Bricolage and Identity Work
| Date | 01 April 2018 |
| Published date | 01 April 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12220 |
British Journal of Management, Vol. 29, 356–372 (2018)
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12220
Bricolage and Identity Work
Klaasjan Visscher,1Stefan Heusinkveld2and Joe O’Mahoney3
1Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE
Enschede, The Netherlands, 2Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, VU UniversityAmsterdam,
de Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and 3Cardi Business School, Colum Drive,
Cardi CF10 3EU, UK
Corresponding author email: k.visscher@utwente.nl
L´
evi-Strauss’ concept of bricolage has been used widely in a variety of management and
organizational studies to highlight creative ‘situational tinkering’. Yet, we know little
about ‘the bricoleur’ beyond the assumption of a functional agent responding to condi-
tions of resource scarcity or environmentalcomplexity. As such, studies oer limited pos-
sibilities in explaining the occurrence of bricolage in the absence of external demands, or
much about who the bricoleur is. Drawing on 136 in-depth interviews with management
consultants, this study argues for a richer understanding of bricolage by exploring the
identity of the bricoleur. In doing so, the paper achievesthree outcomes. First, it uses the
original symbolic and cultural insights of bricolage made by L´
evi-Strauss to detail how
bricoleur identities are constructed; Second, it highlights how dierent organizational
strategies enable and constrain the pursuit of bricoleur identities; Finally, it emphasizes
the bricoleur’s status as primarily an aspirational elite identity in the context of consul-
tancy work, in contrast to its usual treatment as a ‘low status’ activity.
Introduction
Introduced by L´
evi-Strauss (1966) to conceptu-
alize the mode of thought of indigenous people,
‘bricolage’ has gained popularity as a common
trope in a wide variety of fields within management
and organization studies (Perkmann and Spicer,
2014). Generally conceptualized as situational
tinkering, ‘making do’ and recombining available
materials in a creative manner (Baker, Miner and
Eesley, 2003; Weick, 1993), bricolage has been
used to characterize and understand processes
of organizational design (Perkmann and Spicer,
2014; Weick, 1993), entrepreneurship (Baker,
Miner and Eesley, 2003; Fisher, 2012), innovation
(Garud and Karnøe, 2003; Halme, Lindeman and
Linna, 2012) and, more generally, as a way of
acting and creating knowledge in organizations
(Boxenbaum and Rouleau, 2011; Duymedjian and
R¨
uling, 2010). Bricolage is often contrasted with
the more rational problem-solving approaches of
the scientifically trained ‘ing´
enieur’ (or ‘engineer’)
who typically uses systematic and standardized
methods and resources (L´
evi-Strauss, 1966). In
the management and organizational literature,
bricolage is commonly depicted as a rational re-
sponse to environmental constraints, in particular
resource scarcity (Baker and Nelson, 2005; Halme,
Lindeman and Linna, 2012) and surprise (Bechky
and Okhuysen, 2011; Clegg and Kamoche, 2006).
It is presented as an approach,or a managerial tool
(Senyard et al., 2014), to solve problems, design,
or innovate in penurious or uncertain contexts.
While prior studies have advanced understand-
ing about bricolage in organizational settings as
employed to deal with various forms of resource
scarcity, we still know little about how bricoleurs
present themselves and justify their work beyond
references to the eectiveness of bricolage as a
problem-solving approach. This relative absence
is remarkable, given that in L´
evi-Strauss’ foun-
dational work, bricolage is not considered a tool
one can choose to use on the spot. Rather, it is a
‘regime of action’, which implies a specific way of
viewing and collecting resources, and developing
intimacy with them over a long period of time.
© 2017 British Academy of Management. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4
2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA, 02148, USA.
Bricolage and Identity Work 357
As a consequence, this way of thinking and acting
grows into a constituting part of the self-identity
of practitioners (Baker and Nelson, 2005; Stinch-
field, Nelson and Wood, 2013): ‘the practice of
bricolage contributes to the bricoleur’s identity’
(Duymedjian and R¨
uling, 2010, p. 140). This
would imply that bricoleurs do not necessarily
engage in bricolage because they see it as is an ef-
fective response to environmental conditions, but
because they consider, and present themselves as
‘bricoleurs’.
