Opportunity recognition has been widely viewed as a key step in the entrepreneurial process. Two major perspectives that address opportunity recognition offer diametrically opposed predictions: systematic search versus entrepreneurial alertness employed to identify opportunities. Instead of treating alertness and search as contradictory concepts, the current research uses a traditional Chinese philosophy and folklore, the yin and yang perspective and its competing yet reconciling forces, to suggest that the dynamic interaction between alertness and systematic search will increase the chances and improve the effectiveness of opportunity discovery. An alertness/search typology of innovations is also proposed.
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