Discovery and Creation

 

 Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice

            Entrepreneurs seek to create and exploit the opportunities. An ideology, opinions, and behaviors that allow the production of future commodities and services in the absence of existing markets for them constitute an entrepreneurial opportunity. The discovery theory suggests that Opportunities exist factually irrespective of entrepreneurs whereas the creation theory of entrepreneurship explains that opportunities arise through individual effort (Smith et al., 2019). The purpose of this paper is to describe the theories of entrepreneurship that underlie these two metaphors, the discovery, and creation view of entrepreneurial opportunities. The paper will closely look at the similarities as well as differences between these two entrepreneurial opportunities. Meanwhile, the creation and discovery context of entrepreneurial opportunities will be evaluated in this paper. Furthermore, the paper will also investigate three firm-level strategies or capabilities that may efficiently exploit the opportunities. Meanwhile, the paper will also discuss five dimensions of entrepreneurial opportunities orientation before concluding and providing reflection.

Entrepreneurial Opportunities Discovery and Creation

            Although entrepreneurship is a new field, it can better be explained as the creation or invention of new enterprises as well as evaluation, discovery, or exploitation of already existing opportunities in the market. Entrepreneurship includes both inventions as well as the discovery of new opportunities to make business processes smoother and robust through the use of innovation and digital transformation. Entrepreneurial opportunities are the ones that are being undertaken by a businessman to take its business affairs to an even more robust position. These opportunities can be found anywhere but in the recent world mostly entrepreneurs find these opportunities mostly in digitization and technological advancements. As stated by VU (2020), the artistic side of creation and the entrepreneurial processes used to create economic value are combined in innovation. The statement infers that innovation and digital advancement are some of the major keys that can be seen in the opportunities being undertaken by an entrepreneur. However, there are two main concepts about these opportunities that are discovery and creation of entrepreneurial opportunities. The discovery view of the entrepreneurial opportunities describes that the opportunities are always there, one only has to find and implement them in their business affairs.  However, on the other hand, the creation view of the opportunities explains that opportunities are an innovative process and one must have worked hard to create them to avail the opportunity.

            There is a middle ground argument being proposed in the long-running argument over whether entrepreneurial possibilities are better regarded as factual, existing independently of entrepreneurial effort, or personal, generated by the entrepreneur (Ramoglou & Tsang, 2016). Meanwhile, there is also a judgment and effectuation viewpoint of the entrepreneurial opportunities of discovery and creation. However, both the judgment and the effectuation viewpoints reject the existence of opportunities that are not generated by entrepreneurial activity (Foss & Klein, 2017). Furthermore Foss and Klein (2017), this does not entail extreme subjectivism or social constructivism; in both perspectives, objective elements like available resources, innovation, market preferences, and organizations impact entrepreneurial creativity and largely decide to win and losing. According to Busch and Barkema (2021), the process of entrepreneurship takes place over time as businessmen try out different products of the interplay, try to get around obstacles, change their strategies, and so forth. The processes that create visible outcomes, such as whether businesses earn revenues, attain personal gratification, or satisfy other goals, are made up of the combination of internal cognitive variables, support plans, and external constraining (Busch & Barkema, 2021).

Many individuals miss out on opportunities because they are not looking for them; nevertheless, entrepreneurs can perceive what anyone else can not. They are positive, devoted, passionate, innovative, and imaginative in a way that no one else is. Even though everyone is different, all entrepreneurs share a similar goal: to generate value from existing or novel resources (Reuber et al., 2018). This implies that opportunities are always there, but one must have good knowledge, motivation, and a creative mind to find out those opportunities. However, the ultimate objective of seeking entrepreneurial opportunities is to make a profit or earn revenue out of them. As stated by Foss & Klein (2020), opportunity recognition can be defined in two different terms but the final objective is always the same; there always exists an opportunity in the market as well as entrepreneurs always tend to find or create a new opportunity for their business to earn or maximize their revenues. This implies that every businessman looks for or create opportunities just to increase its already existing capital or revenue.

Effective Exploitation of Opportunities

            All successful firms must begin somewhere, and it is up to the businessman to uncover and develop their thoughts. First, before a businessman can begin conceptualizing, one must find, assess, and utilize these opportunities, which can be a lengthy process of ideas and research, as well as obtaining the maximum value from them to develop a successful company strategy. The process of designing a good or service centered on a projected entrepreneurial opportunity, recruiting relevant human capital, accumulating monetary capacity, and establishing the firm is known as opportunity exploitation (Jones & Barnir, 2019). According to Rezvani et al. (2019), the very common way that an entrepreneur uses to find out an opportunity is to find inefficiency in the market. Furthermore, the entrepreneur always finds a way to turn that inefficiency into opportunity and earn profit out of it (Rezvani et al., 2019). Given below are the firm-level strategies that an entrepreneur may use to exploit opportunities out of the market.

