تولید فرصت کارآفرینانه: یک دیدگاه ساختار گرایانه The Production Of Entrepreneurial Opportunity: A Constructivist Perspective

INTRODUCTION It is widely acknowledged that the opportunity construct is central to the fi eld of entrepreneurship, yet the origins of opportunities remain largely opaque (Plummer, Haynie, and Godesiabois, 2007). Much of the current discussion regarding the origins of opportunities focuses on the ontological and epistemological debate between the more widely adopted objectivist perspective and the lesser known constructivist perspective. The objectivist perspective argues that opportunities are created independently of the entrepreneur and, thus, are available to all (Hayek, 1948; Kirzner, 1979; Shane and Venkataraman, 2000; Shane, 2003). On the other hand, the constructivist perspective argues that opportunities are produced through a process of social construction and cannot exist apart from the entrepreneur (Shackle, 1979; Sarasvathy, 2001; Baker and Nelson, 2005). A signifi cant portion of entrepreneurship research adopts the objectivist perspective and pays less attention to the possibility that entrepreneurial opportunities emerge as the result of entrepreneurs’ actions that are framed by social processes and existing social structures (McMullen and Shepherd, 2006; Alvarez and Barney, 2007). Treating opportunities as objective realities that exist apart from the entrepreneur directs researchers toward uncovering the reasons why some individuals discover opportunities while others do not. Individual traits (Deivansenapathy, 1986), differential access to opportunities (Krueger, 1993; Romanelli, 1989), and varying degrees of alertness to opportunities (Kirzner, 1979, 1985; Gaglio and Katz, 2001) are just a few of the research foci in the objectivist tradition. This line of thinking is often called the discovery approach (Alvarez and Barney, 2007) and its core logic is refl ected in the work of Shane and Venkataraman (2000: 220), who argue that while opportunity recognition is subjective to the individual, opportunities themselves are ‘objective phenomena that are not known to all parties at all times.’ Thus, the discovery perspective recognizes the importance of the entrepreneur, but is silent on the possibility that the entrepreneur operates in a social world that plays a part in the emergence and development of opportunities. Research on entrepreneurial cognition (e.g., McMullen and Shepherd, 2006; Mitchell et al., 2002; Shepherd, McMullen, and Jennings, 2007) takes a step toward acknowledging these social infl uences, but still largely assumes that the entrepreneur is interpreting signals that are the product of an objective reality. Because the discovery perspective does not fully acknowledge the social nature of economic structures and the role entrepreneurs play in the generation of opportunities within those structures, constructivist ontology and epistemology is gaining traction within the fi eld of entrepreneurship (e.g., Sarasvathy 2001; Baker and Nelson, 2005; Dimov, 2007; Luksha, 2008; Felin and Zenger, 2009). There appears to be a growing contingent of scholars who feel that constructivism may shed new light on parts of the opportunity phenomenon that the discovery perspective is unable to illuminate. For example, Mahoney and Michael (2005) discussed some of the promising new insights that constructivist principles might provide and then laid the foundation for what a constructivist theory of entrepreneurship might look like, but they did not develop a specifi c model of the entrepreneurial opportunity production process. In a similar vein, Alvarez and Barney (2007) noted that several authors have described certain aspects of a constructivist (or creation) theory (e.g., Gartner, 1985; Sarasvathy, 2001; Baker and Nelson, 2005). However, creation theory has yet to be articulated as a unifi ed theory in the literature. For these reasons, we believe that a constructivist theory that begins the process of identifying how entrepreneurial opportunities are produced by entrepreneurs is long overdue. This article seeks to fi ll that gap by introducing a constructivist theory that identifi es the origins of opportunities, the entrepreneurial cognitions and actions associated with enacting an opportunity, and the entrepreneurial cognitions associated with abandonment of an opportunity. Our multistage process theory is developed from the tenets of constructivism, which holds that much of the world that is presented to us is not really an objective reality, but rather a product of social construction (Weick, 1979; Giddens, 1984). Therefore, constructivists assume that human action is not simply a response to objective conditions, objects, and events. Instead, human action arises from the interpretation of external stimuli by actors, the investment of those stimuli with meaning, and the generation of subsequent behaviors (Gaglio, 1997). Moreover, constructivism replaces the idea of fi nding the truth in an objective world with the idea of testing for viability in a subjective world (Von