Abstract
Bricolage and Effectuation are recognized as two separate, concurrent, and interchangeable methods for non-standard innovations in existing literature. The paper suggests that in a harsh environment, bricolage may be essential for entrepreneurs initiating family enterprises— i.e., small family businesses transition from bricolage to effectuation to develop and expand. The initial propositions in the paper were derived from an in-depth case study of a small firm in Delhi. The propositions were transformed into hypotheses and examined by surveying over 200 family business owners in India's Delhi and Kolkata regions. The survey's findings are consistent with the case study's conclusions. In a harsh resource-constrained environment, family businesses utilize bricolage to establish initial legitimacy before employing effectuation to achieve success. The paper elucidates the hypotheses using the Existence, Relatedness, and Growth Theory (ERG) and Socio-Materiality Theory (SMT).