The Unit of Analysis in Entrepreneurship Research: Opportunities or Investments?
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2008Access:
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Peter G. Klein, Nicolai J. Foss, 'The Unit of Analysis in Entrepreneurship Research: Opportunities or Investments?', Senate Hall, 2008, International Journal of Entrepreneurship Education, 145-170Download Item:
Abstract:
The entrepreneurship literature in management research focuses increasingly on
opportunities-their creation or discovery, evaluation, and exploitation-as the unit of analysis. We
argue first, that the opportunity perspective emerged from the "functional" literature in the
economics of entrepreneurship (mainly the works of Israel Kirzner), a literature that emphasizes not
the individual entrepreneur per se, but the functions (e.g., market clearing) that entrepreneurs
undertake in a market economy; second, that most notions of entrepreneurship in economics and
management are not easily integrated into the theory of the firm; third, that the popular emphasis on
opportunity discovery tends to direct attention from opportunity exploitation, and therefore the firm;
and fourth, that the Cantillon-Knight-Mises view of entrepreneurship as judgment links more
naturally with the economic theory of the firm.
Author: Klein, Peter G.; Foss, Nicolai J.
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International Journal of Entrepreneurship EducationAvailability:
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