Please make sure that it is your own work and not copy and paste off of someone else work or article. Please read the study g
Please make sure that it is your own work and not copy and paste off of someone else work or article. Please read the study guide. Please watch out for spelling and grammar errors. Please use the APA 7th edition.
Book Reference:Neck, H. M., Neck, C. P., & Murray, E. L. (2021). Entrepreneurship: The practice and mindset (2nd ed). SAGE. https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781544354644
On page 68 of the eTextbook, alertness is identified as a key characteristic for opportunity recognition. Discuss what you can do to increase your mental alertness to become more sensitive in identifying entrepreneurial opportunities.
BUS 8303, Entrepreneurship and Innovative Business Development 1
Course Learning Outcomes for Unit III Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:
2. Analyze the role of an entrepreneurial mindset in opportunity recognition. 2.1 Explain the connection between entrepreneurial mindset and opportunity recognition. 2.2 Discuss the four pathways to opportunity identification.
5. Differentiate innovative business strategies.
5.1 Identify creative techniques for generating innovative business models. 5.2 Interpret innovative techniques related to opportunity recognition.
Course/Unit Learning Outcomes
Learning Activity
2.1
Unit Lesson Chapter 3 Article: “Has the Concept of Opportunities Been Fruitful in the Field of
Entrepreneurship?” Unit III Case Study
2.2, 5.1, 5.2 Unit Lesson Chapter 3 Unit III Case Study
Required Unit Resources Chapter 3: Creating and Recognizing New Opportunities In order to access the following resource, click the link below. Alvarez, S., & Barney, J. B. (2020). Has the concept of opportunities been fruitful in the field of
entrepreneurship? Academy of Management Perspectives, 34(3), 300–310. https://doi- org.libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/10.5465/amp.2018.0014
Unit Lesson
Opportunity Recognition All fields of study have unique concepts and terminology. In business courses, you might have learned about the word opportunities through the creation of a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis, which is a tool used to identify internal factors, like strengths and weaknesses, and external ones like opportunities and threats. In the field of study for entrepreneurship, the word opportunity has a different meaning. Instead of approaching the word opportunity from the perspective of identifying external facts or observations about the environment that could be relevant to a company, in entrepreneurship, the word opportunity refers to the potential for a new idea, product, or process that solves an identified problem.
UNIT III STUDY GUIDE
Opportunity Recognition
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In the previous unit, the concept of an entrepreneurial mindset was covered, which encompasses the openness to considering new ideas, the awareness to explore possibilities, and a sense of curiosity in recognizing that a better solution could be found in addressing specific problems or situations. In this unit, we move forward in connecting an entrepreneurial mindset to identify an opportunity and solution to a problem— and then taking the action to move forward in exploring the problem.
Connection Between an Entrepreneurial Mindset and Opportunity Recognition The image below makes the connection between an entrepreneurial mindset and opportunity recognition or the ability or capacity to imagine dramatically new ideas and solutions to a problem. Jeffery Timmons, a groundbreaking researcher on entrepreneurship, defined opportunity within an entrepreneurial context as including a valuable and identifiable solution to a significant problem with a sizable potential demand base or market or a definable emotional value connected to the solution and a willingness to move forward in developing the solution into a business (Timmons, 1994). The opportunity must also align or fit the entrepreneur’s interests and abilities and fit within the appropriate timing for both the entrepreneur and the market (Timmons, 1994).
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These four conditions are the criteria for opportunity recognition. If any one of these components is missing, then we would only say that an idea is present, but the opportunity has not been established. The difference between an entrepreneurial venture and a small business is opportunity. If a small business owner opens a business based on an already established idea, this would not qualify as an entrepreneurial opportunity. An entrepreneur is someone who creates something new through the opportunity recognition process that fulfills these four criteria. This is not to say that a small business owner cannot add an entrepreneurial aspect to an established business, as pointed out in Unit I in this course. Opportunity is defined as “generating value through unique, novel, or desirable products, services, and even processes that have not been previously exploited” (Neck et al., 2021, p. 57). The authors of the eTextbook note that an entrepreneurial opportunity includes three characteristics: potential economic value, novelty or newness, and perceived desirability (Neck et al., 2021). The combination of identifying a problem, a solution to the problem, a willingness to act on researching and developing the solution, and the foresight to recognize the importance of timing the venture for optimum success along with bringing in the needed resources work together to present the right conditions that move an idea into an opportunity creation position.