Despite the growing research on bricolage,
literature on bricoleur identities in organizational
settings remains limited. While a handful of
papers have made a link between identity and
bricolage, none has examined this link directly
or explored how and why such an identity might
emerge. Baker and Nelson (2005) emphasize
bricolage as an organizational identity, but do not
focus on the implications of this for individual
bricoleurs. Stinchfield, Nelson and Wood (2013)
identify bricolage as one among many behaviours
related to entrepreneurial challenges,one of which
includes ‘identity’. However, their treatment of
this conjunction is brief. Duymedjian and R¨
uling
(2010) also hint at the role of bricolage beyond its
functionality or utility, and argue that bricolage
is generally seen as a lower-status form of work,
which is often concealed and, therefore, incompat-
ible with strong professional identities. However,
their paper does not explore further how or why
bricolage relates to identity. Conversely, Rao,
Monin and Durand (2003) identify bricolage-type
behaviours in the production of elite identities
within an environment of institutional change, but
do not elaborate on bricolage specifically.
In contrast to most studies of bricolage, these
texts hint at the potential of engaging bricolage
with the identity literature by framing the concept
as more than a rational or functional response to
environmental constraints. However, these papers
tend to focus on the eects of a bricolage iden-
tity on organizations, or tend to leave the link be-
tween identity and organization inadequately ex-
plored. Therefore, our central research question is:
how and why are bricoleur identities constructed
by practitioners? We suggest that a deeper and
more nuanced understanding of howbricoleurs see
themselves and their work is important because it
might not only help to develop our conceptual-
ization of why and how bricolage occurs, but also
shed further light on the organizational enablers
and constraints of this work, and the social status
of those who engage in bricolage.
We examine the question above using an ‘iden-
tity work’ perspective (Brown, 2015; Snow and
Anderson, 1987), which focuses on the processes
by which individuals work towards claiming par-
ticular types of identities. We explore identity
work in the context of management consultancy,
a field that is not only made up of a variety of
ways of workingand organizational strategies (e.g.
Hansen, Nohria and Tierney, 1999) that ‘disci-
pline’ individual identity formation, but also pos-
sesses practitioners who seek to form distinctive
and legitimate professional identities (Alvesson
and Robertson, 2006; Harvey, Morris and Santos,
2017). Drawing on in-depth interviews with 136
management consultants from 50 dierent firms,
we find that in elite (‘personalized’) firms, brico-
lage is not only considered an eective response to
environmental constraints, but typically represents
a prestigious identity that many practitioners pur-
sue. We find that this pursuit becomes apparent in
processes of ‘embracing’, ‘distancing’ and ‘fictive
storytelling’ (Snow and Anderson, 1987). Interest-
ingly, while we find that the bricoleur identity is
encouraged in personalized firms, tokens of brico-
lage also occur in ‘codified’ consulting firms where
the dominant corporate strategy actively discour-
ages such behaviours. This allows us to question
the assumption in much of the extant literature
that bricolage is a functional or rational response
to environmental or organizational demands.
Our findings contribute to prior literature in
at least three ways. First, we enrich the concept
of bricolage by going back to L´
evi-Strauss’ more
holistic notion, adding a social anchor to the com-
mon view of bricolage as a method or approach.
Our elaboration of identity work contributes to
the understanding of the occurrence of bricolage
in practice beyond discussions about its eec-
tiveness. Second, it highlights the pivotal role of
dierent organizational conditions and how these
may enable and constrain the pursuit of bricoleur
identities. Finally, it emphasizes the significance of
considering the bricoleur as an aspirational elite
identity, in contrast toits usual treatment as a ‘low
status’ activity.
The paper is structured as follows. We first in-
troduce and critically reviewthe concepts of brico-
lage and identity work and further explain why
the consulting industry is a useful context for our
study. We then detail the methods used to generate
© 2017 British Academy of Management.
To continue reading
Request your trial