Digital bricolage in sanctioned tourism ecosystems

Abstract

This constructivist grounded theory study investigates how tourism stakeholders adapt to dual digital constraints: simultaneous international sanctions and domestic filtering. Drawing on 91 in-depth interviews with Iranian operators, we theorize the Perpetual Cycle of Digital Adaptation under Dual Siege. Three processes emerged: Forced Navigation (cognitive mapping generating psychological burden), Survival-Driven Bricolage (platform substitution degrading capabilities), and Striving for Digital Viability (maintaining operations while undermining competitiveness). The framework reveals entropic adaptation, where survival paradoxically accelerates decline through asymmetric feedback loops. Unlike single-constraint contexts where alternatives exist, dual siege creates institutional voids eliminating pathways. The study extends technology adoption theory from voluntary choice toward impossibility-based conditions, reconceptualizes resilience as pathological endurance, and introduces managed deterioration as a state between success and failure.