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We aim to explore the role of the interplay between intuition and rationality in the causation-effectuation decision-making processes of small creative businesses during their international expansion.

We developed process research to investigate the causation-effectuation decision-making processes during the internationalization of a creativity-intensive small business located in Brazil. In just three years, its cartoon reached screens in 80 countries.

We discovered an orthogonal relationship between causation and effectuation moderated by the balance between intuition and rationality, enabling small creative businesses to successfully navigate internationalization by adapting to contractual demands and exploring creative opportunities. To explain these relationships, we offer five process-based propositions for further studies.

We reconstructed the internationalization process based on retrospective interviews, so eliminating all biases from rationalization may have been impossible. We elucidate the interrelationship between causation-effectuation decision-making logic and demystify that decision-making effectuation logic is predominantly intuitive. We provide evidence that rational thinking permeates the entire decision-making process as a process of building the future.

Understanding causation-effectuation decision-making processes in creativity-intensive small businesses can be helpful for other businesses because they nurture production on a large scale.

The study emphasizes the importance of creativity-intensive small businesses to countries’ economies. Creativity-intensive businesses grow in other industries and generate many jobs in mature industries.

We demystify the decision-making assumption that effectuation logic is predominantly intuitive while causation logic is rational. Instead, we show that these logics coexist and interact orthogonally and dynamically.