The relationship between entrepreneurial behaviour and effectuation : the case of Japanese restaurants in Finland

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between entrepreneurial behaviour and effectuation in the case of Japanese restaurants in Finland. Thus, research frameworks related to entrepreneurial behavior including entrepreneurial decision-making, opportunity recognition, effectuation theory, and the causation logic are exploited as key factors to investigate how the key processes of entrepreneurial behavior in the Japanese restaurants are related to entrepreneurial effectuation.

Entrepreneurship is a wide range of research field which includes a variety of theories and concepts in several different domains. Nowadays those can be actively used even in the different research fields such as education due to its comprehensiveness and versatility. Entrepreneurial behavior, which is one of the core parts of entrepreneurship, explains what the signature behaviors of entrepreneurs and how those affect or are affected by the performances and various resources. Effectuation and causation are contained in this domain and regarded as comparable concepts which explain logics of thinking in the process of entrepreneurial behavior and new venture creation.

The qualitative research, which was the in-depth interviews to the Japanese entrepreneurs and the stakeholders, mainly provided four types of discourse that include various notable effectual factors. Based on each discourse, several unique concepts were made by the author in relation to the principles of effectuation as well as the causation logic, namely the concept of action-oriented behaviour, uniqueness and differentiation, connection-minded behaviour, and risk-based behaviour.

The findings of this study reveal that a variety of effectual logics are used in several different processes by the Japanese entrepreneurs both consciously and spontaneously. Also, those effectual factors have a huge influence on their entrepreneurial behaviour, especially in the process of opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial decision-making, in many ways. The research concludes that there is a strong relationship between entrepreneurial behaviour and effectuation, while causation-related logics are also used to a small extent at the individual discretion.