Time to get your hands dirty: Bricolage or pro-organizational unethical response to entrepreneurial adversity

Abstract

As the business landscape escalates the level of uncertainty and thus profoundly disrupts entrepreneurship, it is crucial to understand risk-taking as a coping strategy for entrepreneurs with limited resources. Past studies have been fragmented: Some researchers have focused on creative risk-taking, whereas others have looked at unethical risk-taking. Little is known about how and when entrepreneurs respond to adversity in either a creative or an expedient manner. We posit that entrepreneurs respond to adversity by using either entrepreneurial bricolage behavior (EBB) or unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB). Drawing from the emotivational account, we develop each theoretical model of bricolage and UPB to better understand how entrepreneurs’ emotional states play a critical role in their reactions to adversity. We theorize that, and test whether, entrepreneurial adversity is positively related to EBB and increase in EBB over time through increased interest when trait resilience is high. Also, we conceptualize and examine whether entrepreneurial adversity is positively related to UPB and increase in UPB over time through increased anger when trait resilience is low. We conducted a five-month longitudinal study of 100 entrepreneurs (482 observations). Our findings largely corroborated the hypotheses. Our study advances our understanding of entrepreneurs’ risk-taking by showing when and how they respond creatively or unethically.