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Entrepreneurship through a qualitative lens:

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DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2014.09.003

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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Business Venturing

Entrepreneurship through a qualitative lens: Insights on the

construction and/or discovery of entrepreneurial opportunity
Roy Suddaby a,b, Garry D. Bruton c,d, Steven X. Si e,f,⁎
a
Peter B. Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria, Canada
b
Newcastle University Business School, Newcastle University, United Kingdom
c
Neely School of Business, Texas Christian University, United States
d
Sun Yat-Sen Business School, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China
e
Institute for Entrepreneurship Management, Zhejiang University, China
f
College of Business, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This article applies inductive analytic techniques to identify and elaborate on two recurring
Received 15 September 2014 themes that underpin the core puzzle of entrepreneurship research — where entrepreneurial op-
Accepted 16 September 2014 portunities come from. The first theme is the unique role of imprinting, or the profound influence
Available online xxxx
of social and historical context in constraining the perceptual apparatus of entrepreneurs and
delimiting the range of opportunities for innovation available to them. Second, our analysis offers
Field Editor: D. Shepherd
insight into the counterbalancing role of reflexivity, operating at both individual and collective
levels of analysis, in generating the ability of entrepreneurs to overcome the constraints of im-
Keywords: printing. These insights are based on a thematic review of the nine studies that comprise this spe-
Entrepreneurial Opportunity cial issue on qualitative research. The nine studies, individually and each in their own way, offer
Qualitative Methods
key insights into how we might better understand the emergence of entrepreneurial opportunity.
Imprinting and Reflexivity
© 2014 Published by Elsevier Inc.

1. Executive summary

This article explores the various ways in which adopting a qualitative lens can help advance our understanding of entrepreneur-
ship as a phenomenon. Early research in entrepreneurship has traditionally relied primarily upon quantitative methods grounded in a
positivist epistemology. We believe that this overreliance on quantitative methods has artificially constrained entrepreneurship
research. While the use of quantitative methods has produced considerable knowledge accumulation, the field of entrepreneurship
research has largely failed to develop an indigenous theory (Suddaby, 2014) and is often seen as a subset of strategic management
theory. Entrepreneurship has failed to develop an indigenous theory because it has failed to generate a defining theoretical question
or what Kuhn (1970) would describe as a “core puzzle.” This article, thus, explores how qualitative methods might be used to generate
a theory for examining entrepreneurial settings. We focus on an emerging “puzzle” within the entrepreneurship research community
– the origin of entrepreneurial opportunity – and draw from the nine outstanding qualitative studies of entrepreneurship that com-
prise this special issue to advance a new conceptual model. To illustrate our argument, we apply grounded theory analytic techniques
to the studies generated for this special issue on qualitative methods in entrepreneurial research. This article applies inductive analytic
techniques to identify and elaborate on two recurring themes that underpin the core puzzle of entrepreneurship research — where
entrepreneurial opportunities come from. The first theme is the unique role of imprinting, or the profound influence of social and his-
torical context in constraining the perceptual apparatus of entrepreneurs and delimiting the range of opportunities for innovation

⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: sixiaofu@zju.edu.cn, ssi@bloomu.edu (S.X. Si).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2014.09.003
0883-9026/© 2014 Published by Elsevier Inc.

Please cite this article as: Suddaby, R., et al., Entrepreneurship through a qualitative lens: Insights on the construction and/or
discovery of entrepreneurial opportunity, J. Bus. Venturing (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2014.09.003
2 R. Suddaby et al. / Journal of Business Venturing xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

available to them. Second, our analysis offers insight into the counterbalancing role of reflexivity, operating at both individual and col-
lective levels of analysis, in generating the ability of entrepreneurs to overcome the constraints of imprinting.
The nine studies in this special issue, individually and each in their own way, offer key insights into how we might better under-
stand the emergence of entrepreneurial opportunity.
Our analysis of the nine outstanding papers that comprise this special issue of the Journal of Business Venturing offers insight into
the emerging debate about the origins of entrepreneurial opportunity. We identify imprinting and reflexivity as key mechanisms and
core constructs that underpin the larger tensions that question whether entrepreneurs discover opportunity or create it. That is,
theorists who advocate a discovery perspective see imprinting as a key process that explains how some entrepreneurs are more likely
than others to “discover” an opportunity. Reciprocally, theorists who advocate a creation perspective see reflexivity as a core construct
that explains how some actors are better able to “create” entrepreneurial opportunity.

