On Opportunities: Philosophical And Empirical Implications

In their recently published paper, Ramoglou and Tsang (2015) try to position continuing debates about the objectivity and subjectivity of entrepreneurial opportunities within a broader debate about critical realism and social constructionism. The authors adopt a view originally proposed by Bhakshar (1994, 1998, 2008) which suggests that all science — both physical and social — can be understood through a critical realist lens. However, the approach taken in this paper has three important weaknesses: the study of the physical and social world are not distinguished, the view of opportunities is tautological, and the need for empirical testing is ignored.