Imagining Possible Opportunities through Business Development Practices: A Practice-Based Study

How does the articulation of a business idea take place? Despite the extent of research on opportunities, there is still a lack of insight into the experience of opportunity pursuit. Opportunity research identifies a gap in understanding the transition between imagined and real structures, from individual aspirations to social structures. Adopting a practice perspective to the pursuit of opportunities implies the individual mind is no longer the sole setting of opportunity pursuit. Instead, we prioritise the practices and underlying activities which drive opportunity pursuit. Taking an enterprise development program as the site of our study, we conduct a video ethnography to observe a group of nascent entrepreneurs as they develop their business ideas. Our study identifies key practices that emerged as participants developed their business idea. The relational, aesthetic and sociomaterial dimensions of these practices implies an alternative perspective to the prevailing individualistic and cognitive impression of how opportunities are pursued.