Entrepreneurial decision-making in a microcosm

Abstract

This study investigates when, how and why students use opportunity management behaviours (causation, effectuation and bricolage) within a fundraising project that acted as a microcosm of the entrepreneur’s world. Such a pedagogical device reveals students’ use of different opportunity management behaviours over the different stages of entrepreneurship. Although research has confirmed the use of these behaviours by entrepreneurs, how student entrepreneurs learn, and practice, them, remains underexplored. Causation is the predominant focus for university teaching, yet our data reveal that students adopted all three behaviours at different stages of the fundraising project as they responded to different contextual forces. Our findings suggest that opportunity management theories should take a more prominent role in the higher education entrepreneurship curriculum. Educators also need to provide a better means of facilitating students to learn about, and practice, a greater repertoire of opportunity management behaviours than is currently the case.