Entrepreneurship as translation: Understanding entrepreneurial opportunities through actor-network theory

Entrepreneurship scholars argue that opportunities are at the heart of entrepreneurial activity. Yet, there is still a heated debate on the nature of opportunities. The discovery view argues that opportunities are discovered and have objective existence prior to the entrepreneurial process. The creation view argues that the discovery view is incomplete and makes wrongful assumptions about agency, process and opportunities in entrepreneurship. More conceptual development, however, is needed for the creation view to become a fully developed theoretical alternative to the discovery view. In this article, Actor-Network Theory is used to develop the creation view and further our understanding of entrepreneurial processes.