Institutional Voids, Bricolage, and Organisational Resilience: A Comparative Study of Social Enterprises in North East Nigeria

This study examines the relationship between institutional voids, organisational bricolage, and resilience in social enterprises operating in North East Nigeria, encompassing Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states, where conflict-driven institutional fragility creates extreme resource constraints and governance vacuums. Social enterprises in this region represent a theoretically generative context for developing institutionally-sensitive theories of resource-constrained resilience, yet remain entirely absent from the management literature. Employing a comparative qualitative case study methodology, this research investigates fourteen social enterprises through in-depth interviews with 86 founders, staff, beneficiaries, and community leaders, supplemented by ethnographic observation and document analysis. Through cross-case analysis, the study identifies four bricolage mechanisms including physical resource recombination, network asset mobilisation, narrative legitimacy construction, and institutional role improvisation through which social enterprises build organisational resilience under conditions of severe institutional void. An original theoretical model of bricolage-enabled resilience is generated, distinguishing adaptive resilience enabling continued operations from transformative resilience enabling institutional role expansion. The study makes substantive theoretical contributions by extending bricolage theory and institutional void literature into the conflict-affected African enterprise context, and generates a novel institutional bricolage typology applicable to post-conflict development management research. Policy implications for humanitarian organisations, development funders, and state reconstruction agencies are articulated. Keywords: institutional voids, organisational bricolage, resilience, social enterprises, North East Nigeria.