Entrepreneurial processes and the social construction of opportunity

Denise Fletcher

Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 2006, vol. 18, issue 5, 421-440

Abstract: In contrast to structurally-determinist and cognitive/agency-oriented views of opportunity recognition, it is argued that opportunity formation is relationally and communally constituted — an insight that is not recognized in descriptive or linear process models of opportunity recognition. To arrive at this claim, use is made of social constructionist ideas. These ideas have been frequently applied in entrepreneurship studies but less attention has been given to the relational aspects of social constructionist thinking particularly with regard to opportunity formation processes. To aid this line of enquiry an analysis is undertaken of a sibling-autobiographical account of a high-profile business venture, Coffee Republic. This account has been crafted by the sibling partnership with a particular audience in mind (the would-be entrepreneur) with guidelines and principles on how ‘anyone can do it’. However, it is not utilized here as a good specimen of business venturing to be probed for particular (hidden) meanings. Instead, the account is evaluated in order to illustrate how individualistic statements about opportunity discovery can be reconceptualized as relationally and communally constituted -- an emphasis which is important for widening our theoretical understanding of the activities that we label entrepreneurship.

Date: 2006
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (43)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/08985620600861105 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:entreg:v:18:y:2006:i:5:p:421-440

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/TEPN20

DOI: 10.1080/08985620600861105

Access Statistics for this article

Entrepreneurship & Regional Development is currently edited by Professor Alistair Anderson

More articles in Entrepreneurship & Regional Development from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().