ENTREPRENEURIAL FAILURE AND RESILIENCE: A CONTINUOUS INTERPLAY BETWEEN RIGIDITY AND FLEXIBILITY

Abstract

Resilience studies are increasingly relevant to understand business processes. This study aimed to explore how entrepreneurs in Mexico recovered from situations of business failure. Which key factors did move en­trepreneurs to move forward with their ventures rather than desisting after a failure event? Through a qua­litative study that utilized focus groups with entrepreneurs that had faced entrepreneurial failure, discourses, and repre­sen­tations around the failure experience were analyzed. Findings suggested that entrepreneurs lied in a con­tinuum between resilience and resistance, depending on their access assets such as entrepreneurial networks, ecosystems, and pool of knowledge as antecedents of resistance and resilience. The study shed light in the understanding of the role communities surrounding entrepreneurs played in their trajectory, failure, and even­tual recovery.

Keywords

• social capital
• social networks
• entrepreneurship
• resilience