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Cited by 4,585

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 1 of the 1 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Prior Knowledge and the Discovery of Entrepreneurial Opportunities

Shane, Scott·2000·Organization Science
DOI 10.1287/orsc.11.4.448.14602
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Abstract

Before technological change leads to new processes, products, markets, or ways of organizing, entrepreneurs must discover opportunities in which to exploit the new technology. To date, research has not explained adequately why entrepreneurs discover these opportunities, which creates several conceptual problems in the entrepreneurship literature. Drawing on Austrian economics, I argue that opportunity discovery is a function of the distribution of information in society (Hayek 1945). Through in-depth case studies of eight sets of entrepreneurs who exploit a single MIT invention, I show that entrepreneurs discover opportunities related to the information that they already possess. I use these findings to draw several implications that differ from those prevailing in the entrepreneurship literature, including: (1) entrepreneurs do not always select between alternative market opportunities for new technologies; (2) the source of entrepreneurship lies in differences in information about opportunities; (3) the results of prior studies of entrepreneurial exploitation may suffer from bias; and (4) individual differences influence the opportunities that people discover, how their entrepreneurial efforts are organized, and how the government can influence this process.

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Show all 1 references

Research works printed but not linked: 34

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Cited by

Metadata

Authors
Shane, S.
Venue
Organization Science
Publisher
Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)
Published
2000-08
Volume
11
Issue
4
Pages
448-469
ISSN
  • 1047-7039 (ISSN-L)
  • 1526-5455
DOI
10.1287/orsc.11.4.448.14602
OpenAlex
W2030747846
Cited by
4,585
References
1
FWCI
82.00
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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