Vinicius Spader | Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (original) (raw)

MsC by Vinicius Spader

The objective of this work is to identify evidences of the applicability of the effectuation theo... more The objective of this work is to identify evidences of the applicability of the effectuation theory on new businesses creation. The effectuation theory explains how the decision making process on the creation of new business or products occurs on environments with great uncertainty. For that matter a structured survey was applied to the founder of a company located in Picada Café. The conclusion is that there are evidences that this entrepreneur used the effectual logic on this new venture creation.

Effectuation by Vinicius Spader

Journal of Business Venturing, 2010

This article outlines why highly confident entrepreneurs of focal ventures are better positioned ... more This article outlines why highly confident entrepreneurs of focal ventures are better positioned to start and succeed with another venture; and therefore why overconfidence in one's capabilities functionally persists and pervades amongst entrepreneurs. By combining cognitive perspectives on confidence in decision making with Fredrickson's . What good are positive emotions?. Review of General Psychology, 2, 300-319.; Fredrickson, B.L. 2001. The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56, 218-226.; Fredrickson, B.L. 2003. The value of positive emotions. American Scientist, 91: 330-335] 'broaden-and-build' theory of positive emotions, this paper elaborates the manner in which such entrepreneurs can develop emotional, cognitive, social and financial resilience that can be marshaled and mobilized for a subsequent venture.

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2008

In A Behavioral Theory of the Firm (BTF), Cyert and March [Cyert, R.M., March, J.G., 1963. A Beha... more In A Behavioral Theory of the Firm (BTF), Cyert and March [Cyert, R.M., March, J.G., 1963. A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ] present a clutch of ideas for explaining the behavior of established firms within an environment of well-defined markets, stakeholder relationships, technologies, and so on. In this paper, we outline a behavioral theory of the entrepreneurial firm that emphasizes transforming environments rather than acting within extant ones. In particular, we explicate three ideas that parallel key concepts in BTF: (1) accumulating stakeholder commitments under goal ambiguity (in line with a political conception of goals), (2) achieving control (as opposed to managing expectations) through non-predictive strategies, and (3) predominately exaptive (rather than adaptive) orientation.

Journal of Business Ethics, 2007

ABSTRACT. In modern societies entrepreneurship and innovation are widely seen as key sources of e... more ABSTRACT. In modern societies entrepreneurship and innovation are widely seen as key sources of economic growth and welfare increases. Yet entrepreneurial inno- vation has also meant losses and hardships for some members of society: it is destructive of some stakeholdersÕ ...

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2008

In their article on entrepreneurship, effectuation, and over-trust, Goel and Karri suggest relati... more In their article on entrepreneurship, effectuation, and over-trust, Goel and Karri suggest relationships between effectuation, over-trust, and certain psychological characteristics of entrepreneurs. In this response we debate their article. Goel and Karri are correct in claiming that effectuation supposes over-trust. However, we argue that effectual logic works in a different way than they presented because it neither predicts nor assumes trust. Goel and Karri's article also draws attention to the behavioral assumptions underlying constructs such as over-(under) trust. Our suggestion is that effectuation is based on alternative behavioral assumptions that open up interesting avenues for future research in entrepreneurship.

A detailed review of four literatures, namely, (1) Industrial organization, (2) Population ecology,

Journal of Business Venturing, 2009

Venture investing plays an important role in entrepreneurship not only because financial resource... more Venture investing plays an important role in entrepreneurship not only because financial resources are important to new ventures, but also because early investors help shape the ventures' managerial and strategic destiny. In this study of 121 angel investors who had made 1038 new venture investments, we empirically investigate angel investors' differential use of predictive versus non-predictive control strategies. We show how the use of these strategies affects the outcomes of angel investors. Results show that angels who emphasize prediction make significantly larger venture investments, while those who emphasize nonpredictive control experience a reduction in investment failures without a reduction in their number of successes.

