Abstract

How can entrepreneurs protect their wellbeing during a crisis? Does engaging agility (namely, opportunity agility and planning agility) in response to adversity help entrepreneurs safeguard their wellbeing? Activated by adversity, agility may function as a specific resilience mechanism enabling positive adaption to crisis. We studied 3,162 entrepreneurs from 20 countries during the COVID-19 pandemic and found that more severe national lockdowns enhanced firm-level adversity for entrepreneurs and diminished their wellbeing. Moreover, entrepreneurs who combined opportunity agility with planning agility experienced higher wellbeing but planning agility alone lowered wellbeing. Entrepreneur agility offers a new agentic perspective to research on entrepreneur wellbeing.

Referens

Stephan, U., Zbierowski, P., Perez-Luno, A., Barki, E., Benzari, A., Bernhard-Oettel, C., Boeckhorse, J. A., Cabanas, M. A., Dash, A., Efendic, A., Eib, C., Hanard, P.-J., Iakovleva, T., Kawakatsu, S., Khalid, S., Leatherbee, M., Li, J., Parker, S., Qu, J., Rosati, F., Sahasranamam, S., Sekiguchi, T., Thomas, N., Torres, O., Wach, D., Ward, M. K., Wiklund, J., Williamson, A., & Zahid, M. (in press, accepted May 2022). Act or Wait-and-See? Adversity, Agility, and Entrepreneur Wellbeing across Countries during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, online first 9 June, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1177/10422587221104820