Family bricolage in family-managed agribusinesses

Purpose This study explores bricolage in mature, multigenerational family-managed agribusinesses and develops family bricolage to explain how family managers reproduce, regulate or reject inherited ways of making do. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a qualitative, abductive design based on 42 interviews with 29 participants from 26 family-managed agribusinesses, and one with a farming support organisation, in England, analysed iteratively alongside secondary evidence. Findings Family bricolage is a family-embedded process in which accumulated stories, knowledge, experience and intergenerational relationships shape how family managers recognize, mobilize and recombine resources at hand. It comprises family symbolic resources, family resourcefulness and family tinkering. Senior members regulate successors' tinkering, and negative cases show that inherited bricolage may be rejected when it inhibits renewal or professionalization. Research limitations/implications The context-specific findings are not statistically generalizable. Future research should compare industries and resource conditions and develop and validate measures of the three dimensions. Practical implications Family managers can use narratives, tacit knowledge and existing resources to address constraints, but should reassess inherited practices when self-reliance discourages external expertise or tinkering consumes resources without producing dependable, scalable solutions. Succession offers a natural point for this reassessment. Social implications Family bricolage may support continuity and adaptation in resource-constrained rural settings while enabling successors to reconsider inherited practices that inhibit renewal. Originality/value The study challenges the view that firms outgrow bricolage by showing how it is reproduced, regulated or rejected across generations in mature family firms. Family bricolage is conceptualized as an enabling and constraining process rather than a uniformly beneficial resource.