Entrepreneurial Attitudes and the Opportunity–Action Gap: Evidence from Female-Owned Tourism SMEs in Ghana

Opportunity recognition and opportunity exploitation are commonly treated in entrepreneurship research as a single, continuous process, yet emerging evidence suggests the psychological and contextual drivers of each stage differ substantially. This study examines how entrepreneurial attitude, individual competencies, and three external factors- socio-cultural, structural, and institutional - influence opportunity recognition and exploitation among female-owned tourism SMEs in Ghana. Grounded in Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behaviour and Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory, the study adopted a quantitative, cross-sectional design using survey data from 285 female tourism entrepreneurs in the Sekondi-Takoradi and Cape Coast metropolitan areas. Data were analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) in SmartPLS, following a two-step measurement-then-structural assessment with bootstrapped significance testing (5,000 resamples). Results reveal an opportunity–action gap: entrepreneurial attitude significantly predicted opportunity exploitation (β = 0.322, p = .009) but had no significant effect on opportunity recognition (β = 0.008, p = .880). Individual competencies emerged as the strongest predictor of entrepreneurial attitude (β = 1.604, p = .010). Among the external factors, only structural conditions - access to finance, infrastructure, and regulation - significantly shaped entrepreneurial attitude (β = 0.187, p = .001) and exerted a direct effect on both opportunity recognition (β = 0.135, p = .002) and exploitation (β = 0.307, p < .001), with partial mediation through attitude evident for exploitation only (β = 0.060, p = .034). Socio-cultural and institutional factors showed no significant effects on either outcome. The model explained 51% of variance in opportunity recognition and 56% in opportunity exploitation. These findings suggest favourable attitudes and competencies, though necessary, are not sufficient for opportunity recognition, which is more strongly tied to structural conditions and resource access than to psychological disposition alone. The study contributes to opportunity behaviour theory by empirically decoupling recognition from exploitation, with practical implications for tourism policymakers and entrepreneurship support institutions in Ghana.