The antecedents of entrepreneurial action: A meta-synthesis on effectuation and bricolage

Abstract

The literature on entrepreneurship has seen a rising interest in two types of entrepreneurial action: effectuation and bricolage. Given the inconclusiveness of contextual antecedents and individual attributes for both concepts, we conduct a meta-synthesis—an evidence-based method—on these two modes of entrepreneurial action. Our study gathers evidence on the contextual antecedents and entrepreneurs’ individual attributes found in empirical work in two bodies of literature. We contribute to current theorizing by categorizing which contextual antecedents and individual attributes emerged from practice and by explaining how they relate to actions of effectuation and bricolage, thus broadening our understanding of the issues of how they relate to entrepreneurial activity.