A logic of entrepreneurial action without judgment? Effectuation revisited

Abstract Since its introduction in 2001, effectuation has matured significantly and become an influential perspective within the entrepreneurship literature. However, despite advances in the theory, some aspects of it remain ambiguous. One such case is its relationship to entrepreneurial judgment, the importance of which for effectuation has been explicitly denied. We revisit this claim and reevaluate whether effectuation can really get by without entrepreneurial judgment. We find that characterizing effectuation as a distinct entrepreneurial logic devoid of judgment is untenable: quite the opposite is true. Effectuation is in fact a specific form of entrepreneurial judgment. Recognizing this helps both to enrich effectuation theory and its practice by incorporating core insights from entrepreneurial judgment theory and to integrate different accounts of entrepreneurial action in attempts to build a more unified entrepreneurial action theory.