Reframing Bricolage as a Way of Inhabiting the World: Beyond Scarcity and Innovation with Lévi‐Strauss

Abstract

This paper reframes the concept of bricolage by returning to its foundational roots in Claude Lévi‐Strauss's seminal 1962 work, The Savage Mind . By conducting a systematic review of entrepreneurial bricolage, which represents more than two thirds of management research on bricolage, alongside a close reading of Lévi‐Strauss, we uncover three core divergences regarding contexts, process, and outcomes. Although contemporary literature typically frames bricolage as an innovation‐driven response to resource scarcity, the original anthropological text conceptualized it as an experiential way of inhabiting the world aimed at preserving social structures. To bridge this theoretical gap, we construct a six‐dimensional model of Lévi‐Straussian bricolage that integrates sensory perception, intimate knowledge, perceived abundance, relational composition, mutual help, and system preservation. Returning to the Lévi‐Straussian perspective broadens our understanding of bricolage from a tactical method for resource mobilization to a relational and experiential way of inhabiting the world, emphasizing maintenance, preservation, and creative construction alongside innovation. Finally, our proposed research agenda illustrates how this foundational reframing expands theoretical boundaries for both entrepreneurship and management scholarship, opening new avenues for studying resourcefulness as embodied perception, organizing as relational composition, and entrepreneurial and managerial action as care for resilient and enduring worlds.