Bricolage and beyond: Bringing modern entrepreneurship theories to bear on policy entrepreneurship

Abstract Who makes policy change happen, and how? Public policy scholars now take more seriously the role of agency in the policy process, and in particular the role of policy entrepreneurship, a contested term built mostly from classical, economic conceptions of entrepreneurship from the mid‐20th century. In this study, we introduce policy scholars to modern theories of entrepreneurship from sociology and management scholarship, including cultural entrepreneurship, effectuation, bricolage, and entrepreneurial assembly. We show that theories connect more easily with major theories of the policy process more easily than classical theories do and argue policy scholars should make room for multiple policy entrepreneurship archetypes. We also give three examples—organizational imprinting, the small firm effect, and survivorship bias—of the readymade research agenda modern entrepreneurship theories offer to policy entrepreneurship scholars. Finally, we show how these theories help policy scholars build bridges to other political science subfields.