Act or Wait-and-See? Adversity, Agility, and Entrepreneur Wellbeing across Countries during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Ute Stephan, Przemyslaw Zbierowski, Ana Pérez-Luño, Dominika Wach, Johan Wiklund, Marisleidy Alba Cabañas, Edgard Barki, Alexandre Benzari, Claudia Bernhard-Oettel, Janet Boekhorst, Arobindu Dash, Adnan Efendic, Constanze Eib, Pierre-Jean Hanard, Tatiana Iakovleva, Satoshi Kawakatsu, Saddam Khalid, Michael Leatherbee, Jun Li, Sharon K. ParkerJingjing Qu, Francesco Rosati, Sreevas Sahasranamam, Marcus A. Y. Salusse, Tomoki Sekiguchi, Nicola Thomas, Olivier Torres, Mi Hoang Tran, MK Ward, Amanda Jasmine Williamson, Muhammad Mohsin Zahid

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

40 Citations (Scopus)
182 Downloads (Pure)

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.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)682-723
Number of pages42
JournalEntrepreneurship: Theory and Practice
Volume47
Issue number3
Early online date9 Jun 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2023

Keywords

  • entrepreneur
  • entrepreneurship
  • wellbeing
  • life satisfaction
  • Eudaimonic well-being
  • Vitality
  • MENTAL HEALTH
  • Stress
  • agility
  • crisis
  • Covid-19
  • Adversity
  • Resilience

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