GCRF_NF106 Entrepreneurial resilience & recovery during and after covid-19 crisis: firm- & community-level responses in Wuhan, Malaysia, and Thailand
Lead Research Organisation:
Imperial College London
Department Name: Imperial College Business School
Abstract
Moscarini and Postel-Viney (American Economic Review, 2012) showed that entrepreneurs are central for economic resilience during an economic crisis and for kickstarting recovery as the crisis attenuates. However, we know little about how this potential can be best harnessed during a covid-19 -style economic emergency, which not only causes a sharp demand shock, but also, requires businesses to radically reconfigure their operations to comply with social distancing. This knowledge gap is particularly acute for low- and middle-income economies, as most studies of entrepreneurial resilience have been conducted in high-income countries.
In harnessing entrepreneurs for economic resilience and recovery during a crisis, governments have to deter a 'race to the bottom' response and encourage a 'community pulling together' response. The first is a 'dog-eat-dog' race to secure as many of the dwindling resources for oneself as possible. In the second, the community pulls together to buffer its members against the shock. We currently know little about how to promote sustainable responses and discourage unsustainable ones.
We address the above knowledge gaps. Collaborating with Wuhan University, UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia (Bangkok), Asia School of Business (Kuala Lumpur) and Asian Development Bank (Manila) we study entrepreneurial firm- and community-level responses and business model practices for resilient adjustment to covid- 19 crisis and for robust post-crisis recovery. We will conduct 20-25 longitudinal case studies to induct firm- and community -level process models of entrepreneurial resilience and recovery to inform policy and entrepreneurial practice in lower and upper middle income economies in Asia.
In harnessing entrepreneurs for economic resilience and recovery during a crisis, governments have to deter a 'race to the bottom' response and encourage a 'community pulling together' response. The first is a 'dog-eat-dog' race to secure as many of the dwindling resources for oneself as possible. In the second, the community pulls together to buffer its members against the shock. We currently know little about how to promote sustainable responses and discourage unsustainable ones.
We address the above knowledge gaps. Collaborating with Wuhan University, UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia (Bangkok), Asia School of Business (Kuala Lumpur) and Asian Development Bank (Manila) we study entrepreneurial firm- and community-level responses and business model practices for resilient adjustment to covid- 19 crisis and for robust post-crisis recovery. We will conduct 20-25 longitudinal case studies to induct firm- and community -level process models of entrepreneurial resilience and recovery to inform policy and entrepreneurial practice in lower and upper middle income economies in Asia.
Organisations
- Imperial College London (Lead Research Organisation)
- Asian Development Bank (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- Asian Institute of Management (Collaboration)
- Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC) (Collaboration)
- MaGIC (Project Partner)
- United Nations Development Programme (Project Partner)
Publications
Habaradas, R.
(2021)
Entrepreneurial resilience and responsibility. The View from Taft
Jimenez, S.
(2021)
COVID-19, MSMEs, and the informal sector
Mia, I.
(2021)
The growing need for digitalization amid the pandemic
Symeonidou N
(2022)
The origins of capabilities: Resource allocation strategies, capability development, and the performance of new firms
in Journal of Business Venturing
Yuan X
(2021)
Entrepreneurial Resilience During a Crisis: Systematic Review and Integrative Framework
in Academy of Management Proceedings
| Description | First, the covid pandemic unleashed an unprecedented global wave of business model experimentation among entrepreneurial businesses to provide resilient responses to the covid challenge. Second, we found the responses of the businesses to be quite heterogeneous. Whereas some entrepreneurs adopted a passive posture, others were able to respond proactively by adjusting their business models. As a result, some businesses have been able to convert the crisis into a 'baptism of fire' and make their business models more robust and scalable. Third, we were surprised by how many businesses extended their business mission by adopting a social mission alongside with their profit-making mission. We had not anticipated that the crisis would prompt such a response. We speculate that the reaction was because the covid pandemic represented a threat to entire communities, and the businesses felt it their responsibility to contribute to the collective effort of mitigating the impact of the crisis. Fourth, we observed many businesses to bring forward existing plans to digitalise their business models or start such processes from scratch. This speeding-up of digitalisation was because the businesses saw digitalisation as a way to adapt to social distancing requirements such as distance working. We are currently developing several scientific articles to publish our findings. |
| Exploitation Route | We are writing a teaching case book based on our case studies. We have also held numerous policy outreach workshops in different countries, with hundreds of participants, to share relevant policy and practitioner insight. |
| Sectors | Education,Government, Democracy and Justice |
| URL | http://www.entresilience.com |
| Description | We have held several policy outreach workshops in the participating countries to disseminate our findings and share insights for policy. These workshops have been widely attended, with hundreds of participants. We are also in the process of writing a teaching case book based on our case studies. This book will be disseminated and made available for entrepreneurship educators interested in teaching entrepreneurial resilience. We also expect to develop a digital support tool to support the design of resilient entrepreneurial business models. This environment will be coded in the Miro platform. Note that the development of these outputs has been slower than anticipated due to the retrospective budget cuts made by the project funder after the contract had been signed and non-trivial amount of work had already been carried out by our partners. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2022 |
| Sector | Education,Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Impact Types | Societal,Policy & public services |
| Title | A case collection of 50 theoretically sampled entrepreneurial firms in China, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and the United Kingdom |
