Batten Institute Launches the Inaugural Symposium to Reimagine Entrepreneurship Education

Professor Saras Sarasvathy has inspired countless students to start successful ventures by leveraging effectuation – a framework expert entrepreneurs use to make decisions in highly uncertain environments.

But this October, it wasn’t students but teachers who flocked to Sarasvathy’s classroom.

Thirty business faculty representing more than 20 universities – from as far as Denmark and Sri Lanka – descended on the University of Virginia Darden School of Business for a day of “Reimagining Entrepreneurship Education.” The first symposium of its kind, hosted by the Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology at Darden, was an exploration of how to incorporate the principles of effectuation to improve business curricula and student outcomes.

“We need to have that approach in designing entrepreneurship education. The idea is, Let’s teach entrepreneurship to everyone the way we teach science. Let’s get out and do stuff. Let’s learn about slack resources in the world. Let’s redefine failure. Let’s teach people how to ask, work with others and co-create,” Sarasvathy said.

Defining Effectuation

Per Sarasvathy’s signature discovery, effectual entrepreneurs start with immediately available means — who they are, what they know and whom they know — to come up with doable venture ideas. They control the downside by investing only what they can afford to lose. They collaborate with self-selecting stakeholders who are willing to commit resources to their fledgling ventures.

“Effectuation should be taught in every entrepreneurship course at every level,” said Batten Institute Executive Director Omar Garriott, “and entrepreneurship should be taught at every level, across K-20.”

Garriott said effectuation has a strong research base, is highly learnable, and, crucially, is complementary with and additive to other proven approaches and frameworks for teaching entrepreneurship, such as Lean Startup.

“Up-leveling how we teach the entrepreneurial method isn’t just important for future founders,” he said. “It’s building innovation skills that will help students future-proof themselves amidst uncertainty and rapid disruptions, no matter what they go on to do.”

Sarasvathy presented her trailblazing study of expert entrepreneurs – which gave rise to the effectuation framework and principles – and delved into the core of entrepreneurial expertise.

“Expert entrepreneurs become adept at dealing with uncertainty,” she said. “They learn that to the extent that you can control the future, you don’t need to predict it. Control itself becomes a strategy. The idea is that you’re always working with things within your control, shaping and co-creating the future.”

In the spirit of co-creation, participants proceeded to the i.Lab Incubator for breakout sessions with six experienced facilitators. The objective of each team was to choose an effectuationprinciple, concept or action – such as The Affordable Loss, co-creation or the Effectual Ask, respectively – to add to a specific course and create a game plan on how to achieve that.

One team collaborated on developing an “Effectual Person Canvas” and an “Effectual Ask Canvas” to help undergraduate students understand the effectual process and inculcate in them the importance of talking to people to create partnerships.

Creating Partnerships

According to Rob Wiltbank, who facilitated one breakout discussion, you can’t succeed as an entrepreneur unless you learn to engage with others actively and creatively. Unfortunately, students are often reluctant to talk to others.

“We tend to revert to ‘hero’ stories about the lone visionary entrepreneur,” said Wiltbank, who taught strategy at Willamette University in Salem, Ore., and now serves as the CEO of Galois Inc. “In real life, there’s always a group of people involved, and effectuation describes the principles by which those groups emerge and co-create valuable new futures.”

Learning by Doing

For Josh Beck, Assistant Professor of Business Administration at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, the advantage of effectuation lies in providing a structured process that spurs action. “The steps of that process are especially useful for students who aspire to become entrepreneurs but are still exploring business ideas,” Beck said. “Guiding them to start by understanding their own capabilities and defining an affordable loss are valuable concepts that aid in their development.”

Fatima Hamdulay, Assistant Teaching Professor of Leadership and Character in Entrepreneurship at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, appreciated the chance to discuss the aspirations and challenges of teaching entrepreneurship with colleagues and to “ideate somepathways forward.” The symposium inspired her to be “more intentional in crafting educational experiences that prepare students to be comfortable with uncertainty and an unknowable future.”

Beyond Venture Creation

Participants who’ve been teaching effectuation for years see effectuation as more than a useful framework for launching startups.

Said Susan Harmeling, Professor of Inclusive Global Leadership and Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management: “Effectuation gives us away to think about our place in the world and how we can create a life that is right for us. By building ourselves in terms of ‘who I am, what I know and whom I know’ and adopting a resourceful attitude toward challenges and curveballs, we can effectuate not only new venturesand new markets but also a new, more hopeful future.”

According to Sarasvathy, effectual action is especially effective for creating a better future.Because it offers practical guidance for making decisions in the face of multiple uncertainties, effectuation can help us tackle intractable societal problems, such as poverty and climate change.

The Importance of Entrepreneurship Education

As many participants noted, teaching entrepreneurship is imperative in today’s economic environment. “Every university student should take at least one entrepreneurship class before graduation, regardless of their major,” said Yolanda Shields, an adjunct lecturer at the Shenandoah University in Winchester, who sits on the Virginia Board of Workforce Development.

Gaye Acikdilli, an associate professor at Bowie State University, expressed a similar sentiment.“I teach marketing and business courses to first-generation college students at the oldest historically Black university in Maryland,” she said. “My objective is to inspire students to gain business experience. My approach uses innovative techniques, and the effectuation framework was a major takeaway.”

Among the educators attending the symposium, enthusiasm for effectuation ran high. Said Johann Ducharme, Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship in the department of business administration at the University of Delaware: “I left wondering and asking my colleagues the question: ‘Should effectuation become the core of entrepreneurship education?’”

An Invitation to Co-Create New Teaching Tools

Symposium participants plan to reconvene on Zoom to continue exploring ways to incorporate effectuation into their courses and co-create new content and exercises. If you teach entrepreneurship and are interested in joining your peers in this effort, please contact the Batten Institute at batten@darden.virginia.edu.