New Venture Creation: How new ventures come into existence

This study contributes, empirically, theoretically and methodologically, to entrepreneurship research, theory, and practice. I provide answers to three major questions regarding venture opportunity variation, variation in the nascent venturing process, and outcomes from this process. Conclusions and implications are based on theoretically derived hypotheses and empirical information from 622 venture opportunities, which we followed from discovery throughout the nascent venturing process and beyond. New survey design as well as state of the art longitudinal statistical methods made it possible to extend our knowledge into the nascent stages of the entrepreneurial process. This research is an extension and empirical test of recent conceptual discussions in the field and moves the entrepreneurship research toward an opportunity based theory of the creation of new economic activity.