| Description | We sampled 5 pairs of 'polar-outcome' entrepreneurial firms at each of the five research sites, which form a collection of 50 cases. Each of the 5 sampling dimensions is a pair of contrasting responses to the COVID-19 that we are theoretically interested in: Proactive (vs. Reactive), Grow (vs. Suffer), Community-dependent (vs. Not), Digitally Enhanced (vs. Not), and Change Business Model (vs. Change Product/Service). For each sampled case, we collected qualitative data on the entrepreneur background, company background, their retrospective experiences during the COVID-19, immediate actions taken and short-term outcomes. The comprehensive dataset includes an one-hour interview transcript, a field-note documenting the interview or company visit, as well as other background and contextual information regarding the relevant entrepreneur, company, industry or the COVID-19 crisis. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2020 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | This dataset facilitate our understanding of how the COVID-19 crisis unfolds in emerging and advanced economies, how entrepreneurs and their firms coped, and the short-term effectiveness of their responding strategies. Implementing theoretical sampling in case selection, something not done by previous entrepreneurial resilience researchers, allows us to isolate the extraneous variations across cases and focus on the focal relationships of interest. In the next step, the dataset will help us 1) to identify the causal relationships between the entrepreneurial resilience-enablers and outcomes, 2) to unearth the antecedent-outcome process of firm- and community-level resilience, 3) to highlight effective responding strategies and sustainable business models of entrepreneurial firms developed during the COVID-19 crisis. |
| Description | AIM-DLSU Case Writing Workshop 2022 |
| Organisation | Asian Institute of Management |
| Country | Philippines |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Co-organizer of the workshop |
| Collaborator Contribution | Co-organizer of the workshop |
| Impact | Outputs are anticipated published teaching cases. Outcomes - trained several peers on how to write teaching cases from research projects. The partnership consists of two workshop sessions and coaching for authors with the end in mind of producing two case books. The partnership finished the first workshop session scheduled last March 5, 4-7 pm (Philippine Standard Time) conducted via Zoom. The second workshop is scheduled on March 19, 2022. |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | Knowledge Sharing and Dissemination Partnership with Asian Development Bank |
| Organisation | Asian Development Bank |
| Country | Philippines |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | This is a knowledge sharing agreement with Asian Development Bank for the purpose of disseminating policy and practice insights from the CGRF_NF_16 project within ADB member countries. |
| Collaborator Contribution | ADB representatives participate in CGRF_NF_106 steering group to contribute policy insight from emerging economies in Asia. Development and dissemination of policy reports. Organisation of policy outreach workshops with participation from ADB member countries. |
| Impact | Under preparation |
| Start Year | 2020 |
| Description | Partnership with the Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC) |
| Organisation | Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC) |
| Country | Malaysia |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | To support the policy decision-making of McGIC, our team provides 1) research on the entrepreneurship and innovation landscape in Malaysia, 2) early findings of entrepreneurial resilience and impacts of the COVID-19, 3) policy insights and suggestions on implications that are of direct relevance for entrepreneurial businesses in emerging economies. |
| Collaborator Contribution | As our outreach partner, MaGIC is primarily committed to 1) connecting and recruiting entrepreneurial firms, 2) disseminating the project findings, 3) organising and participating in policy outreach events. |
| Impact | N/A |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Description | Case writing workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | The two-day training camp aimed to train researchers-faculties on how to write teaching cases, how to use teaching cases in a classroom and how to write teaching notes for cases. This is organised by the Asian Institution of Management and DLSU-Center for Business Research and Development and targets at the Entrepreneurial Resilience project. About 40 researchers attended the training session and discussed case-writing protocols, techniques and publications. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Policy and practitioner outreach event: UK |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | The event was a panel discussion consisting of policymakers, academics and entrepreneurs held on June 30th 2021. The theme of the event was 'Harnessing Entrepreneurial Resilience to Build Back Better'. The event was designed to share research-based insight into the role played by entrepreneurial firms - and how their resilient capabilities can be supported and leveraged to build back better. This was connected with the UK's ongoing plans to support recovery from the COVID-19 economic crisis and elaborate on the implications for both policy and entrepreneurial practice. The impact of the event includes anecdotal evidence from entrepreneurs that attended the evident. Insights from how entrepreneurs in our research sample engaged in experimentation and digitalisation were highlighted. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://entresilience.squarespace.com/events |
| Description | Policy outreach event and roundtable discussion in Philippines |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | The intended purpose of the activity was to share with the policymakers, practitioners, and the public the initial results of the research. The sharing was intended to inform policies being crafted and practitioners' strategies. Its also aimed to inform the public of what practitioners (entrepreneurial businesses) went through during the pandemic. Overall, over 1000 audiences from different countries participated in this event and discussed how entrepreneurial resilience contributes to economic recovery internationally. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fywjZnbHuWI |
| Description | Policy outreach event and webinar in the Malaysia |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | The project partnered with the Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC) and EnCube Labs to organise a webinar that unpacks the experiences of entrepreneurs during the coronavirus crisis (COVID-19). The webinar shared lessons learned from the global research initiative with a focus on unique findings from Malaysia. Participants gained a better understanding of the specific transmission channels that impact entrepreneurs the most, how government agencies have responded to the crisis, and the different coping strategies that worked for entrepreneurs. These insights have important implications for key stakeholders in the entrepreneurial ecosystem working on response and recovery initiatives for start-ups and MSMEs. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.eventbrite.sg/e/entrepreneurial-resilience-during-the-pandemic-tickets-156051360821 |