This paper aims to assess the main sources, key propositions and empirical methods available to researchers taking a “subjectivist” perspective on the creation of opportunities by entrepreneurs.
Subjectivist research is defined behaviourally: it emphasises the internal, mental processes and subjective meanings incorporated in entrepreneurial acts. The alertness literature is accorded special attention; it originally possessed a strong subjectivist orientation and focused on opportunity recognition.
A subjectivist approach has distinct advantages: it requires researchers to observe, analyse and explain entrepreneurial creativity with reference to entrepreneurs' internal, personal interpretations of their environment. Subjectivist approaches ask: how do entrepreneurs create profit opportunities? Subjectivists extend the concept of entrepreneurial alertness to include analysis of knowledge construction processes.
Fruitful theoretical and applied subjectivist research de‐emphasises entrepreneurs' exploitation of existing opportunities; knowledge construction fundamental to the genesis of creative behaviour becomes central.
There are several empirically oriented organising frameworks available in the literature consistent with a subjectivist orientation to entrepreneurial creativity.
This is the first attempt to assess and synthesise modern subjectivist work on the creative dimension of entrepreneurial behaviour. It identifies complementary conceptual developments on the interface between economics and psychology. Some promising empirical methods are suggested.
