Some principles are more equal than others: Promotion- versus prevention-focused effectuation principles and their disparate relationships with entrepreneurial orientation
Practitioner-oriented presentations and texts on entrepreneurial decision making frequently portray the means-driven effectuation approach as opposite to the goals-driven causation approach. Our study challenges this portrayal by highlighting substantial differences between the individual effectuation principles. Specifically, our research suggests that these principles differ in the underlying psychological processes and consequently in their relationships with key organizational attributes such as the firm’s entrepreneurial orientation. In these important regards, some effectuation principles are actually more similar to causation than they are to other effectuation principles. Our study has substantial implications for the adoption of effectuation and for the “mixing and matching” of effectuation and causation. It not only makes a difference whether decision makers pursue an effectuation or causation approach, but also which effectuation principles they choose.
