Less is More: Role of Entrepreneurial Bricolage on Innovation Self-Efficacy and Innovation Performance in SMEs

Higher rate of failures of SMEs specially during the early stages of their inception is experienced due to the lack of innovations. Resource constraint through out of the SMEs’ supply chain is identified as one of the main reasons. This has led the SME firms to keep innovative ideas within the firm’s boundary without commercializing them as successful products or services. Thus, strengthening the existing supply chain by exploiting resources would be the best pathway to get innovations in SMEs. This concept was theorised as Entrepreneurial Bricolage facilitated by the divergent thinking of entrepreneur, but it has been paid less attention in SME literature. This study attempts to identify the role of Entrepreneurial Bricolage on Innovation Self-Efficacy towards Innovation Performance. Accordingly, the study has developed five hypotheses. The study collected three hundred fifty-two (352) data by deploying a self-administered questionnaire from the SMEs in Sri Lanka. SEM-SmartPLS is used to analyse data.
It was revealed that there is a mediation impact of entrepreneurial bricolage on the relationship between innovation self-efficacy and innovation performance. Therefore, SMEs could exploit more resources to get innovation outcomes. Findings of the study further highlighting the importance of uplifting the SME sector by strengthening the resource in the supply chain and boosting the innovations through resource exploitation.