An opportunity-based approach to international entrepreneurship: pursuing opportunities internationally through prospection

This paper argues for a better understanding of entrepreneurship in international entrepreneurship – the ‘E in IE’. The paper suggests that the central role of opportunity formation and exploitation in entrepreneurship research should be fully explored in IE. The entrepreneur-firm-opportunity nexus in internationalisation is examined through an opportunity-based approach (OBA). This suggests that the process of internationalisation may be conceived as the formation and exploitation of international entrepreneurial opportunities. The subjective, entrepreneurial ability to create an imagined future – ‘prospection’ – is examined to show how entrepreneurs use prospection to: creatively imagine combinations of firm capabilities and market opportunities to form entrepreneurial opportunities. A typology of entrepreneurial opportunity formation is advanced which distinguishes between opportunity discovery, development, construction, and creation. The paper concludes by suggesting how the OBA can help explain the choice of foreign markets, early internationalisation, speed of internationalisation, and foreign entry modes.