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Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Inside the Entrepreneurial Event: Creating Schemata of Opportunity for New
Business

1. Introduction
My wife and I argued about what kind of film we would watch on Saturday evening. We were at a movie rental
and were browsing through the selection – Hollywood action, romantic comedies, psychological thrillers, and a
few British dramas. I suddenly remembered that I had purchased the previous day two movies from a sale: a
psychological drama about repressing a child and the evil in the world by an Italian director, and a
documentary-style filmed drama about the relationship of two brothers and their attitude towards their youngest
brother’s cancer – difficult subjects and serious films. The reason for our argument was that my wife doesn't
want to relax in her free time by watching movies on the dark and tragic side of human nature. She particularly
would like to avoid them in movies because life is hard enough without having the movies we watch emphasize
it. I myself tried to explain that one can learn things from them, that one can live lives that one cannot otherwise
experience, and one can feel emotions with them that one would not normally experience. I was not satisfied
with my own explanations. I felt, however, I was on the right track, but I could not put my thoughts and feelings
into words. How does this relate to entrepreneurship? Entrepreneurship is a very personal and emotional matter.
It is difficult to explain and present logically, like when I was trying to put into words that watching a film can
be more than just a light-hearted nine-day wonder. Please note that this is my interpretation of my world, and
from my wife's world, the situation looks completely different. In the same way, I am bothered by the way
entrepreneurship is handled using rational logic as if we had the possibility of defining entrepreneurship using
one method in order to satisfy our research needs so that we can research phenomena more efficiently,
productively, and better. From my perspective, this perhaps possesses the biggest danger to entrepreneurship
research: that we are too hastily "engraving into stone" what entrepreneurship is and at the same time
proclaiming how it should be researched, where it should be discussed, and who really knows about it. This
study approaches entrepreneurship from the angle that nothing is more common than the most personal (see
Rogers 1989). This research is my interpretation of entrepreneurship, and the objective is to discuss the nature
and concept of entrepreneurship. When I present my personal interpretations of entrepreneurship, I hope that it
touches as many as possible and so would be as prevailing as possible. But not so that my view is "The"
definition of entrepreneurship; rather, that it would arouse discussion and diverseness in entrepreneurship
research and especially in the creation of new business activities amongst businesses, and would support the
possible doubts and thoughts of others, which there no doubt are, and so would support the diversity that has
prevailed in entrepreneurship research. I admire the work of many leading researchers in the field, through
which they have been able to redirect entrepreneurship research, but I also suspect that something valuable is
being thrown away. As the conception of entrepreneurship unifies, the questioning, recreating, alternativeness,
and the testing of new ideas decreases. Entrepreneurship researchers should perhaps perceive that this may be
part of the field’s evolution and that unity is, on some time frame, dangerous to the vitality of research. A need
amongst researchers to reach equilibrium is interacting in the background, even though the phenomenon of
research is usually seen as being continually out of balance – there is a significant conflict between the two. I
am purposely approaching the research topic in a structurally different manner – as a pondering essay. How a
scientific article is normally written is in a specified form and is precisely defined. The normal form of an
article is to reflect the rational requirements of efficiency, sense of direction, and transferability of information.
These are, of course, understandable goals, but at the same time, they reflect the impression of doing something
which is the opposite of entrepreneurship – creating something from nothing. Thus, in a way, when we write
about entrepreneurship in such a manner as we usually do, we are anti-entrepreneurs. Every one of us knows
that writing is creative problem solving in that moment and place one happens to be. One tries to manage that
place where one is and has to give space and time to what the end result is and to the form it takes. From my
perspective, entrepreneurship.
