Background: Organizations’ ability to recognize opportunities can provide competitive advantage for organizations in changing environment. In innovation-driven countries many en-trepreneurial people are working as employees in established companies and pursuing opportunities as corporate entrepreneurs. This is a group which researchers have dis-criminated by focusing only on CEO’s and entrepreneur’s opportunity identification capability. We would like to research the topic of employees’ opportunity recognition (OpR) and to find a link with their attitudes towards entrepreneurship, something that so far was not completely investigated in the literature. Purpose: The aim of the master thesis is to examine the relationship between the employee’s atti-tudes towards entrepreneurship and their implication on their ability to recognize opportu-nities – a step before developing innovation or uniqueness, resulting in creation of compet-itive advantage to the company, presumably leading to company growth. This paper in-tends to fill the gap in the literature regarding one of the dimensions of the factors leading to company growth and analyses a different business stakeholder group – namely employees in medium-sized companies. From business perspective, it might help company leaders understand the need of encouraging entrepreneurial initiatives and encourage them with some practical suggestions. The research question is: does employees’ attitude towards en-trepreneurship affect their opportunity recognition. Method: We have chosen deductive and explanatory approach for our research because we study causal relationship between attitudes towards entrepreneurship and OpR. The primary data was collected by a self-administered electronic questionnaire. The num-ber of received responses is 53, mainly from manufacturing and service industries. Conclusion: Employees’ positive attitude towards entrepreneurship increases their opportunity identification capability.

Internationale Migranten werden häufiger selbständig und gründen Unternehmen als Menschen ohne interkulturelle Erfahrung. Aktuelle Theorien legen nahe, dass ihre unternehmerische Aktivität durch spezielle Ressourcen und institutionelle Arrangements ausgelöst wird, die es attraktiver machen unternehmerische Chancen zu nützen, als Beschäftigung am Arbeitsmarkt zu suchen. Im Gegensatz dazu beschreibt diese Dissertation eine neue Perspektive auf das Phänomen. Sie entwickelt die Hypothese, dass interkulturelle Erfahrungen die Fähigkeit erhöhen, unternehmerische Chancen zu erkennen, indem sie Zugang zu neuem Wissen schaffen und kreatives Denken unterstützen. Die Ergebnisse einer Querschnittstudie (n=444) und eines longitudinalen natürlichen Experimentes (n=243) bestätigen die genannte und weitere Hypothesen und zeigen, dass interkulturelle Erfahrung, kulturelle Distanz, Wissen über neue Produkte und Dienstleistungen und divergentes Denken die Fähigkeit beeinflussen, unternehmerische Chancen wahrzunehmen. Die Ergebnisse bieten Implikationen für Forschung, Politik und Praxis in den Bereichen Entrepreneurship, Bildung und Migration. (author's abstract)

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze Swedish entrepreneurs and how they recognize opportunities in transition economies. In order to reach the intention of thesis, a case study of three Swedish firms have been conducted with interviews. Theoretical framework consists of the entrepreneurship theory, opportunity recognition process and innovations which all are relevant to the study and research questions. The empirical findings include the case firms view on entrepreneurial characteristics, opportunities and innovations. The conclusions of the thesis are that opportunities are recognized by individuals with specific characteristics. Suppliers, customers and agents can influence opportunity recognition process and direction.

