Abstract: As the main force of China’s social and economic development, the technology-based small and micro enterprises (TBSMEs) play an important role in promoting technological innovation, increasing employment opportunities, and prospering the market economy. However, they have been faced with capital, talents, platforms and other resources, and difficult access to the entrepreneurial resources from the outside in time, therefore, the development of most TBSMEs are not optimistic. However, in recent years, a small number of TBSMEs have implemented different types of innovation activities such as product and service innovation, technological innovation, and organizational model innovation to improve entrepreneurial performance. So, how is the mechanism behind this phenomenon explained?
From a resource perspective, the theory of entrepreneurial bricolage proposed by Baker and Nelson (2005) can make a reasonable explanation. It reveals how entrepreneurs can break through resource bottlenecks in the entrepreneurial process for achieving innovation and growth of new ventures through the creative use or selective bricolage of internal and external resources in a resource-poor environment, which may stem from the entrepreneurial bricolage can utilize and combine of resources that are fragmented, neglected, or even useless andexisting network resources, achieving the resource advantage of“being out of nothing”, thereby taking advantage of new opportunities and responding to new challenges, which can build a sustainable competitive advantage.
Although a large number of studies have shown that entrepreneurial bricolage effectively promotes the improvement of entrepreneurial performance, there are still a few studies that draw inconsistent conclusions: for start-ups in the growth stage, entrepreneurial bricolage has a negative or not obvious impact on entrepreneurial performance; At the same time, as an emerging entrepreneurial theory, the intermediate path of entrepreneurial bricolage into entrepreneurial performance is still unclear, and there is still no in-depth quantitative discussion in the existing literature. However, the entrepreneur’s previous experience plays an important role in the process of entrepreneurial bricolage to promote the improvement of entrepreneurial performance, which remains to be further tested.
As an important part of entrepreneurial human capital, prior experience is the expertise and knowledge accumulated in long-term industry work or entrepreneurship, which are intangible, proprietary, imitation, irreplaceable, etc. In the later entrepreneurial activities, entrepreneurs can effectively identify potential industry risks and entrepreneurial opportunities, and actively respond to many challenges in the entrepreneurial process, thereby greatly improving entrepreneurial performance. However, some scholars have also found that entrepreneurs’ prior experience does not necessarily have a positive effect on entrepreneurial performance, and there may be non-linear relationships or U-type relationships. Therefore, an impact of prior experience on entrepreneurial performance is still worth further exploration.
In summary, based on the view of enterprise resources and human capital, the paper explores and empirically examines the mechanism on entrepreneurial bricolage affecting entrepreneurial performance from the perspectives of prior experience through using the structural equation mode from data investigation of 317 TBSMEs. Empirical analysis and hypothesis verification were carried out: (1) both entrepreneurial bricolage and prior experience take the positive effect on entrepreneurial performance of TBSMEs; (2) entrepreneurial bricolage takes the positive effect on entrepreneurial experience, industrial experience and working experience dimension of entrepreneurial orientation; (3) entrepreneurial experience and industrial experience dimension of prior experience have the mediating effect between entrepreneurial bricolage and entrepreneurial performance, but working experience dimension doesn’t have.
From the perspective of RBV, the growth of TBSMEs refers to entrepreneurs actively carrying out entrepreneurial bricolage activities, to continuously accumulate their prior experience on identifying opportunities, innovating business models and satisfying new customers through the re-creation and re-construction of existing resources, which sustain a unique competitive advantage. Therefore, based on the prior experience, the paper empirically explores the intermediate path of entrepreneurial bricolage transforming into the entrepreneurial performance of TBSMEs, and reveals the mechanism of the entrepreneurial bricolage and prior experience affecting the entrepreneurial performance of TBSMEs. The following conclusions are drawn:
Firstly, in line with the results of the existing research, entrepreneurial bricolage has played an important role in promoting the improvement of entrepreneurial performance of TBSMEs. In fact, for TBSMEs with weak resource endowments, it is a key activity for entrepreneurs to overcome resource dilemmas through the creative use of resources at the expense of external resources. Therefore, entrepreneurs need to constantly practice and try to improve the level of entrepreneurial bricolage, through various bricolage strategies (parallel and selective bricolage, etc.) and their methods (such as material, institutional, network, demand, customer, etc.). In order to comprehensively acquire the heterogeneous resources in the entrepreneurial process, and achieve an effective match between the growth stage of the enterprise and the process of resource integration, thereby promoting the sustainable growth of TBSMEs.
Secondly, the entrepreneur’s prior experience has played a positive role in promoting TBSMEs. In fact,entrepreneurs having a wealth of prior experience can adapt to new environments and take on new roles, and gain credit records with external organizations, thereby increasing the TBSMEs’ success rate. Our research also found that compared with other start-ups, entrepreneurs of TBSMEs have relatively rich prior experience, not only can fully grasp the knowledge of customer problems and tap potential market demand, but also be good at identifying entrepreneurial opportunities, innovating business model, effectively improve management skills and make the right strategic choices to actively respond to the opportunities and challenges brought by the increasingly complex and dynamic external environment, which promotes the rapid growth of TBSMEs.
Thirdly, entrepreneurial bricolage helps entrepreneurs accumulate rich prior experience. In essence, entrepreneurial bricolage is an experience accumulation process in which entrepreneurs self-learn and continuously improve and innovate in order to break through resource constraints in a highly uncertain environment. The success of a small number of TBSMEs also shows that through the creative use of resources at hand and the generation of resources with differentiated value, entrepreneurs can continue to solve new problems and obtain relevant exclusive tacit knowledge on consumers, markets, competitors and products for significantly accumulating industry experience; help entrepreneurs strengthen their skills in discovering and developing entrepreneurial opportunities, integrating resource to innovate business models, and developing human resources to enrich their entrepreneurial experience; Help entrepreneurs expand their expertise in production operations, marketing, financial operations, technology research and development, human resources, and enhance their skills in strategic selection, Formulation and implementation, organizational coordination and communication, and social network construction to further increase work experience.
Finally, the entrepreneur’s prior experience partially mediates the role of entrepreneurial bricolage in promoting the entrepreneurial performance of TBSMEs. Research shows that entrepreneurs with rich entrepreneurial experience and industry experience can gain higher levels of entrepreneurial performance by vigorously carrying out entrepreneurial bricolage activities based on the practice of sustainable entrepreneurship of TBSMEs, but work experience has not become an important way to entrepreneurial bricolage transforming into entrepreneurial performance. Our researches also find that most of TBSMEs’ entrepreneurs belong to the experience on technology or sales, and their work experience especially the general management level is at a disadvantage. Therefore, entrepreneurs need to continuously enrich the accumulation of prior experience especially work experience, and constantly enhance the level of management, human resources development and management, and then achieve the resource advantage of “being out of nothing” through entrepreneurial bricolage and promote the enterprises’ innovation in a timely manner to overcome organizational flexibility that are lacking in highly structured enterprises, thus supporting TBSMEs’ with scarce resources to promote entrepreneurial performance and competitive advantage under the conditions of external resource inflows being blocked.

Key words: TBSME, entrepreneurial bricolage, prior experience, entrepreneurial performance