). A realist theory of science. Sussex: Harvester Press.

Bhaskar, R. (1998). The possibility of naturalism: A philosophical critique of the contemporary human sciences (3rd ed.). London: Routledge.

Bigo, V. (2008). Explaining modern economics (as a microcosm of society). Cambridge Journal of Economics, 32(4), 527–554.CrossRef

Boghossian, P. (2006). Fear of knowledge: Against relativism and constructivism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRef

Bruyat, C., & Julien, P. A. (2001). Defining the field of research in entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Venturing, 16(1), 165–180.CrossRef

Buenstorf, G. (2007). Creation and pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities: An evolutionary economics perspective. Small Business Economics, 28(4), 323–337.CrossRef

Casson, M. (1982). The entrepreneur. Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble Books.

Chandler, G. N., DeTienne, D., & Lyon, D. W. (2003). Outcome implications of opportunity creation/discovery processes. Presented at the Babson-Kauffman entrepreneurship research conference. Wellesley, MA: Babson College.

Cornelissen, J. P., & Clarke, J. S. (2010). Imagining and rationalizing opportunities: Inductive reasoning, and the creation and justification of new ventures. Academy of Management Review, 35(4), 539–557.CrossRef

Cornelissen, J. P., Clarke, J. S., & Cienki, A. (2012). Sensegiving in entrepreneurial contexts: The use of metaphors in speech and gesture to gain and sustain support for novel business ventures. International Small Business Journal, 30(3), 213–241.CrossRef

Dahlqvist, J., & Wiklund, J. (2012). Measuring the market newness of new ventures. Journal of Business Venturing, 27(2), 185–196.CrossRef

Dimov, D. (2004). The individuality of opportunity recognition: A critical review and extension. In J. E. Butler (Ed.), Opportunity identification and entrepreneurial behavior (pp. 135–162). Greenwich, CT: IAP.

Dimov, D. (2011). Grappling with the unbearable elusiveness of entrepreneurial opportunities. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 35(1), 57–81.CrossRef

Gartner, W. B. (2012). Entrepreneurship as organization creation. In D. Hjorth (Ed.), Handbook on organizational entrepreneurship (pp. 21–30). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.CrossRef

Garud, R., & Giuliani, A. (2013). A narrative perspective to entrepreneurial opportunities. Academy of Management Review, 38(1), 157–160.CrossRef

Hacking, I. (1999). The social construction of what? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Hébert, R. F., & Link, A. N. (1989). In search of the meaning of entrepreneurship. Small Business Economics, 1(1), 39–49.CrossRef

Kaish, S., & Gilad, B. (1991). Characteristics of opportunities search of entrepreneurs vs. executives: Sources, interests, and general alertness. Journal of Business Venturing, 6(1), 45–61.CrossRef

Kim, W. C., & Mauborgne, R. (2005). Blue ocean strategy: How to create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Kirzner, I. M. (1973). Competition and entrepreneurship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Kirzner, I. M. (1979). Perception, opportunity and profit. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Kirzner, I. M. (1999). Creativity and/or alertness: A reconsideration of the Schumpeterian entrepreneur. Review of Austrian Economics, 11(1–2), 5–17.CrossRef

Kirzner, I. M. (2009). The alert and creative entrepreneur: A clarification. Small Business Economics, 32(2), 145–152.CrossRef

Knight, F. H. (1921). Risk, uncertainty and profit. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Koellinger, P., Minniti, M., & Schade, C. (2007). I think I can, I think I can: Overconfidence and entrepreneurial behavior. Journal of Economic Psychology, 28(4), 502–527.CrossRef

Korsgaard, S. T. (2011). Entrepreneurship as translation: Understanding entrepreneurial opportunities through actor-network theory. Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, 23(7–8), 661–680.CrossRef

Korsgaard, S. (2013). It’s really out there: A review of the critique of the discovery view of opportunities. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research, 19(2), 130–148.CrossRef

McMullen, J. S., Plummer, L. A., & Acs, Z. J. (2007). What is an entrepreneurial opportunity? Small Business Economics, 28(1), 273–283.CrossRef

Miller, K. D., & Tsang, E. W. K. (2010). Testing management theories: Critical realist philosophy and research methods. Strategic Management Journal, 32(2), 139–158.CrossRef

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). (2009). The impact of the global crisis on SME and entrepreneurship financing and policy responses. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Publications.

