Search Results (11)

Entrepreneurs are the backbone of most small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), yet they have received little attention regarding how they prepare for organisational change readiness (OCR), especially in the current uncertain business environment and the disruption of Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0). This study sought to understand how entrepreneurs’ decision-making logic (i.e., effectuation and causation) mediates the relationship between the different types of resources (i.e., financial and government resources, social capital) and OCR. A total of 119 participants (91 males), who were entrepreneurs, participated in this cross-sectional study. After controlling for age, gender, and education level, the study’s results found that a positive relationship existed between the two types of resources and OCR, mediated by decision-making logic. A positive relationship was also found between both types of decision-making logic and OCR. These results highlight the significant impact of both entrepreneurs’ social capital and financial and, government resources and decision-making logic on OCR. Full article

In the context of intensifying global competition, productive entrepreneurship plays an important role in industrial upgrading and sustainable economic development. This study explores how the institutional environment affects productive entrepreneurship through different allocation paths. By integrating multiple institutional logics and using PD-QCA (Panel Data fsQCA) methods, we examined data from 76 countries for the period 2012–2022. The results show that institutional complexity provides entrepreneurs with diversified opportunities and resources, but also brings decision-making challenges due to the conflict of institutional factors. We identified three main models: (1) Government-Market Collaborative Model: driven by government support and property rights protection. (2) Market-Led Model: financial support is crucial. (3) Three-Wheel Drive Model: combines property rights protection, market opening, and social norms that promote entrepreneurship. This study contributes to the literature by revealing the multidimensional effects of institutional complexity and provides practical implications for policymakers seeking to promote high-quality entrepreneurial activity. Limitations include the static nature of the data and the need to further explore dynamic institutional interactions over time. Full article

Rural entrepreneurship is an important means to solve the problem of “rural decline” and is also the focus of the “rural revitalization” strategy. The rural entrepreneurship ecosystem directly affects entrepreneurial performance. Based on the configurational perspective, using the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method, taking 85 typical rural innovation and entrepreneurship demonstration counties in China as research samples, this study explores the impact path of the rural entrepreneurship ecosystem composed of multiple factors on entrepreneurial performance and the complex causal mechanisms behind it. The results show that market size, human capital, financial capital, infrastructure (both hardware and software), and government scale cannot individually constitute the necessary conditions for high or non-high rural entrepreneurial performance; there exist two pathways driving high entrepreneurial performance in rural areas: a market-driven financing-and-intelligence integration pathway and a government-supported infrastructure-assisted pathway. Under certain conditions, there is a substitution relationship between rural entrepreneurial market allocation and government intervention; there are two paths driving non-high rural entrepreneurial performance, which are summarized into market–financing suppression and market–government suppression according to the core driving factors. By systematically analyzing the impact of the rural entrepreneurial ecosystem on entrepreneurial performance, and explaining the intrinsic logic and path of high and non-high entrepreneurial performance based on the configurational perspective, this paper provides a decision-making reference for further enhancing the entrepreneurial performance in rural China and realizing rural revitalization. Full article

New ventures often face the challenge of resource scarcity, and how to overcome the resource constraint problem and improve new venture sustainability has been a long-standing concern of scholars and practitioners. Most existing studies have explored the impact on the financial performance of new ventures of a single factor, and few studies have focused on the impact of the configuration effect of multiple factors on new venture sustainability. In this paper, based on the configuration theory and resource orchestration theory, we use fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) with a sample of 189 entrepreneurs to explore the mechanisms driving the configuration effects of multiple factors of entrepreneurial decision-making logic, resource bundling, and environmental uncertainty on new venture sustainability. The empirical results show that the paths to achieve high new venture sustainability are diverse and equivalent, and effectuation is a core antecedent condition in all paths. There are four conditional configurations of the drivers of high sustainability in new ventures, including dual-logic resource integration, market-driven resource integration, means–resource innovation in emerging markets, and resource-rich or resource-creating integration under dual logic. Full article

Over the past decade, the proliferation of entrepreneurial ventures and small firms with sustainable business models have pushed the sustainability agenda in the fashion industry. Despite prominent success stories, these companies often encounter significant operative challenges that hinder growth or even cause business failure. This paper adopts a qualitative research design and uses data gathered during 18 expert interviews with entrepreneurs and executive managers of 18 firms from 13 countries to identify and explore the dominant challenges that micro- and small-sized sustainable fashion companies struggle with. The results indicate that communicating with consumers is perceived as surprisingly difficult, especially because sustainable brands need to justify higher prices and explain the added benefits of their products. Second, resource constraints lead to operative friction and overburdening of the decision makers and their small management teams. Third, sustainable sourcing and production processes are economically difficult in an industry that continues to occupy a mass and low-cost logic. Against the background of these insights, a range of managerial recommendations are developed and contextualized in the framework of the Business Model Canvas. This novel approach makes the suggestions which are rooted in the resource-based view actionable and supports sustainable businesses to better manage their operations and achieve growth. For example, collaborative approaches with different stakeholders may mitigate constraints across all three identified problem areas. Full article

