Entrepreneurship is essential for economy. Finland has a dynamic start-up and innovation culture, an excellent education system and an open source attitude that supports new venture creation.
The opportunity concept represents a cornerstone in entrepreneurship, and therefore it is important to understand how entrepreneurs create business models to capture opportunities. By attaining a better understanding of what entrepreneurs actually do would greatly benefit not only the growing discipline of entrepreneurship but also managers and practitioners. This will:
- allow establishing a company in a more effective way emphasizing the key steps;
- bring to the forefront the most critical practices in the business model creation, thereby enabling a novice entrepreneur to avoid common mistakes;
- allow entrepreneurs to mitigate blind spots and cognitive biases and thereby strengthen the overall value proposition to each stakeholder;
- assist in making strategic choices; and
- allow analyzing retrospectively the business model creation process revealing faulty choices and sketching the areas for improvement and innovation.
Since business model design is linked with actual value creation outcomes, considering the process of business model creation enables to develop more robust theories that link business model design with the performance of a focal firm.
The research is also highly relevant to a wider society, because it can act as a guide for people planning to establish their own business. For Finland entrepreneurship is an excellent basis for the creation of new employment possibilities.
Irina Atkova
Doctoral researcher in Management and International Business
Martti Ahtisaari International Doctoral Scholarship Programme
Irina.Atkova[at]oulu.fi