The Role of Competencies, Contexts, and Constraints in Creating Opportunities from Disruptive Technologies

Research on decision-making by entrepreneurs under conditions of high uncertainty suggests they rely on their unique competencies and adopt resource-conserving contingencies when assessing opportunities. In the context of commercializing disruptive technological innovations, this implies that opportunity is primarily defined and bounded by an entrepreneur’s prior experience and existing capabilities and resources rather than by the innovation’s unique properties. Some argue this artificially limits the discovery of viable opportunities, but the findings in this study suggest it actually facilitates creating an opportunity that provides the entrepreneur with best chance at a successful commercialization outcome