Improvising firms: bricolage, account giving and improvisational competencies in the founding process

Baker, Ted; Miner, Anne S.; Eesley, Dale T.

doi:10.1016/s0048-7333(02)00099-9

Cited by 779 publications

(770 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…We follow Baker, Miner and Eesley (2003) in adopting the term network bricolage to describe how founders' immediate professional strong tie network shapes what materials (in terms of information, advice or skills) are readily available and trusted. Desa (2012) highlights the transformative process that occurs during such episodes of bricolage.…”

Section: Social Resourcing In New Venturesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Desa (2012) highlights the transformative process that occurs during such episodes of bricolage. Thus, this literature suggests that nascent entrepreneurs are likely to engage in a certain amount of bricolage or creative (re)combination of the strong ties at their disposal, the outcome of which will be unique to them, but which may also not be fully pre-planned (Baker et al, 2003;Johannisson, 2011). To shed further detail on this process of network bricolage, we ask:…”

Section: Social Resourcing In New Venturesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In keeping with the literature on network bricolage (Baker et al, 2003), we have conceptualized strong ties as social resources at hand. Our case account has demonstrated that throughout Levodex's journey such social resources at hand were drawn upon heavily and often creatively in helping the budding entrepreneurs engage in new patterns of practice and expedite the commercialization process.…”

Section: How Do Entrepreneurs Mobilize and Creatively Combine Social mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Riding the Practice Waves: Social Resourcing Practices during New Venture Development

Keating¹,

Geiger²,

McLoughlin³

2014

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice

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This paper investigates how early venture entrepreneurs engage in socially embedded practices to resource their firm. We contribute to an emerging literature that calls for a shift in perspective from 'resource' as an object to 'resourcing' as a practice. This shift entails a focus away from whom entrepreneurs know toward how they engage with their venture's social contexts. Through the analysis of an in-depth longitudinal case study of a life-science venture, we show that social resourcing practices are more reminiscent of a creative coping with ambiguous and ever-changing environments over time than of 'heroic' strategizing. We explore how entrepreneurs mobilize and creatively combine their social resources at hand, seek resources through engaging with other practice nets, negotiate differences between practice nets, and reflectively adapt their resourcing practices toward emerging resource contexts in ways that we describe as 'riding the practice waves' of social resourcing.

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Section: Social Resourcing In New Venturesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Social Resourcing In New Venturesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: How Do Entrepreneurs Mobilize and Creatively Combine Social mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Riding the Practice Waves: Social Resourcing Practices during New Venture Development

Keating¹,

Geiger²,

McLoughlin³

2014

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice

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“…Researchers have demonstrated that entrepreneurs utilize network resources heavily (Aldrich & Zimmer, 1986;Birley, 1985;Jones et al, 2013b;Mattson, 1997;Ostgaard & Birley, 1996;Vasilchenko & Morrish, 2011). Whereas networking and resource leveraging implies that the founders of an organization pursue resources from previously unknown people, network bricolage involves already known contacts of the entrepreneur (Baker et al, 2003). …”

Section: Network Bricolagementioning

confidence: 99%

Bricolage in the marketing efforts of a social enterprise

Kannampuzha

Suoranta

2016

JRME

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Structured AbstractPurpose -The article aims to understand how resource constraints are addressed in the development of a marketing strategy by a social enterprise.Methodology -The authors have used an in-depth case study of collaboration between a Finnish university and an Indian social enterprise as the methodology for our research in which the data were collected over a period of two years. The data involve semi-structured interviews, field notes and student reports.Findings -The authors propose bricolage as a method of marketing ingenuity in resource-constrained social enterprises. Network bricolage and entrepreneurship education bricolage were identified as two mechanisms adopted to address resource constraints in the early stage of the development of a social enterprise.Research limitations/ implications -Network bricolage is a type of bricolage in which an entrepreneur utilizes existing personal and professional networks as a resource at hand. Whereas networking and resource leveraging imply that the founders of an organization pursue resources from previously unknown people, network bricolage involves already known contacts of the entrepreneur. Further studies need to be conducted to test the applicability of network bricolage among a variety of small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups. Bricolage could be explored in more detail as an alternative to resource leveraging to understand the marketing activities of social businesses in their initial stages.Practical implications -Another type of bricolage that the authors observed was entrepreneurship education bricolage. A combination of students, business mentors and university resources such as faculty members was utilized as an ingenuity mechanism to develop creative solutions for a shortage of marketing resources.Originality/value -The theoretical framework of entrepreneurial bricolage is applied in the context of the marketing of a social enterprise.

