Entrepreneurial Resourcefulness Throughout Crisis

Katharina Scheidgen, Franziska Günzel-Jensen, Simon L. Schmidt

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice · 2025 · Volume 49 · Issue 2

Abstract

By following 17 entrepreneurial ventures throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we show how entrepreneurial ventures can resourcefully mobilize resources throughout crisis—when resource constraints and opportunities for resource mobilization shift erratically. In a period marked by significant resource constraints, a temporary field emerged, centered around societal consequences of the crisis and temporarily offered opportunities for resource mobilization. We identified two types of resourcefulness, both of which were successful immediately after the crisis struck. Surprisingly, only leveraging the temporary field enabled resource mobilization throughout the crisis and fostered venture survival, while, despite initial successes, absorbing the temporary field did not.

Keywords

entrepreneurial resourcefulness, crisis, resource mobilization, qualitative research, institutional theory

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