The new entrepreneurial opportunity recognition process. Assessing the role of public intervention on the electricity market

The topic of the thesis is the opportunity recognition process with a special focus on the electricity market. The paper is organized in three big chapters. The first one contains an extensive literature review about the opportunity recognition process. An insight in recent entrepreneurship research shows an increasing number of contributions and a considerable academic interest for the phenomenon. This work concentrates on the existence, discovery and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities. The second chapter considers a set of about fifty entrepreneurs operating in technological fields and investigates, through detailed interviews using Grounded Theory, exactly the path through which the individual becomes entrepreneur. Using some theoretical models, that jointly consider the role of entrepreneurs and of opportunities, a deepen comprehension of the phenomenon has been reached. Also a quantitative approach, using a factor analysis, highlights the existence of latent factors and regularities drawing the process of opportunity recognition: in particular the ones referring to education reinforce the idea that it is possible to create a fertile environment for entrepreneurship. The third chapter deepens the previous analysis through the study of a specific industry: the electricity market. The study aims to identify suitable regulatory frameworks and business models for transmission investment to enable international exchange and local use of renewable energy across the EU and MENA regions. In particular the analysis explores how policy frameworks can support the discovery of some opportunities and the rise of some entrepreneurial projects. This research has its roots in the guidelines suggested by the European Union to overcome the actual crisis enhancing innovation, through new entrepreneurship and SMEs, and competitiveness, through sustainable development and cost savings especially about energy.