Entrepreneurial opportunity recognition is an increasingly prevalent phenomenon. Of particular interest is the ability of promising technology based ventures to recognize and exploit opportunities. Recent research drawing on the Austrian economic theory emphasizes the importance of knowledge, particularly market knowledge, behind opportunity recognition. While insightful, this research has tended to overlook those interrelationships that exist between different types of knowledge (technology and market knowledge) as well as between a firm’s knowledge base and its entrepreneurial orientation. Additional shortfalls of prior research include the ambiguous definitions provided for entrepreneurial opportunities, oversight of opportunity exploitation with an extensive focus on opportunity recognition only, and the lack of quantitative, empirical evidence on entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. In this dissertation, these research gaps are addressed by integrating Schumpeterian opportunity development view with a Kirznerian opportunity discovery theory as well as insights from literature on entrepreneurial orientation. A sample of 85 new biotechnology ventures from the United States, Finland, and Sweden was analyzed. While leaders in all 85 companies were interviewed for the research in 2003-2004, 42 firms provided data in 2007. Data was analyzed using regression analysis. The results show the value and importance of early market knowledge and technology knowledge as well as an entrepreneurial company posture for subsequent opportunity recognition. The highest numbers of new opportunities are recognized in firms where high levels of market knowledge are combined with high levels of technology knowledge (measured with a number of patents). A firm’s entrepreneurial orientation also enhances its opportunity recognition. Furthermore, the results show that new ventures with more market knowledge are able to gather more equity investments, license out more technologies, and achieve higher sales than new ventures with lower levels of market knowledge. Overall, the findings of this dissertation help further our understanding of the sources of entrepreneurial opportunities, and should encourage further research in this area.

This thesis focuses on how entrepreneurial cognition interacts with internal stakeholder perception in established entrepreneurial organizations. In addition, the influence of interdependent factors of cognitive biases, temporality, growth and performance on the interaction has been examined. The study is exploratory, phenomenological and framed within an interpretive research paradigm. Primary data was gathered using a qualitative multiple case study methodology. Semi-structured interviews were conducted every three months over an eighteen-month period with entrepreneurs and internal stakeholders of nine organizations in Phase I and three organizations in Phase II. This research is original because it focuses exclusively on the interaction between concepts of entrepreneurial cognition and biases, temporality, internal stakeholder perception, organizational factors, growth and performance for established entrepreneurial organizations. The empirical evidence highlights that cognitive diversity and differences in perception and expectations have an impact on entrepreneurial and internal stakeholder interrelationships in established entrepreneurial organizations. Furthermore, entrepreneurial decision-making leads to the Icarus Paradox of confidence-success-attribution cycle that either moderates or mediates organizational growth and performance. The consequence of longer communication chains is limited information flow that results in cognitive dissonance. The research contributes to closing the gap in literature on the interdependent nature of entrepreneurial cognition and internal stakeholder perception on organizational growth and performance. The contribution to practice therefore is that in established entrepreneurial organizations the entrepreneurs and internal stakeholders can focus on performance by understanding the cause and effect influence of their interactions. This sets the foundation for further research on the interaction between entrepreneurial cognition and other organizational concepts.

Opportunity has emerged as a focal point in the field of entrepreneurship and recognizing potential opportunities is the first step of new venture creation. A number of studies acknowledge the contributions of prior knowledge and social networks in explaining opportunity recognition. However, previous research ignored the importance of cognitive process. Thus, the purpose of this study is filling the research gap of the mediation mechanism in this process. Through the entrepreneurial cognitions view lens, this research goes a step further by asking:¡¨how do individuals conclude that an opportunity from their prior knowledge and information?¡¨ Entrepreneurial alertness, first used by Kirzner (1973) has been identified as a major factor in the process of opportunity recognition. We equate this cognitive ability with entrepreneurial alertness, proposing that this bridges the gap between knowledge/information and the innovativeness/number of opportunities. There are 3 studies in this research; first, Study 1 developed a scale of entrepreneurial alertness. Secondly, Study 2 conducted an experimental design research to test the relationships between prior knowledge, entrepreneurial alertness, and the number of opportunities. Thirdly, Study 3 collected large numbers sample to test the full model. Results indicate that prior knowledge and social networks had positive effects on entrepreneurial alertness. Moreover, entrepreneurial alertness was positively associated with the innovativeness and number of opportunities. In the mediating effect, interpretation ability was partially mediated the relationship between prior knowledge of markets, professional networks and opportunity recognition. This study contributed theoretical and practical implications. Future directions for research are described, and its practical implications for entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurs are examined.

