Identifying Mental Patterns in Identifying Entrepreneurial Opportunities in Islamic Banking: Application of Q Methodology

Entrepreneurship includes all activities and actions related to understanding opportunities and establishing an organization to take advantage of these opportunities. The present study is of the mixed-exploratory type which has been done using Q methodology. This study was conducted with the participation of nine professors familiar with the subject of research as well as banking experts. The discourse space of the present study was collected from various sources and after evaluating and summarizing the discourse space, 35 phrases were selected for the sample. Then, after collecting the data obtained from Q sorting, this information was analyzed by the Q factor analysis method. Distribution analysis showed that three distinct mental patterns could be identified among the participants in the research on subjective patterns of identifying entrepreneurial opportunities, which together explained about 93% of the total variance. These three mental models were named organizational strategy, entrepreneurial policy, and value creation for customers, respectively.