Effectuation and Bricolage and their Applicability to Sub-Saharan African Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Traditional, Western approaches to entrepreneurship do not adequately capture what is occurring in the sub-Saharan African context. This paper reviews the extent to which specific alternative theoretical perspectives of entrepreneurship are present/applicable in/to sub-Saharan Africa. Over the past two decades, more established economics-based views of entrepreneurial behavior have been supplemented with alternative theoretical approaches to scholarship in the entrepreneurship field; including effectuation and entrepreneurial bricolage. This chapter reviews these literatures with a view to what is occurring and applicable in/to the sub-Saharan African environment. There is increasing evidence of effectuation and bricolage in the activities of entrepreneurial actors in resource-constrained environments such as much of sub-Saharan Africa. Emphasizing affordable loss as opposed to expected returns; exploiting networks and social capital through collaboration rather than obsessing over competitive analysis; leveraging contingencies rather than exploiting pre-existing intellectual capital; and adapting to an unpredictable future rather than forecasting an uncertain one, effectuation and bricolage appear to be relevant and exploited entrepreneurial approaches in much of Africa.