Paradoxical thinking and entrepreneurial resilience: a study against the backdrop of COVID-19 disruption

Entrepreneurial resilience' acquires seminal significance especially during a crisis situation. With COVID-19 pandemic rendering unprecedented disruption over the worldwide socio-economic landscape, entrepreneurs and business managers necessitate resilience for mitigating various emerging challenges. Modem enterprises often face competing demands and contradictory expectations from its diverse stakeholder groups. Entrepreneur's ability to relentlessly acclimatise and thrive particularly during adversities, while balancing competing needs is a crucial characteristic that bolsters organisational performance. This investigation examines the potential relation between stakeholder engagement, paradoxical thinking/paradox mind-set and entrepreneurial resilience. The entrepreneurs' propensity to integrate conflicting organisational and normative obligations is likely to improve her/his resilience. Contemporary organisations innately embody many contradictory tensions. Paradoxical thinking embraces these tensions and may also help the entrepreneurs to respond with enhanced resilience. This quantitative study involving social entrepreneurs in India against the backdrop of COVID-19 pandemic indicates that stakeholder engagement is positively associated with resilience. This relation is mediated by the entrepreneur's paradoxical mind-set.

Values in the time of a pandemic: a study of social entrepreneurial values against the backdrop of COVID-19

This paper attempts to identify the set of values that social entrepreneurs deem most vital for their leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic and captures their experience in mitigating various adversities regarding their financial and social mission obligations. It incorporates in-depth semi structured interviews and values Q sort analysis of 21 Indian social entrepreneurs. The findings underscore a set of espoused values that social entrepreneurs share and its interaction with the complex challenges they encounter. It also brings out the tension renascent in social entrepreneurship conceptualisation and reflects in the values' hierarchy, where social entrepreneurs strive to balance performance-oriented values with pro-social values in order to survive and maintain their social mission. The authors have also integrated the concept of Apad Dharma espoused in the Mahabharata to understand how the social entrepreneurs respond to various challenges.