Studying the effects of individual and environmental factors on entrepreneurial opportunity recognition: Moderating effect of entrepreneurial environment

Opportunity recognition is a key focal point of research in the entrepreneurship domain in recent years. The purpose of this study was to incorporate individual and environmental factors into a research model in order to investigate the moderating effect of entrepreneurial environment on the relationships between creativity, entrepreneurial experience and entrepreneurial role models and opportunity recognition. Data were collected on 300 students from four public universities in western Iran. The results of structural equation modeling indicated that all three individual factors were significantly related to opportunity recognition while creativity had the strongest relationship. The results of Moderated regression analysis showed the entrepreneurial environment to moderate the relationship between creativity and opportunity recognition, such that the positive relationship was stronger when the environment was conducive to entrepreneurship. This research contributes both to the opportunity identification literature and to theories of institutional environment and personality traits by showing empirically the entrepreneurial environment moderates.