Entrepreneurship students use of causation, effectuation and bricolage in a microcosm

Abstract

This study investigates students’ use of causation, effectuation and bricolage behaviours within a fund-raising project that provided a microcosm of the entrepreneur’s world. Such a pedagogical device allows us to explore when, and why, students use the various opportunity management behaviours over time. Although research has confirmed the use of these behaviours by expert entrepreneurs, how student entrepreneurs learn about them, and practice them, remains largely unexplored. Causation is the predominant focus for university teaching, yet our data reveal that student groups adopted all three behaviours at different stages of the fund-raising project as they responded to different contextual forces. The implications of our findings are 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.