The role of creativity in opportunity search and business idea creation

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the relationships between student creativity, various opportunity search strategies, and the viability of business ideas developed during an entrepreneurship education module.Design/methodology/approach – The paper sets out hypotheses on the associations between individual creativity, opportunity search strategies and the viability of business ideas generated. A group of 117 students provided the sample data by participating in pre‐programme and post‐programme surveys. Explorative factor analysis was employed to examine latent variables, and factor structures were confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. Structural equation modelling was then used to test the resulting hypotheses.Findings – The results show that creativity is not directly associated with the viability of the business idea. Creativity does, however, strengthen the creative opportunity search strategies and the use of opportunity identification strategies based on knowledge acquisition. Accordingly...

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