infonet-economy

Entrepreneurs search information differently in order to recognize opportunities. It ranges from no deliberate search such as accidental recognition up to proactive search which corresponds to an intended behavior. There is research analysing different search behavior separately, however, a common understanding and a comparison of different information search behavior by comparable scales is lacking. We develop a scale of distinct information search behavior inductively by analysing interviews with small business owner-managers having recognized and successfully exploited 59 opportunities. Furthermore, we conduct a pre-test of the scales with 211 business students to validate the developed scale. Serial opportunity recognizers more frequently use problemistic and systematic search than less experienced ones.