2. What then is entrepreneurship?
What then is entrepreneurship—a definition for a common foundation? Let us think of Aki Kaurismäki's film
"The Man Without a Past," where the main character loses his memory and has to rebuild his life from scratch
—he has no past, no future ambitions, and no goals. Instead, in his present moment where he currently is and
with the people he bumps into, he starts to process the present and future. He starts with a clean slate and
creates a new life as he goes along. The situation demonstrates well the kind of social-cognitive processing of
information, which is at the core of entrepreneurship. I do not mean that the person who acts as an entrepreneur
is simple or starts from a clean slate, but rather that the activity creating entrepreneurship is constructive. In
entrepreneurship, initial situations and goals are created as you go along (Sarasvathy 2001). Now you must be
wondering what a European filmmaker, Aki Kaurismäki, has to do with this research and what he has to do with
entrepreneurship. Aki Kaurismäki is one of Europe's most well-known and individual directors, but to
Hollywood, he is relatively unknown. He is a very important reformer of films and an idiom remolder, but he is
unfamiliar to the masses even though he has won many of the most important film prizes. I use this analogy
because entrepreneurship is like Aki Kaurismäki. Entrepreneurship is a creative activity where new activity is
created without knowing precisely what the goal is or what the initial situation is, but still, new activity is
created (see van Eijnatten 2004). Entrepreneurship is a renewable force, which questions the existing but which
has not gained the attention deserved while in the crush of rational business logic. The concept of
entrepreneurship has changed drastically over the past ten years (e.g., Eckhardt and Shane 2003; Shane 2003;
Alvarez and Barney 2007). Entrepreneurship was long seen as the leading of a small business or a business's
owner-management. However, entrepreneurship does not directly relate to these concepts; rather,
entrepreneurship is context-free (see Alvarez and Barney 2007). Entrepreneurship is noticeable in big
companies’ renewal efforts, in identifying new markets and technologies, and also in public organization
development projects. The core of entrepreneurship is creating new opportunities and implementing them
irrespective of the contexts in which they take place (see Carlsson and Eliasson 2003). Entrepreneurship is a
creative activity where the goal is not clear and nor is the initial situation often; instead, both of these are
created as one goes along. This happens because there is no one right and best solution, and often the initial
situation is so complex and continuously changing that it is impossible to analyze in a broad and reliable
enough manner. The traditional view of entrepreneurship has unnecessarily bounded research, the development
of knowledge, and the transfer of information for the use of businesses and people. Entrepreneurship is an
everyday occurrence in every organization, but it is gratuitously glorified as a characteristic and behavior of
heroic business people (Christensen and Raynor 1997). One of the most important research findings relates just
to this; it has been reliably shown that entrepreneurship is not anyone's or anything's property (e.g., Gartner
1990). The view that entrepreneurship cannot be learned because self-confidence or energetic traits are so
heavily involved is also a myth. Entrepreneurship is today that same sort of myth that creativity was a few
decades ago when creativity was linked to genius. The latest empirical research on entrepreneurship has shown
that entrepreneurship is episodic, especially in the use of resources, in the level of commitment, and in risk-
taking (e.g., Sarason, Dean, and Dillard 2006). Entrepreneurship is also about taking affordable expenses
(Sarasvathy 2001). That means doing things in the beginning that, if they fail, can be endured. The gradual
weaving of ambitions and goals as one goes along is also key to entrepreneurship. An important way of
accomplishing this is by building strategic partnerships in order to understand the marketplace, the customers,
and the technology, and to create trade. So, it is the building of understanding with the stakeholders and
convincing them of the correct direction. Entrepreneurship also seems to be about the tolerance of surprising
events and seeing them as possibilities—without surprises, there is no entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is the
opposite of a goal-directed worldview, in which case every surprise is dangerous because they interfere with
reaching the goal and what one does and the way the business has to adapt in order to get back on the path to
the set goal. Entrepreneurship is more about creativity, of which rational decision-making is not part.
Entrepreneurship does not work, or at least most often does not work, by analyzing the customers and
competitors, by defining segments, manufacturing products for these segments, and test marketing (see
Sarasvathy 2001). Entrepreneurship is not most often so rational in existing businesses, although that is how
new business activity is wanted to be perceived or how it is imagined to be. It works if the market can be
clearly seen, what we have to offer and what others do not have is precisely known, and it is known how to get
the demand and supply to meet (Sarasvathy, Dew, Velamuri, and Venkataraman 2003). Rarely is the situation so
clear. The traditional rational model works here, but it is based on the idea that knowledge of the markets is
available to everyone if you are prepared to spend time analyzing it. This way, the market gap is definable, and
a solution can be developed. Very often, businesses, developers, and financiers think that new business
activities and ideas are born like this. This is one of the biggest mistakes in our way of thinking, and it has long
roots (e.g., Sarasvathy 2004). A second possibility is that either the goal is unknown but the initial situation is
known, or that the initial situation is unknown but the goal is known (Sarasvathy et al., 2003). So, either there
are no markets but the offering is ready, or there are markets and demand but there is no offering to serve them.
(For example, on the Internet, how can one charge for such minor use of computer programs that 20 cents could
be charged? However, there is no technology for this where the costs would be smaller than the revenue per
instance of use. If more were to be charged, no one would use it, which is why, e.g., demos are distributed for
free. This is the chance to invent an opportunity. It is strategic thinking where gradually, through trial and error,
the "correct" ways of working are found. The third possibility—genuine entrepreneurship—is the creation of
opportunities where both the initial and end situations are unknown (Sarasvathy et al., 2003). Markets are
created, and supply is created. These are not things that just happen by creating a business plan in the beginning
(as important as it is); instead, the business plan is created as one goes along. It is known that with
entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship, the goals constantly change as you go along. Decisions are quickly made
and tried without great analyses or research because it cannot be known in advance whether things are being
done that could cause the whole business to crash, so they could be endured. Partners are quickly found with
whom things can be pondered and done. So, commitments are created, potential customers are quickly gone to,
even to sell products that do not exist yet, and to look and ask what the customers may need, because the
customers either cannot perceive what they need and want in today's hectic world. That is the ability to see
surprises as being part of normal life and even seek surprises because they kick things into a new direction and
rather than engrave things into stone, as changes always take place. In the center, there is a quick commitment
to activity with potential customers so that mistakes can be endured, the quick finding of partners in order to
create understanding, and in order to take surprises. Here I propose that entrepreneurship does not consist of a
teleological view of life or processes. It is a creative activity where the route is created as you go along.
Entrepreneurship is creative processing—entrepreneurship is the creation of impressiveness in that instance in
which we live, and the prediction of the future and the setting of goals are secondary. Entrepreneurship thus
identifies with the opportunities of creating business, which consists of ideas, beliefs, and needs that evolve
along the journey to the goal (Sarasvathy et al., 2003). Thus, entrepreneurship is at its strongest as its actors, in
a way, enter the (“entré”) business condition, in which there is no clue whatsoever about what is going on, what
kind of trade is desired, and what it is we are pursuing (see Hjorth 2003). It does not matter whether a new
company is born from it, trade grows, or a new market is conquered. It is about a problem-solving situation
where the rules, solutions, and goals have to be created as one progresses. In this kind of situation, the right and
best solution cannot be logically derived. In this situation, the core content of actions is related to the possibility
of creating and perceiving new opportunities, and the creativity of the entrepreneur is a functional aid. This is
the phenomenon that entrepreneurship is about, and this phenomenon is what researchers should determine.
Once this stage has gone beyond and one steps into the "prendre" stage, which is about implementing,
managing, and marketing the new trade, it is not fundamentally any more about entrepreneurship, even though
it is always there (see Hjorth 2003). The original French term "entreprendre" reflects very well what
entrepreneurship is fundamentally about (see Hjorth 2003). It is stepping into a space where it is known that
new business is wanted, but what kind is not known, and it is perceiving the character of new business as well
as leaving with a business opportunity that is then implemented using molds (e.g., leadership, marketing) by
others. What happens inside this space is a very interesting phenomenon, and this research will try to shed light
on it. If we think of this space and creating an entrepreneurial opportunity in it, it is not detached from its
surroundings, nor is it a closed internal process from which business ideas emerge. This space, which is being
talked about, is a process where the mental creation and surroundings of the entrepreneur are in strong and
continuous interaction with each other. Inside this entrepreneurial space, something is happening that is
absorbing influences from the present business activities and that is causing chaos and irregularity as a result.