Journal of Business Venturing, 2009

In support of theory, this study demonstrates that entrepreneurial experts frame decisions using ... more In support of theory, this study demonstrates that entrepreneurial experts frame decisions using an "effectual" logic (identify more potential markets, focus more on building the venture as a whole, pay less attention to predictive information, worry more about making do with resources on hand to invest only what they could afford to lose, and emphasize stitching together networks of partnerships); while novices use a "predictive frame" and tend to "go by the textbook." We asked 27 expert entrepreneurs and 37 MBA students to think aloud continuously as they solved typical decision-making problems in creating a new venture. Transcriptions were analyzed using methods from cognitive science. Results showed that expert entrepreneurs framed problems in a dramatically different way than MBA students. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Strategic Organization, 2004

Abstract Several streams of research in strategic management and organizational theory build upon... more Abstract Several streams of research in strategic management and organizational theory build upon the early work of Herbert Simon.Yet, as content analyses of articles published in leading management journals show, key ideas from his later years are for the most part either ...

Journal of Marketing, 2009

How does one approach marketing in the face of uncertainty, where the product, the market and the... more How does one approach marketing in the face of uncertainty, where the product, the market and the traditional details involved in market research are unknowable ex ante? We use protocol analysis to evaluate how 27 expert entrepreneurs approach such a problem, compared to 37 managers with little entrepreneurial expertise, with all 64 subjects being asked to think aloud as they make marketing decisions in exactly the same unpredictable situation. Our hypotheses are drawn from literature in cognitive science on (a) expertise in general and (b) entrepreneurial expertise in particular. Results show significant differences in heuristics used by the two groups.

University of Washington School of Business, Box 353200 Seattle WA 98195 VM: (206) 221-5369 FAX: ... more University of Washington School of Business, Box 353200 Seattle WA 98195 VM: (206) 221-5369 FAX: (206) 685-9392 Email: saras@u.washington.edu ... To date, economics has failed to develop a useful theory of entrepreneurship because of its inability to

Scandinavian Journal of Management, 2005

Several years ago Professor March pointed out that rational choice involves two guesses, a guess ... more Several years ago Professor March pointed out that rational choice involves two guesses, a guess about uncertain future consequences and a guess about uncertain future preferences, and called for the development of a technology of foolishness to complement the technologies of intelligence that have been developed to improve the first guess. In this essay we use empirical data from two separate studies of entrepreneurial expertise, one involving the creation of new ventures and the other the birth of a new industry to identify three logics that constitute working elements of a technology of foolishness: (1) the logic of identity, as opposed to the logic of preferences; (2) the logic of action, as opposed to the logic of belief; and (3) the logic of commitment, as opposed to the logic of transaction.

Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 2004

Accounts of economic change recognize that markets create selective pressures for the adaptation ... more Accounts of economic change recognize that markets create selective pressures for the adaptation of technologies in the direction of customer needs and production efficiencies.

The Journal of Private Equity, 2005

The authors thankfully acknowledge Tom Jones for his guiding suggestions and comments on an early... more The authors thankfully acknowledge Tom Jones for his guiding suggestions and comments on an early revision of this manuscript, and Michael Frese for making us work just a little bit harder on the literature review.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2001

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2004

Current theories of the firm provide no explanation for entrepreneurial success except in terms o... more Current theories of the firm provide no explanation for entrepreneurial success except in terms of firm success. Even when the focus is on the entrepreneur, s/he is entirely cast as a bundle of traits/behaviors or heuristics/biases that serves to explain firm performance. In this article, I suggest putting the entrepreneur center stage, adopting an instrumental view of the firm. Drawing upon the work of Simon in symbolic cognition and Lakoff in semantic cognition, I explore how we can go beyond explanations based on economic forces and evolutionary adaptation to entrepreneurial effectuation; I end with specific research questions pertaining to firm design.

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2003

This essay connects four key ideas from Herbert SimonÕs ''Sciences of the Artificial'' to recent ... more This essay connects four key ideas from Herbert SimonÕs ''Sciences of the Artificial'' to recent research on entrepreneurial expertise: (1) natural laws constrain but do not dictate our designs; (2) we should seize every opportunity to avoid the use of prediction in design; (3) locality and contingency govern the sciences of the artificial; and, (4) near-decomposability is an essential feature of enduring designs. The essay is based on a series of conversations and emails with Simon about the empirical findings of my doctoral dissertation that involved a protocol analysis study of expert founder-entrepreneurs.

Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 2005

Is new market creation a search and selection process within the theoretical space of all possibl... more Is new market creation a search and selection process within the theoretical space of all possible markets? Or is it the outcome of a process of transformation of extant realities into new possibilities? In this article we consider new market creation as a process involving a new network of stakeholders. The network is initiated through an effectual commitment that sets in motion two concurrent cycles of expanding resources and converging constraints that result in the new market. The dynamic model was induced from two empirical investigations, a cognitive science-based investigation of entrepreneurial expertise, and a real time history of the RFID industry.

Strategic Management Journal, 2006

planning approaches and adaptive approaches. These differ primarily on the appropriate role of pr... more planning approaches and adaptive approaches. These differ primarily on the appropriate role of prediction in the decision process. Prediction is a central issue in strategy making owing to the presumption that what can be predicted can be controlled. In this paper we argue for the independence of prediction and control. This implies that the pursuit of successful outcomes can occur through control-oriented approaches that may essentially be non-predictive. We further develop and highlight control-oriented approaches with particular emphasis on the question of what organizations should do next. We also explore how these approaches may impact the costs and risks of firm strategies as well as the firm's continual efforts to innovate.

Journal of Business Venturing, 2004

Both history of science and creativity research have shown that reformulating the questions we as... more Both history of science and creativity research have shown that reformulating the questions we ask can lead to breakthroughs more often than trying harder to search for more rigorous answers. In such a spirit of creative play, I suggest we throw away our obsession with dividing the world into entrepreneurs and nonentrepreneurs and focus instead on categories within entrepreneurs. In particular, (a) those who want to become entrepreneurs but do not suggest compelling research questions about barriers to entrepreneurship; while, (b) those who do become entrepreneurs need to develop expertise, impelling our research to focus on the rubric of design.

The objective of this work is to identify evidences of the applicability of the effectuation theo... more The objective of this work is to identify evidences of the applicability of the effectuation theory on new businesses creation. The effectuation theory explains how the decision making process on the creation of new business or products occurs on environments with great uncertainty. For that matter a structured survey was applied to the founder of a company located in Picada Café. The conclusion is that there are evidences that this entrepreneur used the effectual logic on this new venture creation.

Journal of Business Venturing, 2010

This article outlines why highly confident entrepreneurs of focal ventures are better positioned ... more This article outlines why highly confident entrepreneurs of focal ventures are better positioned to start and succeed with another venture; and therefore why overconfidence in one's capabilities functionally persists and pervades amongst entrepreneurs. By combining cognitive perspectives on confidence in decision making with Fredrickson's . What good are positive emotions?. Review of General Psychology, 2, 300-319.; Fredrickson, B.L. 2001. The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56, 218-226.; Fredrickson, B.L. 2003. The value of positive emotions. American Scientist, 91: 330-335] 'broaden-and-build' theory of positive emotions, this paper elaborates the manner in which such entrepreneurs can develop emotional, cognitive, social and financial resilience that can be marshaled and mobilized for a subsequent venture.

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2008

In A Behavioral Theory of the Firm (BTF), Cyert and March [Cyert, R.M., March, J.G., 1963. A Beha... more In A Behavioral Theory of the Firm (BTF), Cyert and March [Cyert, R.M., March, J.G., 1963. A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ] present a clutch of ideas for explaining the behavior of established firms within an environment of well-defined markets, stakeholder relationships, technologies, and so on. In this paper, we outline a behavioral theory of the entrepreneurial firm that emphasizes transforming environments rather than acting within extant ones. In particular, we explicate three ideas that parallel key concepts in BTF: (1) accumulating stakeholder commitments under goal ambiguity (in line with a political conception of goals), (2) achieving control (as opposed to managing expectations) through non-predictive strategies, and (3) predominately exaptive (rather than adaptive) orientation.

