Article: How women entrepreneurs manage the digitalisation of their business initiating a dialogue between the entrepreneurship as practice approach and the theory of bricolage Journal: International Journal of Technology Management (IJTM) 2021 Vol.87 No.1 pp.78 - 104 Abstract: The paper seeks to explain through the prism of bricolage and practices how women make their businesses digital. The analysis of three extreme cases from the mentoring industry through two theoretical prisms - the theory of bricolage and entrepreneurship as practice - reveals that women who 'bricole' while making their business digital are mostly those who are not embedded in masculine norms of entrepreneurship. We note the signs of bricolage cognition during the digitalisation. The data allow us to establish a hypothesis according to which bricolage cognition might be gendered. We also note that the choice of a familiarity-based or conventional bricolage as expressed in the three cases are mostly achieved via practices of networking, and by the social beliefs women have inherited during past experience or from their exchanges with peers. This article provides a first dialogue between the emerging literature on EAP (entrepreneurship as practice) and the theory of bricolage. Inderscience Publishers - linking academia, business and industry through research

Title: How women entrepreneurs manage the digitalisation of their business initiating a dialogue between the entrepreneurship as practice approach and the theory of bricolage

Authors: Séverine Le Loarne Lemaire; Gaël Bertrand; Adnane Maalaoui; Sascha Kraus; Paul Jones

Addresses: Grenoble Ecole de Management, 12, Rue Pierre Sémart, 38000 Grenoble, France ' ESSCA, 350, Avenue du Club Hippique, 13090 Aix-En-Provence, France ' IPAG Business School, 184, Boulevard Saint-Germain, 75006 Paris, France ' Faculty of Economics and Management, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Piazza Università 1, 39100 Bolzano, Italy ' Swansea University, Singleton Park, Sketty, Swansea SA2 8PP, UK

Abstract: The paper seeks to explain through the prism of bricolage and practices how women make their businesses digital. The analysis of three extreme cases from the mentoring industry through two theoretical prisms - the theory of bricolage and entrepreneurship as practice - reveals that women who 'bricole' while making their business digital are mostly those who are not embedded in masculine norms of entrepreneurship. We note the signs of bricolage cognition during the digitalisation. The data allow us to establish a hypothesis according to which bricolage cognition might be gendered. We also note that the choice of a familiarity-based or conventional bricolage as expressed in the three cases are mostly achieved via practices of networking, and by the social beliefs women have inherited during past experience or from their exchanges with peers. This article provides a first dialogue between the emerging literature on EAP (entrepreneurship as practice) and the theory of bricolage.

Keywords: digitalisation; entrepreneurship as practice; EAP; bricolage; gender.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTM.2021.118890

International Journal of Technology Management, 2021 Vol.87 No.1, pp.78 - 104

Received: 02 Jul 2020
Accepted: 20 Apr 2021
Published online: 09 Nov 2021 *

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Title: How women entrepreneurs manage the digitalisation of their business initiating a dialogue between the entrepreneurship as practice approach and the theory of bricolage

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