Business Opportunity Ontology

Abstract

Ontologies are used to describe and share information, by describing a concept and defining related entities and their relations, attributes, and properties. More specifically they can be used to describe and share knowledge, using a language that computers can understand and share, and; therefore, form the pillar of the Semantic Web. The study examines the concept of business opportunity ontology from an entrepreneurial point of view. The study also examines the methodologies and best practices used in ontology development, and the use of the Protégé tool for the actual development of Ontology. Several standards were set in order for Ontology to be further used in future entrepreneurial research. These standards include a) the concept of business opportunity was developed based upon related academic theory (using the entrepreneurship, management, and business administration domains), b) as a consequence, only entities, relations, and properties that had been included in the academic literature were included in the ontology, c) the methodology had to be clearly defined since there was not a single methodological approach for ontology development, and d) the appropriate tool was selected. Keywords: business opportunity, ontology, entrepreneurship