2. Introduction

This essay explores the various ways in which adopting a qualitative lens can help advance our understanding of entrepreneurship
as a phenomenon. Early research in entrepreneurship has traditionally relied primarily upon quantitative methods grounded in a pos-
itivist epistemology. We believe that this overreliance on quantitative methods has artificially constrained entrepreneurship research.
While the use of quantitative methods has produced considerable knowledge accumulation, the field of entrepreneurship research
has largely failed to develop an indigenous theory (Suddaby, 2014) and is often seen as a subset of strategic management theory. En-
trepreneurship has failed to develop indigenous theory because it has failed to generate a defining theoretical question or what Kuhn
(1970) would describe as a “core puzzle.”
We argue that qualitative methods are uniquely suited to address this issue. Scholars have traditionally employed qualitative
methods to generate new theory and to impose conceptual order on new or relatively undefined phenomenon. More significantly
qualitative methods can help researchers overcome the ideational ruts and cul-de-sacs of prior theories. The original intent of ground-
ed theory, for example, was to encourage the discovery and elaboration of new conceptual categories “not contaminated by concepts
more suited to different areas” (Glaser and Strauss, 1967: 37). While there has been some debate as to whether the original intent of
grounded theory can ever be achieved (Charmaz, 2009; Suddaby, 2010), there is considerable consensus that grounded theory, spe-
cifically, and qualitative methods, more generally, are the best hope for generating new, empirically based theories (Eisenhardt, 1989).
Entrepreneurship scholars have criticized the narrow range of methodologies used to study their phenomenon as overly reliant on
quantitative methods and positivist thinking (Churchill, 1992; Van de Ven and Polley, 1992). Aldrich (1992, 2003) notes that “… en-
trepreneurship research is still very much a mono-method field, in spite of repeated calls for the field to free itself from dependence on
mailed surveys and related questionnaire-based methods.” These methods, Gartner and Birley (2002: 387) observe, tend “to drive out
what for us would often seem to be common sense, i.e., some concern for the intuitions we have in our experiences of working with
and studying entrepreneurs”.
This essay, thus, explores how qualitative methods might be used to generate theory for examining entrepreneurial settings. We
focus on an emerging “puzzle” within the entrepreneurship research community – the origin of entrepreneurial opportunity – and
draw from the nine outstanding qualitative studies of entrepreneurship that comprise this special issue to advance a new conceptual
model. To illustrate our argument, we apply grounded theory analytic techniques to the studies generated for this special issue on
qualitative methods in entrepreneurial research. While these nine studies were not limited in any way in the topics they could
write, we identify and elaborate two recurring themes that underpin the question of where entrepreneurial opportunities come
from that appear in each one. First, each of the studies, in different ways, offers insight into the unique role of imprinting or the
profound influence of social and historical context in constraining the perceptual apparatus of entrepreneurs and delimiting the
range of opportunities for innovation available to them. Second, each of the studies offers insight into the counterbalancing role of
reflexivity, operating at both individual and collective levels of analysis, in generating the ability of entrepreneurs to overcome the con-
straints of imprinting.
We describe these two constructs and the essential tension between them that helps construct entrepreneurial opportunity. How-
ever, we will first discuss entrepreneurial opportunity as the core puzzle of entrepreneurship research.

3. Entrepreneurial opportunity: a defining puzzle

Thomas Kuhn (1970) reminds us that any advance in knowledge accumulation is facilitated by “puzzles,” or agreed upon research
questions and methods that help to define a scientific paradigm. There is, however, an interesting tension between puzzles and
methods in understanding a phenomenon. Often, the puzzles that we elevate as defining questions for a phenomenon contain within
them hidden assumptions that lead us to select some methods over others. If we are not careful, our choice of methods can constrain
or bias our understanding of the phenomenon. Reciprocally, sometimes the selection of a new method can help reveal hidden as-
sumptions and biases and lead to a process of refining and redefining research questions.
Research in entrepreneurship has struggled, over the years, to achieve consensus on its defining “puzzle”. Indeed, the field has
sometimes struggled to define its core phenomenon (Garnter, 2001; Low and MacMillan, 1988; Shane and Venkataraman, 2000). Re-
cently, however, scholars appear to have reached an emergent consensus on a defining puzzle that focuses on the origins of entrepre-
neurial opportunity (Ardichvili et al., 2003; Sarasvathy et al., 2010; Shane, 2000). And, as is typical for paradigm defining puzzles,
scholars are debating fundamental questions about the epistemological and ontological nature of entrepreneurial opportunities.

Please cite this article as: Suddaby, R., et al., Entrepreneurship through a qualitative lens: Insights on the construction and/or
discovery of entrepreneurial opportunity, J. Bus. Venturing (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2014.09.003
 R. Suddaby et al. / Journal of Business Venturing xxx (2014) xxx–xxx 3

That is, do they exist as objective empirical gaps in the “real” world waiting to be discovered? Alternatively, do they arise out of the
actions of entrepreneurs themselves (Alvarez and Barney, 2007)?
These two perspectives, thus, decompose the core puzzle of where entrepreneurial opportunities originate, into two possibilities —
entrepreneurs discover or create them. Both option depend on distinctly different assumptions about the nature of the world and how
we, as researchers, might know it. In the balance of this section, we elaborate upon the current arguments underpinning each concep-
tualization of entrepreneurial opportunity.

4. Entrepreneurship opportunities are discovered

Scholars' dominant view of entrepreneurship is that opportunities are ‘discovered’ by entrepreneurs. This view by scholars is based
on a positivist epistemology and argues that opportunities are objective realities that exist in the environment and are “discovered” as
a result of the unique characteristics of individual entrepreneurs (Shane, 2012). Thus, in this perspective, the U.S. retail coffee giants
Gloria Jeans and Caribou resulted from the founders' individual characteristics, experiential background and cognition that permitted
them to identify and act on a gap in the coffee market that was largely invisible to other actors.
Much of the research in this area identifies the unique elements of the individual entrepreneur that give them the ability to see
opportunities that most other individuals overlook. These elements fall under the broad construct of entrepreneurial orientation and
include factors such as innovativeness, a propensity to risk, and provocativeness (Miller, 1983). Scholars have also identified educa-
tion as a key characteristic of entrepreneurship (Shane, 2000).
Subsequent research on entrepreneurial orientation has adopted the logic of configurational theory (Meyer et al., 1993) with a
view to identifying the best “fit” between the characteristics of the entrepreneur and elements of the entrepreneurial environment.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the findings demonstrate a positive relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and perfor-
mance (Wales et al., 2013). So, for example, a meta-analysis of fifty-one studies of entrepreneurial orientation found that firm size
and industry moderated the positive relationship between orientation and performance (Rauch et al., 2009). A second meta-
analysis (Saeed et al., 2014) identified key cultural characteristics that moderated the relationship between entrepreneurial orienta-
tion and performance, noting that orientation had the greatest impact in countries characterized by uncertainty avoidance, low power
distance, high collectivism and political stability.
While much of the early research on entrepreneurial orientation examined firm-level characteristics (Dess and Lumpkin, 2005;
Miller, 1983), more recently the focus has been on identifying attributes of individual entrepreneurs that foster an orientation toward
entrepreneurship (Eckhardt and Shane, 2013; Wiklund and Shepherd, 2011). The defining characteristic of this perspective, however,
is the epistemological assumption that entrepreneurial opportunities exist in the environment in an objective sense. Moreover, these
opportunities exist prior to entrepreneurs' awareness of them. Entrepreneurship opportunity, thus, occurs as a matter of objective dis-
covery and the focus of entrepreneurial research should be to identify the conditions in the environment that provide such opportu-
nities and the characteristics of entrepreneurs that predispose them to such discovery.