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(Adapted from Pistrui et al., 2008)
Conditions for Opportunity Before we move on, make sure you understand that there are many ideas that people think about, but not all ideas translate into meeting the conditions that fit as an opportunity. If only one person is interested in your idea, the idea would not be worth your time and effort to create a business around it. Understanding the criteria that support the difference between an idea and an opportunity is an important concept for potential entrepreneurs. The pet rock created back in the mid-1970s was simply a smooth rock which Gary Dahl, a college student, marketed as a companion for college students as though the rock was a live pet (Goldman, 2015). The pet rock provided an emotional solution for college students who missed their friends and family members back home and presented an emotional connection to other college students through the care of their Pet Rocks as well as a humorous break in college student’s lives (Goldman, 2015). This example points out how difficult it is to know if an idea translates into an opportunity. Most experts would have said that no one would be interested in a pet rock, and yet, for a time, pet rocks were quite popular with product line extensions such as small designed paper crates like life-size dog kennels to contain the pet rock and a manual on how to care for it. From today’s perspective, the story of pet rocks sounds odd, yet the creator became a multi-millionaire. Dahl attributed the popularity of his creation to timing (Goldman, 2015). It worked in a society that was disillusioned from both the Vietnam War and Watergate with a need for laughter and healing (Goldman, 2015). The pet rock venture was started with minimal investments to test if the idea truly met the conditions for an opportunity.
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Innovation Just as individuals can identify a problem and translate that problem into an opportunity, organizations can also encourage their employees to become intrapreneurs and have an entrepreneurial mindset to identify opportunities based on innovations that align with the organization’s goals. In today’s highly competitive and dynamic world, change is constant. With change, new problems arise, presenting the potential for new opportunities to solve these problems. In conjunction with change, the potential for innovation occurs. For organizations to remain successful, innovation becomes a necessity. Exactly what is meant by innovation in speaking of an entrepreneurial opportunity? Innovation includes a product or service that is novel, useful, and valuable (Neck et al., 2021). An entrepreneurial opportunity can also include improvements to existing products or processes. Even an invention that does not currently have a market could become an opportunity when the timing is right or with the right position within the market, possibly creating a previously unknown market such as the one creators of hoverboards and flyboards accomplished. Organizations should use incentives to encourage innovation within their organizations as a method to encourage innovation (Edralin et al., 2019). In earlier material, we noted that 3M incentivizes innovation by providing resources to support employee intrapreneurial activity (Goetz, 2011). A part of this incentive is providing time for creativity, an action that you can build into your life. The eTextbook authors provide a variety of techniques that you can use to generate ideas and even strategies to advance ideas you already have on your mind. A few other idea generation techniques include brainstorming, storyboarding, and role- playing. Using these techniques can transform your ideas into potential entrepreneurial opportunities. Consider setting aside an hour a day to build your skills by practicing these techniques.
Creativity Everyone has the capacity for creativity, even if you have heard someone tell you that you are not creative. Creativity is about how we apply our unique perspectives to situations. Your creativity skills are present in a vast variety of activities. Challenge yourself to notice when you are being creative. For example, even the route you drive to your job can display creativity as you select specific routes that focus on the quickest route, or maybe you select a route that provides for a relaxing drive, or a scenic drive, or a stop for your favorite coffee. Creativity is not necessarily defined as producing a well-received piece of imaginative art; creativity is also present in solving our everyday problems. Mind maps are a popular method for applying creativity in generating ideas. The mind map below is an example of exploring ideas as a process for building creativity. This same tool also works well in discovering more about a specific problem as you consider possible solutions. You can use this tool in creatively analyzing a problem that you are facing. You can include pictures, spelling words backward, or adding emotions into a mind map.
Example of a mind map for creativity (Dizain777, n.d.)
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Interactive Activity
In order to check your understanding of concepts from this unit, complete the Unit III Knowledge Check activity. Unit III Knowledge Check PDF version of the Unit III Knowledge Check Note: Be sure to maximize your internet browser so that you can view each individual lesson on a full screen, ensuring that all content is made visible. Remember, this is a nongraded activity.
