Unlocking the effectual orientation of corporations: developing a new dictionary-based measure

• Bridges the extension of effectuation from entrepreneurs to organizations. • Reviews and consolidates existing approaches to measuring effectuation. • Explores effectual orientation as a strategic orientation in corporations. • Develops a novel, dictionary-based measure of corporate effectual orientation. • Enables large-scale, longitudinal analysis of firms’ effectual orientation. Although effectuation has been widely studied in entrepreneurship research, questions remain about how to grasp it at the organizational level and how to reliably measure it beyond the individual level. This study sheds light on effectuation in corporations by revisiting how effectuation has been extended from the individual entrepreneur to organizations, both conceptually and empirically. We develop a novel, dictionary-based measure based on the concept of effectual orientation, which allows us to evaluate corporations’ strategic orientation towards effectuation. Using a sample of 7,875 letters to shareholders from S&P 500 firms we used computer-aided text analysis (CATA) to operationalize and validate a dictionary of effectual orientation. This study advances effectuation research by conceptualizing and introducing a large-scale, quantitative approach to measure corporations’ effectual orientation. Our findings provide guidance for scholars and future research at the intersection of effectuation and strategic orientations, paving the way for new research opportunities.