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The constructivist view of entrepreneurial opportunities: a critical analysis

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Abstract

The notion that opportunities exist objectively “out there” has been repeatedly assaulted by scholars who counter that opportunities are subjectively constructed or created. This paper intends to restore the balance by bringing the critical strands of inquiry themselves under critical scrutiny. Beyond the formulation of some original lines of critique and the drawing of attention to some foundational yet insufficiently studied issues, this article further contributes the following: (1) it juxtaposes a taxonomical ordering of constructivist approaches; (2) it identifies angles of complementarity and contradiction with the objectivist perspective; and (3) it brings subtle conceptual distinctions into prominence.

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Notes

  1. One should be careful to avoid the supposition that this richness of vocabulary stands for theoretical variation. As stressed by Alvarez and Barney (2013), these words are typically used synonymously and do not signal substantive differences.

  2. There are approaches that reify opportunities (Baron 2004), some that treat them as something quantifiable (Dahlqvist and Wiklund 2012), and others that treat opportunities as “something” more ontologically complicated (Venkataraman et al. 2012). In addition, there is noticeable philosophical confusion surrounding objectivist treatments (Ramoglou 2013).

  3. If subjectivist scholars tend to suppose that, by virtue of being part of a socially constructed reality, opportunities do not truly exist “out there,” it appears that objectivists tend to reject subjectivist references for an equally unfounded reason: for fear that without treating opportunities as though they exist as physical objects, we are left without an adequately real domain to study (see Shane 2012).

  4. For example, the acquisition of financial or human capital may require the skillful manipulation of symbols, creative preparation of a business plan, the deployment of rhetorical devices, and all sorts of micro-institutional processes (Powell and Colyvas 2008). And this should be especially the case if we are talking about nascent firms lacking legitimacy (Aldrich and Fiol 1994) or small businesses in eras of financial insecurity (OECD 2009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Business and Law, University of Southampton, Highfield Campus, Southampton, England, SO1 71BJ, UK

    Stratos Ramoglou

  2. Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow, Main Building, Glasgow, Scotland, G12 8QQ, UK

    Stelios C. Zyglidopoulos

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  1. Stratos Ramoglou
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  2. Stelios C. Zyglidopoulos
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Correspondence to Stratos Ramoglou.

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Ramoglou, S., Zyglidopoulos, S.C. The constructivist view of entrepreneurial opportunities: a critical analysis. Small Bus Econ 44, 71–78 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-014-9590-4

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