Doctoral Thesis Defense of Mario Andrés Manzi Puertas

On Friday, September 26, doctoral candidate Mario Andrés Manzi Puertas successfully defended his PhD dissertation online, titled:

 

“Resource constraints as an opportunity for student innovation and entrepreneurial action: Exploring resourceful and innovative cognitive and behavioral mechanisms.”

 

The dissertation, supervised by Dr. Sain Milena López Pérez and Dr. Izaskun Agirre Aramburu, was awarded the distinction of Summa Cum Laude with International Mention.

 

 

 

This thesis investigates how entrepreneurial students overcome resource constraints, examining the cognitive and behavioral mechanisms that enable them to extract value from limited resources, foster innovative behavior, and carry out entrepreneurial actions. Through three interconnected studies, this thesis integrates multiple theoretical perspectives, including Social Cognitive Theory of Self-Regulation (SCT-SR), Resource-Based View (RBV), Entrepreneurial Learning Theory (ELT), and Effectuation Theory, using advanced methodological approaches such as Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and Necessary Conditions Analysis (NCA).

 

The research is situated in the context of university programs that combine academic learning with the creation of real companies, such as the LEINN (Leadership, Entrepreneurship and Innovation) degree at Mondragon Unibertsitatea in Spain, and the Team Entrepreneurship program at the University of the West of England in the United Kingdom, both part of the international Team Academy network. These contexts allow the observation of student entrepreneurship in real-world environments, where resource limitations for launching and developing projects are explicit and consequential, and where teamwork and experiential learning predominate.

 

Study 1 employs SCT-SR to investigate how frugality—a cognitive trait associated with conservation and moderate resource use—affects the innovative behavior of 151 entrepreneurial students in Spain. The PLS-SEM analysis reveals that frugality does not directly influence innovative behavior but rather operates indirectly through the total mediation of entrepreneurial bricolage, highlighting the behavioral path through which frugality leads to innovative behavior. The NCA indicates that both entrepreneurial bricolage and improvisation are necessary conditions for innovative behavior to emerge; however, entrepreneurial bricolage stands out as the main driver. Taken together, these findings offer a nuanced understanding of entrepreneurial resourcefulness by clarifying the mediating and necessary roles of individual behaviors in converting frugality into innovative behaviour.

 

Study 2 integrates the individual-level perspectives of RBV and ELT to examine the dynamics between recursive behaviors (entrepreneurial bricolage, financial bootstrapping, and improvisation) and innovative behavior during the development and exploitation phases in 298 entrepreneurial students in Spain (151 in the development stage and 147 in the exploitation stage). The findings reveal that financial bootstrapping directly influences innovative behavior in both stages, while entrepreneurial bricolage acts as a partial mediator of this relationship. Importantly, innovative behavior remains stable across stages, challenging assumptions about differences in innovation requirements depending on the entrepreneurial phase. Contrary to theoretical expectations, improvisation does not moderate the relationship between financial bootstrapping, entrepreneurial bricolage, and innovative behavior in either stage, suggesting a limited contextual influence. This study demonstrates that resource integration capabilities through entrepreneurial bricolage are equally crucial throughout the entrepreneurial process, with consistent mediating effects in both phases.

 

Study 3 draws on effectuation theory to investigate how innovative behavior enables the transformation of entrepreneurial bricolage into concrete entrepreneurial action in a sample of 101 entrepreneurial students in the United Kingdom. The results show that entrepreneurial tinkering positively influences both discovery and exploitation activities, but these relationships operate exclusively through innovative behavior as a total mediator. Contrary to traditional assumptions about direct relationships between resources and action, the study demonstrates that innovative behavior is the essential mechanism through which resourceful practices translate into concrete results. The study also reveals specific behavioral dimensions (questioning, observing, experimenting, and networking) as the routes through which entrepreneurial students convert bricolage into actionable entrepreneurial outcomes.

 

Together, these studies contribute to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying innovation and entrepreneurial action in contexts of resource constraints. This thesis establishes entrepreneurial bricolage as a central driver of innovative behavior, as well as discovery and exploitation activities. It challenges conventional assumptions about direct relationships between cognitive traits and outcomes, and reveals the gradual nature of the conditions necessary for student entrepreneurship. The findings offer valuable implications for student entrepreneurs, educators, and support institutions and programs, suggesting a shift in focus from the provision of resources to the development of capabilities. Methodologically, the thesis demonstrates the complementary value of sufficiency- and need-based approaches, thus contributing to methodological advancement in entrepreneurship research.

 

In practical terms, this thesis offers relevant implications for student entrepreneurs, educators, and program designers. Its findings show that it is not essential to start with abundant resources, but rather to develop the capabilities to act with what is available. Thus, it proposes a shift in focus: from the external provision of resources toward the internal development of capabilities such as frugality, recursive behaviors, and innovative behavior.