Corporate Effectuation: What managers should learn from entrepreneurs

Did you ever wonder why successful entrepreneurs always seem to accomplish ‘magical’ results, even in uncertain times, while others struggle on a daily basis? What do they do differently? What can managers really learn from successful entrepreneurs?

Corporate Effectuation brings a scientifically proven method called ‘Effectuation’ to corporate organizations. Effectuation consists of 5 principles that help managers cope with uncertainty and unpredictability:

• Bird in hand principle
• Affordable loss principle
• Crazy quilt principle
• Lemonade principle
• Pilot in the plane principle

The 5 principles are proven in a corporate context in collaboration with 17 path banding co-authors. In this book, valuable case studies are presented such as Philips, RWE Essent, Rabobank, KVD, University Hospital of Maastricht and De Beukelaar Groep.

A changing world requires strategic flexibility. Corporate Effectuation offers a new view of ‘corporate entrepreneurship’ and illuminates insight into new tools for corporations such as Business Modeling and Reframing.

After reading Corporate Effectuation there is no longer reason to be a ‘smart-follower’. Apply these new insights and you too can be a ‘smart-creator’.

‘Thomas Blekman offers insight into where new opportunities come from and the process and tools by which they are created.’– Stuart Read , Professor in Marketing, Innovation and Entrepreneurship at IMD Switzerland

‘Enterprises that can deploy both the causal approach and effectuation will be the winners of tomorrow.’ – Dr. Fred van Ommen, CTO, Senior Vice President of Innovation Excellence, Philips Electronics

‘It is a paradigm-shifting work, and therefore a seri- ous candidate to become the Management Book of the Year 2012.’– Marco van Veen, Manager of Heineken International Web Center