Opportunity creation as structuration: Empirical data from three technology entrepreneurial initiatives

This exploratory paper examines entrepreneurial opportunity creation as being a process of structuration. The paper first discusses the opportunity paradigm in entrepreneurship literature and the relevant creation-discovery debate. It takes pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunity under Knightian uncertainty (Knight, 1921), particularly technology entrepreneurial initiatives, to be opportunity creation processes. It then discusses Giddens’ Theory of Structuration (Giddens, 1979, 1984). Presenting empirical data from verbal protocol of entrepreneurs relating to three technology entrepreneurial initiatives, it discusses how the opportunity process in these initiatives shows up as structuration. Subject to further empirical research, it proposes that a structuration view of the opportunity process may lead to a synthesis of opposing perspectives in the discovery-creation debate.