This study aims to investigate the influence of the big-5 personality traits on causation and effectuation decision-making logics using the entrepreneurial process theory. This is an empirical study based on 113 surveys of managers/entrepreneurs from the Estonian IT sector. The questionnaire was uploaded onto the online platform of connect.ee and the participants were invited to complete it. The study reveals that only conscientiousness positively and significantly predicts causation logic. However, four of the five factors of personality traits positively and significantly predict effectuation logic, i.e., openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, except for neuroticism. Furthermore, only nine of 25 hypotheses are positive and significant, and of the 11 relationships of the model, three are negative and non-significant for causation logic and eight are negative and non-significant for effectuation logic. Finally, there are another five relationships of the model which are positively but non-significantly related. Managers of IT companies in Estonia should think of shifting to effectuation logic as most personality traits predict effectuation logic, and therefore, there is the possibility of a better performance for IT firms. Eight of the 51 items of the model had standardised regression weights below the threshold of 0.500, but only four were extracted from the final model. The extraction of items from the model indicates the need for the re-identification of the constructs of personality traits using, for example, the six-factor personality traits. Full article

The terms “innovation” and “effectuation” are frequently used but not in the same thought. In this order, publications linking innovation to effectuation are presented and discussed through a methodology based on the publish and perish tool. In the last two decades, effectuation has become an active criterion in entrepreneurship research. However, previous studies do not interconnect effectuation to the different innovation approaches. In order to overcome this gap, this paper focuses on studying innovation in an effectual context and linking different innovation approaches to effectual logic. Indeed, effectuation is a way of thinking that serves entrepreneurs in the processes of opportunity identification and new venture creation. Effectuation includes a set of decision-making principles expert entrepreneurs are observed to employ in situations of uncertainty (as defined in Society for Effectual Action). This article outlines the four most-studied innovation approaches from the date of their apparitions until January 2021: frugal innovation, disruptive innovation, lean start-up, and design thinking. In this context, effectuation as the essence of innovation must be clarified as a method that has similarities and differences with frugal and disruptive innovation, lean start-up, and design thinking. To validate the proposed theorical model, a bibliometrics tool, named “Harzing publish” or “perish”, is used. The main finding of this research affirms that the two most linked innovation approaches to effectuation are “lean start-up” and “design thinking”, compared to “frugal innovation” and “disruptive innovation”. In an entrepreneurial innovation context, design thinking and lean start-up are flexible tools that can stimulate and validate the effectual cycle. Full article

How entrepreneurs make entrepreneurial decisions to improve entrepreneurial performance is a popular concern in both theoretical and practical circles. Existing studies mostly analyze the effect of entrepreneurial decision-making logic on the survival and growth of new ventures from the perspective of financial performance, but few studies focus on new venture sustainability. Based on datasets from the first two survey rounds of CPSED (Chinese Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics), this paper selects a group of 259 entrepreneurs as a sample and uses logistic regression analysis as a research method. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of entrepreneurial decision-making logic on new venture sustainability. There are two main entrepreneurial logics, namely effectuation and causation. The paper discusses causation in terms of four dimensions, namely goal orientation, expected returns, competitive analysis, and avoiding contingencies. It examines effectuation in terms of the dimensions of means orientation, affordable loss, partnerships, and leveraging contingencies. The empirical results show that goal orientation plays a negative role in promoting new venture sustainability, while avoiding contingencies has a positive influence on it. Partnerships are conducive to new venture sustainability, while means orientation and leveraging contingencies have a negative effect. Full article

We provoke. In this conceptual piece, we challenge the value of two dominant models of the entrepreneurial process that have existed over the past two decades—the creativity school and the logic of effectuation. We point out their weaknesses and their unfulfilled promises, and we argue for the field to move on forward with different ideas. We identify the lessons our field should learn so as to minimize the possibility of potentially detrimental model dominance in the future. We then outline three alternative approaches to modeling entrepreneurial decision-making that suggest further skills and policies required in improve the entrepreneurial process. Full article

Conservation and natural resource management are increasingly attending the ethical elements of public decisions. Ethical considerations are challenging, in part, because they typically require accounting for the moral consideration of various human and nonhuman forms of life, whose interests sometimes conflict (or seem to conflict). A valuable tool for such evaluations is the formal analysis of ethical arguments. An ethical argument is a collection of premises, logically interrelated, to yield a conclusion that can be expressed in the form, “We ought to…” According to the rules of logic, a conclusion is supported by an argument if all its premises are true or appropriate and when it contains no mistaken inferences. We showed how the formal analysis of ethical arguments can be used to engage stakeholders and decision-makers in decision-making processes. We summarised the method with ten specific guidelines that would be applicable to any case. We illustrated the technique using a case study focused on captive-bred lions, the skeletons of which form part of an international trade to supply traditional medicine markets in Southeast Asia with felid bones. As a matter of public policy, the practice is a complicated nexus of concerns for entrepreneurial freedom, wildlife conservation, and the fair treatment of animals. Full article

Business growth is considered as one of the main topics of entrepreneurship research. Due to the increased interest on entrepreneurship, new theoretical perspectives have emerged to explain entrepreneurial behavior. One of these emergent theories is effectuation. It is widely known that entrepreneurs and owner-managers count on different decision-making logics during the internationalization of their ventures, including causal and effectual reasoning. Despite that the use of effectual reasoning has been generally linked to the early stages of the creation of a venture; it has recently been introduced to on the internationalization of SMEs research. Introduced by Sarasvathy (2001), effectuation logic is stated to grow in an unstable operating context where it is complicated to predict and in contrast, it is likely to unexpectedly respond to changes in the environment. Furthermore, it represents a typical shift in approaching entrepreneurship. In this theoretical paper, we first aim to highlight the evolution of the concept and the development of the effectuation theory within the literature. Furthermore, we explain the similarities and differences existing between causation and effectuation reasoning. Finally, we use the lens of effectuation to come up with an understanding of the internationalization of SMEs. Full article