Unequal but essential: How subsistence consumer–entrepreneurs negotiate unprecedented shock with extraordinary resilience during COVID‐19

Abstract

We use qualitative interviews to study subsistence consumers confronting the global, pervasive and extended challenges of COVID‐19, encompassing literally all realms of daily life. For subsistence consumers whose circumstances are filled with day‐to‐day uncertainty and a small margin of error to begin with, the pandemic has led to manifold uncertainties and a disappearing margin of error, with potentially lethal consequences. Their constraints to thinking and lack of self‐confidence arising from both low income and low literacy are magnified in the face of the complex, invisible pandemic and the fear and panic it has caused. Characteristic relational strengths are weakened with social distancing and fear of infection. Yet, subsistence consumers display humanity in catastrophe, and confront the uncontrollable by reiterating a higher power. Consumption is reduced to the very bare essentials and income generation involves staying the course versus finding any viable alternative. We derive implications for consumer affairs.

The impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on subsistence consumers' well‐being and coping strategies: Insights from India and Bangladesh

“…Moreover, fear of the virus and death, and insufficiency of water, sanitation and hygiene facilities are adding extra stresses, which leads to goal threats to their survival. Our findings extend the work of Viswanathan et al ( 2021 ) that this pandemic creates unique stresses, which are unforeseen and also unpredictable. Indeed, a rare event such as COVID‐19 (Baker et al, 2020 ) has forced them to make unequal trade‐offs especially in extreme resource constraint settings during and post‐pandemic.…”

“…Due to unexpected lockdowns, SCs especially are temporarily blocked from generating income and therefore, they cannot manage their basic expenditure (Mottaleb et al, 2020 ). For example, this pandemic has made penniless, livelihood insecurities and defenseless position for the Rwandan refugee settlers in Tanzania (Viswanathan et al, 2021 ). This unforeseen transitory financial stress leads to other stresses in the life of SCs such as psychosocial, marketplace and consumption‐related stresses during the pandemic (Derneği, 2020 ).…”

“…Second, there are several studies that explored how SCs with few material resources face different kinds of chronic stresses and hardships (Chu et al, 2018 ; Venugopal et al, 2019 ; Viswanathan, 2017 ; Viswanathan et al, 2021 ; Viswanathan, Rosa, & Ruth, 2010a ; Viswanathan, Sridharan, & Richie, 2010b ) which are different from on‐going COVID‐19 led unforeseen and transitory stresses. For instance, with regard to migration stress at the SMs in China, the rural migrants have encountered vulnerabilities due to structural barriers (e.g., lack of access to public services such as education, the acquisition of bank loan, and healthcare) and non‐structural barriers (e.g., lack of social acceptance, and abuse at the workplace) (Chu et al, 2018 ).…”

“…The current pandemic has left them in an almost intractable position of being at the highest risk of infection, with the least available resources to defend against it. Besides, the vulnerabilities also increase in these SMs due to discriminatory mitigation measures by the host government (Viswanathan et al, 2021 ). Nevertheless, there is limited knowledge of how the COVID‐19 situation influences SCs' well‐being concerns and how they mitigate such concerns in SMs.…”

SMEs and exogenous shocks: A conceptual literature review and forward research agenda

“…The smallest micro firms and sole proprietorships, particularly in the Global South, were faced with a situation requiring extraordinary resilience that combined business survival with their own. Even in places where other crises are common, COVID-19 was an unprecedented shock with no margin of error for survival (Viswanathan et al, 2021). Amankwah-Amoah and Wood (2021) show how the most politically connected firms employed patronage networks to succeed through shocks, often by siphoning off government aid intended to be delivered to smaller firms due to their vulnerability.…”