To survive and thrive in resource-constrained environments, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) must adopt creative strategies to overcome limitations. This study explores the role of entrepreneurial bricolage in shaping SMEs’ performance and performance variability, as well as how this relationship is moderated by the intuitive decision-making style of a chief executive officer (CEO). Drawing on the resource-based view (RBV), we argue that bricolage enhances mean firm performance by leveraging undervalued firm resources to innovate and adapt. However, as bricolage often involves improvisation and experimentation, it may increase the variability of performance outcomes, posing risks to reliability. Furthermore, the CEO’s intuitive decision-making style is hypothesized to amplify these effects by enhancing the creative potential of bricolage while exacerbating its unpredictability. Using multiplicative heteroscedasticity regression on a sample of 287 Russian SMEs, our findings reveal that while bricolage positively influences mean business outcomes, it also reduces performance variability, contradicting initial expectations. Additionally, intuitive decision-making weakens the positive bricolage–performance link and intensifies its variability, exposing its role as a disruptive force in the focal relationship of the study. This study enriches the literature on bricolage, emphasizing its role as a strategic approach that harmonizes experimentation and stability and providing actionable insights for SME leaders and policymakers to balance creativity with strategic stability.
