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This multiple case study illustrates how ten selected industrial companies have managed to accomplish rapid growth after a long period (3–5 years) of slow growth. A particular aim was to determine whether these companies grew by adapting to the situation and responding to the demands of the market with their resources (effectuation) or by following previously determined plans and proceeding towards set goals (causation). Effectuation was originally connected to the creation of new business activities and an operating model covering the early stages of an organisation’s growth. However, recent studies have considered effectuation in the context of an existing business. This paper adds business growth to the context of established companies and explores the roles of effectuation and causation in their growth processes. The findings indicate the usage of both logics, but in nine of the ten companies’ effectuation influences as the dominant approach. Only one of the ten studied companies can be stated to follow the operating principles of causation.

This paper aims to examine the entrepreneurial logic of mumpreneurs in the light of effectuation theory and to analyse their entrepreneurial motivation. The research is based on qualitative data from five mumpreneurs and semi-structured interviews. The data were analysed using thematic analysis. The results show that mumpreneurs are motivated by several factors such as dissatisfaction, motherhood, independence and the need to improve their financial situation. As a result of the multiple constraints faced by mumpreneurs, the five principles of effectuation emerge as an inherent mode of operation. This study provides valuable information on how effectuation theory can be used to describe the way in which mumpreneurs, depending on their situation, create new businesses to improve their situation and better develop personally and professionally in their lives as mothers and entrepreneurs.

This study proposes a value chain model for business incubation. It describes both an incubated start-up’s development of its own product and business and the incubator’s development of the start-up from entrance to exit as a “product” of the incubator. The reported research is based on qualitative content analysis of 15 start-up cases in a Norwegian business incubator. The reported research enhances our theoretical understanding of start-up development processes within an incubator and provides a framework that will be useful for incubator management to guide incubatees through their venture creation process.

Effectuation is well suited to broaden our understanding of opportunity recognition because effectual processes are related to recognizing and exploiting opportunities in new markets under conditions of uncertainty. This article investigates the relationship between effectuation and opportunity recognition, while at the same time, accounting for the influence of environmental dynamism and hostility in an African emerging market context — South Africa. In so doing, the paper responds directly to calls for research to emphasize the importance of environmental conditions while placing more attention on quantifying its influences on the opportunity recognition process. Following a survey of 302 enterprises in the renewable energy sector in South Africa, results indicate that entrepreneurs apply effectual principles to recognize and exploit more opportunities while operating in dynamic and hostile surroundings. By explaining the relationships and interactions between effectuation, the environment and opportunity recognition in an African market context, the study provides a more theoretically comprehensive configuration than any of these factors would show in isolation.

This study aims to explore the direct effect of effectual means (who I am, who I know, what I have) on the successful exploitation of opportunity by new ventures. Resource acquisition and strategy implementation ability are employed as indicators of opportunity exploitation. We also examine the mediating role of particular, effectual principles on the relationship between effectual means and opportunity exploitation. A total of 462 owners of early-stage small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Tanzania were surveyed. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and hierarchical regression were used to test a set of hypotheses. The results demonstrate that effectual means positively affected both resource acquisition ability and strategy implementation ability. Mediation effects differed based on the type of effectual means and different elements comprising opportunity exploitation. Implications are drawn from the results for theory and practice.

More and more, established companies try to cooperate with start-ups, build their own, or try to imitate their mindsets. But, do they make decisions like expert entrepreneurs? Effectuation theory describes entrepreneurial decision-making, it has been popular in entrepreneurship research for the last two decades, but still underexplored in contexts such as established company’s decision-making. Therefore, this study answers the question of which factors affect the use of effectuation in established companies. Furthermore, the current use of the start-up decision-making principle is investigated. The research results show a higher use of effectuation over causation (alternative mechanism) in established companies. However, decision-making principles like “Mean orientation” and “Contingency orientation” are still dominated by causation. Identified factors for implementing effectuation in established companies are divided into six categories. In particular, effectuation requires a high flexibility and willingness to change goals. Using the already available means and resources of a company to pursue new goals, is another argument for using effectuation. Additionally, a more open and transparent culture, encouraging the identification and admittance of mistakes, also supports the use of effectuation. Based on this research, established companies should be able to understand better on which factors the implementation of effectuation depends and where it makes sense to use it.

This chapter aims to provide a better understanding of effectuation theory by analysing 328 articles collected from the Scopus database. For this purpose, a bibliometric analysis and a bibliographic coupling were performed. Despite the growing interest of effectuation theory in international entrepreneurship research, the development of this research remains in a nascent stage. Therefore, the aim of this chapter is to identify the main research themes, the intellectual structure and the main trends of this academic field to guide international business researchers in possible areas of future research.

It is known that faith contributes to entrepreneurial action; however, the role of faith in decision-making is less explored. This chapter argues that faith influences the use of effectual decision-making logic through its key principles known as means, affordable loss, pre-commitments, experimentation and controlling the future. It also highlights that entrepreneurs in developing markets with a high level of turbulence, resource scarcity and increasing level of faith, are more likely to exhibit and normalize the effectual behaviors. The conceptual arguments presented provide an avenue for future research to explore the interaction of faith, effectuation, and context.