INTRODUCTION: INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL FACTORS AFFECTING THE PERCEPTION OF ENTREPRENEURIAL OPPORTUNITIES
DAVID T. MITCHELLABSTRACT. McMullen and Shephard (2006) point out that while economists may not care who acts as to as long as someone does, entrepreneurship scholars care about the actors. We care about ways in which actors perceive the world. It is not only differing motivations and differing worlds, but different individual perception of the opportunities that matters. These perceptions are based on psychological characteristics, social networks, culture, and the actual outside world that we live in. We think of entrepreneurship as the recognition and exploitation of opportunities (De Carolis and Saparito 2006). The ability to perceive and recognize opportunities depends on both internal and external factors. Entrepreneurial perception depends on the outside world (or the institutions and structures that build provide opportunities) and heterogeneous motivation, personality traits, and motivations of the individual entrepreneurs themselves (Herzberg et al. 1993 and Shane et. al. 2003). This issue presents five articles that focus on the interaction between internal and external factors on entrepreneurial action.