5. Entrepreneurship opportunities are created

An emerging alternative view is that entrepreneurial opportunities do not exist in an objective fashion, nor do they exist prior to
the awareness of entrepreneurs. Rather, “creation opportunities are social constructions that do not exist independently of entrepre-
neurs' perceptions” (Alvarez and Barney, 2007: 15). This perspective acknowledges that certain objective conditions in the environ-
ment, such as technological advances, political or regulatory climate and demographic shifts, contribute to entrepreneurial
opportunity. However, this view argues that entrepreneurial opportunities are ultimately determined, not in an exogenous fashion
by the external environment, but rather in an endogenous way, through the creative imagination and social skill of the entrepreneur.
Thus, when Steve Jobs created the iPhone, he did not see a pre-existing gap in the competitive environment or in consumer de-
mands to fill. Rather, he recognized that he could create and promote a product that consumers did not even realize they wanted. Sim-
ilarly, when Edison created the electric light bulb, he supplemented the innovation effort with a tremendous effort to legitimize the
product — i.e., to socially construct the conditions for consumer acceptance of a product that had no prior contextual understanding or
awareness in the marketplace (Hargadon and Douglas, 2001).
Entrepreneurship opportunity, from this point of view, extends beyond identifying and filling gaps in the market. Entrepreneur-
ship opportunity exists in a broader social or cultural context and is articulated through the interaction of an entrepreneur's unique
and creative perceptions and the demands of the marketplace. Entrepreneurship opportunity, thus, is a product of both creative imag-
ination (Lachmann, 1986) and effectuation (Sarasvathy, 2001, 2008). In this view, entrepreneurial opportunities arise, largely, as a
process of collective sense making (Alvarez and Barney, 2010). The entrepreneur must innovate products while simultaneously inno-
vating social acceptance for those products in the marketplace.
In this view, successful opportunity creation is an act of institutional entrepreneurship in which the entrepreneur must mobilize
resources that transform or create environmental conditions that favor his or her interests (DiMaggio, 1988). Accomplishing this mo-
bilization of resources requires considerable social skill (Fligstein, 2001) in persuading audiences of the need for their innovation
(Suddaby and Greenwood, 2005). This view of entrepreneurship can operate at the level of the individual (Hargadon and Douglas,
2001), but it more typically operates at the level of the firm acting against the backdrop of an organizational field (Greenwood and
Suddaby, 2006).

Please cite this article as: Suddaby, R., et al., Entrepreneurship through a qualitative lens: Insights on the construction and/or
discovery of entrepreneurial opportunity, J. Bus. Venturing (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2014.09.003
4 R. Suddaby et al. / Journal of Business Venturing xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

The defining characteristic of this view, however, is that entrepreneurial opportunity is not an objective phenomenon that occurs
within the environment prior to the agency of the entrepreneur. Rather, entrepreneurial opportunities are endogenous and iterative
acts of creation in which the entrepreneur socially constructs both the opportunity and the product or service.

6. Creation and discovery?

The distinction between these two approaches is based, largely, on different epistemological assumptions about the nature of en-
trepreneurship opportunity. Discovery theorists see the world as “real” and view entrepreneurs as scientists who reveal opportunity
in the same way that Newton exposed the nature of gravity. Creation theorists see the world as “socially constructed” and view en-
trepreneurs as artists who produce opportunity in the same way that Hemingway wrote The Old Man and the Sea.
Some theorists see room for reconciliation between these two approaches. Sarasvathy, for example, distinguish between causal
and effectual explanations of entrepreneurship opportunity, which roughly correlate with the distinction between discovery and cre-
ation (Sarasvathy, 2001). Rather than suggesting that these two options are contradictory and therefore incommensurable,
Sarasvathy (2001) suggest that they are simply two different contingencies and that one or the other might predominate under dif-
ferent contextual conditions. Garud and Giuliani (2013) make a somewhat similar argument with their “narrative perspective” which
acknowledges the possibility of both creation and discovery occurring simultaneously but characterized with different degrees of
agency under varying social and temporal conditions.
Alvarez and Barney (2005, 2007), however, reject the idea of conflating two contradictory views of entrepreneurship, noting that
they are, in fact, two different theories with incommensurable assumptions about the nature of the world and how we might gain
knowledge of that world. Rather than debating which theory is better, they conclude, researchers in entrepreneurship should “recog-
nize the value, and the limitations, of each of these theories, and to specify the conditions under which each should be applied”
(Alvarez and Barney, 2005, 2007).

