Entrepreneurial Determinants of Opportunity Recognition Among the Dairy Farmers Within Makueni County, Kenya
Abstract
In the process of entrepreneurship, recognition of opportunity being the first stage is an important
and unique entrepreneurship element. Although different studies on entrepreneurial opportunity
have been done, the dilemma in line with recognition of opportunity is still there and there exists
disagreements amongst scholars on how one recognizes an opportunity and converts it into a new
business venture thus making the studies inconclusive. The study aimed at establishing the
entrepreneurial determinants of opportunity recognition in the dairy sector in Makueni County.
The study was grounded on Kirzenian theory and institutional theory. For the research design, a
descriptive research design was used. The study population included of all the players in dairy
sector in Makueni County. Simple random sampling technique was adopted to sample 100
respondents from the 3000 which was the target population. Primary data was gathered directly
from respondents using a questionnaire. The collected data was analyzed using factor analysis.
The study found that the data collected can be reduced to four factors. These factors were prior
knowledge, entrepreneurial cognition, social networks and entrepreneurial alertness. Out of the
factors that were generated from the factor analysis is a factor that represented the dependent
variable which was opportunity recognition. The results also showed that all the variables
positively correlated with opportunity recognition i.e. prior knowledge positively correlated with
opportunity recognition (r=0.253), entrepreneurial cognition also positively correlated with
opportunity recognition (r=0.666). The results also showed that Social networks positively
correlated with opportunity recognition (r=0.481) and also entrepreneurial alertness correlated
positively with opportunity recognition (r=0.558). The study concluded that determinants of
opportunity recognition in the dairy industry are classified into four factors, entrepreneurial
alertness, social networks, entrepreneurial cognition, and prior knowledge and these four factors
correlated positively with opportunity recognition. These results agreed with those of Hashemzehi
et al (2013) who found entrepreneurs social network and alertness and prior knowledge of the
entrepreneur to be determinates of opportunity recognition. The results were also line with Greccu
(2014) who established networks formed within the entrepreneurs and the entrepreneur themselves
were determinants of opportunity recognition. The findings also agreed with Wang, Ellinger and
Jim Wu (2013) who identified some determinants of recognizing opportunity as social network
and prior knowledge. Lim & Xavier (2015) also found entrepreneurial alertness, social network
and prior knowledge and to be determinants of opportunity recognition.
Publisher
university of nairobi
Subject
Dairy FarmersRights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States
Usage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/
Collections
The following license files are associated with this item: