Bearing the Unbearable: Exploring Women Entrepreneurs Resilience Building in Times of Crises

Recently, women entrepreneurship has become of particular interest to corporate social responsibility (CSR) scholarship, however, little is known about the impact of crises on women’s business activities and how they adapt to the disruptions and new market realities caused by a crisis. To design CSR initiatives that genuinely cater to the needs of women entrepreneurs, it is imperative to acquire an in-depth understanding of their unique experiences during times of crisis. This study employed a qualitative methodology to investigate the development of resilience among women entrepreneurs amidst crisis. The study sample comprised Iranian women entrepreneurs who were operating health-related businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to challenges related to money, market, management, motherhood, macro and meso level factors, women entrepreneurs were found to face crisis related challenges such as emotional exhaustion, altruism, fear of failure and uncertainty. Additionally, the findings revealed the different problem-based and emotion-based coping strategies (e.g., bootstrapping and emotional regulation) that women entrepreneurs used to build entrepreneurial resilience as well as business resilience. The resultant findings offer a comprehensive understanding of women entrepreneurs’ resilience-building process and suggest that resilience-building is a contextual as well as a gendered phenomenon. Implications for entrepreneurship research as well as women entrepreneurship and ethics literature is discussed

Women Entrepreneurs Building Resilience During Crisis: Evidence From Iran

Women entrepreneurs have to deal with the gendered impact of crisis on their business activities. Regardless, they successfully adapt to the disruptions and new market realities caused by crisis. Given that resilience explains how individuals maintain functioning or even thrive despite challenges, it becomes crucial to understand women entrepreneurs’ resilience building during times of crisis. This study used a qualitative approach to examine how women entrepreneurs build resilience during crisis by specifically examining the challenges they face and the coping strategies they utilize to build their resilience. Using a sample of Iranian women entrepreneurs operating health related businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic, we offer a comprehensive understanding of women entrepreneurs' resilience building process. Our findings suggest that resilience building is not only a gendered phenomenon but a contextual one