On the Recognition of Venturing Opportunities in Science and Technology

This paper seeks to understand the psychological mechanisms which support the recognition of science and technology-based opportunities for new ventures. Opportunity recognition is viewed as a critical skill in venturing activities, but there is doubt about the mechanisms involved. The entrepreneurship literature contains a tradition of seeing opportunity recognition as a less than conscious process, that starts with an “initial intuition,” and “involves a subconscious evaluation,” a view that suggests the psychological process of directed attention, where the direction for any given individual is a function of personal interests and experience. A small number of qualitative interviews at the University of Sheffield are first reported that support the finding that such a cognitive mechanism is present. Then a scale used to measure “attention to use” in a survey of 494 science and engineering students at four UK universities is presented, along with its correlation with venturing and applied technology self-efficacy. The conclusion addresses the implications of recognising directed attention as a major component of opportunity recognition.