7. Imprinting and reflexivity

Our inductive analysis of the nine papers that comprise this special issue, summarized in Table 1 (See Table 1), offers an alternative
perspective on this debate. Although the Call for Papers for this special issue focused exclusively on methodology – i.e., we sought to
encourage high-quality qualitative research on any and all aspects of entrepreneurship – several of the papers directly address the
question of where entrepreneurial opportunities come from. Given that the intent of the special issue was to demonstrate the ability

Table 1
Summary of how entrepreneurial opportunity is theorized in each paper.

Title Authors View of entrepreneurial Sample Principal findings

opportunity

Opportunities and institutions: A co- Alvarez, Constructivist/ Single case in North Agency of entrepreneur enters into
creation story of the king crab industry Young interpretive = reflexive America — Wakefield formation of industry standards — incentive
Seafood to set the standards for an industry.
How should we divide the pie? Equity Breugst, Deterministic/ 8 entrepreneurial teams The perceptions of justice amongst team
distribution and its impact on Patzelt, realist = imprint in Europe members at the initial stages of equity
entrepreneurial teams Rathgeber division have a profound imprinting effect
on the long-run success of the
entrepreneurial venture.
Entrepreneurial legacy: Toward a theory of Jasbiewicz Deterministic/ 21 German wineries on An entrepreneurial legacy affects strategic
how some family firms nurture Combs, Rau realist = imprint average in 11th actions — firms must have a strategy for
transgenerational entrepreneurship generation of operation imprinting to be successful.
Emotional arousal and entrepreneurial Jennings, Constructivist/ 38 interviews in super Project considerations, actor considerations,
outcomes: Combining qualitative Edwards, interpretive = reflexive yacht industry and venue considerations impact
methods to elaborate theory Jennings, entrepreneurial emotional arousal.
Delbridge
Institutional entrepreneurs' social mobility Waldron, Constructivist/ Single case in North Peripheral entrepreneurs can employ
in organizational fields Fisher, interpretive = reflexive America — Rainforest rhetoric to enable their social mobility.
Navis Action Network
Embedded entrepreneurship in the McKeever Deterministic/ 2 depleted communities Social bonds and affinity to community
creative re-construction of place Jack, realist = imprint in Northern Ireland — 10 central to successful entrepreneurship in
Anderson respondents in both economically challenged area
communities
Entrepreneurial inception: The role of Mathias, Deterministic/ 25 entrepreneurs in Sources of imprinting impact how the
imprinting in entrepreneurial action Williams, realist = imprint North America entrepreneur actions today & in the future.
Smith
Failed, not finished: A narrative approach Singh, Constructivist/ 12 cases of Introduce concept of “epiphanies” in which
to understanding venture failure Corner, interpretive = reflexive entrepreneurial failures entrepreneurs change failure to learning
stigmatization Pavolvich in New Zealand
The evidence of interorganizational Marion, Constructivist/ 14 entrepreneurial Entrepreneurial success is the result of the
relationships in emerging ventures: An Eddleman interpretive = reflexive ventures degree of attentiveness of entrepreneurial
ethnographic study within the new Friar, Deeds firms in constructing interorganizational
process development process networks.

Please cite this article as: Suddaby, R., et al., Entrepreneurship through a qualitative lens: Insights on the construction and/or
discovery of entrepreneurial opportunity, J. Bus. Venturing (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2014.09.003
 R. Suddaby et al. / Journal of Business Venturing xxx (2014) xxx–xxx 5

