Crazy Quilt Principle – Effectuation as the Inspiration for Developing Business Relations and Attitudes

Abstract

One of the principles of the effectual approach to entrepreneurship is the crazy quilt principle focused on building relationships with the business environment. According to it, an entrepreneur should use contacts with people from the environment established before the founding of the company, as well as actively shape new relationships in the environment in which the company operates. Strong networking and relations with many people allow to gain inspiration and jointly search for new business opportunities. The article presents the results of surveys, whose purpose was to assess the extent to which Polish entrepreneurs use the crazy quilt principle. We also verified if students of a university’s business faculty adopt the value of the principle when planning to set up their own business. Due to the fact that effectuation is still relatively under-researched in the Polish context, the current study offers an important contribution. According to the obtained results, students’ thinking is more in line with the traditional - causal (and not effectual) logic. They display a clear tendency to compete rather than cooperate with the company’s competitors. The result of the research is the development of a set of proposed solutions which might be included in entrepreneurial education. It highlights the importance of sensitising current and future entrepreneurs to the value of building relationships and achieving value through the process of utilising interpersonal relations.