The End of Resilience? Managing Vulnerability Through Temporal Resourcing and Resisting

Abstract

We induce a first-person conceptualization of entrepreneurial resilience. Our seven-year, two-study ethnography shows that entrepreneurs enact resilience as a four-step process of managing vulnerability: they richly experience episodes of adversity, self-monitor across episodes, reassess personal thresholds and reconcile challenges with coping skills. Entrepreneurs manage vulnerability by (1) modifying ( stretching and shrinking) objective time and (2) changing their subjective experience of time as working with or against the clock through temporal resourcing or temporal resisting. We extend the theory and practice of entrepreneurial resilience by elaborating the interplay of objective and subjective time in managing vulnerability in recurrent and unprecedented crises.

Entrepreneurial intention and resilience: An experiment during the Covid‐19 lockdown

“…8 Our results give some empirical support to the literature on talent allocation (Acemoglu, 1995;Baumol, 1990;Murphy et al, 1991), which assumes that entrepreneurs have self-oriented preferences. Finally, our paper is also related to the literature on resilience in entrepreneurship, showing that resilience may be different across sectors (Davidsson & Gordon, 2016), environment (Branzei & Fathallah, 2021;Bullough et al, 2014), individual values, and experienced level of adversity (Anwar et al, 2021;Holland & Shepherd, 2013).…”

Crises, Covid-19, and Entrepreneurship

“…Several papers in this special issue provide new insights into how entrepreneurial resilience can be enacted, strengthened, and performed in times of crisis. Based on a 7-year, two-study ethnography, Branzei and Fathallah (2023) extend theory and practice of entrepreneurial resilience by elaborating on the approach of entrepreneurs to their objective and subjective time in managing vulnerability during crises. They explain how entrepreneurs respond to crises both by stretching time (borrowing time, adding to time, expanding time, and abstracting time) and by shrinking time (cashing objective time, subtracting it, compressing, and concretizing).…”

Surviving the unprecedented: family firms under COVID-19

“…Industry stakeholders, including family firms, government agencies, chambers of commerce, industry associations and researchers could consider the various dimensions to deepen their understanding of how firms and their surrounding communities could confront, cope with and overcome such an event. The study’s findings contribute to a deeper understanding of dimensions identified by Hayward et al (2022) as valuable when undertaking future research. These dimensions include vulnerability and its nexus with the enhancement of mutual trustworthiness, where firms support their community stakeholders and with the identification of helpful partners that could be supportive in times of unprecedented crises, such as loyal clients. Resilience and family business literature: The results extend from recent research that underlines the relationship between the resilience and vulnerability, where entrepreneurs’ efforts are demonstrated through, for instance, experiences and bringing together their skills and the challenges they face (Branzei and Fathallah, 2021). The study also complements and enhances existing knowledge on the “lessons learned” from experiencing an extreme event (Hällgren et al , 2018), investigates a suggested research avenue, notably, the degree to which relationships between family firms and their stakeholders have been tested or influenced (Firfiray and Gomez-Mejia, 2021), and addresses various research gaps (Amaral and Da Rocha, 2022; De Massis and Rondi, 2020; Kraus et al , 2020; Ratten and Jones, 2020).…”

“…Therefore, there are linkages between resilience and vulnerability, whereby the building factors of the former could have positive impacts on the latter. The research by Branzei and Fathallah (2021) contributes to a further understanding of these associations, identifying four key steps where entrepreneurs enact resilience to manage vulnerability. These steps comprise:…”

“…Therefore, there are linkages between resilience and vulnerability, whereby the building factors of the former could have positive impacts on the latter. The research by Branzei and Fathallah (2021) contributes to a further understanding of these associations, identifying four key steps where entrepreneurs enact resilience to manage vulnerability. These steps comprise: entrepreneurs thoroughly experience incidents of adversity; they can self-monitor throughout these incidents; they can re-evaluate personal thresholds; and bring together coping skills with challenges. …”