It’s right nearby: how entrepreneurs use spatial bricolage to overcome resource constraints

ABSTRACT

The mobilization of resources is an essential challenge for entrepreneurs. Existing research suggests that access to standard and high-quality resources is an important condition for entrepreneurial success, yet such resources are often out of reach for entrepreneurs. In this study, we explore entrepreneurial resource mobilization in resource-constrained peripheral locations. We identify three activities together constituting an underlying logic of spatial bricolage, defined as making do with the resources at hand in the immediate spatial context. Further, we suggest that the likelihood and prevalence of this logic of action is both situational and dispositional, as individual and contextual factors combine to generate important differences in the resource mobilization activities of the entrepreneurs. Our study contributes to a contextualized understanding of entrepreneurship by showing how spatial bricolage as a distinct logic can help entrepreneurs overcome resource constraints, and how the spatial context incorporates an important dimension of what constitutes ‘at hand’ in entrepreneurial bricolage.

KEYWORDS:

• Entrepreneurship
• resources
• spatial context
• embeddedness
• bricolage

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Another study focusing using the same data material but focusing solely on the micro-level practices of the entrepreneurs has been published previously (see [blinded reference for peer review]) Müller and Korsgaard (20182018).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by Region Midt, Denmark.