Conclusion
There are a wide range of entrepreneurial opportunities for you to uncover from small improvements such as improved packing designs to products that appeal to emotional needs to much larger and more complicated products. There are also many tools you can use to develop your creative thinking skills. The entrepreneurial mindset positions you to continuously consider ideas for improvements to existing products by identifying a problem that needs a solution. As ideas occur to you, write these ideas down. Then, analyze the idea to determine if the idea translates into the definition of an entrepreneurial opportunity. Make a conscious effort to practice using the information in this unit.
References Dizain777. (n.d.). Hand drawn creativity mind map, business concept (ID 204476714) [Image]. Dreamstime.
https://www.dreamstime.com/hand-drawn-creativity-mind-map-business-concept-blackboard- image204476714
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Edralin, D. M., Tibon, M. V. P., Poblador, P. E. T., & Yu, J. W. (2019). Creativity, innovation, and sustainability: Insights of Entrepinays in the handicrafts industry. http://web.a.ebscohost.com.libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=8 &sid=ab1854dd-c3ad-4d79-bf87-fd22c0b5841c%40sessionmgr4007
Goetz, K. (2011, February 1). How 3M gave everyone days off and created an innovation dynamo. Fast
Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/1663137/how-3m-gave-everyone-days-off-and-created-an- innovation-dynamo
Goldman, D. (2015, April 1). Pet rock founder Gary Dahl dead at 78. CNN Money.
https://money.cnn.com/2015/04/01/news/pet-rock-founder-gary-dahl-dead/index.html Neck, H. M., Neck, C. P., & Murray, E. L. (2021). Entrepreneurship: The practice and mindset. SAGE. Pistrui, D., Blessing, J., Mekemson, K. (2008). Building an entrepreneurial engineering ecosystem for future
generations: The Kern Entrepreneurship Education Network [Graphic]. American Society of Engineering Educators. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237784695_Building_an_Entrepreneurial_Engineering_Eco system_for_Future_Generations_The_Kern_Entrepreneurship_Education_Network
Timmons, J. A. (1994). New venture creation (4th ed.). Irwin.
Learning Activities (Nongraded) Nongraded Learning Activities are provided to aid students in their course of study. You do not have to submit them. If you have questions, contact your instructor for further guidance and information. In order to access the following resource, click the link below. Utilize the following Chapter 3 Flashcards to review terminology from the eTextbook.
- Course Learning Outcomes for Unit III
- Required Unit Resources
- Unit Lesson
- Opportunity Recognition
- Connection Between an Entrepreneurial Mindset and Opportunity Recognition
- Conditions for Opportunity
- Innovation
- Creativity
- Interactive Activity
- Conclusion
- References
- Learning Activities (Nongraded)
,
CREATING AND RECOGNIZING NEW OPPORTUNITIES
©iStockphoto.com/phototechno
“Entrepreneurs see trends where others just see data; they connect dots when others just see dots. This ability to consistently recognize and seize opportunity does not develop overnight. It takes deliberate practice.”
—Dan Cohen, entrepreneur and educator
CHAPTER OUTLINE
· 3.1 The Entrepreneurial Mindset and Opportunity Recognition
· 3.2 Opportunities Start With Thousands of Ideas
· 3.3 Four Pathways to Opportunity Identification
· 3.4 Alertness, Prior Knowledge, and Pattern Recognition
· 3.5 From Idea Generation to Opportunity Recognition
Learning Objectives
· 3.1 Explain how the entrepreneurial mindset relates to opportunity recognition.
· 3.2 Employ strategies for generating new ideas from which opportunities are born.
· 3.3 Apply the four pathways to opportunity identification.
· 3.4 Demonstrate how entrepreneurs find opportunities using alertness, prior knowledge, and pattern recognition.
· 3.5 Connect idea generation to opportunity recognition.
THE ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET AND OPPORTUNITY RECOGNITION
>> LO 3.1 Explain how the entrepreneurial mindset relates to opportunity recognition.
