In the heat of the game: Analogical abduction in a pragmatist account of entrepreneurial reasoning

We draw on Searle’s philosophy of language to distinguish between “opportunities” – intentional content directed towards a preferred future that entrepreneurs aim to fulfill – and opportunities – conditions to be met for their satisfaction. We maintain that studying the former requires adopting a player, rather than analyst stance prevailing in the current literature. We build on pragmatist conceptions of truth and imagination to elaborate on the player stance and propose analogical abduction as a mechanism for conceiving and fulfilling “opportunities”. We develop a pragmatist process model of entrepreneurial reasoning that balances the two stances, and derive action principles for entrepreneurs from it.