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COVID 19 AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP: TIME TO PIVOT?

Article  in  Journal of Management Studies · July 2020

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Dean A. Shepherd
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 COVID 19 AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP: TIME TO PIVOT?

Dean A. Shepherd
Mendoza College of Business
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN
Dshepherd@nd.edu

Please cite as:

Shepherd, D.A. (2020). COVID 19 and entrepreneurship: Time to pivot? Journal of
Management Studies, forthcoming
 COVID 19 AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP: TIME TO PIVOT?

I thank JMS for this invitation to explore how COVID 19, and its aftermath, leads us to

question some of the fundamental assumptions of entrepreneurship research. In this dialogue, I

highlight five fundamental assumptions of the field that are challenged by COVID 19 that may

require a research pivot, i.e., that may require a change in research direction on specific topics.

First, entrepreneurship research assumes that entrepreneurs are a main force of disruption

(e.g., Schumpeter, 1950). In the current case, it is a virus that caused the disruption. The

disruption will dissipate (I hope), and there will be a new normal (eventually), but presently the

environment is highly fluid. What role do entrepreneurial endeavors (either as independent or

corporate ventures) play in establishing a new normal? In our study of the 2010 earthquake in

Haiti, Trent and I found that local entrepreneurs expressed the desire to “build back better”

(Williams and Shepherd, 2016). However, it is unclear how the “fluidity of everything” affects

entrepreneurial actions to build back a new and better equilibrium, which raises the following:

(1) What will be the “better” as entrepreneurs build it back and from whose perspective? (2)

How do entrepreneurs establish some stability as a foundation for opportunity co-construction

when prior assumptions appear to no longer apply, and the environment is both highly dynamic

and complex? (3) Who represents the community of inquiry for opportunities in constructing

this new, better normal, and how are they engaged? (4) How are resources acquired and

deployed under such extreme fluidity? (5) Over time, which elements (of the opportunity,

business, community, and environment) are stabilized and which remain fluid, why, and to what

effect?

Second, prior research assumes that technologies and markets have extended periods of

stability that are only infrequently punctuated by disruptions. The spread of COVID may signal
that the magnitude and frequency of adverse events—as disruptions—are on the rise, and there

will be a series of “new normals” rather than an extended period of a new normal.

Entrepreneurship scholars are well-positioned to explore how people, organizations, and nations

effectively respond to these adverse events, and in doing so, contribute to the knowledge of

resilience at and across multiple levels of analysis. Indeed, essential contributions can be made

by further researching the following questions: (1) What are the forms of resourcefulness given

the destruction often caused by adverse events, how are new bundles of resources created, and

how do entrepreneurs circumvent prior and new constraints (legal, organizational, cultural, and

so on) (consistent with bricolage [Baker and Nelson, 2005]) to initiate, engage, and perform

entrepreneurial endeavors? (2) How does the localness of entrepreneurial action and

coordination with outsiders influence the effectiveness of the effort given that many adverse

events are geographically bound? (3) How are new ventures created so rapidly (hours and days

rather than months and years) in the chaos caused by adverse events, what are the consequences

of this rapid emergence for their effectiveness and survival (which may be negatively correlated),

and is this a new normal in which we will see ventures that, by design, are only temporary—

“pop up” ventures? (4) How can people shift their emotions from negative to positive (or

negative adding positive) to enhance creativity and energize entrepreneurial actions in the

context of the suffering, destruction, and separation caused by adverse events, and how do these

entrepreneurial actions create positive emotions and reduce negative emotions in the

entrepreneurs and others? (5) How do communities foster entrepreneurial action to build

community resilience?

Third, scholars have assumed that entrepreneurs are exceptional individuals—an extra-

ordinary combination of attitudes, experiences, motivations, cognitions, decision making, and

actions. However, it appears that in the face of disasters, such as COVID, it is ordinary people

that step up to do extra-ordinary things through entrepreneurial action. By ordinary, I simply

mean that an individual’s (or an organization’s) attributes are commonplace, and, as a result,

entrepreneurial action is possible anywhere. For example, local victims of the Black Saturday

Bushfires in Australia quickly created new ventures to rapidly deliver customized products and

services that helped alleviate other community members’ suffering (Shepherd and Williams,

2014). Focusing on ordinary entrepreneurs offers the following research questions: (1) What

triggers the ordinary to take entrepreneurial action—is it only local, negative shocks, or are there

other motivators and triggers? (2) How are ordinary attributes deployed for entrepreneurial

action that generates extra-ordinary outcomes—what are the mechanisms and how do they differ

from “special” entrepreneurs? (3) What is the aggregate impact of ordinary individuals’

entrepreneurial actions within a community, and to what extent are these actions coordinated,

mutually dependent, or competitive? (4) How does engaging in entrepreneurial action change

the attributes of the ordinary—do they become less ordinary—and if they do change, in what

ways and to what effect? (5) How do communities generate, nurture, and deploy ordinary

people’s entrepreneurial endeavors for community benefits?