In Chapter 2 , we explored the concept of mindset and its importance to identifying opportunities. Applying what we have learned about mindset, it is evident that an entrepreneurial mindset positions you to identify opportunities and to take action. Entrepreneurship is all about openness to new ideas, new opportunities, and new ways of acting on them. Indeed, this is demonstrated time and again by countless entrepreneurs’ stories, regardless of the diversity of their industries, whether for-profit or nonprofit, whether a startup or within an existing corporation. All the entrepreneurs featured throughout this text, including Juan Giraldo, founder of Waku; Saurabh Gupta, founder of Gyan-I; and Maliha Khalid, founder of Doctory, have found ways to identify new opportunities that address unmet needs in the marketplace. Let’s take a closer look at what opportunity really means.
What Is an Opportunity?
There are many definitions of opportunity, but most include references to three central characteristics: potential economic value, novelty or newness, and perceived desirability. 1 We define opportunity as a way of generating value through unique, novel, or desirable products, services, and even processes that have not been previously exploited in a particular context. Jazmine Valencia is a good example of an entrepreneur who found an opportunity to provide personalized services for musicians. For an opportunity to be viable, the idea must have the capacity to generate value.
Opportunity: a way of generating profit through unique, novel, or desirable products or services that have not been previously exploited.
Master the content at edge.sagepub.com/neckentrepreneurship2e
Value can take many forms. The most common form of value is economic value: the capacity to generate profit. Two other forms of value—social value and environmental value—are less understood but equally important. An opportunity has social value if it helps to address a social need or creates social good. Environmental value exists if the opportunity protects or preserves the environment. We address this further in Chapter 16 on social entrepreneurship. Startup Bios Urn, headquartered in Spain, created a biodegradable urn in which to grow trees from human ashes, to address the environmental problems of a growing population (many people don’t have the land to bury their loved ones) and the polluting effects of traditional burials. 2 All forms of value, however, are predicated on the assumption that there is a market populated with enough people to buy your product or service. This does not mean that a large market is required; there are countless examples of successful businesses that run on a small scale, catering to a market that is limited in one way or another. The key is to scale the business and its costs to the size of the market—to balance supply with demand. Here again, the entrepreneurial mindset is what enables us to envision how a new product or service can generate value for a niche, an age group or interest segment, a geographic area, or a larger population.
Entrepreneurship in ActionJazmine Valencia, JV Agency
Jazmine Valencia, founder, JV Agency
Photo courtesy of Jazmine Valencia
Jazmine Valencia operates at the heart of one of the most disrupted and fastest-changing industries of the past decade. She has been on the cutting edge of the music industry since the beginning of her career. In 2012, she started from the bottom at the Island Def Jam Music Group label as an intern, working her way to director of digital marketing. During her 7 years at Island Def Jam, she witnessed the dawn of social media as an effective marketing tool before it was consolidated into the handful of platforms we have today, such as Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Jazmine saw the changes and she saw the possibilities. “In the beginning people didn’t yet know exactly what social media could do for music marketing as it had yet to establish itself as a mainstream medium and it was not clear if major players would, but I wanted to be ready.”
In 2014, Island Def Jam Music Group split into multiple labels and Jazmine’s entire client list was shaken up. As Jazmine said, “It was like going through a divorce and we were all confused kids.” Although her job was secure, her day-to-day had changed drastically, and many of the artists she had spent years building relationships with were no longer hers. But Jazmine had skills that the artists needed, especially in this time of uncertainty. What those artists needed was help with marketing in this new world of music distribution. As a result, she left Island Def Jam in 2015 and started consulting with her clients who had been displaced in the split. She soon realized she was offering a little too much help for free. It was time, she thought, to “jump head first into starting my own music marketing agency.”
It was an organic transition from Def Jam to her own business because it was easy to sell herself based on what she had already accomplished. There was no question of what she was capable of doing for musicians, and this made it easy to attract clients she had previously worked with as well as new ones. “It didn’t seem like a risk to me; it felt easy and it happened by accident. I said to myself, ‘Let me just go with this and see where it gets me.’”
