Social entrepreneurs grow their enterprises while making do with what is at hand, which is the core principle of social bricolage. However, the extent to which social entrepreneurs enact social bricolage at different stages and how social bricolage is practiced in day-to-day operations in unexplored emerging economies have received little examination. Based on a thematic analysis of 19 interviews with social entrepreneurs in Kenya and Rwanda, we identified four types of social bricoleurs (i.e. social entrepreneurs who practice social bricolage): bootstrappers, hometown heroes, barrier breakers, and impact influencers. Each type reflects a social entrepreneurial stage, in which the dimensions of social bricolage are combined in different ways. Making do for social ends and social value creation are dominant for bootstrappers and hometown heroes. However, barrier breakers and impact influencers increasingly exercise refusal to be constrained, stakeholder participation, improvisation, and persuasion. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of social bricolage as a variable concept, thereby further refining social bricolage in social entrepreneurs’ daily operations across various stages and contexts of social enterprises.