Process Innovation Strategy to Exploit Opportunities

            Process or technological innovation is one of the key factors being utilized by businesses to exploit opportunities in the market. The ability of a firm to enhance its operations, bring new improved services and goods to market, raise its productivity, and, most crucially, boost its revenue relies on the effective exploitation of novel concepts. As stated by Aksoy (2017), the ability of a firm to enhance its operations, bring new improved services and goods to market, raise its productivity, and, most crucially, boost its revenue relies on the effective exploitation of novel concepts. The very main purpose of the process innovation is to seek a competitive advantage within the market to produce final goods for the company at the lowest possible cost (Distanont & Khongmalai, 2020). However, different firms equip themselves with technological advancement tools to produce final goods of high quality in the lowest possible time.

The main objective of the process innovation at the firm level is to create an innovative way to deliver refined goods and services (Möldner et al., 2020). The world has become more globalized and businesses are equipping themselves with modern technologies to gain a competitive advantage in the market. In order to survive in such a competitive environment, one must have to innovate its process as well as find new ways through technological advancement to exploit opportunities out of it. The very relative example of process innovation and exploiting opportunities can be seen from Ocado corporation which equipped its warehouses with the robotic technology to pick, grab, and pack its products in minimal possible time (Vincent, 2018). This process innovation by the Ocado group assisted the company to remain successful even in the time of the Covid-19 pandemic-like situation. Thus, the firm managed to exploit opportunities in a pandemic-like situation where almost every business in the world is facing a drastic decline in terms of revenue.

Networking and Exploiting Opportunities

            Businesses collaborate with other firms and companies to make themselves a firm position to survive in a competitive market environment. A networking process is an opportunity to meet and engage with other professional people or businesses to create contacts, ask for guidance, and develop new skills (DHAMERIA et al., 2021). Furthermore, the key purpose of networking by a business is to exploit opportunities within the market by collaborating with other firms such as software firms to deal with various information technology processes. The business comes across a networking process to avoid investing in a new venture to save time and money (Anwar et al., 2018). This implies that businesses collaborate with other businesses to save time and money. Meanwhile, networking also helps businesses in sharing ideas to process something innovative or unique within the market. The apple corporation collaborates with Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company to produce A-series and silicon chips for Apple products (Chiang, 2018).

Marketing and Exploiting Opportunities

            The business or entrepreneurs exploit the market by utilizing marketing as its strategic tool. Marketing is the method by which a business or an entrepreneur engages its intended audience, develops solid relationships, and creates value to earn profit or revenue for the firm (Kadekova & Holienčinova, 2018). Entrepreneurial marketing has to do with a marketing mentality that distinguishes itself from conventional marketing techniques than it is about a specific marketing method. Entrepreneurial marketing is more about creating opportunities for the firms or their products to enter a more crowded market (Sadiku-Dushi et al., 2019). In short, firms or businesses do marketing to exploit or create opportunities within the market.

Dimensions of Entrepreneurial Orientation

            Entrepreneurial orientation is a management approach at the firm level that incorporates a firm's entrepreneurial strategy-making procedures, management beliefs, and firm behaviors (Wales et al., 2020). According to Lumpkin and Dess (1996), there is a total of five dimensions through which firm-level entrepreneurial orientation can be examined: Autonomy, risk-taking, innovativeness, proactiveness, and competitive aggressiveness. 

Autonomy

            This dimension of entrepreneurial orientation refers to how a person or a group of people inside an institution has the flexibility to formulate and implement an entrepreneurial initiative. According to Lumpkin and Dess (1996), individuals are given the liberty they need to bring a fresh concept to completion in an institute with high autonomy, free of the constraints of business politics.

Risk-Taking

            The tendency to engage in daring rather than careful behaviors is referred to as risk-taking. The touch screen smartphones being introduced by Apple Inc. in 2008 can be taken as one of the risk-taking strategies (Cardoso, 2017). Thus, the introduction of something completely new for Apple Inc. was a risk, but its CEO Steve Jobs managed through his insightfulness and took the opportunity out of it.

Innovativeness

            The propensity to explore imagination and discovery is referred to as innovativeness. Certain advancements rely on current skills to produce marginal changes, but more revolutionary developments necessitate the acquisition of whole new skills, which may render existing skills useless. Anyway, innovativeness is a process of searching for new skills, creativeness, and technological advancements within a work environment. The robotic installation of the Ocado group is a very example of innovativeness to explore new opportunities (BBC, 2018).

Proactiveness

            Proactiveness is the ability to recognize and respond to future demands instead of responding to actions as they arise. An opportunity-seeking mindset is the hallmark of a proactive organization. Apple's initiative of introducing a touch screen is the best example of proactiveness for an initiative rather than waiting for others to try it first.

Competitive Aggressiveness

            This dimension of the entrepreneurial orientation refers to the inclination to confront opponents head-on instead of avoiding them. Price cuts and increased advertising, reliability, and production capabilities are examples of aggressive initiatives.

Self-Reflection

            I will be utilizing the So What reflection model by Professor Gary Rolfe and Colleagues to reflect on three dimensions Risk-taking, competitive aggressiveness, and proactiveness of the Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO).

What?

