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

Perez-Luno, Ana

doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/10422587221104820

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

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ETP STEPHAN ET AL.pdf (2.31 MB)

Date

2023

Authors

Perez-Luno, Ana

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openAccess

Citation

Stephan U, Zbierowski P, Pérez-Luño A, Wach D, Wiklund J, Alba Cabañas M, Barki E, Benzari A, Bernhard-Oettel C, Boekhorst JA, Dash A, Efendic A, Eib C, Hanard PJ, Iakovleva T, Kawakatsu S, Khalid S, Leatherbee M, Li J, Parker SK, Qu J, Rosati F, Sahasranamam S, Salusse MAY, Sekiguchi T, Thomas N, Torrès O, Tran MH, Ward MK, Williamson AJ, Zahid MM., Act or Wait-and-See? Adversity, Agility, and Entrepreneur Wellbeing across Countries during the COVID-19 Pandemic, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 47, 3, 2023, 682 - 723

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 3162 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.