This authoritative collection presents the most important and influential contributions to the study of entrepreneurial opportunity. The careful selection of articles, alongside an original introduction by the editors, concludes by highlighting the varying contexts in which entrepreneurial opportunity can occur and strategies for researching it.

Contents: Acknowledgements Introduction Dean A. Shepherd and Denis A. Grégoire PART I THE NATURE OF ENTREPRENEURIAL OPPORTUNITIES A. Conceptual Definition 1. Jonathan T. Eckhardt and Scott A. Shane (2003), ‘Opportunities and Entrepreneurship’ 2. Jeffery S. McMullen, Lawrence A. Plummer and Zoltan J. Acs (2007), ‘What is an Entrepreneurial Opportunity?’ B. On The Origins of Opportunities: Perspectives from the Economics System 3. Israel M. Kirzner (1997), ‘Entrepreneurial Discovery and the Competitive Market Process: An Austrian Approach’ 4. Randall G. Holcombe (2003), ‘The Origins of Entrepreneurial Opportunities’ 5. Lawrence A. Plummer, J. Michael Haynie and Joy Godesiabois (2007), ‘An Essay on the Origins of Entrepreneurial Opportunity’ C. On The Origins of Opportunities: Perspectives from the Individual Level 6. Jane E. Dutton and Susan E. Jackson (1987), ‘Categorizing Strategic Issues: Links to Organizational Action’ 7. Jeffery S. McMullen and Dean A. Shepherd (2006), ‘Entrepreneurial Action and the Role of Uncertainty in the Theory of the Entrepreneur’ 8. Dean A. Shepherd, Jeffery S. McMullen and P. Devereaux Jennings (2007), ‘The Formation of Opportunity Beliefs: Overcoming Ignorance and Reducing Doubt’ 9. Dimo Dimov (2011), ‘Grappling With the Unbearable Elusiveness of Entrepreneurial Opportunities’ PART II THE DYNAMICS OF OPPORTUNITY EMERGENCE A. Alertness to Entrepreneurial Opportunities 10. Connie Marie Gaglio and Jerome A. Katz (2001), ‘The Psychological Basis of Opportunity Identification: Entrepreneurial Alertness’ 11. Alexander Ardichvili, Richard Cardozo and Sourav Ray (2003), ‘A Theory of Entrepreneurial Opportunity Identification and Development’ B. Discovery of Entrepreneurial Opportunities 12. Scott Shane (2000), ‘Prior Knowledge and the Discovery of Entrepreneurial Opportunities’ 13. Dean A. Shepherd and Dawn R. DeTienne (2005), ‘Prior Knowledge, Potential Financial Reward, and Opportunity Identification’ C. Searching for Entrepreneurial Opportunities 14. James O. Fiet (2007), ‘A Prescriptive Analysis of Search and Discovery’ 15. Ivan P. Vaghely and Pierre-André Julien (2010), ‘Are Opportunities Recognised or Constructed? An Information Perspective on Entrepreneurial Opportunity Identification’ D. The Creation of Entrepreneurial Opportunities 16. Saras D. Sarasvathy (2001), ‘Causation and Effectuation: Toward a Theoretical Shift from Economic Inevitability to Entrepreneurial Contingency’ 17. Ted Baker and Reed E. Nelson (2005), ‘Creating Something from Nothing: Resource Construction through Entrepreneurial Bricolage’ 18. Sharon A. Alvarez and Jay B. Barney (2010), ‘Entrepreneurship and Epistemology: The Philosophical Underpinnings of the Study of Entrepreneurial Opportunities’ E. Cognitive Process for Opportunity Identification 19. Robert A. Baron and Michael D. Ensley (2006), ‘Opportunity Recognition as the Detection of Meaningful Patterns: Evidence from Comparisons of Novice and Experienced Entrepreneurs’ 20. Denis A. Grégoire, Pamela S. Barr and Dean A. Shepherd (2010), ‘Cognitive Processes of Opportunity Recognition: The Role of Structural Alignment’ F. Learning and Entrepreneurial Opportunity 21. Dean A. Shepherd (2003), ‘Learning from Business Failure: Propositions of Grief Recovery for the Self-Employed’ 22. Andrew C. Corbett (2007), ‘Learning Asymmetries and the Discovery of Entrepreneurial Opportunities’ G. The Impact of Human and Social Capital 23. Per Davidsson and Benson Honig (2003), ‘The Role of Social and Human Capital Among Nascent Entrepreneurs’ 24. Eren Ozgen and Robert A. Baron (2007), ‘Social Sources of Information in Opportunity Recognition: Effects of Mentors, Industry Networks, and Professional Forums’ 25. Deniz Ucbasaran, Paul Westhead and Mike Wright (2009), ‘The Extent and Nature of Opportunity Identification by Experienced Entrepreneurs’ H. Evaluation of Opportunities 26. Young Rok Choi and Dean A. Shepherd (2004), ‘Entrepreneurs’ Decisions to Exploit Opportunities’ 27. J. Michael Haynie, Dean A. Shepherd and Jeffery S. McMullen (2009), ‘An Opportunity for Me? The Role of Resources in Opportunity Evaluation Decisions’ 28. J. Robert Mitchell and Dean A. Shepherd (2010), ‘To Thine Own Self Be True: Images of Self, Images of Opportunity, and Entrepreneurial Action’ PART III ENTREPRENEURIAL OPPORTUNITIES IN DIFFERENT CONTEXTS A. Different Paths for Different Types of Opportunities 29. John C. Dencker, Marc Gruber and Sonali K. Shah (2009), ‘Individual and Opportunity Factors Influencing Job Creation in New Firms’ 30. Mikael Samuelsson and Per Davidsson (2009), ‘Does Venture Opportunity Variation Matter? Investigating Systematic Process Differences Between Innovative and Imitative New Ventures’ B. Entrepreneurial Opportunities and the Community 31. Norris F. Krueger, Jr. and Deborah V. Brazeal (1994), ‘Entrepreneurial Potential and Potential Entrepreneurs’ 32. Ana María Peredo and James J. Chrisman (2010), ‘Toward a Theory of Community-Based Enterprise’ C. Entrepreneurial Opportunities and the Environment 33. Thomas J. Dean and Jeffery S. McMullen (2007), ‘Toward a Theory of Sustainable Entrepreneurship: Reducing Environmental Degradation Through Entrepreneurial Action’ 34. Dean A. Shepherd and Holger Patzelt (2011), ‘The New Field of Sustainable Entrepreneurship: Studying Entrepreneurial Action Linking “What Is to Be Sustained?” With “What Is to Be Developed?”’ D. Entrepreneurial Opportunities and the International Context 35. Dante Di Gregorio, Martina Musteen and Douglas E. Thomas (2008), ‘International New Ventures: The Cross-Border Nexus of Individuals and Opportunities’ 36. Emilia Rovira Nordman and Sara Melén (2008), ‘The Impact of Different Kinds of Knowledge for the Internationalization Process of Born Globals in the Biotech Business’ PART IV METHODOLOGICAL STRATEGIES FOR RESEARCHING ENTREPRENEURIAL OPPORTUNITIES 37. Denis A. Grégoire, Dean A. Shepherd and Lisa Schurer Lambert (2010), ‘Measuring Opportunity-Recognition Beliefs: Illustrating and Validating an Experimental Approach’ 38. Susan A. Hill and Julian M. Birkinshaw (2010), ‘Idea Sets: Conceptualizing and Measuring a New Unit of Analysis in Entrepreneurship Research’