Researching bricolage in social entrepreneurship

This paper introduces the special issue of Entrepreneurship and Regional Development on bricolage in social entrepreneurship. We anchor this special issue at the heart of an emerging body of research indicating that bricolage is the most appropriate approach to consider social firms operating in an environment characterized by institutional constraints or weak regulatory or political support (Di Domenico, Haugh, and Tracey 2010 Di Domenico, M., H. Haugh, and P. Tracey. 2010. “Social Bricolage: Theorizing Social Value Creation in Social Enterprises.” Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 34: 681–703.10.1111/etap.2010.34.issue-4Crossref, Web of Science ® , Google Scholar; Gundry et al. 2011 Gundry, L. K., J. R. Kickul, M. D. Griffiths, and S. C. Bacq. 2011. “Entrepreneurial Bricolage and Innovation Ecology: Precursors to Social Innovation?” Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research 31 (19): 3. Google Scholar). We describe both social entrepreneurship and bricolage. We then identify what closely links these notions. We conduct a literature review of the articles written on the nascent and growing research area at the intersection of social entrepreneurship and bricolage. We finally provide a brief overview of the contributions of each of the papers of this special issue and conclude by outlining a research agenda for future activities in this area of inquiry.