Bricolage theory was first developed by Lévi-Strauss, a structural anthropologist, to illustrate the creation of something new through involved actors in the process of recombination and transformation of existing objects, tools and materials at hand (Lévi-Strauss, 1966). Bricolage has since been applied in diverse settings including law (Tushnet, 1999), education (Hatton, 1989) and evolution biology (Johnson, 2012) (cf. Baker & Nelson, 2005 for a review).
In developing the bricolage construct Lévi-Strauss (1966) outlined two phenomena: “ideational” bricolage whereby new myths serving new functions were built from the fragments” of the past (Lévi-Strauss, 1966, p.21) and “material” bricolage where available “raw materials or tools” (Lévi-Strauss, 1966, p.17) were used to make do with whatever is on hand to perform a large number of diverse tasks.
From these two phenomena, two distinctive theories11 have emerged that relate to entrepreneurship literature. These are institutional bricolage (Cleaver, 2002) and entrepreneurial bricolage (Baker & Nelson, 2005). Institutional researchers describe bricolage as a mechanism for mobilisation and recombination of institutional logics to create institutional change through involved actors, often entrepreneurs, using the “gales of creative destruction” to produce novel products and services (Schumpeter, 1942, p. 1). This includes borrowing and reshaping sanctioned social relationships, cross-cultural beliefs, norms and values, culture and social structure in the creation and adaptation of institutions (De Koning & Cleaver, 2012).
11 Duymedjian & Ruling (2010) provide an alternate discussion of bricolage which weaves both ideation and material bricolage together in a higher level of abstraction. They argue that bricolage occurs at three levels acting (practice), knowing (epistemology) and underlying world view (metaphysics).
Institutional bricolage is closely aligned with social bricolage (Zahra et al., 2009) in addressing social community challenges and their institutional impacts (Cleaver, 2002; Cleaver, 2012; De Konig & Cleaver, 2012; Desa, 2012; Zahra et al., 2009). Entrepreneurial bricolage as a theoretical domain has had a relatively brief history, but has evolved with a range of diverse definitions. Table 2.2 outlines institutional, entrepreneurial and social bricolage definitions as they have evolved over time.
Initial work by Campbell (1997) more heavily relied on the “ideational” phenomenon of the initial theorising of Lévi-Strauss (1966) (i.e. whereby new myths serving new functions were built from the fragments” of the past (Lévi-Strauss, 1966, p. 21) but subsequent entrepreneurial bricolage research has evolved towards a greater focus on the “material” (i.e. raw materials or tools used to make do with whatever is on hand to perform a large number of diverse tasks) phenomena stressed in Lévi-Strauss’ work. For example, definitions that focus on tools include networks and relationships (Baker et al., 2003; Baker, 2007; Gong et al., 2005; Ning, 2013), capabilities (Banerjee & Campbell, 2009) and experience (Gong et al., 2005).
Arguably, the most influential work in the development of entrepreneurial bricolage and its definitions was Baker and Nelson’s (2005) fieldwork on small, resource-constrained firms and the impact of bricolage on growth. This research defined entrepreneurial bricolage as “making do by applying combinations of the resources at hand to new problems and opportunities” (Baker & Nelson, p. 333)12
. Baker and Nelson’s (2005) “Something from nothing” paper won the Grief Research Impact Award13 in 2011. The inductive results from this fieldwork revealed that the application of bricolage across multiple domains14 (parallel bricolage) limited growth opportunities, while those firms which used it more selectively achieved growth. Much of the bricolage research that has been subsequently published uses elements of Baker and Nelson’s work15
(e.g. Davis et al., 2013; Desa
12 This is the most commonly used definition in entrepreneurial bricolage. 13
& Basu, 2013; Rönkkö et al., 2013; Senyard et al., 2014) and has made attempts to further delineate theorising in bricolage.
But before examining in more detail the dimensions of bricolage identified by Baker & Nelson (2005) and the subsequent stream of research of entrepreneurial bricolage it is important to first distinguish bricolage, as defined in the original theorising of Lévi-Strauss (1966), from other resource actions.
2.3.1 “True Bricolage” and Bricolage Defined in this Thesis
While some are inclined to argue “everything is, or looks like bricolage”, initial and current theorising (e.g. Desa & Basu, 2013; Fulsang, 2010; Garud & Karnøe, 2003; Lévi-Strauss, 1966; Stinchfield et al., 2013) clearly delineate between what is and is not bricolage. Lévi-Strauss (1966) made a distinction between a bricoleur’s flexibility of resource combinations in terms of tools and objects (Duymedjian & Rüling, 2010) as opposed to the structured resource actions of an “engineer” who, when facing challenges or opportunities, acquires relevant resources to develop solutions (Bhidé & Stevenson, 1999), using institutionally acceptable resources and designs.
The careful distinction between the actions of the bricoleur and engineer is necessary to counter the tendency to apply a bricolage label to all seemingly ingenious resource actions, or resource actions that occur in penurious environments. If researchers identify all actions as bricolage, (perhaps as a consequence of it being an “up and coming” theory that only recently has been studied in entrepreneurship, e.g. Brush et al., 2006; Cunha et al., 2014), it could result in bricolage theory becoming a heterogeneous collection of unique studies with diverse constructs and divergent results. This would limit the coherence and applicability of bricolage theory, weakening its relevance in entrepreneurship.
Bricolage theory suggests engineers (not bricoleurs) acquire resources16 at full costs to apply and/or replicate prior or established designs in response to often routine challenges or opportunities (Desa & Basu, 2013). Engineer typologies do not align well with the sub dimensions of bricolage of Baker and Nelson (2005) in this
16
This also aligns with traditional resource seeking and acquisition behaviours in strategy (e.g. Miles & Snow, 1978; Sirmon et al., 2011) and RDT theory (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1976).
research: making do, using the resources on hand17, creative recombination attempts and through these actions, novel solutions are applied to challenges and opportunities (Baker, 2007). Distinctions between bricolage and resource actions are carefully assessed in Study III. Specifics on the dimensions are provided in the next section.
2.4 BRICOLAGE DIMENSIONS