The extent and nature of opportunity identification by experienced entrepreneurs

By Deniz Ucbasaran, Paul Westhead, Mike Wright. 2009

679 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Guided by insights from cognitive theories, this article explores the links between entrepreneurs' prior business ownership experience and their opportunity identification behavior. Hypotheses were tested using data from 630 entrepreneurs. Experienced entrepreneurs identified more opportunities and exploited more innovative opportunities with greater wealth creation potential. Entrepreneurs that had owned more than 4.5 businesses, however, identified fewer opportunities. The nature of prior business ownership experience also shaped opportunity identification behavior. An inverse U-shaped relationship was detected between the proportion of failed businesses relative to the number of businesses owned and the number of opportunities identified in a given period. Business failure experience was not associated with the innovativeness of exploited opportunities.

Subfields: Accounting, Management of Technology and Innovation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/371d98bfcadc91c06851dd1bb80ac0dea126e03b

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In Management of Technology and Innovation

Citations in the corpus

The Concept of “Opportunity” in Entrepreneurship Research: Past Accomplishments and Future Challenges (2010, background): “Finally, entrepreneurial experience was demonstrated to be linked to the exploitation of more innovative opportunities with greater wealth potential (Ucbasaran et al., 2009).”
The Schumpeterian entrepreneur: a review of the empirical evidence on the antecedents, behaviour and consequences of innovative entrepreneurship (2017, positive): “Other studies focus on prior the entrepreneur’s prior experiences (e.g. Cliff, Jennings, and Greenwood 2006; Ucbasaran, Westhead, and Wright 2009; Gruber, MacMillan, and Thompson 2013; Simmons, Wiklund, and Levie 2014).”
Portfolio Entrepreneurship in Family Firms: A Resource-based Perspective (2011, background): “This last fi nding generally supports the same contention made in habitual entrepreneurship research (Shepherd et al., 2003; Baron and Ward, 2004; Ucbasaran et al., 2009; Ucbasaran et al., forthcoming).”
Do serial entrepreneurs run successively better-performing businesses? (2013, background): “Entrepreneurs learn how to: recognize new venture opportunities (Alsos et al., 2006; Baron and Ensley, 2006; Ucbasaran et al., 2009); spot effective managerial practices; and develop reputations and network relationships with suppliers and financiers (Cope, 2011; Gompers et al., 2010; Politis,…”
The Resource‐Based View in Entrepreneurship: A Content‐Analytical Comparison of Researchers' and Entrepreneurs' Views (2016, result): “…and 202 usable definitions were obtained, leading to a final response rate of 12.55 percent, which is comparable with other recent studies on the RBV and on entrepreneurs (e.g., Chua et al. 2011; Ray, Barney, and Muhanna 2004; Sullivan and Marvel 2011; Ucbasaran, Westhead, and Wright 2009).”
Entrepreneurial opportunity recognition: an empirical study of R&D personnel (2013, background): “Empirical research has provided strong evidence that prior knowledge and experience are positively related to entrepreneurial opportunity recognition (Ozgen, 2003; Shane, 2000; Ucbasaran et al., 2009).”
Small firm innovation performance and employee involvement (2014, neutral): “…and are dependent on human capital (Zarutskie 2010; Dimov and Shepherd 2005; Snell and Dean 1992; Grant 1996b; Tushman and Anderson 1986; Ucbasaran et al. 2009), social capital (Bhagavatula et al. 2010; Davidsson and Honig 2003), the use of different information sources (Ozgen and Baron…”
How entrepreneurs acquire the capacity to excel: insights from research on expert performance (2010, background): “For instance, Ucbasaran, Westhead, and Wright (2009) found that up to a point, growing experience among entrepreneurs is positively related to their ability to recognize opportunities.”
Entrepreneurial intentions and start-ups: Are women or men more likely to enact their intentions? (2018, methodology): “Hence, it is important to examine the overall model fit in ordered logit analysis which is done using the function of log likelihood (Robson et al., 2013; Ucbasaran et al., 2009).”
Dynamics of Science-based entrepreneurship (2010, background): “Ucbasaran et al. (2005, 2009) , using a representative sample of all private firms, find that while portfolio entrepreneurs pursued innovative opportunities relative to novice entrepreneurs, serial entrepreneurs did not.”
Prior knowledge and social networks in the exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities (2010, background): “This conservative codification of business opportunities is consistent with other studies (Singh et al. 1999; Gordon 2007; Ucbasaran et al. 2009).”
Beyond Affective Valence: Untangling Valence and Activation Influences on Opportunity Identification (2015, methodology): “We suggest using scales from either Ucbasaran, Westhead, and Wright (2009) or DeTienne and Chandler (2007) to measure opportunity identification.”
Serial Crowdfunding, Social Capital, and Project Success (2017, background): “Literature on serial entrepreneurs has detected a detrimental effect on entrepreneurial performance of having run too many firms in the past (Ucbasaran et al., 2009).”