Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the “social networks” and the “opportunity evaluation” of entrepreneurs. The thesis followed the grounded theory approach and interviewed five entrepreneurs who were coached by an entrepreneurship counseling unit in Taiwan. The analysis focused on understanding the mental activity of entrepreneurs about how their personal cognitive structure (internal factor) interacted with the social network (external factor) in influencing opportunity evaluation. The research results revealed that entrepreneurs interpret the information and resources provided by external networks differently due to their differences in personal cognitive structure, such as “quality review”, “self-confidence”, “supply-demand fit”, and “start-up self-efficacy”. Subsequently, the differences in cognitive structure results in the differences in the perceived “potential” and “risk” of entrepreneurial opportunity assessment. In addition, tie strength between the social actor and the entrepreneur was also related to how the entrepreneur evaluate the actor. This study found that the relationship between social networks and the opportunity evaluation of entrepreneurs was not simply influenced by the entrepreneur's cognition structure (internal factors) or social networks (external factor) but was an outcome from interactions and exchanges between the two.