結構性契合：機會辨識的認知過程【蘇筠】

Author: Yun (Millie) SU - Assistant Professor (Education) in Singapore Management University. Research topics on innovation management, qualitative research, knowledge boundaries.

Literature review of...
Grégoire, Denis A., Pamela S. Barr, and Dean A. Shepherd., (2010) Cognitive processes of opportunity recognition: The role of structural alignment." Organization Science, 2(21): 413-431.


Entrepreneurship research continue to question how individuals recognize opportunities and what kind of process do they go through? People form a subjective belief that an opportunity exists and then make evaluation of that opportunity, yet most studies have only focused on the evaluation phase rather than the former. Therefore, Gregoire, Barr and Shepherd study specifically on the process of recognizing opportunities, and determine what factors come into play in this process, and why these factors are important.

Their study concludes three important findings. First, the process of recognizing opportunities lies upon individuals making mental connections between structure (i.e., markets) and the superficial characteristics (i.e., technology, operation, and possibilities). More specifically, the mental connections take place between how a technology operates and its market (i.e., 3D printer and its potential market), and the connection between the benefits of a technology and the unsatisfied needs and problems in that market (i.e., how does 3D printer satisfy the unmet needs of medical device developers). 

Second, opportunity recognition requires more cognitive efforts to encode issues and information at the structural level (markets, networks, and organizations). On the other hand, recognizing threats relies more directly on consideration of superficial features (technology specifications) and requires less demanding encoding process. Therefore, it is more likely that people may perceive new information as threats when they first encounter new information. Lastly, prior knowledge tends to be used to “connect the dots” and facilitate people to make the connections easier.

Three implications can be drawn in relation to bricolage and resources.

Does resources play a role in opportunity recognition?

Gregorie, Barr and Shepherd’s framework does not recognize the role of resources in opportunity recognition. This might be because the data are collected with executives “thinking out loud” of a given technology, and that the executives might not consider what resources they have at hand to perceive the opportunities. However, studies have shown that resource slacks as well as resource scarce influence how people perceive of opportunities. 

Does resources play a role in opportunity recognition? From Advantech’s case, the engineers first tried to understand the clients’ needs, and then found their resources at hand to satisfy their needs. The complementarity between resources and opportunities is the key in which Advantech was able to transform constraints into advantages. Therefore, knowing what kind of resources at hand facilitate knowing how to enact the opportunity.

Opportunities arise from bricolage? Not so simple...

Gregoire, Barr and Shepherd argue that opportunity recognition requires one to make mental connections between structure and superficial features. This argument contradicts with bricolage’s interpretation of opportunity recognition. According to bricolage theory, opportunities emerge from constant tinkering of resources at hand and would not need to take into account of structure, such as market needs and challenges. 

Gregoire et al. would argue that opportunities for bricolage is only temporary and short-lived, because opportunities indeed requires more cognitive effort in understand the structure, and cannot expect opportunities to emerge from tinkering resources at hand. This contradiction suggests that bricolage’s explanation of opportunity remains rather simple. If structural alignment is necessary for opportunity recognition, how do people recognize opportunities under resource constraints? The process may actually be more complicated.

“Weak spots” as the starting point for opportunity recognition under constraints

The paper serves as a theoretical basis of the opportunity recognition process, which involves people matching technology (function and possibilities) with market structure (problems and needs). However, because Gregorie, Barr and Shepherd’s paper did not take into account of constraints and resources, their framework is limited to address how people recognize opportunities under constraints. From Advantech’s case, Advantech engineers reframed the constraints they faced and re-projected those constraints as “weak spots”, and those weak spots become their new opportunities. 

 Subsequently, to fully exploit the opportunities, they repurposed and recombined existing resources to satisfy the unmet needs. Therefore, we can extend Gregoire et al.’s argument by pointing out that people recognize opportunities through matching “weak spots” and resources at hand.