Over the last twenty years, the topic of opportunities has received an increased interest, which is not surprising given that it lies at the heart of entrepreneurship research. The business creation process is basically an opportunity development process, starting from the first glimpse of the entrepreneur’s idea and continuing until the exploitation of the opportunity. Currently, there is minimal amount of research looking at the process of opportunity development as a whole, no research investigating the opportunity as a unit of analysis and looking in-depth into what happens to the opportunity during the gestation period of a business. Opportunities are objective entities that are subjective to the entrepreneur as he or she is the one recognizing opportunities and acting upon pursuing them. In this thesis we combine more theories and separate the opportunity development process into three main stages, which are recognition, objectification and enactment and investigate each of them in-depth. We also look at how shaping or refinement is being done during the development process and how social networks influence this process.

This study explores the relationship of entrepreneurial orientation and dynamic capabilities as organizations grow beyond country borders and into international markets. Through an extensive literature review of internationalization, entrepreneurial orientation and dynamic capabilities, a theoretical framework is developed that allow us to answer our research question. The study takes an abductive, comparative case study approach and is conducted on three Swedish SMEs in regard to their internationalization activites related to South Korea. The study proposes that there is an area in research that still contain a high degree of ambiguity which makes an understanding of the relationship between these two constructs difficult to define. The study’s findings report that the two constructs have complementary narratives of the same phenomenon which concedes a variety of possible relationships. The study then argues in support and rebuttal of five propositions of relationships.

Digital technologies have profoundly reshaped many industries in the past years and we are continuously witnessing the creation of new ventures designing and serving entirely new markets. At the heart of these initiatives lies decisions to act, take risk and pursue ideas in the form of entrepreneurial opportunities. Much of the research on the journey from ideas to market has advanced from the idea that entrepreneurial agency emerges at the nexus of individuals and opportunities. In most academic work, opportunities are either assumed to be exogenous to the individual or socially constructed. Despite many valuable contributions in the field, the construct as it has traditionally been used only accounts for and explains opportunities once they have been realized. Hence, the established perspectives fall short in informing our understanding of how individuals actually act and make decisions that lead up to the identification and exploitation of opportunities that lack tangible premises. The question is therefore, how do we define and understand entrepreneurial opportunities before they have been realized and how do we make the construct empirically operable? The present study challenges and extends the conventional views of entrepreneurial opportunities by investigating what they are and how they emerge and evolve over time. By drawing upon in-depth qualitative data from a longitudinal study of the new venture creation process of a digital TV and film production firm, the thesis provides a reconceptualization of the opportunity construct. External enablers, a new venture idea, a business model and opportunity confidence are suggested as components that clarify what aspiring entrepreneurs actually mean when they talk about opportunities. Departing from these components, the thesis provides a framework describing opportunity development as an iterative process evolving through modes of sensemaking, sensegiving and sensebreaking. This framework adds to entrepreneurial process studies by extending the individual-opportunity nexus to include the actions and interactions between the entrepreneurs and the external environment in which they operate. The results lay a foundation for future theorizing and empirical inquiry into the early stages of new venture creation.

Those working in Engineering for Global Development seek to improve the conditions in developing countries. A common metric for understanding the development state of a given country is the Human Development Index (HDI), which focuses on three dimensions: health, education, and income. An engineer’s expertise does not always align with any of those dimensions directly, while they still hope to perform impactful work for human development. To discover other areas of expertise that are highly associated with the HDI, correlations and variable selection were performed between all World Development Indicators and the HDI. The resultant associations are presented according to industry sector for a straightforward connection to engineering expertise. The associated areas of expertise can be used during opportunity development as surrogates for focusing on the HDI dimensions themselves. The data analysis shows that work related to "Trade, Transportation, and Utilities", such as electricity distribution, and exports or imports, "Natural Resources and Mining", such as energy resources, agriculture or access to clean water, and "Manufacturing", in general, are most commonly associated with improvements in the HDI in developing countries. Also, because the associations were discovered at country-level, they direct where geographically particular areas of expertise have been historically associated with improving HDI.

No / Gerard Egan's problem management and opportunity development model is currently in use training prospective counsellors, social workers, nurses, managers, etc. the skills of helping. This essay attempts, experimentally, to depict in three different ways Egan's work and its relationship to operations of power: (1) from a relatively uncritical stance, (2) from a personal experience stance, and (3) from a social constructionist perspective. The whole piece, taken together, attempts to tackle the issue of theory as practice ¿ to ground/unmask/make present the ways in which we are socialised into a profession and the problems inherent in that process. Two themes run through the work: the double bind created for a student on a counselling course which makes some claim to train around Rogers' core conditions, and which is also assessed/accredited; the connections between theory, training and practices.

