The Role of Creativity in Opportunity Search and Business Idea Creation

This paper investigates the relationships between student creativity, various opportunity search strategies, and the viability of business ideas developed during an entrepreneurship education module. A group of 117 students provided the sample data by participating in pre-program and post-program surveys. The results show that creativity is not directly associated with the viability of the business idea. Creativity does, however, strengthen the creative opportunity search strategies and the use of opportunity identification strategies based on knowledge acquisition. Accordingly, the influence of creativity on the viability of the business idea is fully mediated by those opportunity search strategies that are creative and based on knowledge acquisition. They both have a positive effect on the perceived viability of the business idea