What is an entrepreneurial opportunity that causes dynamics in the economy?

3. The core of an entrepreneurial opportunity

The core of an entrepreneurial opportunity. An entrepreneurial opportunity can be understood as an individual's
or a group's schemata. Thus, in other words, it is the intellectual and abstract interpretation of hints from reality
(see Weick 1979). In this research, I am interested in the individual; hence we will talk about the cognitive
aspects of the individual entrepreneur, remembering, however, that an entrepreneurial opportunity can also be a
collective cognition. A cognition of an entrepreneurial opportunity means that the opportunity is a mental
outcome. It is the entrepreneur's intellectual product based on numerous internal and external information
signals. An entrepreneur constructs an opportunity based on observations of his surroundings and previous
experiences. An opportunity is the product of a creative-cognitive process where a new entirety is built from
small fragments of information (e.g., Ardichvili, Cardozo, and Ray 2003). Vesper (1991) described an
opportunity as a message from which the rules of interpretation are missing, a jigsaw puzzle, or an untold story.
In this way, an opportunity is like an unsolved problem for which there are no rules or instructions. An
entrepreneur's creative intelligence is needed to solve the cognitive puzzle. The solutions thereby cannot be
found; they have to be created because there are no ready-made rules or answers. The game, rules, and result
have to be created in that situation, and that is why creating an opportunity is so difficult. There are no ready-
made opportunities; they have to be created. In this sense, an opportunity is a product of imagination. So, an
opportunity is not a jigsaw; it is an entirely new game. Solving the problem – understanding and winning the
game – creates a new opportunity. However, an opportunity is also a vision of time. It is a vision of what kind
of an opportunity will bring the best result. Some entrepreneurs see their visions in past light. They imagine that
a possibility that has previously worked is still today a current vision. Visions from the past are simple, distinct,
and predictable. They merely strengthen previous activities and have very little novelty value. However, there
are also business visions that are present-day oriented. An entrepreneur examines the present and creates
business visions based on that. Present-day visions are more ambiguous and intricate because the present can be
read in many ways. These visions work as a target for allocating resources and are relatively novel. In addition
to the previous, there are also visions that are directed to the future. They are based on a belief in future events.
These future visions are by nature novel and abstract. Their purpose is to catalyze new and new-like business
activities. If we combine the thoughts above, an opportunity is a creative schemata of the business situation,
which is a current vision of the past, present, and future. How then does this complex cognitive schemata
become concrete in an entrepreneur's mind? What this dynamic is like has been left unclear. In the next chapter,
we will try to outline how creativity reflects in an individual’s talent to create something new.

4. Creativity
Creativity – an individual talent at creating something new. The core from an entrepreneur's standpoint can be
pondered by asking what creativity is to an individual – or maybe even better; what creativity is in an
individual. What is it that happens in an individual when creativity is born? What forces, desires, and intentions
is one being pushed or pulled by? Or is it even about this? Maybe creativity is an everyday event in an
individual, and maybe it is human activity that just happens to create something new. Or is it just creativity that
is human activity – activity that sets us apart from purely biological organisms and the initial human situation
between spirit and material that has been a cause of arguments for hundreds of years? Or is creativity returnable
back into a biological, chemical, and/or electrical activity from which current neurologists would better
understand it? An individual's creativity raises many questions and probably more than can be answered here.