of qualitative research to generate fresh theoretical insight, we decided to systematically analyze the papers in an effort to identify key
constructs that might enhance our understanding of the core puzzle of the relative pervasiveness of entrepreneurial creation
or discovery.
Accordingly, we divided the final papers into two categories, those that appeared to adopt a deterministic/realist ontology about
entrepreneurship and those that appeared to adopt a constructivist/interpretive ontology. Of the nine papers, four clearly fell into the
first category.
Perhaps the most representative of this group is the paper by Mathias et al. (in press) titled “Entrepreneurial Inception: The Role of
Imprinting in Entrepreneurial Action.” Using semi-structured interviews and archival analysis, the authors analyze the formative ex-
periences of 25 entrepreneurs during sensitive periods of transition. These formative elements of the external environment, the au-
thors argue, serve as sources of a “lasting and persistent stamp on entrepreneurs” that influence their future ability to recognize
entrepreneurial opportunities. Mathias et al., in press identify a range of recurrent sources of imprinting, including influential people
(family, friends), practices (work experiences, hobbies, exposure to technology) and temporal phases of life (young or impressionable
age) in which the external environment indelibly impresses itself on individuals and, under certain contingencies, condition them to-
ward entrepreneurial discovery.
A second paper that also uses the concept of imprinting appears in the paper titled “Entrepreneurial Legacy: Toward a Theory of
How Some Family Firms Nurture Trans-generational Entrepreneurship” by Jaskiewicz et al. (in press). The paper also uses archival
analysis and semi-structured interviews with key informants of twenty-one enduring German wineries that are, on average, in
their eleventh generation of operation. Seeking to understand how these family firms have endured for so long, the authors determine
that the families' ability to systemically embed the entrepreneurial values and spirit of the founder onto at least one member of each
successive generation is the key to success. That is, like the Mathias et al. (in press) finding above, entrepreneurial opportunity is
sustained by a deliberate effort to imprint entrepreneurial spirit within the family. In contrast to Mathias et al., in press that sees im-
printing dependent upon the somewhat random and vicarious effects of the external environment, in Mathias et al., in press sees im-
printing as purposeful and strategic and the environments is the somewhat self-contained structure of the extended family.
The third study that reinforces a “realist” ontology of entrepreneurial opportunity is MacKeever et al. (in press) titled “Embedded
Entrepreneurship in the Creative Reconstruction of Place.” In this ethnographic study of two depleted communities in Northern
Ireland, the authors focus on understanding how individuals who are highly embedded in their local context identify entrepreneurial
opportunities. MacKeever et al., in press do not explicitly use the construct of imprinting. However, they conclude that entrepreneurial
opportunity is the result of a nexus of affinity between the individual and the community and it is the combination of long-term as-
sociation with both the geography and local population that provides some individuals with the preferential ability to discover oppor-
tunities for change.
The final paper in this group is, “How Should We Divide the Pie? Equity Distribution and Its Impact on Entrepreneurial Teams” by
Breugst et al. (in press). The authors offer a comparative case study of eight entrepreneurial teams with a specific focus on the initial
division of equity amongst team members. The study finds that the perceptions of justice amongst team members at the initial stages
of equity division have a profound imprinting effect on the long-run success of the entrepreneurial venture. When team members
share the initial perception that the distribution of profits is fair, they create a team context of trust and cohesion that produces a pos-
itive team interaction spiral that contributes to the success of the venture. If the initial perception is that the division of equity is not
just, the team lacks trust and cohesion producing a negative team interaction spiral.
This paper shares the assumption that entrepreneurial opportunity is the result of objective factors in the environment. Similar to
the Jaskiewicz et al., in press paper, however, this study views imprinting as a social phenomenon and sees the team itself as an ex-
tension of the external environment. Also similar to Jaskiewicz et al., in press these authors identify a high degree of potential agency
within the team to positively manage the process by which social imprinting occurs. Once imprinted, however, the authors conclude
that team members' perceptions of the environment have a long-lasting effect that determines team interactions and ultimately team
success in a path-dependent fashion far into the future.
Collectively these four papers adopt the assumption that opportunities exist in the environment external to the entrepreneur. The
papers vary somewhat in how they characterize the external environment. In Mathias et al., in press, a wide variety of factors consti-
tute the environment, including personal experience, friends, family and hobbies. In Jaskiewicz et al., in press, the construct of envi-
ronment is more constrained (i.e., the family), works over a much longer term, and is much more deliberate, if not strategic.
MacKeever et al., in press revert to a broader notion of the environment that includes elements of time (i.e., history), place
(i.e., geography) and people.
Each of them, however, identifies a similar mechanism by which the environment imposes individual differences in the ability to
“discover” opportunity. That mechanism is “imprinting.” It describes a range of processes by which the environment interacts with
individuals and, in some rare cases, confers unique capabilities on some individuals to identify gaps in existing social and economic
arrangements that others have overlooked. While the entrepreneurs in these accounts clearly enjoyed some degree of agency, scholars
largely attribute the origin of that agency to the influence of the environmental milieu in which the entrepreneur was embedded.
Five papers adopted a set of constructivist/interpretive assumptions by which the authors see entrepreneurial opportunity as de-
riving from the reflexivity of the entrepreneur. Opportunity is created, not discovered, in these studies.
Perhaps the best illustration of this viewpoint is in the Alvarez et al. (forthcoming) paper titled “Opportunities and Institution: A
Co-creation Story of the King Crab Industry”. Using primarily archival/historical research methods of a single case study, supplement-
ed with semi-structured interviews, the authors sought to understand how Wakefield Seafood, and its founder, was able to legitimate
king crab as a mass-market food and, simultaneously, protect the industry from unsustainable business practices. Alvarez and Young
conclude that the agency of the entrepreneurs was a critical factor in the success, not only of the company, but, rather, of the industry

Please cite this article as: Suddaby, R., et al., Entrepreneurship through a qualitative lens: Insights on the construction and/or
discovery of entrepreneurial opportunity, J. Bus. Venturing (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2014.09.003
6 R. Suddaby et al. / Journal of Business Venturing xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

