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

Ute Stephan^1,2; Przemysław Zbierowski^1,3; Ana Pérez-Luño⁴; Dominika Wach⁵; Johan Wiklund⁶; Marisleidy Alba Cabañas⁷; Edgard Barki⁸; Alexandre Benzari⁹; Claudia Bernhard-Oettel¹⁰; Janet A. Boekhorst¹¹; Arobindu Dash¹²; Adnan Efendic¹³; Constanze Eib¹⁴; Pierre-Jean Hanard¹; Tatiana Iakovleva¹⁵; Satoshi Kawakatsu¹⁶; Saddam Khalid¹⁷; Michael Leatherbee¹⁸; Jun Li¹⁹; Sharon K. Parker²⁰; Jingjing Qu²¹; Francesco Rosati²²; Sreevas Sahasranamam²³; Marcus A. Y. Salusse²⁴; Tomoki Sekiguchi²⁵; Nicola Thomas²⁶; Olivier Torrès^27,28; Mi Hoang Tran⁶; M.K. Ward²⁹; Amanda Jasmine Williamson³⁰; Muhammad Mohsin Zahid³¹

¹ King's Business School King's College London London UK · ² Work and Organisational Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany · ³ Department of Human Resource Management, University of Economics in Katowice, Katowice, Poland · ⁴ Business Organization and Marketing Department, Pablo de Olavide University, Seville, Spain · ⁵ Department of Work and Organisational Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany · ⁶ Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA · ⁷ Business School, Konrad Lorenz University, Bogota, Colombia · ⁸ Administraçao de Empresas, FGV EAESP (Fundação Getulio Vargas – Escola de Administração de Empresas de Săo Paulo), São Paulo, Brazil · ⁹ Economics, Human Resources and Diversity Department, Montpellier Business School, Montpellier, France · ¹⁰ Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden · ¹¹ Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada · ¹² Institute for Management and Organization, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Lüneburg, Germany · ¹³ School of Economics and Business, University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina · ¹⁴ Department of Psychology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden · ¹⁵ Department of Innovation, Management and Marketing, UiS Business School, University of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway · ¹⁶ Graduate School of Economics, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan · ¹⁷ School of Economics and Management, University of Hyogo, Nishi-ku Kobe, Japan · ¹⁸ Departamento de Ingeniería Industrial y de Sistemas, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile · ¹⁹ Department of Management, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, UK · ²⁰ Centre for Transformative Work Design, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia · ²¹ Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Shanghai, China · ²² Centre for Technology Entrepreneurship, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark · ²³ Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK · ²⁴ Center for Entrepreneurship, Insper Institute of Education and Research, São Paulo, Brazil · ²⁵ Graduate School of Management Kyoto University Kyoto Japan · ²⁶ Brett Centre for Entrepreneurship, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK · ²⁷ Montpellier Management Institute, University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France · ²⁸ Entrepreneurship, Strategy, Technology, Innovation, Management Department, Montpellier Business School, Montpellier, France · ²⁹ Zipline.io, Shenton Park, WA, Australia · ³⁰ Waikato Management School, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand · ³¹ Neuron Business and Development Solutions, Islamabad, Pakistan

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.

DOI

10.1177/10422587221104820

Volume

47 (3)

Pages

682-723

Language

en

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