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Opportunity discovery, entrepreneurial action, and economic organization

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Klein, Peter G.·2008·Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal

Abstract

This article reviews and critiques the opportunity discovery approach to entrepreneurship and argues that entrepreneurship can be more thoroughly grounded, and more closely linked to more general problems of economic organization by adopting the Cantillon‐Knight‐Mises understanding of entrepreneurship as judgment. The article begins by distinguishing among occupational, structural, and functional approaches to entrepreneurship and distinguishing among two influential interpretations of the entrepreneurial function—discovery and judgment. It turns next to the contemporary literature on opportunity identification and argues that this literature misinterprets Kirzner's instrumental use of the discovery metaphor and mistakenly makes opportunities the unit of analysis. The article then describes an alternative approach in which investment is the unit of analysis and link this approach to Austrian capital theory. I close with some applications to organizational form and entrepreneurial teams. Copyright © 2008 Strategic Management Society.

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Metadata

Authors
Klein, P. G.
Venue
Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2008-09
Volume
2
Issue
3
Pages
175-190
ISSN
  • 1932-4391 (ISSN-L)
  • 1932-443X
OpenAlex
W2023924738
Cited by
565
References
3
FWCI
35.64
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green

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Klein, P. G. (2008). Opportunity discovery, entrepreneurial action, and economic organization. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal. https://doi.org/10.1002/sej.50

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