itself. More significantly, they attribute the success of this case of entrepreneurship as the direct result of the creative vision and en-
ergy of the founder. While they don't use the term directly, the individual entrepreneur enjoyed a unique degree of reflexivity and
awareness of the institutional environment in which he was embedded.
An equally powerful demonstration of the role of reflexivity in creating entrepreneurial opportunity is evident in the Jennings et al.
(in press) paper titled “Emotional Arousal and Entrepreneurial Outcomes: Combining Qualitative Methods to Elaborate Theory.” The
authors study acts of entrepreneurship in the super yacht industry and seek to understand the role of emotion and dramaturgy in acts
of entrepreneurship. The study is notable by its use of two somewhat unique methods, longitudinal content analysis and case vi-
gnettes. The key finding in the paper is that entrepreneurial opportunities can be generated by the collective reflexivity of designers,
owners and shipyard managers that is triggered by emotions. Jennings et al., in press, thus, reinforce the understanding that oppor-
tunity is created and, perhaps more significantly, identify ways in which that reflexivity is stimulated by the agency of actors within
an organizational context.
The Waldron et al. (in press) paper titled “Institutional Entrepreneur's Social Mobility in Organizational Fields” also adopts the per-
spective that successful entrepreneurs create rather than discover opportunity. The authors provide a case study of a single organiza-
tion, the activist not-for-profit Rainforest Action Network (RAN). Their analysis, based on both historical/archival materials and
detailed rhetorical analyses, demonstrates how the organization pursued their altruistic social activist project to improve ecological
standards in the lumber industry while simultaneously pursuing their own self-interested project of enhancing their own status po-
sition relative to other home-improvement organizations. They conclude that successful activist entrepreneurs co-create both their
core project of social change and their own project of social mobility. An implicit but important element of their findings is that in
order to successfully change wood sourcing standards in the retail lumber industry, RAN had to acquire a comprehensive awareness
of the broader organizational field and the status position that it occupied in the field. That is, peripheral entrepreneurs must have the
reflexive capacity to recognize their position within an organizational field and creatively use language to construct an alternative vi-
sion of the field that enhances both their intended entrepreneurial change and a new elite status for themselves within the field.
The fourth paper that acknowledges the importance of entrepreneurial reflexivity is by Singh et al. (in press) titled “Failed but Not
Finished: A Narrative Approach to Understanding Venture Failure Stigmatization.” This paper is unique in that does not address en-
trepreneurial success but rather tries to understand how entrepreneurs deal with failure. The authors use narrative analytic tech-
niques to study the effects of stigmatization on entrepreneurial failure. They focus on twelve key instances of stigmatization. One of
the key findings is that stigmatization ultimately triggers epiphanies or deep personal insights, which transform entrepreneurs'
view of failure from a very negative to a positive life experience.
Although the paper does not explicitly take a position on the issue of whether entrepreneurship is the result of creation rather than
discovery, it does so implicitly. That is, the paper acknowledges that a significant component of the failed venture was the absence of
the deep personal insight or awareness of the opportunities (or constraints) made visible (or invisible) in the individual entrepreneurs
world-view, not only of their external environment but also of their own individual potential. Stigmatization, the authors observe, like
entrepreneurship is a process that unfolds over time. Moreover, the process of stigmatization is indelibly connected to the process by
which entrepreneurial windows of opportunity start to close. Thus, at least implicitly, Singh et al. (in press) see entrepreneurial op-
portunity as a process of social construction — and one that can be negatively influenced by the stigma of failure. However, a key
final insight offered by the paper is that reflection on the experience of stigma can generate new instances of entrepreneurial oppor-
tunity creation.
The final paper that sees entrepreneurial opportunity as an act of creation is presented by Marion et al. (in press) and is titled “The
Evolution of Interorganizational Relationships in Emerging Ventures: An Ethnographic Study within the New Product Development
Process.” Using ethnographic methods to study fourteen different entrepreneurial ventures, the authors conclude that entrepreneurial
success is the result of the degree of attentiveness of entrepreneurial firms in constructing interorganizational networks. Opportunity,
in this study, is the product of the clear and focused attention paid to the composition of interorganizational networks by the focal
firms.
Indeed, in most cases, the entrepreneurs are more attentive to the socio-emotional strength of their relationships with network
partners than to the particular entrepreneurial project or venture. In some cases, the socio-emotional bond actually impeded the pro-
ject, but strengthened the network. A clear conclusion of this paper, therefore, is that the interorganizational network is more impor-
tant than a specific entrepreneurial venture because, even if the current venture were to fail, another opportunity might emerge from
the network. Opportunities, thus, result from the interactions and relationships of actors in key networks and the awareness of entre-
preneurial opportunity is created by the trust and cohesion embedded in the socio-emotional strength of the actors who comprise the
network.
Collectively these five papers point to an alternative construct – reflexivity – that derives more directly from the assumptive per-
spective that entrepreneurs create rather than discover opportunities. That is, these studies suggest that some individuals are differ-
entially endowed with the ability to see alternative social and economic arrangements in their environment. More significantly, these
are not pre-existing realities that only require clarification. Rather, the opportunities are generated by reflection on the possibility of
new and creative social realities.

8. Essential tensions

Our preliminary open coding of the papers in this special issue reveals two key constructs that underpin the distinction between
seeing entrepreneurial opportunity as being created or discovered. Both perspectives vary tremendously in the relative influence they
attribute to reflexivity and imprinting in processes of entrepreneurship. Reflexivity refers to an assumptive high degree of self-

Please cite this article as: Suddaby, R., et al., Entrepreneurship through a qualitative lens: Insights on the construction and/or
discovery of entrepreneurial opportunity, J. Bus. Venturing (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2014.09.003
 R. Suddaby et al. / Journal of Business Venturing xxx (2014) xxx–xxx 7

awareness of the entrepreneurial actor to the constraints constructed by the social, political and economic context within which the
entrepreneur is embedded. This insight permits the entrepreneur not only to identify these constraints, but also to envision and alter-
nate institutional arrangement. Imprinting refers to the enduring influence of both constraints and opportunities embedded in the so-
cial, political and economic context surrounding the entrepreneur.
A more detailed reading of the papers, with a specific focus on those elements that refer to reflexivity and imprinting (both explic-
itly and implicitly), reveals several subsidiary differences between the constructs and how creationists and discovery theorists use
them. In the balance of this essay we identify and elaborate upon four key distinctions. First, the two constructs describe distinct as-
sumptions about the nature of the entrepreneur's perception of the external environment. Second, the two constructs also describe dif-
ferent assumptions about the entrepreneur's perception of time. Third, the constructs vary in their epistemological emphasis on
objective versus subjective elements of the entrepreneurial experience. Finally, the constructs vary in terms of their implicit levels
of analysis.

