Sathiswaran Uthamaputhran
This article explores previously discarded phenomena and making a contribution to the field of internationalisation by distinguishing the effectual and non-effectual to support the speed of sensing and exploiting the international opportunities. This examination conducted from an effectuation perspective, drawing upon current research on the role of effectuation in internationalization and entrepreneurship. Three important principles of the effectuation process explored namely “What I know”, “Who am I” and “Who I know”. This new theory model helps to understand the entrepreneur’s decision to use of different resources to create means and speed up the process of sensing and shaping the international opportunities. The research design for this study is a multiple-case study approach. The result shows that the Malaysian entrepreneurs used non-systematic strategies (effectuation) rather than planned strategies (causation) to discover the international opportunities. The effectuation process has become a primary target for Malaysian SMEs to accumulate new resources and capabilities to speed the internationalisation and reduced their reliance on a causation logic.