Bricolage and the Entrepreneurial Process in Times of Crisis: Insights from New Ventures in an Emerging Economy

How does entrepreneurship flourish in the context of persistent resource scarcity, market imperfections, underdeveloped infrastructure, and institutional gaps? Bricolage has re-emerged in the entrepreneurship literature as an effective form of resource mobilization in resource-constrained environments and during externally-triggered crises. In this paper, we examined whether the use of bricolage among entrepreneurs in each stage of the entrepreneurial process of opportunity discovery, development and exploitation as described in the literature was consistent with the behavior of entrepreneurs in the Philippines during the COVID19 pandemic. We conducted a qualitative analysis 10 new ventures established during the pandemic. We found evidence of bricolage in every stage of the entrepreneurial process of each new venture, showing that bricolage was embedded in the behavior and decision-making of entrepreneurs throughout the process. Our finding have implications for policymakers aiming to support entrepreneurship in emerging economies.