Serendipity in entrepreneurship

This paper addresses the concept of serendipity in entrepreneurship, defined as search leading to unintended discovery. It conceptually delineates serendipity, showing how it is related to the entrepreneurship literature on prior knowledge and systematic search. The paper also discusses how serendipitous entrepreneurship relates to some aspects of evo-lutionary theory, socio-economic institutions, and social psychology. It is suggested that serendipity may be a quite prevalent feature of entrepreneurship and thus has implications for both research and practice