Still, it is interesting and essential to this study that one can ponder what, at the end of the day, creativity is. In
this research, self-fulfillment is chosen as a starting point when depicting what creativity is as an individual's
personality. This basis was chosen because it best describes humans as conscious beings. An individual tries to
consciously gain something for which an inner need is felt. A creative personality has inner ambitions that
fulfill their personal dreams. Fulfilling one's self is the goal of a creative personality. Where are the "building
blocks" drawn from to reach this goal? The presumption is that it is drawn from the inner structures of
personality. A creative personality is able to cross the border between pre-awareness and awareness and even
the border of unawareness and use this "symbol reservoir" as source material for fulfilling one's self. So, a
creative personality tries to consciously, within the control of consciousness, seek one's inner ambitions and is
capable of utilizing pre-acknowledged and unconscious inner structures when seeking content for creativity.
However, a creative personality also has to be able to make their thoughts concrete, express them, and behave
in their environment. That is why a creative personality has certain clearly distinctive characteristics to use as
tools. He or she is, amongst other things, energetic, has diverse interests, is attracted to aesthetics and
complexity, is independent and self-reliant, independent in decision-making, takes the initiative, is aware of
relativity, and understands that he or she is creative. With these features, an individual works in their
environment and fulfills themselves and their dreams as well as the potential creativity in their inner structures.
Finally, it can be thought that an individual needs "tools" with which they can transfer the occurred creativity
for the next use, partly as pre-acknowledged and unconscious symbolic structures. This tool is learning. A
creative personality knows how to learn from itself and use it to its advantage the next time. If summarized,
creativity is an individual's personality fulfilling one's self and where the contents for this are gathered from
resources within an individual's inner structures. They are realized with concrete personal characters, which
transfer to the next creative event as source material. A creative personality reflects creative goals, sources,
tools, and transferability. But how does this happen, and what kind of event is it? Creativity requires the
potential active realization of personality. This activity is outlined next with a cognitive creative process. With a
creative process, an individual can seek to fulfill one's self. It is a process that realizes the possibility created by
a creative personality. So, a creative personality in itself does not yet create anything. A creative personality
creates a goal, something that fulfills an individual's inner needs, grants a source from which contents can be
drawn, tools with which to work, and equipment with which experiences can be transferred to a source of
creativity. But even after this, there is a concrete process, where an individual does something that is needed
and where creativity is realized. A creative process has usually been seen as a cognitive event. A creative
process can be divided into process stages and process assumptions based on previous research. The process
stages, or episodes, through which creativity gradually becomes concrete are: defining the problem, gathering
information, creating a solution, making a choice, and the creative product. The method of how these stages are
to be realized is essential. By definition, it looks like a normal process, but for it to be creative, it needs certain
special features. Related to this process is the creative individual’s way of thinking, which is fluent, flexible,
original, complex, and lateral. By essence, a creative process is unexpected and unpredicted, regardless of the
fact that usually certain stages can be separated. It has been noticed that these stages have to be completed one
way or another in order to reach a concrete result. In order for the result to be creative, the process must be, by
nature, lateral. So, an individual can make an irregular leap in thinking and divert from a logically concludable
path. However, the process is fluent and flexible. If a certain way of thinking doesn't seem to work, a creative
individual changes their method of thinking and seeks a suitable solution. It is also essential that the process is
original and complex, which assures that the result is not conventional. In summary, defining a problem,
seeking information, creating a solution and choice, and creating a result are parts of a creative process. These
stages, however, can be found in all human thought and which aren't directly involved with creativity. The
essence of the process makes it creative, an essence which is fluent, flexible, original, complex, and lateral. Due
to this unpredictability and unexpectedness, an individual can process creative results through stages of logical
processes. With a creative process, it isn't so much about stages because they can be thought to be common to
all an individual's thought processes. The question is more about the quality of the process; what is it like? Until
now, the following were noticeable in the descriptions of a creative essence: creativity is affected by a creative
personality, which is an active factor that creates creativity. The creative goal of this factor is self-fulfillment. In
order to fulfill itself, an individual has to seek material from its inner structures. On the other hand, he or she
exploits the characteristics of their personality to use as tools with which to create creativity. To he or she,
learning is a tool with which one can transfer what one has learned into building blocks. This, however, does
not fulfill creativity; rather, a creative process is needed. With a creative process, an individual converts
potential creativity into real creativity. This process in question includes stages where the problem is defined,
information about the problem area is collected, and the solution(s) as well as the final product is evaluated.