8.1. Environment

The papers that present entrepreneurial opportunity as the result of the reflexivity of entrepreneurs also adopt a much more
permeable and malleable description of the environment within which entrepreneurs are embedded. That is, the external environ-
ment, for those studies that emphasized reflexivity, is perceived by those scholars to be less concrete and inflexible and more amena-
ble to being reconstructed, than the description of the environment offered by those studies that emphasized imprinting. For the latter
group of studies, not only is the external environment perceived to be more concrete and unchanging, but the barrier between the
entrepreneur and the environment is much more distinct.
So, for example, in the Mathias et al., in press paper broadly defines the external environment to include people, experiences, tech-
nology and related formative interactions between individual entrepreneurs and their external environment. The study suggests that
these various elements that constitute the external environment of the entrepreneur are somehow “harder” or more concrete than is
the entrepreneur. These elements of the external environment inscribe themselves on the entrepreneur and, in some cases, create
ideal conditions within which the entrepreneur can discover and exploit opportunities.
Significantly, the construct of imprinting not only carries an explicit assumption of a “hard” external environment, but it also con-
tains an implicit assumption of a “soft” or malleable entrepreneur who is not merely influenced by the experience, but also is perma-
nently shaped by it. This view of the entrepreneur is in sharp contrast to the environment-entrepreneur interaction described by
Singh et al., in press in which the environment inflicts a powerful and negative influence on the entrepreneur, but through processes
of reflection, some of the entrepreneurs learn and adapt as a result of that experience.
One clear conclusion from this point of distinction however is the proposition that the discovery thesis of entrepreneurial opportunity
contains an inherent assumption that the external environment is both distinct from and more agentic than the entrepreneur. By contrast, in
the creation thesis, the boundary between entrepreneur and environment is less distinct and the degree of agency between entrepreneur and
environment is more evenly distributed.

8.2. Time

The papers that acknowledge imprinting has a prominent role in shaping entrepreneurial discovery also seem to adopt a notion of
time that is more linear, objective and path dependent. That is, they all share an understanding that an entrepreneur's ability to rec-
ognize opportunities in the external environment occur as a result of critical incidents that occur early on the entrepreneur's experi-
ence and then exert an increasingly profound influence (either positive or negative) over time.
This influence is evident in both the Breugst et al., in press paper and the Mathias et al., in press paper which point to critical in-
cidents in the early lived experience of their entrepreneurs that continue to manifest themselves in an enduring way throughout the
life history of the entrepreneur. Jaskiewicz et al., in press also describe the importance of critical incidents in shaping entrepreneurs
ability to realize upon opportunity. However, they offer a somewhat more nuanced perspective in which the entrepreneurial family
internalizes and recreates the effect of these critical incidents over multiple generations. MacKeever et al., in press adopt a similar
long-term view in which the critical incidents are the result of the entrepreneurs' long-term interaction with the local community
that sensitizes them to potential long-run opportunities.
All of these papers characterize time as an objective and enduring influence. Moreover, they adopt a path-dependent view of time
in which some early stage incidents play an important role in both delimiting opportunity and agency or, alternatively, creating
unique sensitivities of perception within the entrepreneur that enables them to see opportunity when and where others cannot.
By contrast, the papers in which entrepreneurial opportunity emerges from the reflexive capabilities of the entrepreneur do not
seem to give much credence to critical incidents. Nor do they characterize time in such a linear, determinative fashion. Rather, the ef-
fects of time on the entrepreneur emerge iteratively, with a recurring dialogue between the entrepreneur and the environment in
which both actors change and adapt in relation to each other. So, for example, Singh et al., in press demonstrate how some entrepre-
neurs can overcome the stigma of critical incidents through reflection, internalization and learning. Similarly, Jennings et al., in press
describe how the interactions between yacht owners, shipyards, and designers iterate and change over time. Rather than identifying a
single critical incident in the entrepreneurial process, the authors demonstrate a process of collective learning that occurs across a se-
ries of small, but ongoing interactions.
So another proposition that we can draw from our studies is that the discovery thesis of entrepreneurial opportunity contains
within it a distinct set of assumptions about the role and influence of time. In these studies time is seen as having an isolated episodic

Please cite this article as: Suddaby, R., et al., Entrepreneurship through a qualitative lens: Insights on the construction and/or
discovery of entrepreneurial opportunity, J. Bus. Venturing (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2014.09.003
8 R. Suddaby et al. / Journal of Business Venturing xxx (2014) xxx–xxx

influence that creates path dependency in which critical incidents bear enduring effect that constrains or enables the ability to identify
opportunity. From the creation perspective, by contrast, time is iterative, rather than a determinative influence, in which the
entrepreneur's ongoing interaction with the environment creates mutual and simultaneous changes in both the entrepreneur and
the environment that, over time, constructs opportunity.

8.3. Epistemological emphasis

A third distinction between the constructs is the degree to which each adopts epistemological positions that embrace either objec-
tivity or subjectivity in describing the process of entrepreneurship. The primary emphasis in imprinting is the objective elements of
opportunity recognition. So, for example, each of the studies that emphasize imprinting draw on concrete and measurable elements
of the external environment as determinative of the entrepreneurial experience. These objective elements include the distribution of
rewards and incentives (Breugst et al., in press), the reproduction of past entrepreneurial success (Jaskiewicz et al., in press), and the
length and depth of community connections (MacKeever et al., in press).
In comparison, the studies that draw more from the role of reflexivity tend to describe subjective elements of creating opportunity.
Thus, a clear emphasis in the Jennings et al., in press paper is the role of emotion in the dynamic interactions between key agents in the
super yacht industry. The authors conclude that emotion plays a powerful role in creating the space for innovation. Singh et al., in
press, similarly observe a critical cathartic role of emotion in the reflective processes by which failed entrepreneurs work through
their perceptions of entrepreneurial failure. Similarly the Waldron et al., in press study shows that RAN engaged in substantive insti-
tutional work that effectively created an alternate or new reality within which it was recognized as a pivotal actor in the retail lumber
industry.
A third proposition that we draw from the articles, thus, is the observation that entrepreneurial imprinting focuses our attention
on concrete practices and objective experiences that are highly influential in explaining why and how individual differences in the ability
to recognize entrepreneurial opportunity arise. The clear emphasis is on practices and behaviors rather than perceptions and interpre-
tations of those practices and behaviors. By contrast, the construct of entrepreneurial reflexivity draws our attention to the subjective
and interpretive inner world of the entrepreneur as a key mechanism by which entrepreneurs can elevate their imagination beyond the
institutionalized constraints of the existing environment and conceive of alternative social, economic and political arrangements.

