THE LESSON LEARNT FROM Shane. 2000. Prior knowledge and the discovery of entrepreneurial opportunities

Here, the author followed the logic that entrepreneurial opportunity discovery is a function of the distribution of information in society. For the information asymmetry and different experience, people usually discover different opportunities in a given technological change.

Thus, through investigating eight different new venture businesses based on the invention of 3DP, the author showed that " (1) any given technological change will generate a range of entrepreneurial opportunities that are not obvious to all potential entrepreneurs;" (2) entrepreneurs can and will discover these opportunities without searching for them; and (3) any given entrepreneur will discover only those opportunities related to his or her prior knowledge (p. 449).

Different from Neoclassical equilibrium theories and Psychological theories of entrepreneurship where the fundamental attributes of people were considered to determine who becomes an entrepreneur, Austrian theories which the author clearly followed emphasized that the information about opportunity was crucial. As the result of this difference, the Austrian theories showed a different explanation of the discovery, exploitation, and organization of entrepreneurial opportunities: (1) they did not view the process of opportunity discovery as mechanical; (2) the possession of information leads to opportunity discovery; and (3) opportunity exploitation is endogenous to opportunity discovery.

Basing on the same technological invention, since "each person's idiosyncratic prior knowledge creates a 'knowledge corridor'," people would discovery and exploit the opportunity in different ways. First, their prior knowledge about markets will influence people's discovery of which markets to enter to exploit a new technology; second, their prior knowledge about how to serve markets will influence the discovery of how to use a new technology to serve a market; third, their prior knowledge of customer problems will influence the discovery of products and services to exploit a new technology. Namely, the prior knowledge people got from work places or education and from roles of user or supplier, moderates (1) the relationship between technological invention and opportunity recognition and (2) the relationship between recognized opportunity and the approach of exploiting it.

It is important to notice that neither a technological change nor the search of opportunities will directly lead to the opportunity discovery, people's prior knowledge in market and recognition helps discover the opportunities (p. 465). "A large amount of technological change might generate a small amount of economic output, because it generates a small number of entrepreneurial opportunities" (p. 466). None of the new venture businesses were started by the inventor of 3DP.