Even this, however, is not enough to define the core of creativity because creativity does not happen in a
vacuum. The creativity of an individual has an environment where it happens. This will be examined next. A
creative environment is a context where the phenomenon takes place and which affects a person and his or her
processes. The environment also ranks what is creative and what is not. Even if creativity is creative to the
individual, it is not necessarily creative to the context. Only the environment decides the real quality of the
creativity. As it was told earlier, the environment affects an individual. An individual’s social relationships,
contextual factors, and their own personal history create an environment that affects what goal an individual
sees as self-fulfilling, what his inner structures are like, into what his character has formed, and what and how
he learns and has learned, as well as what and how he processes. The environment thus affects everything in an
individual. A creative environment comprises three partial environments: social, contextual, and historical. It
can be thought that the historical environment has the largest effect. It comprises an individual's own experience
of life, and these directly affect what the individual is like and what he does. A social environment, in other
words, other people, has a great impact. A social environment affects as an evaluation, as anticipation, as a role
model, and as a reward or punishment system. Contextual factors have less of a direct influence. They create
frameworks which, if unsuccessful, can inhibit creativity. These factors are culture, the physical environment,
the atmosphere, and limitations. Here, creativity's core environment sort of ignites and extinguishes an
individual's desire to act creatively. It doesn't realize creativity, but causes an individual to fulfill creativity.
Creativity is a way for an environment to renew and stay vibrant. Through creativity, the environment utilizes
an individual's potential and develops through individuals’ creativity. So, what is the core of creativity? There is
no short and simple answer to this, or at least not in this research because this research tries to make a
compilation of previous points of view on creativity, which, of course, brings multi-dimensions to the core. This
kind of multidimensional heart for creativity is, however, justifiable, as creativity is clearly an elaborate
phenomenon, and so it cannot be understood from just one point of view. So, what is the heart of creativity?
Firstly, it comprises three elements: a creative personality, a creative process, and a creative environment. Of
these elements, a creative personality is built on an individual's need to fulfill one's self using the resources, the
characteristics made possible by goal-oriented work, and a learning method that can transfer experience, all
found in the psychological inner structures. A creative process, on the other hand, is made up of interconnected
stages and quiddity, which are: defining the problem, gathering information, creating a solution, evaluating the
solution, and the creative product, as well as fluency, flexibility, originality, complexity, and lateral nature. A
creative environment is built on historic, social, and contextual partial environments. Secondly, the heart of
creativity works as a system by the environment igniting or extinguishing creative personality. It activates
characteristics in a personality to pursue creativity. When an individual’s personality has been awoken and gone
to seek creativity, the creative process begins. So, a creative personality activates a creative process. When a
creative process has achieved a creative product, it shifts to be part of the creative environment at the same time
as activating the creative environment to function either for or against creativity.

5. Developing
Developing the frame of reference. Above, we presented that the heart of creativity is the entirety of a creative
personality, process, and environment. The idea was that a creative environment ignites a creative personality,
which in return activates a creative process, the product of which transfers to be part of the creative
environment and so further increases the advancement of creativity. And so, these elements make up a system.
How does this system work? In other words, how is creativity processed in an entrepreneur? What role does
creativity have in an entrepreneur? These questions are to be examined next.