Pacheco, D. F., Dean, T. J., & Payne, D. S. (2010). Escaping the green prison: Entrepreneurship and the creation of opportunities for sustainable development. Journal of Business Venturing, 25(5), 464–480.CrossRef

Porter, M. E. (1980). Competitive strategy: Techniques for analyzing industries and competitors. New York: The Free Press.

Powell, W. W., & Colyvas, J. A. (2008) Microfoundations of institutional theory. In Greenwood, R., Oliver, C., Suddaby, R., & K. Sahlin (Eds.), Sage handbook of organizational institutionalism (pp. 276–298). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Ramoglou, S. (2013). On the misuse of realism in the study of entrepreneurship. Academy of Management Review, 38(3), 463–465.CrossRef

Ripsas, (1998). Towards an interdisciplinary theory of entrepreneurship. Small Business Economics, 10(2), 103–115.CrossRef

Sarason, Y., Dillard, J. F., & Dean, T. (2010). How can we know the dancer from the dance? Reply to “Entrepreneurship as the structuration of individual and opportunity: A response using a critical realist perspective”. Journal of Business Venturing, 25(2), 238–243.CrossRef

Sarasvathy, S. D. (2001). Causation and effectuation: Toward a theoretical shift from economic inevitability to entrepreneurial contingency. Academy of Management Review, 26(2), 243–263.

Sarasvathy, S. D. (2003). Constructing corridors to economic primitives: entrepreneurial opportunities as demand-side artefacts. In J. Butler (Ed.), Opportunity identification and entrepreneurial behavior (pp. 291–312). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.

Sarasvathy, S. D. (2008). Effectuation: Elements of entrepreneurial expertise. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.CrossRef

Sarasvathy, S. D. (2012). Worldmaking. In Corbett, A. C., & J. A. Katz (Eds.), Advances in entrepreneurship, firm emergence and growth: Entrepreneurial action (pp. 1–24). Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Sarasvathy, S. D., Dew, N., Velamuri, R., & Venkataraman, S. (2010). Three views of entrepreneurial opportunity. In Z. J. Acs & D. B. Audretsch (Eds.), Handbook of entrepreneurship research: An interdisciplinary survey and introduction (2nd ed., pp. 77–98). New York: Springer.CrossRef

Schumpeter, J. A. (1983). The theory of economic development: An inquiry into profits, capital, credit, interest, and the business cycle. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.

Searle, J. R. (1995). The construction of social reality. London: Penguin.

Searle, J. R. (1998). Mind, language, and society: Philosophy in the real world. New York: Basic Books.

Searle, J. R. (2002). Consciousness and language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef

Shane, S. (2003). A general theory of entrepreneurship. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.CrossRef

Shane, S. (2012). Reflections on the 2010 AMR decade award: Delivering on the promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research. Academy of Management Review, 37(1), 10–20.CrossRef

Shane, S., & Venkataraman, S. (2000). The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research. Academy of Management Review, 25(1), 217–226.

Stuetzer, M., Obschonka, M., Brixy, U., Sternberg, R., & Cantner, U. (2014). Regional characteristics, opportunity perception and entrepreneurial activities. Small Business Economics, 42(2), 1–24.CrossRef

Ucbasaran, D., Westhead, P., & Wright, M. (2008). Opportunity identification and pursuit: Does an entrepreneur’s human capital matter? Small Business Economics, 30(2), 153–173.CrossRef

Venkataraman, S., Sarasvathy, S., Dew, N., & Forster, W. R. (2012). Reflections on the 2010 AMR decade award: Whither the promise? Moving forward with entrepreneurship as a science of the artificial. Academy of Management Review, 37(1), 21–33.

Wood, M. S., & McKinley, W. (2010). The production of entrepreneurial opportunity: A constructivist perspective. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 4(1), 66–84.CrossRef

Title: The constructivist view of entrepreneurial opportunities: a critical analysis
Authors: Stratos Ramoglou
Stelios C. Zyglidopoulos
Publication date: 01-01-2015
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Small Business Economics / Issue 1/2015
Print ISSN: 0921-898X
Electronic ISSN: 1573-0913
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-014-9590-4

Springer Professional

Abstract

Please log in to get access to your license.

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Other articles of this Issue 1/2015

High-growth firms and productivity: evidence from the United Kingdom

Venture capital financing and the financial distress risk of portfolio firms: How independent and bank-affiliated investors differ

High-growth firms in changing competitive environments: the US pharmaceutical industry (1963 to 2002)

The emergence of the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship

Running in the family: parental role models in entrepreneurship

Spatial patterns in new firm formation: are cooperatives different?