Developing Opportunity- Identification Capabilities in the Classroom: Visual Evidence for Changing Mental Frames CRISTIAN A. MUN ˜ OZ C. Universidad de Santiago de Chile SIMON MOSEY MARTIN BINKS University of Nottingham We consider how the development of students’ capabilities for identifying business opportunities is underpinned by a change in their opportunity-identification mental frames. We observe that students find it difficult to verbally articulate how their performance has changed, and yet such changes are reflected through radical shifts in their visual representations of entrepreneurship. We conclude that entrepreneurship courses need to change the way students perceive reality and interpret information to enable them to more effectively identify new business opportunities. ........................................................................................................................................................................ Although there is much debate surrounding the definition and meaning of entrepreneurship, many scholars associate this concept to a greater or lesser extent with the identification of opportuni- ties (Alberti, Sciascia, & Poli, 2005; Ardichvili, Car- dozo, & Ray, 2003; Eckhardt & Shane, 2003; Kirzner, 1997; Ma & Tan, 2006; Shane & Venkataraman, 2000; Stevenson & Gumpert, 1985). Opportunity identifi- cation (OI) is the (starting) “point from which all entrepreneurs begin” (Carrier, 2005:141); “the key to the engine that starts new businesses” (Corbett, 2007: 98); and also “the quest for growth through innovation” by existing companies (Stevenson & Jarillo, 1990: 25). For some, it is even the core of entrepreneurship (Gaglio, 1997; Gaglio & Katz, 2001; Krueger, 2000; Rae, 2003; Stevenson & Gumpert, 1985; Timmons, Muzyka, Stevenson, & By- grave, 1987). Entrepreneurs, in turn, are seen as economic agents who may develop a special capability to identify opportunities (Fiet, 2002: 3). This opportunity-identification capability (OIC) is con- sidered fundamental for successful entrepreneur- ial performance (Ardichvili et al. 2003; Carrier, 2005, 2007; Chandler & Jansen, 1992; Politis, 2005). It has been reported that successful entrepreneurs rate themselves highly when referring to their opportunity-identification capability (Chandler & Jansen, 1992) and that habitual entrepreneurs iden- tify more opportunities than do novice entrepre- neurs (Ucbasaran, Westhead, Wright, & Binks, 2003; Ucbasaran, Westhead, & Wright, 2006). In the educational context, some empirical evi- dence suggests that OIC can be developed by in- dividuals and that entrepreneurship education can play an important role in enhancing its develop- ment (DeTienne & Chandler, 2004; Fiet, 2002). How- ever, there is little consensus on this issue (Carrier, 2007). For example, Sacks and Gaglio (2002) re- ported that educators tend to consider it feasible to teach students how to assess business ideas, but much less feasible to teach students how to dis- cover and create opportunities in the first place. The extent to which opportunity-identification capability (OIC) development can be enhanced by teaching has profound implications for entrepre- neurship education and economic performance. On the one hand, if OIC development cannot be enhanced by teaching, then the role of entrepre- neurship education is reduced to an informative or descriptive one. As Fiet, Clouse, and Norton pointed out: “The only role that educators could  Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2011, Vol. 10, No. 2, 277–295. ........................................................................................................................................................................ 277 Copyright of the Academy of Management, all rights reserved. Contents may not be copied, emailed, posted to a listserv, or otherwise transmitted without the copyright holder’s express written permission. Users may print, download or email articles for individual use only.