Numerous businesses in any country, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), have been forced to close due to their government's decision to impose a movement control order (MCO) to contain the Pandemic. Unfortunately, this most recent COVID-19 puts the majority of SMEs in danger of increased debt and makes it more difficult to conduct business as usual. Change is necessary for these conditions. All entrepreneurs in small and mediumsized businesses seek to execute change and be resilient, but they face numerous barriers. As a result, training effectiveness may be more beneficial to an entrepreneur because this need relates to competencies, self-congruency, and self-determination. Effective training occurs when trainees use their knowledge in the workplace, resulting in major changes. It is crucial since it is offered periodically, resulting in significant increases in entrepreneurs' performance and resilience. This study aims to determine the impact of change management and training effectiveness on entrepreneurs' resilience during the COVID 19 transition period to assist entrepreneurs in overcoming their fear of failure and developing resilience and self-regulation abilities to deal with adversity. The conceptual model was developed based on social cognitive theory. According to social cognitive theory's concept of reciprocal determinism, an entrepreneur might function simultaneously as an agent of change and a responder to change. The effectiveness of an entrepreneur's training, in conjunction with environmental changes, can promote resilient behavior and attitude.

The COVID-19 Pandemic has impacted industries worldwide, affecting virtually every industry and business field as it spreads. Small and medium-sized businesses, in particular, have been particularly hard hit due to a scarcity of funding and a lack of entrepreneurial skills such as resilience. However, research on resilience at an individual level is underexplored, with even less attention on resilience in the context of entrepreneurs. Thus, this study examined entrepreneur resilience in Malaysian SMEs related to entrepreneurial leadership, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, basic psychological needs satisfaction, and training effectiveness. Social cognitive and self-determination theories underpin the study framework. Integrating both theories can provide a motivating lens to facilitate a more holistic understanding of resilience factors. Indeed, addressing the entrepreneurs' basic psychological needs and satisfaction can help entrepreneurs overcome their fear of failure. The study used a quantitative approach to collect primary data from 221 Malaysian small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) entrepreneurs through an online questionnaire. Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the data. The findings reveal that entrepreneurial self-efficacy is statistically significant and positively impacts entrepreneur resilience. Meanwhile, basic psychological needs satisfaction mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and entrepreneur resilience. The second contribution of this study is that it establishes a moderating impact on training effectiveness. As a result, this study discovered that entrepreneurial self-efficacy, basic psychological needs satisfaction, and training effectiveness directly or indirectly impacted entrepreneur resilience. Entrepreneurial leadership, on the other hand, is the inverse. Many previous studies on the factors influencing resilience yielded inconsistent and incoherent findings. Therefore, this study contributes to the theoretical debate on exploring resilience concepts, measures in SMEs, and the factors that influence resilience at the entrepreneur level.