5.1 The environment ignites personality.
What causes an entrepreneur as an individual to create something new? Is someone pushing him or her forward,
or is he or she completely to blame? The idea here is that an environment that supports creativity ignites a
desire to behave creatively. An entrepreneur is presumed to be an intentional and self-guiding being, but only
partly. He or she is in interaction with their environment, affecting, acting, perceiving, and seeking feelings,
knowledge, and impressions. So, the environment doesn't directly cause an individual to become creative;
rather, the creativity of an individual is enabled by the interaction between environmental features and
individual factors. Still, there is something in the environment that ignites creativity. The presumption here is
that an individual, despite their potential, isn't roused into creativity if the environment doesn't inspire. So, the
idea is that an environment affects an individual. An individual's social relations with the environment, their
own historic experiences and contextual factors, and above all culture, give an individual a picture of their
attitude towards creativity, and providing the individual has adequate personal features, these features can be
enabled due to positive support from the environment. The presumption is then that an individual has features
for creativity, which become active and begin to "control" in a suitable environment. The environment doesn't
create creativity in an individual, but it devolves talent already present.

5.2 The personality ignites the process.

What happens when an individual's personality starts seeking creativity? It starts to look for activities that could
fulfill its personality-caused need for creativity. A personality creates activities through which it can create
something new. So, personality in itself is not yet activity. It is being inspired or focusing on activity. A creative
personality inspires the making of creativity concrete when supported by a suitable environment. A creative
personality is motivated to fulfill itself using inner structures, features, and learning, but this is only just
wanting. The wanting process happens through a creative process, which only is born when the personality has
been enabled for creativity. So, a creative personality, in turn, ignites a creative process. A creative process is an
entrepreneur’s mental road to realize personality. In a creative process, self-fulfillment is achieved. It can be
thought that when a personality is extremely tuned to creativity, the process is very favorable for creativity, but
when a personality, for some reason or other, doesn't tune into creativity, the process is anything but creative;
rather, it is mediocre. In order for a creative process to create concrete creativity, a creative personality is
needed, which is enabled for creativity and which has sufficient characteristics needed for creativity. So, a
process doesn't work properly if the personality hasn't got the necessary characteristics needed for creativity and
if these characteristics haven't been enabled. A creative process is prevented by missing characteristics or their
insufficient activation, which in turn is caused by the environment. A creative process also reflects back and
affects personality. It is presumable that if an individual's process works, it further increases an individual’s
personality to seek creativity, digging up even the deepest characteristics into action. At the same time, the
situation can be the opposite. If an individual isn't capable of a creative process or if he or she isn't inspired,
then the creative process fades even more.

5.3 The process ignites the environment.

The environment also needs "fuel" in order to promote creativity. Providing an entrepreneur's creative process
produces concrete creative products into the environment, the positive changes may further stimulate creativity.
It is even possible that an environment's characteristics further improve and actually support creativity even
better than before. So, an environment's creative advancement is dependent on the entrepreneurs' action in that
environment. If entrepreneurs don't actively bring creativity into the environment and demonstrate the
importance of creativity, then the environment can't notice creativity to be so important, nor can it continue to
support these activities. Entrepreneurs also have to function actively themselves on behalf of their own
creativity, so the environment can notice how best to support creativity. By functioning actively with one's own
creative processes, an individual can affect how the environment relates to creativity, and so gradually change
the creative environment. This, of course, doesn't happen quickly, and one individual’s contribution is small, but
every individual's contribution is needed so that the environment can become and continue to be a supportive
environment for creativity. Based on that, I conclude that an entrepreneur’s creative process stimulates the
environment to promote creativity because the environment notices creativity to be beneficial to itself.

6. Discussion
In this research, the creative process is regarded as a system through which entrepreneurs, as members of their
organizational environments, interpret the evolutionary potential offered by their environment's business
dynamics and take action to create outcomes that the market values. A burning desire to pursue perceived
business opportunities is either ignited or extinguished by the organizational community. In the former case, the
entrepreneurial personality first channels its motivation and energy to understanding and interpreting the
business situation and then focuses on giving a concrete shape to the opportunities. Creating a business
opportunity involves three different types of activity. Firstly, it includes social activity because entrepreneurs
are embedded in their own social communities, drawing from it influences, ideas, operational models,
resources, and encouragement. Moreover, this social community offers a forum for exchanging ideas on what
kind of business is being conducted, what the current needs are, and creating visions and dreams for business.
