English Podcast Start at 00:00:00
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Reference
Baker, T., & Nelson, R. E. (2005). Creating Something from Nothing: Resource Construction through Entrepreneurial Bricolage. Administrative Science Quarterly, 50(3), 329-366. https://doi.org/10.2189/asqu.2005.50.3.329
Related AOM Conference Proceedings
TED BAKER and REED E. NELSON, 2003: MAKING DO WITH WHAT'S AT HAND: BRICOLAGE IN TWO CONTEXTS.. Proceedings, 2003, D1–D6, https://doi.org/10.5465/ambpp.2003.13792428
Youtube channel link
https://www.youtube.com/@weekendresearcher
Connect on linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mayukhpsm/
🎙️ Welcome back to “Revise and Resubmit” and to this special episode of “Weekend Classics” — where we dust off the papers that changed how we think, and hold them up to the light like intellectual vinyl records spinning at 33⅓ RPM. 🌈📻
Today’s classic is titled “Creating Something from Nothing: Resource Construction through Entrepreneurial Bricolage” by Ted Baker and Reed E. Nelson, published in Administrative Science Quarterly, a top-tier FT50 journal from the Johnson Graduate School at Cornell and SAGE Publications, way back in September 2005, Volume 50, Issue 3.
This is a story about 29 scrappy, resource-constrained firms that looked at the same harsh environment as everyone else… and somehow heard music where others heard noise. Instead of waiting for perfect investors, pristine tools, or textbook conditions, these entrepreneurs practiced what Claude Lévi-Strauss called bricolage — “making do” with whatever is at hand and recombining it into something startlingly new.
In this episode, we explore how:
Firms “create something from nothing” by exploiting physical, social, and institutional inputs that other companies reject or ignore.
Resources are not fixed objects but socially constructed, meaning your “constraints” may just be someone else’s unquestioned assumptions.
Some entrepreneurs live in parallel bricolage, constantly hacking and patching everything, while others use selective bricolage as a strategic booster rocket toward more standardized, professional markets.
So, if you’ve ever stared at your empty bank account, your tiny network, your “nothing-special” skills and thought, “I don’t have enough to start” — this paper gently, and firmly, says: maybe you’re looking at your environment the wrong way. Maybe the real entrepreneurial alertness is not just spotting shiny new opportunities out there, but seeing hidden value in the junk pile everyone else walks past.
Before we dive in, smash that ⭐ and ❤️ wherever you’re listening —
Subscribe to “Revise and Resubmit” on Spotify, Amazon Prime, and Apple Podcast so you never miss a classic.
And hop over to YouTube and subscribe to “Weekend Researcher” for deep-dive videos, breakdowns, and behind-the-mic nerdiness.
Huge thanks to the authors Ted Baker and Reed E. Nelson for giving us this timeless framework for turning scarcity into a playground.
So tonight, as we unpack entrepreneurial bricolage — firms that refuse to accept the limits of their resource environments, and founders who build identities out of scraps and leftovers — ask yourself:
👉 If your constraints are partly a social construction, then what “nothing” in your world is quietly waiting to become your next “something”? 💡✨