Abstract The purpose of the present study is to examine theoretically and empirically how entrepreneurs act in pursuit of accelerated internationalisation. The study will facilitate a better understanding of the accelerated internationalisation process in the case of small and medium sized enterprises in high tech context. The theoretical background is based on international entrepreneurship literature and internationalisation process research. The research setting is small high tech firms at the start of the internationalisation process. The firms represent two distinct types of internationalising firms, an international late starter and international new venture. The empirical study is a qualitative longitudinal comparative multiple case study of two case firms. The main data gathering method was interviews and observations supported by secondary data. In this study, the four theory-based determinants of internationalisation were identified; 1) processuality 2) knowledge, 3) networks and 4) opportunity development. These determinants were used as the key elements for exploring accelerated internationalisation as an outcome of interlinked entrepreneurial actions. The active networking and learning undertaken in pursuit of international opportunity development are the intertwined entrepreneurial actions which are likely to create an accelerated internationalisation process. The study provides potentially interesting findings for entrepreneurs and external facilitators. First, the accelerated internationalisation process may be either periodic or cyclical in nature depending on the entrepreneur’s access to the relevant knowledge and networks. However, the relevance of the existing and pursued networks and knowledge is dependent on business context and changes in that business context may change the value of networks and knowledge as they are not inherently stable. Secondly, the networking and learning components mediate international opportunity development which may occur either as a network driven international opportunity development or as a knowledge driven international opportunity development. Thirdly, it is important to be aware of the differences between the temporary and voluntary networks which drive the international opportunity development process. Those network actors with temporary collaborative contracts and in possession of expert knowledge have a mainly instrumental role in knowledge and resource sharing; whereas the voluntarily developed networks not only provide knowledge and resources, but relevant contacts and particularly, facilitate in international business opportunity development. / Tiivistelmä Tämän tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on tarkastella sekä teoreettisesti että empiirisesti, kuinka yrittäjät toimivat pyrkiessään nopeutettuun kansainvälistymiseen. Tutkimus auttaa ymmärtämään syvällisemmin pienten korkean teknologian yritysten nopeutettua kansainvälistymistä. Tutkimuksen teoriatausta on rakennettu kansainvälistä yrittäjyyttä ja kansainvälistymisprosessia käsittelevän kirjallisuuden perusteella. Tutkimuskohteena ovat pienet korkean teknologian yritykset, jotka ovat kansainvälistymisprosessinsa alussa. Tapausyritykset edustavat kahta erityyppistä kansainvälistyvää yritystä: vakaan kansallisen liiketoiminnan jälkeen kansainvälistyvää yritystä ja välittömästi yritystoiminnan aloittamisen jälkeen kansainvälistyvää yritystä. Empiirinen tutkimus on toteutettu laadullisena pitkittäistutkimuksena, jossa vertaillaan kahta yritystä monitapaustutkimuksena. Ensisijaisina aineistonkeruumenetelminä ovat haastattelut ja havainnointi, joita tuetaan tarkentavalla kirjallisella aineistolla. Tutkimuksen lähtökohtana ovat teoriataustan perusteella tunnistetut neljä kansainvälistymisen perustekijää: 1) prosessuaalisuus, 2) tieto, 3) verkostot ja 4) liiketoimintamahdollisuuden luominen, joita hyödynnetään lähtökohtana tarkasteltaessa nopeutettua kansainvälistymistä. Yrittäjän aktiivinen verkostoituminen ja oppiminen kansainvälisen liiketoimintamahdollisuuden luomiseksi nähdään toisiinsa kietoutuneina toimintoina, jotka yhdessä saavat aikaan nopeutetun kansainvälistymisprosessin. Näin ollen nopeutetun kansainvälistymisen nähdään olevan seurausta useista toisiinsa liittyvistä toimista, joita yrittäjä tekee kehittäessään yrityksen kansainvälistä liiketoimintaa. Tutkimus tarjoaa mielenkiintoisia löydöksiä yrittäjille sekä tukitoimintoja tarjoaville organisaatioille: Yrittäjän pääsy merkitykselliseen tietoon ja verkostoihin vaikuttaa nopeutettuun kansainvälistymiseen, joka voi olla tyypiltään joko vaiheittainen tai syklinen prosessi. Huomionarvoista on, että muutokset liiketoimintaympäristössä voivat muuttaa olemassa olevien sekä tavoiteltavien verkostojen ja tiedon arvoa yrittäjän kansainvälistymisprosessissa. Näin ollen tieto ja verkostot tulisi nähdä muuttuvina elementteinä, jotka vaikuttavat kansainvälisen liiketoimintamahdollisuuden luomiseen. Lisäksi kansainvälisen liiketoimintamahdollisuuden luominen voi olla joko verkostolähtöinen tai tietoon perustuva prosessi, jossa tulee huomioida erilaisten verkostotoimijoiden rooli. Tutkimuksessa havaittiin, että väliaikaiset sopimusperustaiset toimijat ovat tyypillisesti asiantuntijoita, joiden rooli on lähinnä tiedon ja resurssien tarjoaminen, kun taas vapaaehtoisuuteen perustuvat verkostosuhteet tarjoavat tiedon ja resurssien lisäksi hyödyllisiä kontakteja sekä erityisesti auttavat kansainvälisten liiketoimintamahdollisuuksien luomisessa.

The concept of open banking is on the rise in the financial industry. Not only are banks taking an interest in this topic, but many financial technology start-ups are developing as well. One particular player can be considered challenger banks; they have gained a high degree of digital competence and agility to adapt to changes in the industry. As a result of this trend, these financial players raise the question of what the opportunities are. This study aims to identify potential opportunities for challenger banks and to provide a practical model for companies to assess the opportunities. The results of the study show that the opportunities can be divided into three segments: personalized banking services; modularity; as well as embedded finance. Finally, an opportunity evaluation canvas was developed, providing banks a systematic and comprehensive model to evaluate an opportunity. / Begreppet open banking är på frammarsch inom finansbranschen. Ämnet intresserar därmed såväl bankerna som många nystartade företag inom finansteknologi. En aktör är så kallade utmanarbankerna; de sitter på en hög grad av digital kompetens och flexibilitet vad gäller förändringar i branschen. Som ett resultat av denna trend väcker dessa finansiella aktörer frågan om vilka möjligheter som finns. Den här studien syftar till att identifiera potentiella möjligheter för utmanarbanker, samt att tillhandahålla ett praktisk ramverk inom vilket företag kan bedöma dessa möjligheter. Resultaten visar att möjligheterna kan delas in i tre kategorier: personliga banktjänster; modularitet; samt plattformar och ekosystem. Slutligen utvecklades en utvärderingsmall för möjligheter, som ger bankerna en systematisk och omfattande modell för att utvärdera en möjlighet.