How entrepreneurs discover opportunities in China: An institutional view

This paper investigates how entrepreneurs in China accumulate and integrate information and knowledge to identify opportunities when facing weak infrastructure and changing institutional settings. By employing institutional theory and an interactive framework of entrepreneurship, this paper proposes a model that incorporates both individual and environmental effects. First the individual characteristics that lead to opportunity recognition are discussed: (1) human capital, (2) social capital, and (3) social skills. Next the model proposes that the relationships between individual characteristics and opportunity recognition are contingent upon: (1) the entrepreneurial environment in which opportunities are discovered, and (2) the personal turbulence experienced by entrepreneurs.