8.4. Levels of analysis

The studies that emphasize the importance of imprinting as a key element of opportunity discovery tend to focus on lower levels of
analysis. Two of the studies (Breugst et al., in press and Mathias et al., in press) focus on individuals and groups. One (Mackeever et al.)
examines individual entrepreneurs in community contexts and one (Jaskiewicz et al., in press) adopts the family as their primary unit
of analysis.
In comparison, those studies that identify reflexivity as a key component of opportunity creation tend to operate at more macro
levels of analysis. Four papers (Alvarez et al., forthcoming; Jennings et al., in press; Marion et al., in press, and Waldron et al., in
press) focus on industry level activities, although they include individuals or individual organizations in their analyses. The clear em-
phasis, however, is on industry or institutional level entrepreneurship. Only one paper (Singh et al., in press) adopts the individual
entrepreneur as the primary level of analysis.
The demonstrated differences in levels of analysis between these two constructs suggests the possibility that, rather than being in
opposition to each other, the constructs of reflexivity and imprinting simply reflect differences in the observational perspective of the
researcher. That is, researchers who focus on micro-level approaches to entrepreneurship, at the level of the group or the individual,
are somewhat pre-disposed to focusing on somewhat objective and deterministic elements of the entrepreneurial process. In other
words, looking “up” from the point of view of the individual or the team, the external world appears to be much more objective,
powerful and agentic.
However, when viewed from the top down, i.e., when taking the perspective of the industry or the organizational field, the re-
searcher sees a much more malleable and intersubjectively dynamic view of entrepreneurship where the boundary between individ-
uals, teams, or firms and their environments are much less distinct. This observation suggests that the alternative positions taken in
the literature, i.e., that discovery and creation, or imprinting and reflexivity, are not in opposition to each other but rather exist in a
somewhat orthogonal yet mutually supportive relationship to each other. That is these relationships are viewed in opposition to
each other is largely the result of the observational position of the researcher in the field. In the next and final section of this essay,
we explore the implications of these preliminary propositions based on our analysis and theoretical understanding of entrepreneurial
opportunity developed here.

9. Conclusion

Our analysis of the nine outstanding papers that comprise this special issue of the Journal of Business Venturing offers insight into
the emerging debate about the origins of entrepreneurial opportunity. We identify imprinting and reflexivity as key mechanisms and
core constructs that underpin the larger tensions that question whether entrepreneurs discover opportunity or create it. That is, the-
orists who advocate a discovery perspective see imprinting as a key process that explains how some entrepreneurs are more likely
than others to “discover” an opportunity. Reciprocally, theorists who advocate a creation perspective see reflexivity as a core construct
that explains how some actors are better able to “create” entrepreneurial opportunity.

Please cite this article as: Suddaby, R., et al., Entrepreneurship through a qualitative lens: Insights on the construction and/or
discovery of entrepreneurial opportunity, J. Bus. Venturing (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2014.09.003
 R. Suddaby et al. / Journal of Business Venturing xxx (2014) xxx–xxx 9

However, rather than merely reflecting the tension that exists between objectivists and social constructionists in entrepreneurial
theory, the constructs of reflexivity and imprinting also point to areas of agreement or similarity between the tensions. Reflexivity and
imprinting both share common assumptions about human cognition. Both views, for example, draw attention to the key importance
of socially shared cognition as a foundational component of entrepreneurial opportunity. That is, both imprinting and reflexivity share
a common assumption that entrepreneurial opportunity emerges as the result of a capacity of some actors (individuals or organiza-
tions) to perceive socially embedded schemas in unique and creative ways (although they may differ in their assumptions about how
those socially embedded schemas arose).
This suggests that fruitful opportunities for future research might emerge by examining, both empirically and conceptually, the
various ways in which shared schemas or socially shared cognitions are created and diffused and how it is that some actors are
able to overcome them. Understanding the dynamics of effective entrepreneurship, thus, might rest on a more nuanced blending of
both reflexivity and imprinting in which the constructs are not seen as oppositional, but rather representative of an orthogonal rela-
tionship between shared cognitions that become culturally embedded (i.e. imprinted) over time, but which are periodically overcome
by actors who are less susceptible to the totalizing effect of imprinted cognitions (i.e. reflexivity).
Our view of entrepreneurial opportunity raises many questions. How do culturally held cognitions become embedded? How is it
that some actors are better able than others to see past such totalizing schema? The research studies in this volume suggest an impor-
tant role for network position, emotions, failure and a range of other factors that seem to be important. There are likely many more.
We can, however, agree that qualitative research methods, like the ones used in this special issue, will play an essential role in an-
swering these questions. Because qualitative researchers ask broad, open-ended questions and remain intimately connected with the
phenomenon of study, qualitative methods are uniquely positioned to generate new insights and to build new theory. Because it relies
largely on inductive reasoning, qualitative research is more likely to identify new conceptual categories and new theoretical con-
structs. For these reasons, if we, as entrepreneurship researchers are going to build an indigenous theory of our object of study, we
must embrace and encourage much more qualitative research. We see this volume of outstanding studies as signaling the first step
in this direction and will encourage a rich dawn of new qualitative research in entrepreneurship.

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