Factors stimulating opportunity recognition by the entrepreneur: An exploratory study with Tunisian entrepreneurs

This paper aims to provide, through a literature review, an answer to the question "what are the factors stimulating the recognition of opportunities by the entrepreneur?" and verify, by means of an exploratory study conducted on 22 entrepreneurs operating in the sector of Information Technologies and Communication in Tunisia, the existence of positive relationships between the variables selected from the literature review and opportunity recognition. The literature shows that three cognitive factors (self-efficacy, schemas and creativity), an environmental one (information flow) and three social ones (strong ties, weak ties and mentoring) stimulate the recognition of opportunities by the entrepreneur and exploratory study suggests that among these variables, only the strong ties which have no effect on the opportunity recognition by entrepreneurs interviewed. The positive relationship is verified for the other six variables.