Today, JV Agency is a marketing company handling campaigns for all levels of musicians from all genres. Jazmine leads and advises some of music’s biggest artists, from indie rock band The Killers to Canadian singer-songwriter Shawn Mendes. She helps grow careers for some of the most talented musicians today using an artist-focused marketing approach to growth. This means she handles their digital marketing, social media, brand strategy, international distribution, and many other aspects of an artist’s business. She credits her success in the industry to her creativity, confidence, and ability to thrive under pressure, all things she honed early on while at Island Def Jam. One thing Jazmine wishes everyone would do is replace the word “failure” with “lesson” because she feels that failure has such negative connotations. “I wish we could use a positive word for failure so people would be less afraid of making mistakes and more capable of learning lessons from their experiences.” Jazmine knows that without failure and the associated learning, it’s hard to see new opportunities. “Sometimes you have to learn lessons and pay the price in the short term and to realize that setbacks can be opportunities in disguise.”
Critical Thinking Questions
1. Why did Jazmine start her own business?
2. Why does she recommend doing what you are passionate about?
3. What is Jazmine’s perspective on failure? •
Source: Jazmine Valencia (interview with author, January 15, 2019)
In addition, a new idea that constitutes an opportunity, whether it is a product, service, or technology, must be new or unique or at least a variation on an existing theme that you are confident people will accept and adopt. The idea must involve something that people need, desire, and find useful or valuable. Or there must be a significant problem to solve. Finding solutions to problems and meeting customer needs are the essence of opportunity recognition.
Innovation, Invention, Improvement, or Irrelevant?
Of course, all ideas are not created equal and not all ideas are venture opportunities. Part of recognizing an opportunity is the ability to evaluate ideas and identify those with the highest likelihood of success. One framework for doing this is to rate an idea on four different dimensions: The idea may be an innovation, an invention, an improvement, or irrelevant. Of these, innovations and inventions are high in novelty, while improvements and irrelevant ideas are low in novelty (see Figure 3.1).
A successful idea scores highly as an innovation if the product or service is novel, useful, and valuable. Today’s smartphone, and the basic cellular phone of the 1980s, are both good examples of a product that meets all the requirements of a successful innovation.
Innovations and inventions are often paired together, but the difference between them lies in demand. Inventions, by definition, score highly for novelty, but if an invention does not reach the market or appeal to consumers, then it will be rendered useless. Inventions that succeed in finding a market move to the innovation stage.
Figure 3.1 Idea Classification Matrix
Source: Neck, H. M. (2010). Idea generation. In B. Bygrave & A. Zacharakis (Eds.), Portable MBA in entrepreneurship (pp. 27–52). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
As an example of an invention that developed into an innovation, consider the story of Dr. Spencer Silver, the inventor of Post-it® notes.3 More than 35 years ago, Silver was a scientist working for 3M. His task was to devise a new adhesive, something stronger and tougher that had never been seen before. During his experiments, he discovered an adhesive that was none of those things—although it did stick to surfaces, it didn’t bond tightly to them. For years, Silver tried to persuade his colleagues that he had found something meaningful—the only problem was that he had no idea what the adhesive could be used for. Art Fry, another 3M scientist, had a problem of his own. Every time he tried to bookmark particular pages of the hymn book for choir practice with pieces of paper, they would fall out. Fry remembered Silver’s discovery and they ended up working together to develop what we now know as the Post-it® note.
Post-it® notes
Shutterstock Royalty-free stock photo ID: 64719535
The Post-it® note took off because it was novel, useful, and practical—but it became an innovation of high value only when it hit the market. Yet ideas do not always need to be unique or novel to appeal to customers. There are many ideas that focus on improvement of existing products. Take folding sunglasses, serrated ice cream scoops, or liquid paper, for instance. Each product has been revisited and improved on. The products may not be high in novelty, but there is still a strong market for these products, as many people will find them useful to a degree.
Finally, there are ideas that fall into the irrelevant category, scoring low on both novelty and usefulness. The food and beverage industry, in particular, has experimented with some changes over the years that have failed to meet consumer expectations. Pepsi introduced a morning pick-me-up drink called Pepsi A.M., beverage giant Coors started selling mountain spring water, and soup company Campbell’s combined soup and a sandwich into one frozen microwaveable meal—all of these are arguably examples of irrelevant ideas.4
However, it is difficult to fully pigeonhole ideas into neat categories. How can we really predict whether an idea is inventive, innovative, or irrelevant? Something we perceive as irrelevant and useless might appeal to someone else. For example, who would ha
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