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“…Firm owners bootstrap critical resources through a variety of methods, including business alliances (Freear, Sohl, and Wetzel 1995;Hung 2006), personal sources (Ebben and Johnson 2006), and social networks (Baker, Miner, and Eesley 2003;Heuven and Groen 2012;Jonsson and Lindbergh 2013). The latter are particularly important for resourcing new ventures (Jones and Jayawarna 2010), although past entrepreneurial experience does not have a significant impact (Grichnik et al 2014).…”

Section: Resourcing High-technology Start-upsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeding the cloud: financial bootstrapping in the computer software sector

Bhaird

Lynn

2015

Venture Capital

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Seeding the cloud: Financial bootstrapping in the computer software sector.This study investigates resourcing of computer software companies that have adopted cloud computing for the development and delivery of application software. Use of this innovative technology potentially impacts firm financing because the initial infrastructure investment requirement is much lower than for packaged software, lead time to market is shorter, and cloud computing supports instant scalability. We test these predictions by conducting in-depth interviews with founders of 18 independently owned nascent enterprises, of which three quarters have adopted cloud computing. We identify particular bootstrapping methods used by start-ups in the computer software sector. Cloud computing enables firms to develop and launch products with minimal resources, reducing barriers to entry, with consequent increased competition. The primary business bootstrapping technique is foregoing wages, supplemented by small amounts of grant funding. Customers are a source of knowledge and expertise for product development, which occurs in an iterative process. Product bootstrapping techniques have changed in response to technological innovation, although methods to acquire tangible assets are identical over time. Astutely applied, financial bootstrapping is a resource management strategy essential to the growth and survival of high technology firms.Keywords: software industry; bootstrapping; cloud computing; social networks; private equity; business angels; disruptive innovation IntroductionHigh technology based firms are an important source of employment creation, economic growth and technological innovation (Colombo et al. 2010;Freear, Sohl, and Wetzel 2002;North, Baldock, and Ullah 2013;Rasmussen and Sørheim 2012). Central to the development of a high technology small firm sector is a considerable level of start-up activity and new firm formation. A barrier to this expansion, however, is the ability of firm founders to acquire adequate finance for their nascent ventures (Basu and Parker 2001;North, Baldock, and Ekanem 2010). This is particularly evident for introduction of technological innovation for new firms in the computer software sector.We contextualise our findings in relation to the literature by comparing bootstrapping techniques used by firms in our sample with those used by computer software firms studied by Wetzel (1995), andGirling (2004).We address the dearth in the literature identified by Grichnik et al. (2014) Resourcing implications for software firms adopting cloud computingCloud computing refers to applications delivered as services over the internet, and the hardware and systems software in datacentres that provide those services (Armbrust et al. 2009). Thus, cloud computing may be conceptualised as a combination of three layers of abstraction: software-as-a-service (SaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) (Weinhardt et al, 2009, Vaquero et al, 2008. The first layer is the focus of our study, and ...

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Improvising firms: bricolage, account giving and improvisational competencies in the founding process

Cited by 779 publications

References 48 publications

Riding the Practice Waves: Social Resourcing Practices during New Venture Development

Riding the Practice Waves: Social Resourcing Practices during New Venture Development

Bricolage in the marketing efforts of a social enterprise

Seeding the cloud: financial bootstrapping in the computer software sector

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