Decision-Making in the Creation of New Businesses: a study with expatriate brazilians under the light of the Effectuation decision model
Immigrant entrepreneurship; Decision-making Processes; Effectuation; Expatriate
Considered a recent approach in the field of entrepreneurship research, the Effectuation model proposed by Sarasvathy (2001a) suggests that entrepreneurs usually start their businesses without any pre-defined objective, inverting the key principles and the rational predictive logic of the causal paradigm. In this sense, the main objective of this research was to analyze how Brazilian expatriates in the United States start their ventures and in which way their decision-making is aligned with the Effectuation logic proposed by Sarasvathy (2001a). To achieve this goal, it was necessary to establish a theoretical framework that conceptually supported the research on entrepreneurship, decision-making processes, Effectuation, Causation and the reality of Brazilian expatriation in the United States. The methodological path was designed around a descriptive qualitative research, whose chosen method was the case study. The conduct of the study was guided by previously defined thematic units and the data collection phase took place with the application of semi-structured interviews with five Brazilian expatriate entrepreneurs in the United States with businesses in Orlando/Florida. The research identified that the entrepreneurs' life context, their motivations and their initial goals during the creation of the business were directly aligned with the Effectuation logic, since, in most cases, the business started with a more general intention, going into contrary to the assumptions made by predictive causal reasoning. It was also observed that the decision to undertake, as well as the resources available by entrepreneurs at the time of setting up their companies, are also related to the assumptions of Sarasvathy (2001a) theory, given that they consisted on a set of decision-making principles in situations of uncertainty and unpredictability in which entrepreneurs used the resources they had to act towards the creation of their business. With the findings, it is expected to contribute to the fields of research in entrepreneurship and decision-making processes by establishing a relevant connection between the themes.