The nature and source of entrepreneurial opportunity are important issues for understanding how markets function and come
into being. In addition to describing the forum held on the topic and summarizing the contributions of the articles that appear
in the special issue, this article shares a number of lessons learned during the workshop and the editorial process. We explore
three of the most important reasons for confusion about the opportunity construct: (1) the “objectivity” of opportunity, (2)
the perceived importance of one particular individual in determining the direction of the social world and (3) what distinguishes
the sub-class of “entrepreneurial” opportunity from the broader category of opportunity in general. Finally, we offer some
directions for future research by illuminating important issues that emerged from the workshop but that remain largely unanswered
by the papers of this special issue.
Keywords creation - discovery - entrepreneurial opportunity - knowledge - strategy
JEL Classifications D5 - L26 - M13