Further Reading: Chapter 30

Kirzner, Israel M. Competition and Entrepreneurship. University of Chicago Press, 1973. The foundational text for Chapter 30's central concept. Kirzner's development of entrepreneurial alertness as the mechanism behind market coordination — and the missing link in mainstream equilibrium economics. Not light reading, but the source material for the alertness concept is worth engaging directly. Start with Part I.

Kirzner, Israel M. Perception, Opportunity, and Profit: Studies in the Theory of Entrepreneurship. University of Chicago Press, 1979. The follow-up volume, which develops the alertness concept further and addresses many of the early critiques. Chapter 6, "Knowing About Knowledge," is particularly relevant to the attention hypothesis.

Shane, Scott, and Sankaran Venkataraman. "The Promise of Entrepreneurship as a Field of Study." Academy of Management Review 25, no. 1 (2000): 217–226. A landmark paper in entrepreneurship research that systematically treats opportunity recognition as a core construct. Provides academic grounding for the practical frameworks in Chapter 30.

Sarasvathy, Saras D. "Causation and Effectuation: Toward a Theoretical Shift from Economic Inevitability to Entrepreneurial Contingency." Academy of Management Review 26, no. 2 (2001): 243–263. The foundational paper for the "construction" view of opportunity (effectuation). Sarasvathy's research on expert entrepreneurs shows they often work backwards from available means rather than forwards from fixed goals. The empirical alternative to Kirzner's discovery framework.

Johansson, Frans. The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation. Harvard Business School Press, 2004. Readable and well-researched exploration of how cross-domain knowledge generates disproportionate innovation. Directly relevant to the chapter's point about domain breadth and opportunity recognition. Strong on examples.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, and Jacob W. Getzels. "Discovery-Oriented Behavior and the Originality of Creative Products: A Study with Artists." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 19, no. 1 (1971): 47–52. The original study behind the "problem-finding" concept discussed in the chapter. Shows that creative individuals who reformulated their problems as they worked (rather than solving fixed problems) produced more original and highly evaluated work. A foundational study for understanding the cognitive foundation of opportunity recognition.

Stone, Brad. The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley Are Changing the World. Little, Brown and Company, 2017. Detailed reporting on the founding stories of Airbnb and Uber. Far more granular and honest about the role of luck, timing, and specific circumstances than most entrepreneurship narratives. Essential reading for Case Study 30.2.

Schumpeter, Joseph A. The Theory of Economic Development. Harvard University Press, 1934 (originally 1911). The source text for Schumpeter's creative destruction and entrepreneur-as-visionary-disruptor framework. Dated in some respects but still the clearest articulation of the Schumpeterian view that contrasts with Kirzner's in Case Study 30.1.

Baron, Robert A. "Opportunity Recognition as Pattern Recognition: How Entrepreneurs 'Connect the Dots' to Identify New Business Opportunities." Academy of Management Perspectives 20, no. 1 (2006): 104–119. Excellent review of the cognitive science behind opportunity recognition. Argues that entrepreneurs recognize opportunities through the same pattern-matching mechanisms studied in expert cognition research. Bridges the cognitive psychology and entrepreneurship literatures cleanly.