Secondly, the creation of a venture opportunity involves cognitive activity, with entrepreneurs attempting to
understand ideas about entrepreneurship and business in their organizational environment and cultural heritage.
In effect, they are striving to control and manage complexity. The third type of activity intrinsic to the creation
of business opportunities is entrepreneurial actions. Entrepreneurs perform pragmatic tasks in searching for and
devising the best possible solution to their problem. In absolute terms, this solution, a business opportunity, may
not be the most innovative or best, but for a particular entrepreneur in a particular situation and organizational
setting, it is the most viable and valid option. Entrepreneurship as creativity isn't simple and logical because an
opportunity needs creative insight and sensitivity to what combines all fragmented information. If it were only
the arrangement of information, everyone would notice his or her opportunity. However, this is not the case. For
example, with a jigsaw puzzle, we know we are putting together a jigsaw and that every piece has its own
place. By diligently and systematically trying the pieces, the puzzle is solved. An entrepreneurial opportunity is
not this kind of puzzle. Instead of a jigsaw, imagine a situation where you have some pieces of sorts but have no
concept of what you should do with them. You have to, based on your own creativity, conceive what it is about,
work out what the pieces are linked to, conceive a solution, conceive in what way the pieces bring about a
solution, and understand what the trick of it all is. An opportunity is more about creating meaning based on
scattered and ambiguous information rather than deriving a decision within a limited decision space and being
based on exact information.
Chapter 2: Inside the Entrepreneurial Event: Creating Schemata of Opportunity for New Business
1. Introduction
 Personal anecdote about choosing films reflects the complexity of decision-making in entrepreneurship.
 Entrepreneurship is emotional and personal, resisting rational logic.
 Warning against hastily defining entrepreneurship and limiting research perspectives.
 Aim: to provoke discussion and diversity in entrepreneurship research.
2. What then is entrepreneurship – a definition for a common foundation
 Analogy with Aki Kaurismäki's film illustrates entrepreneurial activity as constructive and fluid.
 Entrepreneurship is not limited to small business ownership; it exists across various contexts.
 Key elements:
o Creating new opportunities.
o Adapting to complex, changing situations.
o Rejecting traditional rational models in favor of creative, iterative processes.
3. The core of an entrepreneurial opportunity
 An entrepreneurial opportunity arises from individual or group schemata.
 Opportunity is a cognitive product, shaped by observations and experiences.
 Importance of creativity in constructing opportunities from fragmented information.
 Opportunities can be seen as unsolved problems requiring innovative solutions.
4. Creativity – an individual talent at creating something new
 Creativity is defined as self-fulfillment through inner ambitions.
 Key characteristics of a creative personality:
o Energetic, diverse interests, independent, and self-aware.
 Creative processes involve:
o Defining problems, gathering information, creating solutions, and evaluating outcomes.
 Quality of the creative process is determined by its fluidity, originality, and complexity.
5. Developing the frame of reference
 The relationship between creative personality, process, and environment forms a system.
 5.1 The environment ignites the personality
o Supportive environments foster creativity.
o Interaction between environmental features and individual characteristics is crucial.
 5.2 The personality ignites the process
o A creative personality seeks activities that fulfill its creative needs.
o Environment influences the activation of creative processes.
 5.3 The process ignites the environment
o Successful creative processes can stimulate and enhance the creative environment.
6. Discussion
 The creative process is a system for interpreting business dynamics and creating market-valued
outcomes.
 Three types of activity in creating business opportunities:
o Social activity: Influences from social communities.
o Cognitive activity: Understanding entrepreneurship within cultural context.
o Entrepreneurial actions: Pragmatic problem-solving efforts.
 Entrepreneurship as a creative endeavor requires insight and the ability to synthesize fragmented
information.