Opportunities and Prior Knowledge: A Study of Experienced Entrepreneurs

Abstract

This study investigates how opportunity generation is related to the prior knowledge base of experienced entrepreneurs. The paper explores how prior knowledge is used in the process of opportunity generation and whether this varies dependent on how opportunities come into existence. Opportunities may be the result of serendipity or deliberate search, and may be (objectively) discovered or (subjectively) created. Combining these two axes gave four types of processes: opportunity discovery, opportunity search, opportunity creation, and opportunity occurrence. Based on interviews of farm-based entrepreneurs in Finland and Norway, it is detected that different processes of opportunity generation related to the situations of the entrepreneurs, their former experiences, and their social networks.