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Effectuation and internationalisation: a review and agenda for future research

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Abstract

Effectuation theory has been increasingly applied in research examining the internationalisation of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This study systematically reviews the SME internationalisation literature to clarify the ways effectuation theory helps international entrepreneurship (IE) scholarship respond to key questions of how international opportunities are developed. The review identified central topics of limited resources, networking, and an unplanned approach, which connect effectuation with extant internationalisation research. In so doing, the study offers two contributions. The first is an articulation of effectual mechanisms at work in IE opportunity development. The second offers insights back to effectuation theory regarding the context of IE and potential areas for improving the application of effectuation to IE research. We close with implications and an agenda for future research.

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Notes

  1. We considered citation as a major/core if the study was only built upon effectuation theory: major for papers which used effectuation theory along with other theories and minor for papers which did not apply effectuation theory directly but had some discussion about the theory.

  2. R-A theory is about a firm’s resources and its competitive position in the market. R-A argues that obtaining unique or hard-to-imitate resources is the basis of a firm’s competitive advantage. According to R-A theory, to gain a superior financial performance, firms should gain a comparative advantage in resources which leads to a competitive advantage. Access to other’s resources and networking play an important role in R-A theory (Hunt 2000).

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Professor Stuart Read from Willamette University for his insights and comments that helped us to advance this article. We acknowledge the Special Issue editors and reviewers for their constructive comments as well. We also wish to thank Professor Sylvie Chetty from University of Otago and Uppsala University, and Associate Professor Oscar Mart’ın from Public University of Navarre who provided comments on an earlier version of this article.

We acknowledge the support from the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Research Grant (13-UOO-065) which funded this project.

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  1. Queenstown Resort College (QRC), 7 Coronation Dr, Queenstown, 9348, New Zealand

    Masoud Karami

  2. Department of Marketing, Otago Business School, University of Otago, Dunedin, 9054, New Zealand

    Ben Wooliscroft & Lisa McNeill

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  1. Masoud Karami
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  2. Ben Wooliscroft
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Farid ud-din Attar a twelfth-century Persian poet in “Conference of the birds” describes the assembly of the birds and their journey to search for the bird-king, the Sīmorḡ bird (Phoenix), knowing that to find the Sīmorḡ they have to undertake an arduous journey. In the end of the journey only thirty birds (Sī morḡ) remain and they realise that the Sīmorḡ is their own selves ( Reinert n.d. ).

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Karami, M., Wooliscroft, B. & McNeill, L. Effectuation and internationalisation: a review and agenda for future research. Small Bus Econ 55, 777–811 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-019-00183-4

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