Customer interaction of small business owners and the discovery of disruptive opportunities : Is Knowledge Diversity the Missing Link?

Interacting with customers is usually a central daily activity for small business owners caused by their operative involvement. It is thus argued that small business owners have a thorough understanding of their markets and the needs of their customers. However, there is limited understanding if customer interactions of small business owners are beneficial or detrimental for the discovery of opportunities: A profound understanding of customer needs is an essential base for opportunity discovery, but a too close focus on customer needs can inhibit small business owners from identifying really disruptive and radically new opportunities.
In our conceptual paper, we intend to further explore this controversial issue concerning customer interactions and their impact on the discovery of disruptive opportunities by small business owners as we analyse under which conditions customer interactions lead to the discovery of disruptive entrepreneurial opportunities.