Contextualizing small business resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from small business owner-managers

Abstract

The psychological resilience of owner-managers provides novel insights towards a better understanding of small business resilience during exogenous shocks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Psychological resilience involves an individual's ability to adapt or thrive in the face of life's adversities and uncertainties. We conduct a longitudinal qualitative study, collecting data from 35 small business owner-managers between April and December 2020. We reveal a sequential process centred on owner-managers and on their abilities to build-up or strengthen any personal and leadership resilient capacities, which appear to be prerequisites for the establishment of resilient actions at the level of the small business. We contribute theoretically by conceptualizing the links and path dependencies between personal, leadership (role), and organizational resilience in small businesses. In conclusion, our study provides practical implications on essential personal-level responses that can guide the leadership role of owner-managers in the midst of the continuing COVID-19 pandemic.

Resilient entrepreneurs? — revisiting the relationship between the Big Five and self-employment

“…Recently, a number of papers have been published on the resilience of entrepreneurs or small firms, e.g. in terms of business survival (Chadwick et al 2020 ) or regarding the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic (Belitski et al, 2022 ; Caliendo et al, 2022b ; Hadjielias et al, 2022 ). The present paper provides initial indications that persons of the resilient prototype have a higher psychological resilience in the narrow sense, which is why it is to be expected that they are better able to cope with crises than persons of the other two personality prototypes.…”

Natural disasters, entrepreneurship activity, and the moderating role of country governance

“…Davlasheridze and Geylani (2017) find that small businesses are more likely to thrive if they have better loan access after being struck by natural disasters. Hadjielias et al (2022) suggest that the psychological resilience of the small business owner increases the possibility of business survival during a disaster. Grözinger et al (2022) echo a similar thought.…”

Digitalization and entrepreneurial firms' resilience to pandemic crises: Evidence from COVID-19 and the German Mittelstand

“…With this focus on digitalization before the crisis as a preparation capability, we aim to complement earlier research that has examined entrepreneurial firms' responses to the pandemic crisis caused by COVID-19 (e.g., Bartik et al, 2020 ; Dejardin et al, 2022 ; Emami et al, 2021 ; Giotopoulos et al, 2022 ; Hadjielias et al, 2022 ; Hammerschmidt et al, 2021 ; Kraus et al, 2020 ; Khurana et al, 2022 ; Kusa et al, 2022 ; Schwaiger et al, 2022 ; Soluk, 2022 ; Soluk et al, 2021 ; Wendt et al, 2021 ; Xie et al, 2022 ), and thus into coping and adaption forms of organizational resilience ( Duchek, 2020 ). In general, these earlier findings highlighted the significant variance among entrepreneurial firms' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis (e.g., Hadjielias et al, 2022 ; Sharma et al, 2022 ), including their reliance on digital technologies ( Giotopoulos et al, 2022 ; Khurana et al, 2022 ; Soluk, 2022 ; Soluk et al, 2021 ; Wendt et al, 2021 ).…”