Journal of Business Ethics, 2007

ABSTRACT. In modern societies entrepreneurship and innovation are widely seen as key sources of e... more ABSTRACT. In modern societies entrepreneurship and innovation are widely seen as key sources of economic growth and welfare increases. Yet entrepreneurial inno- vation has also meant losses and hardships for some members of society: it is destructive of some stakeholdersÕ ...

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2008

In their article on entrepreneurship, effectuation, and over-trust, Goel and Karri suggest relati... more In their article on entrepreneurship, effectuation, and over-trust, Goel and Karri suggest relationships between effectuation, over-trust, and certain psychological characteristics of entrepreneurs. In this response we debate their article. Goel and Karri are correct in claiming that effectuation supposes over-trust. However, we argue that effectual logic works in a different way than they presented because it neither predicts nor assumes trust. Goel and Karri's article also draws attention to the behavioral assumptions underlying constructs such as over-(under) trust. Our suggestion is that effectuation is based on alternative behavioral assumptions that open up interesting avenues for future research in entrepreneurship.

A detailed review of four literatures, namely, (1) Industrial organization, (2) Population ecology,

Journal of Business Venturing, 2009

Venture investing plays an important role in entrepreneurship not only because financial resource... more Venture investing plays an important role in entrepreneurship not only because financial resources are important to new ventures, but also because early investors help shape the ventures' managerial and strategic destiny. In this study of 121 angel investors who had made 1038 new venture investments, we empirically investigate angel investors' differential use of predictive versus non-predictive control strategies. We show how the use of these strategies affects the outcomes of angel investors. Results show that angels who emphasize prediction make significantly larger venture investments, while those who emphasize nonpredictive control experience a reduction in investment failures without a reduction in their number of successes.

Journal of Business Venturing, 2009

In support of theory, this study demonstrates that entrepreneurial experts frame decisions using ... more In support of theory, this study demonstrates that entrepreneurial experts frame decisions using an "effectual" logic (identify more potential markets, focus more on building the venture as a whole, pay less attention to predictive information, worry more about making do with resources on hand to invest only what they could afford to lose, and emphasize stitching together networks of partnerships); while novices use a "predictive frame" and tend to "go by the textbook." We asked 27 expert entrepreneurs and 37 MBA students to think aloud continuously as they solved typical decision-making problems in creating a new venture. Transcriptions were analyzed using methods from cognitive science. Results showed that expert entrepreneurs framed problems in a dramatically different way than MBA students. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Strategic Organization, 2004

Abstract Several streams of research in strategic management and organizational theory build upon... more Abstract Several streams of research in strategic management and organizational theory build upon the early work of Herbert Simon.Yet, as content analyses of articles published in leading management journals show, key ideas from his later years are for the most part either ...

Journal of Marketing, 2009

How does one approach marketing in the face of uncertainty, where the product, the market and the... more How does one approach marketing in the face of uncertainty, where the product, the market and the traditional details involved in market research are unknowable ex ante? We use protocol analysis to evaluate how 27 expert entrepreneurs approach such a problem, compared to 37 managers with little entrepreneurial expertise, with all 64 subjects being asked to think aloud as they make marketing decisions in exactly the same unpredictable situation. Our hypotheses are drawn from literature in cognitive science on (a) expertise in general and (b) entrepreneurial expertise in particular. Results show significant differences in heuristics used by the two groups.

University of Washington School of Business, Box 353200 Seattle WA 98195 VM: (206) 221-5369 FAX: ... more University of Washington School of Business, Box 353200 Seattle WA 98195 VM: (206) 221-5369 FAX: (206) 685-9392 Email: saras@u.washington.edu ... To date, economics has failed to develop a useful theory of entrepreneurship because of its inability to

Scandinavian Journal of Management, 2005

Several years ago Professor March pointed out that rational choice involves two guesses, a guess ... more Several years ago Professor March pointed out that rational choice involves two guesses, a guess about uncertain future consequences and a guess about uncertain future preferences, and called for the development of a technology of foolishness to complement the technologies of intelligence that have been developed to improve the first guess. In this essay we use empirical data from two separate studies of entrepreneurial expertise, one involving the creation of new ventures and the other the birth of a new industry to identify three logics that constitute working elements of a technology of foolishness: (1) the logic of identity, as opposed to the logic of preferences; (2) the logic of action, as opposed to the logic of belief; and (3) the logic of commitment, as opposed to the logic of transaction.

Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 2004

Accounts of economic change recognize that markets create selective pressures for the adaptation ... more Accounts of economic change recognize that markets create selective pressures for the adaptation of technologies in the direction of customer needs and production efficiencies.

The Journal of Private Equity, 2005

The authors thankfully acknowledge Tom Jones for his guiding suggestions and comments on an early... more The authors thankfully acknowledge Tom Jones for his guiding suggestions and comments on an early revision of this manuscript, and Michael Frese for making us work just a little bit harder on the literature review.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2001

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2004

Current theories of the firm provide no explanation for entrepreneurial success except in terms o... more Current theories of the firm provide no explanation for entrepreneurial success except in terms of firm success. Even when the focus is on the entrepreneur, s/he is entirely cast as a bundle of traits/behaviors or heuristics/biases that serves to explain firm performance. In this article, I suggest putting the entrepreneur center stage, adopting an instrumental view of the firm. Drawing upon the work of Simon in symbolic cognition and Lakoff in semantic cognition, I explore how we can go beyond explanations based on economic forces and evolutionary adaptation to entrepreneurial effectuation; I end with specific research questions pertaining to firm design.

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2003

This essay connects four key ideas from Herbert SimonÕs ''Sciences of the Artificial'' to recent ... more This essay connects four key ideas from Herbert SimonÕs ''Sciences of the Artificial'' to recent research on entrepreneurial expertise: (1) natural laws constrain but do not dictate our designs; (2) we should seize every opportunity to avoid the use of prediction in design; (3) locality and contingency govern the sciences of the artificial; and, (4) near-decomposability is an essential feature of enduring designs. The essay is based on a series of conversations and emails with Simon about the empirical findings of my doctoral dissertation that involved a protocol analysis study of expert founder-entrepreneurs.

Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 2005

Is new market creation a search and selection process within the theoretical space of all possibl... more Is new market creation a search and selection process within the theoretical space of all possible markets? Or is it the outcome of a process of transformation of extant realities into new possibilities? In this article we consider new market creation as a process involving a new network of stakeholders. The network is initiated through an effectual commitment that sets in motion two concurrent cycles of expanding resources and converging constraints that result in the new market. The dynamic model was induced from two empirical investigations, a cognitive science-based investigation of entrepreneurial expertise, and a real time history of the RFID industry.

Strategic Management Journal, 2006

planning approaches and adaptive approaches. These differ primarily on the appropriate role of pr... more planning approaches and adaptive approaches. These differ primarily on the appropriate role of prediction in the decision process. Prediction is a central issue in strategy making owing to the presumption that what can be predicted can be controlled. In this paper we argue for the independence of prediction and control. This implies that the pursuit of successful outcomes can occur through control-oriented approaches that may essentially be non-predictive. We further develop and highlight control-oriented approaches with particular emphasis on the question of what organizations should do next. We also explore how these approaches may impact the costs and risks of firm strategies as well as the firm's continual efforts to innovate.

Journal of Business Venturing, 2004

Both history of science and creativity research have shown that reformulating the questions we as... more Both history of science and creativity research have shown that reformulating the questions we ask can lead to breakthroughs more often than trying harder to search for more rigorous answers. In such a spirit of creative play, I suggest we throw away our obsession with dividing the world into entrepreneurs and nonentrepreneurs and focus instead on categories within entrepreneurs. In particular, (a) those who want to become entrepreneurs but do not suggest compelling research questions about barriers to entrepreneurship; while, (b) those who do become entrepreneurs need to develop expertise, impelling our research to focus on the rubric of design.