Entrepreneurial Foresight: Role of Foresight in Entrepreneurial Opportunity Recognition

Opportunity recognition, as the first step of venture creation and business development, plays an essential role in entrepreneurship. Previous research studied various factors that can influence opportunity recognition, but they failed to consider the potential role of foresight in this process. Thus, this research aimed to explore whether and how individuals apply foresight to identify entrepreneurial opportunities. In order to answer the research questions, qualitative research was designed and semi-structured interviews were employed for collecting the data from 16 participants including entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs who search for business opportunities. Thematic analysis method was used for identifying and analyzing meaningful patterns within the data set. The findings showed that the majority of participant tend to be future-oriented during opportunity recognition. Also, the results provided significant themes that demonstrate how the participants apply foresight to identify more and better opportunities.