Entrepreneurial opportunities have been the overarching theme of the RISE Project Workshop 5.0 on June 2nd 2005. The common focus of all contributions to this workshop has been on the realization of entrepreneurial opportunities. In contrast to the preceding workshop, the empirical focus was on entrepreneurial ventures rather than on established corporations in the context of both, the life sciences and the information technology industry. During the workshop, it emerged that the recognition and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities is a very central and important issue. Hence, the presentations and discussions add to a systematic expansion and development of the fundamental contributions to this debate proposed by Shane (2000) and Shane & Venkataraman (2001).

Seizing Opportunities (Harry Welten, CFO Arpida Ltd.)
Harry Welten, CFO of Arpida, a biopharmaceutical company, gave a deep insight into the development of his company, which is characterized by the continuous pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities. Mr. Welten shared with us his view on the global market opportunities of Arpida’s products and elaborated on the high dynamics of the market. While coping with the advantages of anti-infectives as business opportunities he presented Arpida’s product pipeline and gave an overview about iclaprim and AR-709, which are both in an advanced stage of development. In essence Mr. Welten provided the audience with insights into the management of entrepreneurial opportunities in a leading pharmaceutical company from a financial perspective. Thereby, it is important to understand financial management of the firm and research and development as loosely coupled systems, mutually determined while permitting reciprocal autonomy. The coexistent independence and collaboration of these two themes, which are both of crucial importance for the prosperity of the firm, is seen as a critical factor of success. A loosely coupled system can be regarded as a coalition of units and interests, each attempting to obtain something from the collective by interacting with others, while each has its own objectives and preferences (see Weick, 1979). Furthermore, we learn from the Arpida case that entrepreneurship must be understood as a complex, dynamic process, in which the entrepreneur is continuously confronted with or proactively creates new opportunities. Seeing entrepreneurship as a consecutive process, these decisions result in path dependencies that constrain the scope of future opportunities. Regarding growth prospects and the proposed business concept of the firm, the business model of established pharmaceutical firms can be seen as a role model, which implies a high an advanced attentiveness towards the strategies proposed by those firms.

Entrepreneurial Opportunities – Impact of Dispersed Information & Knowledge and Influence of Economic Environment (Matthäus Urwyler, RISE)
Identification, evaluation and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities are key processes in entrepreneurial activities. Building on his dissertation, Matthäus Urwyler first talked about the role of dispersed information and knowledge and their impact on the entrepreneurial processes. The second part of his presentation dealt with the influence of the economic environment on the identification of new opportunities. While the individual is embedded in the context of the firm, opportunities are embedded in the context of the environment. If something is perceived as an opportunity is dependent on the environmental context it is embedded in. The inherent tension between individual and opportunity, both embedded in its distinct context, results in a dynamic interdependence between the firm and the environment, entailing mutual stabilization.

Evolution of Incubation Models – From Hype to Downturn (Simon Grand & Philipp Türtscher, RISE)
In the preceding presentations the dynamics of entrepreneurial opportunities were emphasized and could be traced back to the interrelationships between entrepreneurial opportunities, economic environment and dispersed information. Similarly, the third contribution to our workshop addressed the dynamic aspects of entrepreneurial opportunities. Simon Grand and Philipp Türtscher introduced the central insights of their research project about the evolution of incubation models which was conducted in cooperation with PricewaterhouseCoopers. While some business incubators have ceased to exist, many of them are still in business. The question that was raised is what has changed for business incubators since the burst of the dot.com bubble and how did they react on the challenges of the downturn? The observations made by the researchers suggest that, both the type of entry and the underlying argumentation at the time of entry during the hype had a strong influence on the development of the business incubators during the downturn: whether the engagement in the incubation business could be continued successfully, it had to be adapted, or an exit was required.

Resources
Workshop program
Reader (password required)

Literature
The core literature which covers the issues discussed in the presentations is listed below. The articles and book chapters represent a brief overview of the current academic discussion about entrepreneurial opportunities and document the insights offered during our workshop.

Entrepreneurial opportunities – the impact of dispersed information and knowledge and the influence of the economic environment
Shane, S. (2000). “Prior knowledge and the discovery of entrepreneurial opportunities”. Organization Science, 11: 448-469.
Shane, S. (2000). “The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research”. Academy of Management Review, 25: 217-226.
Zahra, S. and G. G. Dess (2001). “Entrepreneurship as a field of research: Encouraging dialogue and debate”. Academy of Management Review, 26: 8-10.
Singh, R. P. (2001). “A comment on developing the field of entrepreneurship through the study of opportunity recognition and exploitation”. Academy of Management Review, 26: 10-12.
Shane, S. and S. Venkataraman (2001). “Entrepreneurship as a field of research: A response to Zahra and Dess, Singh, and Erickson”. Academy of Management Review, 26: 13-16.
Ardichvili, A., R. Cardozo, et al. (2003). “A theory of entrepreneurial opportunity identification and development”. Journal of Business Venturing, 18: 105-123.

The evolution of incubation models - from hype to downturn:
DiMaggio P. J., Powell W. W. (1991). “The iron cage revisited: institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields”. In The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, ed. WW Powell, PJ DiMaggio, pp. 63-82. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press.
Friedland R., Alford R. R. (1991). “Bringing society back in: symbols, practices, and institutional contradictions”. In The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, ed. WW Powell, PJ DiMaggio, pp. 232-66. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press.
Lounsbury, M. and M. A. Glynn (2001). “Cultural Entrepreneurship: Stories, Legitimacy, and Acquisition of Resources”. Strategic Management Journal, 22: 545-564.
Dorado, S. (2005). “Institutional Entrepreneurship, Partaking, and Conventing”. Organization Studies, 26(3): 385-414.
Santos, F. M. and K. M. Eisenhardt (2004). “Constructing Markets and Organizing Boundaries: Entrepreneurial Action in Nascent Fields”. Academy of Management Best Conference Paper 2004, BPS: J1.