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1. Introduction
The perception of and pursuit of opportunity have recently become a central focus of research as the core activities of entrepreneurs ([18] Gaglio, 1997; [28] Hsieh et al. , 2007; [42] McMullen and Shepherd, 2006; [47] Murphy, 2011; [57] Shane and Venkataraman, 2000; [68] Venkataraman, 1997). Entrepreneurs are distinguished by their ability to perceive and exploit opportunities overlooked by others ([32], [34] Kirzner, 1973, 1985; [54] Schumpeter, 1942). [68] Venkataraman (1997) reasoned that entrepreneurship as a scholarly field seeks to understand:
- why, when, and how opportunities for the creation of "future" goods and services arise in the economy; and
- why, when, and how some are able to discover and exploit those opportunities while others cannot or do not.
This article focuses on these questions and presents a framework of opportunity perception that builds on the conceptual foundations laid by [54] Schumpeter (1942), [32], [35] Kirzner (1973, 1997), [58] Shaver and Scott(1991), [68] Venkataraman (1997), [57] Shane and Venkataraman (2000), [20] Gaglio and Katz (2001), [56] Shane (2003), [19] Gaglio (2004), [47] Murphy (2011), [28] Hsieh et al. (2007), and others.
In recent years few topics have inspired as much interest or debate among entrepreneurship scholars as the phenomenon of opportunity perception (often also referred to by terms such as recognition, identification, discovery or notice). Although "opportunity recognition" is the most frequently used nomenclature within the literature, we will use "opportunity perception" throughout this paper because, as explained in detail later, we believe this is the more theoretically precise label and the only terminology that can reconcile diverse, yet equally valid, theoretic perspectives.
A brief foray into the literature about entrepreneurial opportunity provides examples of the fragmentation, contradiction, definitional ambiguity and other problems for which the entrepreneurship literature is often criticized ([24] Hansen et al. , 2011). Some scholars have viewed opportunity as a discrete phenomenon that is exogenous to the entrepreneur and springs from external circumstances, such as new technology or a social change (e.g. [35] Kirzner, 1997; [54] Schumpeter, 1942; [56] Shane, 2003; [57] Shane and Venkataraman, 2000). Others viewed opportunity as inextricably linked to and stemming from the entrepreneur's own cognition (e.g. [22] Gartner et al. , 2003; [49] Sarason et al. , 2006; [16] Edelman and Yli-Renko,...