O processo de se tornar empreendedor: ações, oportunidades e redes empreendedoras

Abstract

The entrepreneurial process from the effectuation perspective has three basic elements: assessment of available resources, assessment of possible courses of action and interactions with other people. In this thesis, these elements were used to analyze how entrepreneurs can employ causation and effectuation simultaneously in some phases of this process: in opportunity development, in new venture creation and in entrepreneurial networking behavior. Thus, the general objective was to analyze how the entrepreneurial process of small business founders occurs through the lens of causation and effectuation for the opportunity development, new venture creation and entrepreneurial networking behavior, considering the antecedents and impacts of the post-pandemic context. A qualitative methodology was appropriate for this study, whose data collection technique was interviews. In total, 20 entrepreneurs were interviewed in person, and the requirements for participation were: being the founder/owner and manager of a small business, being the main or one of the main decision makers of the business, being a resident of the city of Salvador or its metropolitan region. The data analysis technique was content analysis, which was supported by the Atlas Ti software to systematize the results. The main result found by this thesis is that entrepreneurs employ causation and effectuation simultaneously at different moments of the process, with effectuation being more predominant in the of thought´s logic, opportunity development and new venture creation, and causation being more predominant in actions to uncertainty in the future of the enterprise and in the entrepreneurial networking behavior. It was therefore observed that flexibility and being alert to new opportunities was essential for the survival of the business or made it possible to start a new career and even a new business. And, at the same time, it revealed the importance of actions involving planning, diversification and market analysis as a way of reducing uncertainties related to the future. Therefore, the results found in this thesis help to understand the complexity of the entrepreneurial process, with the difference being the association of the main elements in a single explanatory model.