From Ideas to Opportunities: Exploring the Construction of Technology-Based Entrepreneurial Opportunities

We have published an article at the TIM Review, an open access journal focused in technology innovation management (www.timreview.ca). We thank you the editors and reviewers of the journal that have helped to make it possible.

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The article describes how Technology-based Entrepreneurs deal with the transformation of business ideas into market opportunities. The process is seen to change depending on the variables influencing the opportunity-entrepreneur nexus. Although technology-entrepreneurship is regarded as a force of change and dynamism in socio-economic growth, it also depends upon an intricate process of opportunity development.

The interest in understanding better how technology-based entrepreneurs simultaneously cope with technological uncertainty while trying to gain stakeholder support and access to resources, highlights a relevant research gap. The research described in the article uses the constructivist view to deepen our understanding of the technology-based entrepreneur’s conceptualization of the opportunity as a process of social construction.

The results show how initial consensus-building efforts and iteration with knowledgeable peers are an essential part of the emergence of the opportunity, changing both entrepreneur's and stakeholders' perceptions of the early business idea. Consequently, the results provide evidence in support of policy programs and measures that favour social-construction support mechanisms to foster technology-based entrepreneurship.

See more at: http://timreview.ca/article/692

Full June 2013 issue: http://timreview.ca/sites/default/files/Issue_PDF/TIMReview_June2013.pdf