            The three dimensions of EO talk about taking initiatives to capture opportunities from within the market. The basic purpose of the dimensions is to seek entrepreneurial opportunities by utilizing different strategies. My understanding before coming through these dimensions was the opposite. However, when I came across these dimensions and related them to examples from different brands, my perception of entrepreneurial opportunities has been changed.

So What?

            I learned numerous new ways to seek opportunities within a market structure. Meanwhile, I also learned that only those entrepreneurs are successful who take risks, proactiveness, and competitiveness aggressiveness to take initiatives.

Now What?

            In the future, I will ensure that I will utilize all the skills that I have learned from the dimensions of entrepreneurial opportunities. Meanwhile, I will try to adopt a risk-lover strategy but be risk-averse.

Conclusion

            The goal of this research was to describe the entrepreneurship theories that underpin these two metaphors of entrepreneurial opportunity finding and development. The parallels and contrasts between these two entrepreneurial prospects were also examined in depth in the report. Meanwhile, this article examines the backdrop of entrepreneurial opportunity development and discovery. In addition, the research looked into three firm-level tactics or competencies that may be used to effectively utilize the prospects. The report examined five elements of entrepreneurial opportunities orientation before ending and providing reflection.

 

References

            Aksoy, H. (2017). How do innovation culture, marketing innovation, and product innovation affect the market performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)? Technology in Society, 51(4), 133–141.

Anwar, M., Rehman, A. U., & Shah, S. Z. A. (2018). Networking and new venture’s performance: Mediating role of competitive advantage. International Journal of Emerging Markets.

Busch, C., & Barkema, H. (2021). From necessity to opportunity: Scaling bricolage across resource‐constrained environments. Strategic Management Journal, 42(4), 741–773.

Cardoso, E. A. R. P. (2017). Examining the differences of the internationalization strategies of two of the major brands in the smartphone industry-Apple inc. Versus Samsung electronics.

Chiang, M.-H. (2018). Taiwan’s Economy in 2017: Boosted by Apple’s Great Appetite. East Asian Policy, 10(01), 92–104.

DHAMERIA, V., HIDAYAT, A., GHOZALI, I., & ARYANTO, V. D. W. (2021). Networking Capability, Entrepreneurial Marketing, Competitive Advantage, and Marketing Performance: A Case Study of Embroidery SMEs in Indonesia. The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics, and Business, 8(6), 319–326.

Distanont, A., & Khongmalai, O. (2020). The role of innovation in creating a competitive advantage. Kasetsart Journal of Social Sciences, 41(1), 15–21.

Foss, N. J., & Klein, P. G. (2017). Entrepreneurial Discovery or Creation? In Search of the Middle Ground. Academy of Management Review, 42(4), 733–736. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2016.0046

Foss, N. J., & Klein, P. G. (2020). Entrepreneurial opportunities: Who needs them? Academy of Management Perspectives, 34(3), 366–377.

Jones, R. J., & Barnir, A. (2019). Properties of opportunity creation and discovery: Comparing variation in contexts of innovativeness. Technovation, 79, 1–10.

Kadekova, Z., & Holienčinova, M. (2018). Influencer marketing is a modern phenomenon creating a new frontier of virtual opportunities. Communication Today, 9(2).

Lumpkin, G. T., & Dess, G. G. (1996). Clarifying the entrepreneurial orientation construct and linking it to performance. Academy of Management Review, 21(1), 135–172.

Möldner, A. K., Garza-Reyes, J. A., & Kumar, V. (2020). Exploring lean manufacturing practices’ influence on process innovation performance. Journal of Business Research, 106, 233–249.

Ramoglou, S., & Tsang, E. W. (2016). A realist perspective of entrepreneurship: Opportunities as propensities. Academy of Management Review, 41(3), 410–434.

Reuber, A. R., Knight, G. A., Liesch, P. W., & Zhou, L. (2018). International entrepreneurship: The pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities across national borders. Springer.

Rezvani, M., Lashgari, M., & Farsi, J. Y. (2019). International entrepreneurial alertness in opportunity discovery for market entry. Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship.

Sadiku-Dushi, N., Dana, L.-P., & Ramadani, V. (2019). Entrepreneurial marketing dimensions and SMEs performance. Journal of Business Research, 100, 86–99.

Smith, A. W., Moghaddam, K., & Lanivich, S. E. (2019). A set‐theoretic investigation into the origins of creation and discovery opportunities. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 13(1), 75–92.

The Ocado robot swarms that pack your shopping. (2018, May 8). BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43968495

Vincent, J. (2018, May 8). Welcome to the automated warehouse of the future. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/8/17331250/automated-warehouses-jobs-ocado-andover-amazon

VU, H. M. (2020). A review of dynamic capabilities, innovation capabilities, entrepreneurial capabilities, and their consequences. The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics, and Business, 7(8), 485–494.

Wales, W. J., Covin, J. G., & Monsen, E. (2020). Entrepreneurial orientation: The necessity of a multilevel conceptualization. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 14(4), 639–660.