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Innovative Entrepreneurs in Handicraft Businesses : Unintentional Opportunity Discovery and Motivation for Exploitation
ISBN
978-0-9819028-4-5
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2012-06-10
Author(s)
Abstract
Although entrepreneurial research focuses often on newly founded ventures, opportunity discovery is highly relevant in existing small- and medium sized businesses as well. Entrepreneurs are challenged by discovering a second, third or fourth opportunity to gain future competitive advantage. These entrepreneurs are embedded in networks with customers and suppliers which are important for the transfer of relevant information for opportunity discovery. In this respect, interactions with customers can lead to the transfer of information about their problems and needs which can be relevant for opportunity discovery. Innovative customers such as lead users (Lettl, Hienerth and Gemuenden, 2008; von Hippel, 1986) transfer their needs to existing firms due to their high motivation to find a solution to their problems. Although there is much research done analyzing the motivation of customers to transfer such information, only little studies could be found which research why entrepreneurs exploit specific customer requests and how they search for a technical solution to solve this indicated customer problem. This is especially relevant, when entrepreneurs have to make costly efforts to gain an immense amount of expertise and knowledge for opportunity exploitation.
To answer these questions, I analyze two extreme cases of entrepreneurs in Swiss handicraft industry using case study methodology. This industry is characterized by a high proportion of small- and medium-sized enterprises and a strong competition often leading to low margins for companies in general.
To answer these questions, I analyze two extreme cases of entrepreneurs in Swiss handicraft industry using case study methodology. This industry is characterized by a high proportion of small- and medium-sized enterprises and a strong competition often leading to low margins for companies in general.
Project(s)
Language
English
Keywords
Unternehmertum
Kleine und mittlere Unternehmen
Innovation
Unternehmer
Handwerk
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
HSG Profile Area
SoM - Business Innovation
Refereed
Yes
Book title
Leading from the Edge
Publisher
ICSB
Publisher place
Washington
Start page
23
End page
816
Pages
794
Event Title
57th World Conference of the International Council for Small Business (ICSB)
Event Location
Wellington, New Zealand
Event Date
10.-13.06.2012
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
211383