Opportunity recognition and pursuit of opportunities are critical for the economic development and activity of all nations. Without opportunities and entrepreneurs to recognize them, there is no entrepreneurship. The widely accepted definition of entrepreneurship by H. H. Stevenson and J. C. Jarillo focuses on pursuit of opportunities, emphasizing the role of opportunity in the context of entrepreneurship. Scott Shane and Sankaran Venkataraman suggest that opportunities involve identifying new combinations, new means, new ends, or new means-ends relationships that have the possibility of generating a profit for a new or existing business. These may include the introduction of new goods, services, raw materials, markets, ways of organizing, or various combinations thereof.

There are two competing theoretical perspectives concerning the origins of opportunities. Joseph Schumpeter argued that the ...