Fourth, prior research has assumed that entrepreneurial careers generate considerable

loneliness (e.g., Gumpert and Boyd, 1984). During the response to the pandemic, we have all

suffered isolation and found ways of dealing with it (with varying success), which stimulates the

following research questions: (1) How can entrepreneurs use recent innovations in making

“remote” social connections to eliminate loneliness and thereby enhance their psychological

well-being? (2) To what extent had entrepreneurs developed capabilities for dealing with the

loneliness pre-COVID that has helped them cope with the social distancing required by COVID,
and do these capabilities promote social connections that enhance venture performance? (3)

Because entrepreneurs have traditionally depended on their social skills in face-to-face meetings,

how are entrepreneurs able to “remotely” create and maintain business connections, that is, what

are the “remote” social skills that are critical in a physically restricted business environment and

how might they apply in a new normal “physical context”? (4) Can we learn from adaptations

made to online dating and prosocial platforms for helping entrepreneurs create new relationships,

especially for prosocial purposes, such as, entering new markets, recruiting human talent,

accessing financial resources, and so on? (5) While entrepreneurs may have been well placed to

deal with the loneliness of COVID (vis-à-vis the population), what are the new vulnerabilities

that diminish their psychological well-being?

Finally, prior research assumes that when entrepreneurs fail, it is because of their poor

decisions and actions. In the aftermath of the pandemic (and response), a lot of businesses have

failed, but there is little they could have done to avoid this outcome, which presents a different

set of issues. (1) How can entrepreneurs deploy their ego-protective mechanisms in the face of

business failure to ensure that they maintain high self-esteem and are motivated to try again? (2)

To what extent does the recognition that failure was beyond their control contribute to

entrepreneurs’ feelings of helplessness and hopelessness that ultimately diminish self-efficacy

and entrepreneurial intentions? (3) Does COVID wipe out a generation of entrepreneurs,

rejuvenate this generation, and/or make way for the next generation of entrepreneurs, that is, as

devastating as the failures are, is there a long-run economic, social, and environmental phoenix

that arises from the ashes of its predecessor? (4) In the context of so many other forms of

suffering (e.g., deaths), what are the emotional reactions to business failure, how are these

emotions regulated, and how do these feelings impact the entrepreneurs and their families? (5)
 Despite the harsh conditions, why were some businesses able to survive (and even thrive)—was

it that the survivors were agile and frequently pivoted, or was it simply that they were lucky?

Entrepreneurship has a strong tradition of studying the more fortunate, helping the less

fortunate. However, in the shadow of a pandemic where everyone is negatively impacted

(obviously some worse than others), I hope that future research focuses on how victims of

adversity engage in entrepreneurial actions that help themselves and others. In doing so, these

victim entrepreneurs can eventually drop the label victim and build back a better future for

themselves and enhance resilience in the process. I hope scholars will focus their attention on

the entrepreneurial mechanisms for equilibrating around a new, better future, and the building of

society’s resilience; the ordinary (and unsung) heroes of entrepreneurship; the broader

implications of entrepreneurial action (benefits and costs to a diverse set of stakeholders); the

social innovations that enhance entrepreneurial endeavors and entrepreneurs’ well-being; and the

self-regulation of entrepreneurs whose failures are beyond their personal control.

REFERENCES

Baker, T., and Nelson, R. E. (2005). ‘Creating something from nothing: Resource construction
through entrepreneurial bricolage’. Administrative Science Quarterly, 50(3), 329-366.

Gumpert, D. E., and Boyd, D. P. (1984). ‘The loneliness of the small-business owner’. Harvard
Business Review, 62(6), 18-24.

Schumpeter, J. A. 1950. ‘Capitalism, socialism and democracy’. New York: Harper & Row.

Shepherd, D. A., and Williams, T. A. (2014). ‘Local venturing as compassion organizing in the
aftermath of a natural disaster: The role of localness and community in reducing
suffering’. Journal of Management Studies, 51(6), 952-994.
Williams, T. A., and Shepherd, D. A. (2016). ‘Building resilience or providing sustenance:
Different paths of emergent ventures in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake’. Academy
of Management Journal, 59(6), 2069-2102.

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