Effectuation: Elements of Entrepreneurial Expertise

Saras D. Sarasvathy is a member of the Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Ethics area and teaches courses in entrepreneurship and ethics in Darden’s MBA program. In addition, Saras teaches in the doctoral program and the research seminar on Markets in Human Hope.

Saras is a leading scholar on the cognitive basis for high-performance entrepreneurship and is the author of Effectuation: Elements of Entrepreneurial Expertise. Effectuation is widely acclaimed as a rigorous framework for understanding the creation and growth of new organizations and markets. The research program based on effectuation involves over a dozen scholars from around the world whose published and working papers can be found at www.effectuation.org. Saras has also developed several cases and other instructional materials to teach effectuation. A new textbook, along with a detailed instructor’s manual is currently in the works.

In addition to a master’s degree in Industrial Administration, Saras received her Ph.D. in Information Systems from Carnegie Mellon University. Her thesis on entrepreneurial expertise was supervised by Herbert Simon, 1978 Nobel Laureate in Economics. Before joining Darden, she had been on the faculty of University of Washington and University of Maryland. And before that, she was part of the founding team in five entrepreneurial ventures.