Search and execution: examining the entrepreneurial cognitions behind the lean startup model Xiaoming Yang & Sunny Li Sun & Xiangyang Zhao Accepted: 25 September 2017 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract The lean startup model emerging from the Silicon Valley recently has become worldwide practice. In this model, search and execution are the two primary activities conducted by entrepreneurial firms. Search activities focus on learning and discovery, such as ex- ploring new customer and market segments, while exe- cution activities focus on implementing well-defined plans and scaling up. Effectuation and causation are two different cognitive approaches an entrepreneur might use to conduct strategic moves. We argue that entrepreneurial effectuation cognition is associated with more search behaviors and that entrepreneurial causa- tion cognition is associated with more execution behaviors. We test these hypotheses in a survey of 160 firms and find evidence in support of our arguments. Keywords Lean startup . Effectuation . Causation . Search . Execution JEL classification L26 1 Introduction In the entrepreneurial practice, emerging from the recent social movement of Bthe lean startup^ originated from Silicon Valley, Bsearch^ and Bexecution^ are important strategic actions of firms (Blank and Dorf 2012; Ries 2011). In a firm’ s growing process, Blank (2013) argues that entrepreneurs should search for a repeatable, scal- able, and profitable business model at first and that only after this is complete should entrepreneurs execute the business model and scale the firm up. Such methodolo- gy is widely adopted in entrepreneurship education and practice. However, we still have little knowledge of how the entrepreneurial cognitions are associated with search and execution activities. This question remains unan- swered in theory even though both entrepreneurial cog- nitions and entrepreneurial activities are extensively studied (Mitchell et al. 2007). The behavioral theory of the firm suggests that firms will keep searching until the results satisfy entrepreneurs’ aspiration levels (Simon 1947; March 1991). Scholars have developed the concept of search from different per- spectives. For example, Cyert and March (1963) posit that Small Bus Econ https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-017-9978-z Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-017-9978-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. X. Yang Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship, College of Business Administration, University of Nebraska Omaha, 6708 Pine Street, Omaha, NE 68162, USA S. L. Sun Department of Marketing, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation, Robert J. Manning School of Business, University of Massachusetts Lowell, 72 University Ave, Lowell, MA 01854, USA X. Zhao (*) Department of Marketing, School of Economics and Business Administration, Beijing Normal University, No. 19, XinJieKouWai St, HaiDian District, Beijing 100875, People’ s Republic of China e-mail: Xiangyang.zhao@bnu.edu.cn