Abstract:

This paper focuses on investigating business opportunity development by young entrepreneurs through the perspective of entrepreneurial sensemaking. Following a cognitive mechanism approach we find out how young entrepreneurs provide meaning to various cues derived from countless continuous events in their lives, interpret these cues and take various business decisions as per their interpretations of these cues and events. The cues and events can be cognitively conceptualized as drivers and barriers through which the entrepreneurs engage in sensemaking of their enterprises and the opportunities and limitations they may manifest. Using a narrative case study approach this paper relies on inductive reasoning of twenty young respondents including twelve male and eight female entrepreneurs in the early stages of setting up their enterprises. As a result of extensive qualitative data analysis, a three-tiered and six-dimensional framework of entrepreneurial sensemaking has been developed. The cognitive mechanisms employed by the entrepreneurs were presented in the form of cues, events and their interpretations resulting in a unique perspective on sensemaking. Even though the use of sensemaking in entrepreneurship research has been well-recognized there is a general lack of empirical work on how entrepreneurs use socially situated cognitive mechanisms to offer a clear and meaningful understanding of their new enterprise to relevant stakeholders and others within a social context. Keywords: Business Opportunity Development; Entrepreneurial Sensemaking; Sensemaking; Cognitive Mechanisms.

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