Reimagining the extracurricular business plan competition through the incorporation of effectuation

This paper focuses on the extracurricular business plan competition (BPC), a common feature on university campuses worldwide. While such competitions seek to engender entrepreneurial learning and start-up activity there is growing scepticism regarding their utility, largely as a result of overemphasis on the written business plan which can be counterproductive to achieving entrepreneurial activity and learning which competitions seek to encourage, raising the question what a more appropriate model might be. The paper explores the conceptual rationale for such a view, against the backdrop of an effectual turn within entrepreneurship and suggests how effectuation could be translated and embedded within competition practice and provision. A key assertion is that emphasis within competition provision should shift from the action of business plan production toward business implementation. Five guiding principles are offered defining how an implementation competition could be operationalised, embedding implementation in the ‘here and now’ of competition experience rather than assuming it may follow in the future. It is argued that the ‘implementation competition’ would be better placed to achieve current BPC objectives, reducing action deferral and promoting the idea that ‘anything is possible within the context of now’, encouraging a more seamless transition between competition participation and post-competition entrepreneurship.