Adopting Bricolage for Overcoming Resource Constraints: Case of Social Enterprises in Emerging Market

Social enterprises (SEs) primarily aim to create social value i.e. generate benefits or reduce costs for society, while maintaining financial sustainability. Extant research shows that SEs need the same set of resources as required by their commercial counterparts. However, owing to their unique operating condition and organizational characteristics, SEs face severe resource challenges. These resource challenges are further exacerbated for SEs operating in emerging economy. Overcoming these resource constraints is vital for SEs in order to address their mission. In this paper, we show that SEs facing resource constraint environment adopts bricolage process to mobilize required resources. Through inductive multiple case study approach we identified eight different sub-processes of bricolage, which were further aggregated in to three bricolage process namely- Accessing, Organizing, Enacting. In doing so, we contribute to the social entrepreneurship literature as well as entrepreneurial bricolage literature. Our study has important implications for future research and practice.