Entrepreneurs using institutional bricolage to navigate institutional challenges: a study of Kyrgyzstan’s transition context

This paper investigates how entrepreneurs navigate and address institutional challenges in a transition economy context, crucially examining whether the entrepreneur–institution relationship is uni- or bi-directional. Drawing on 70 interviews undertaken among Kyrgyzstan’s garment and textiles entrepreneurs and industry and policy experts, this longitudinal study finds evidence of a bi-directional relationship and of concurrently evolving formal and informal institutional change influenced by entrepreneurs. The observed ‘two-way’ relationship enriches theoretical debate on the uni versus bi-directional nature of the entrepreneurs–institutions relationship, reinforcing the view that entrepreneurs show agency not only in an adaptive sense but also through cobbling together resources at hand to enact institutional change. To better theorize this active channelling of agency within institutional structures or how entrepreneurs reconfigure available resources to influence institutional structures in constrained transition contexts, this paper advances a dynamic model of evolving and bi-directional institutional bricolage processes. We, thus, offer fresh perspectives on micro and meso-level institutional bricolage and entrepreneurship, extending prior focus to macro-level forces. Furthermore, our findings that entrepreneurs exert concurrent, twin-track influence on institutional evolution not only contributes to an important ongoing debate but also advances understanding of how smaller entrepreneurs operate, survive, and drive institutional change in transition contexts.