The Paradox of Control Through Collaboration in Effectual Entrepreneurship

Abstract

At the heart of entrepreneurial collaboration is a tension: Entrepreneurs need people to grow their ventures, but in bringing people on board, they fear loss of control of the ventures they are building. Add to that the behavioral assumption of opportunism, and the tension rises to the level of a paradox. The paradox is particularly salient in effectual entrepreneurship, which emphasizes stakeholder self-selection as the driver of cocreation. This chapter presents a model of effectual collaboration that builds on a different behavioral assumption, namely docility, defined as the human ability to be open to persuasion. Docility can involve taking and giving advice, changing one’s goals and even adopting those of others, and being able to take more than one’s own perspective into account. Being open to persuasion enables entrepreneurs to cocreate valuable new ventures. The chapter illustrates the model of effectual collaboration through a blueprint for an effectual incubator.