The COVID-19 global crisis and the ensuing lockdown of large parts of society and economic life has been an exogenous shock to society (Kuckertz et al., 2020). It is predicted the impact on the small business sector is likely to be severe (Fairlie, 2020). The findings of this international qualitative study offer a first-hand and real-time account of the adversity encountered by small rural businesses during the first lockdown in the COVID-19 pandemic and insight into how their leaders exercised resilience. Drawing upon the evidence from 38 small business entrepreneurs and four business support organizations, the data pointed out three main challenges in terms of adversity relating to business model change, information flow and sense-making, and weak strategy. The study also brings new insight into five leadership practices and behaviors that help exercise entrepreneurial resiliency: personal and business experience of crises, positive mindset, personal faith, learning and leading, and relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for enhancing student engagement through active learning and design thinking workshops online. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the need for digital engagement exponentially, yet the important experiences of collaborative and active learning (AL) have become more challenging to facilitate and support in circumstances of remote access during classes. As such, design thinking (DT) online presented a unique opportunity to explore this collaborative approach to engaging in user-centred design and design innovation. To explore a specific curriculum design dilemma and validate the methodology adopted, online DT workshops were conducted with two different cohorts of students toward co-creating more student-centred forms of learning in two digital marketing (DM) courses. The approach was guided by the POLARIS active learning framework to embed the framework’s seven perspectives (Purpose, Objectives, Learning landscape, Activities and assessment, Resources, Inter-relation with stakeholders, and Student engagement) which were considered to better enhance student engagement in an online learning environment. Using the framework proposed, which additionally integrates Quadruple Helix Model (QHM) actors, would facilitate further DT innovation towards co-creating new value in digital marketing pedagogy, curriculum design, and beyond.