Women's entrepreneurship and resilience: Focusing on a Central European entrepreneurial setting

Abstract

Purpose: Despite extensive research on resilience in established organizations, scholarship intersecting entrepreneurial resilience and women's entrepreneurship has been slow to progress. Much of the academic discourse within this research stream often centres on women's negative experiences in male-dominated entrepreneurial environments. In contrast, this study investigates the underlying mechanisms of women entrepreneurs' capabilities that foster resilience in business ventures that are geographically dispersed across three Central European countries, including Germany, Poland, and Slovakia. Design/methodology/approach: This empirical study adopts a quantitative research approach. Specifically, it utilises an entrepreneurship-resilience-capabilities conceptual overlay and structural equation modelling techniques to analyse 1,113 observations of Central European women entrepreneurs. Findings: The empirical findings of this study demonstrate how feminine role identity fosters resilience among women entrepreneurs in Germany, Poland, and Slovakia. Notably, these results highlight a dual interplay, illustrating that resilience is amplified by women's sensing and seizing capabilities, whereas reconfiguring capabilities attenuate this association. Within this framework, women's resilience is indirectly enhanced by their digital capabilities through their influence on dynamic capabilities. Originality/value: The originality of this study lies in its characterization of women's entrepreneurial resilience, elucidating the complex mechanisms within the relationships that support the interplay of sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring capabilities. In this regard, the study develops novel theoretical insights that intersect a women's entrepreneurship-resilience nexus in a Central European entrepreneurial setting. This understanding yields significant academic, policy, and social implications.