2008, Fuduric, Nikolina

This paper has five goals. The first is to offer a literature review on the sources of opportunities in the entrepreneurship process. The literature review shows that the theoretical and empirical contributions are quite fragmented and in need of a framework. The second goal is to explore the generally accepted view in the field that entrepreneurs can be described from a Schumpeterian or Kirznerian perspective. I propose that one entrepreneur has the opportunity to be both depending on which stage of the entrepreneurial process he is in and in what environmental context he finds himself in. The third and fourth goals are to delineate which individual and environmental factors provide the entrepreneur with opportunities by examining existing research. Finally, the fifth goal is to develop a framework including the individual and environmental factors affecting the discovery and exploitation of opportunities. This framework will be used to structure my empirical research in a post-socialist periphery.

2008, Fuduric, Nikolina

This paper acknowledges that many peripheral regions are in a state of transformation due to globalization, shortened spatial, technological and even cognitive distances. Likewise, entrepreneurial activity in peripheral regions is in a state of transformation often benefiting from these changes. What is often thought to be a bastion of non-novel, imitative entrepreneurship, the periphery is showing signs of flourishing entrepreneurial activity that is at times quite creative. In some cases, if entrepreneurial action is not necessarily creative, it still holds benefits to the individual or community in question. To better understand entrepreneurship in the periphery, this paper places four different types of peripheries in a matrix comparing them to the structures of entrepreneurial resources (institutional, industrial, human capabilities, and socio-cultural). By doing this, the resource palette of a region can be examined as to it’s viability in sustaining desired forms of entrepreneurship. It can also isolate specific resource weaknesses before entrepreneurship development programs are carried out.