Bricolage Strategy and SME Performance: The Paradoxical Role of Organizational Ambidexterity and Entrepreneurial Leadership

Galina Shirokova (), Arsenii Bystrov () and Anna Tyutneva
Additional contact information
Galina Shirokova: St Petersburg School of Economics and Management, HSE University
Arsenii Bystrov: St Petersburg School of Economics and Management, HSE University
Anna Tyutneva: St Petersburg School of Economics and Management, HSE University

Foresight and STI Governance, 2026, vol. 20, issue 2

Abstract: Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operate under conditions of chronic resource constraints, which makes it important to study strategies capable of transforming available resources into sustainable financial outcomes. One such strategy is entrepreneurial bricolage - the unconventional recombination of existing resources to address organizational challenges. This article examines the impact of bricolage on SME performance, evaluates the mediating role of organizational ambidexterity, and investigates the moderating effect of entrepreneurial leadership. The empirical basis consists of data from a large-scale survey of Russian SMEs combined with objective financial indicators; the model was estimated using the PROCESS macro (Models 4 and 14), controlling for firm characteristics, industry environment, and managerial profiles. The empirical analysis confirms that bricolage has a significant positive effect on SME performance and fosters the development of organizational ambidexterity. At the same time, ambidexterity negatively affects firm performance, which paradoxically results in an indirect negative effect. Entrepreneurial leadership moderates this relationship, and its high level mitigates the adverse impact of ambidexterity. The findings show that in the absence of strong leadership, ambidexterity may reduce the effectiveness of resource-constrained firms. The results contribute to entrepreneurship theory and offer practical implications for SMEs seeking innovation-driven growth.

Keywords: entrepreneurial bricolage; SME performance; organizational ambidexterity; entrepreneurial leadership (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L1 L26 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://foresight-journal.hse.ru/article/view/31636
https://foresight-journal.hse.ru/article/view/31636/28495 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hig:fsight:v:20:y:2026:i:2:31636

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Foresight and STI Governance from National Research University Higher School of Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Nataliya Gavrilicheva () and Mikhail Salazkin ().