Internationally mobile individuals such as migrants and expatriates exhibit a higher level of entrepreneurial activity than people without cross-cultural experience. Current research suggests that this pattern is rooted in specific resources and institutional arrangements that increase the attractiveness of exploiting entrepreneurial opportunities. In this study, we provide an additional explanation: We argue that cross-cultural experience increases the ability to recognize entrepreneurial opportunities. This argument is supported by two complementary studies - a longitudinal quasi-experiment and a priming experiment. We find convergent evidence that cross-cultural experience increases a person's capabilities to recognize particularly profitable types of opportunities by facilitating the application of cross-cultural knowledge for the discovery of arbitrage opportunities and creative recombination. (authors' abstract)

Research on opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial cognition suggests that entrepreneurs are likely to use and potentially benefit from heuristics (Baron, 1998, 2004; Busenitz & Barney, 1997). Some heuristics, particularly well-refined and accurate prototypes, may be valuable to entrepreneurs in recognizing opportunities (Baron, 2004). I seek, however, to consider how other types of heuristics that lead to irrational, biased, and inaccurate judgments (e.g., the betrayal heuristic) relate to opportunity recognition (Baron, 2004; Kahneman & Lovallo, 1993). I specifically consider the underlying causal process through which the use of these types of heuristics diminishes the ability to recognize opportunities. I posit that these heuristics reduce the ability to recognize opportunities by causing entrepreneurs to consider less information regarding potential opportunities. Further, I propose two individual differences that allow certain entrepreneurs to mitigate the negative effect that these bias-causing heuristics have on entrepreneurs' ability of form the belief that they have recognized an opportunity. I test my theory with two experimental designs that use a product from a technology transfer office that has been licensed by entrepreneurs and applied to a real-world market. This allows me to isolate the underlying variables of interest and to affix my theorizing to a well-documented phenomenon (the licensing and application of tech-transfer technology/products by entrepreneurs) (Gregoire & Shepherd, 2012; Mowery, 2004; Shane, 2001). Results show that some heuristic may cause individuals to consider less information about an opportunity, which reduces their likelihood of forming an opportunity recognition belief. Post hoc analyses suggest that this indirect effect may be conditional on how reflective an individual is and that entrepreneurs may be more reflective than non-entrepreneurs. The major contribution of this dissertation is to examine the theoretical underpinnings as to why certain types of heuristics inhibit entrepreneurs from forming the belief that they have recognized an opportunity. Specifically, I suggest and show that bias-causing heuristics reduce the amount of information that entrepreneurs consider about an opportunity and, as such, inhibit opportunity recognition beliefs. Second, I provide some support for the notion that reflective individuals are more likely to form the belief that they have recognized an opportunity because they consider more information about the opportunity when they initially rely on a bias-causing heuristic. Lastly, this dissertation provides initial support for the notion that entrepreneurs may be more reflective than non-entrepreneurs. Overall, I hope to point out that although a heuristic-dependent processing style has been shown to be beneficial with regard to opportunity recognition (Baron, 2004), the failure to consider the downside of certain heuristics and benefits related to overcoming these heuristics may limit our understanding of the opportunity recognition process.

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The empirical evidence is rather weak and sometimes inconsistent as to what predicts an individual's decision to start a business. Among many possible causes, this study attempts to disentangle the effects of individual differences and context. I propose to use a framework involving an individual's entrepreneurial intent, entrepreneurial orientation and four individual difference factors as a means to isolate individual difference determinants of entrepreneurial intent. These are captured in new construct called entrepreneurial orientation. Samples of entrepreneurs and college students from the United States and China were used to test the relationships. The empirical results show that entrepreneurial orientation is positively related to individual differences factors and entrepreneurial intent. Even more, it fully or partially mediates the relationships between the individual differences and entrepreneurial intent. Among the four individual differences listed, opportunity recognition seems to be the best predictor of an individual's entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurial intent. Future research should further examine opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial orientation. It appears that attempting to isolate effects of individual differences from context can be a viable strategy for studying determinants of new venture creation. / Ph. D.