The unit of analysis in entrepreneurship research : opportunities or investments?

Abstract

The entrepeneurship literature in management focuses increasingly on opportunities — their \ncreation or discovery, evaluation, and exploitation — as the unit of analysis. We argue first, \nthat the opportunity perspective emerged from the “functional” literature in the economics of \nentrepreneurship (mainly the works of Israel Kirzner), a literature that emphasizes not the in-\ndividual entrepreneur per se, but the functions (e.g., market clearing) that entrepreneurs under-\ntake in a market economy; second, that most notions of entrepreneurship in economics and \nmanagement are not easily integrated into the theory of the firm; third, that the popular em-\nphasis on opportunity discovery tends to direct attention from opportunity exploitation; and \nfourth, that the Cantillon-Mises-Knight view of entrepreneurship as judgment links more na-\nturally with the economic theory of the firm.

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