Saras D. Sarasvathy

When potential stakeholders don’t fit into categories such as an investor or a supplier, novice entrepreneurs often don’t approach them. Effectual asks, however, allow people to become involved with startups in many different ways.

You can’t always get what you want, but if you ask, you just might get what you need. Seasoned entrepreneurs seem to know this intuitively, and according to new research from Darden, they get what they need because they live by the mantra “Always be asking.”

Focusing on two regions of Ethiopia, Amhara and Tigray, the partnership seeks to improve productivity and reduce costs by increasing access to improved poultry breeds and training smallholder farmers to raise them effectively.

Darden Professor Saras Sarasvathy groundbreaking research launched a new way of looking at the entrepreneurial method, once thought to be unteachable. Since then, dozens of articles and books have built on her work, and in turn have reshaped the landscape of how entrepreneurship is taught, researched and practiced.

Professor Saras Sarasvathy challenges the assumption that entrepreneurs are always risk-takers. Instead, she argues that entrepreneurs search for what they can create.