Glasersfeld, 1981; Weick, 1995). Applying that logic to the investigation of entrepreneurial opportunities suggests that many opportunities are the outcome of social construction, not preexisting entities subject to detection by the entrepreneur. In this way, a constructivist perspective provides unique insights because it allows us to view opportunities as subjective phenomena that begin unformed and develop over time. Thus, a constructivist perspective departs from established literature (e.g., Kirzner, 1979) that considers opportunities as something already formed and awaiting discovery by alert individuals. Constructivism suggests that opportunities are the outcome of entrepreneurs’ effort and action, and that such opportunities mirror the more general social processes through which individuals ‘construct corridors from their personal experiences to stable economic and sociological institutions that comprise the organizations and markets we see in the world’ (Sarasvathy, 2004: 289). To be clear, we position our theory as a true constructivist perspective that supplements theory about the discovery of entrepreneurial opportunities (e.g., Shane, 2000; Kirzner, 1979) rather than seeking to supplant it. By this we mean that the constructivist perspective is different from, but not necessarily superior to, the objectivist view. Unlike the objectivist view, a major component of constructivist logic is the idea that consensus and coalition building are required to effectively infl uence current economic and social structures in ways that give rise to opportunities for profi t (Shackle, 1979; Weick, 1979; Giddens, 1984; Sarasvathy, 2001; Dimov, 2007; Felin and Zenger, 2009). As such, the ideas of consensus and consensus building are key underlying components in the development of our theory. Our constructivist model of opportunity production begins with the entrepreneur’s perception of a possible opportunity in the form of an idea (Dimov, 2007). At this initial stage, the opportunity is imagined (Shackle, 1979; Klein, 2008) and the entrepreneur is likely to be uncertain about the viability of the opportunity. Thus, we posit that the entrepreneur will begin a sensemaking process (Weick, 1995) intended to clarify the viability of the envisioned future. This sensemaking process takes place through interactions between the entrepreneur and his or her peers: for example, family, friends, and mentors. The outcome of the sensemaking process is either objectifi cation of the opportunity in the mind of the entrepreneur or abandonment of the idea. At the second stage, the entrepreneur attempts to enact objectifi ed opportunities by engaging the social structure and trying to entrain (Collins, 1998) potential stakeholders into supporting the venture. The support of these individuals is needed to turn the opportunity into a working business (Lounsbury and Glynn, 2001). We argue that the entrepreneur’s access to preexisting social ties and the entrepreneur’s reputation facilitate the consensus building that is required to fully enact an opportunity. However, not all attempts at entraining stakeholders in opportunity enactment are successful, so our model recognizes that some objectifi ed opportunities will also be abandoned by entrepreneurs at the enactment stage. Our model suggests that opportunity abandonment, whether it occurs before objectifi cation or before full enactment, will trigger a post hoc cognitive reconstruction by the entrepreneur. In that reconstruction, the entrepreneur will redefi ne his/her initial opportunity idea as an illusion. We argue that this post hoc reconstruction of the initial precipitating idea as illusory reduces cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957; Harmon-Jones and Mills, 1999) that is associated with the act of opportunity abandonment. In turn, this dissonance reduction has benefi ts for the entrepreneur, increasing his/her cognitive fl exibility and openness to the pursuit of new ideas. Through the model outlined above, this article makes predictions that are not derivable from the theory of the discovery of entrepreneurial opportunities (Kirzner, 1979; Shane, 2000). These predictions are captured in formal propositions that are available for future empirical testing. In developing those propositions, we identify the role of social structures, the entrepreneur’s cognitive evaluations of those structures, and the entrepreneur’s ability to infl uence social structures in the future as key elements in the opportunity production process. We also delineate the cognitive shifts that must take place for opportunity objectifi cation to occur and state how social interaction infl uences these changes in mental models. Finally, we explicitly develop the notion that consensus building is a key to the successful enactment of opportunities and that social relationships and reputation help facilitate that task. These cognitive and social processes (and their associated relationships) have not been integrated in the existing literature and are not visible using discovery theory logic.