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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Noemi SinkovicsORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
This study contributes to theorizing efforts on how social and environmental considerations integrate into crisis preparedness, crisis response, and resilience. Specifically, we explore how the strategic crisis response of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is shaped by the pre-existing values of entrepreneurs. We interviewed the leaders of 29 SMEs operating in the construction, manufacturing, and high-technology industries in the UK. We employed a multi-stage pattern matching approach to increase the transparency of the steps taken during the qualitative data analysis. We identified four higher order patterns with distinct variations in how SMEs respond to crisis, as well as in the entrepreneurial drivers and values associated with the decisions made. These are the following: (1) business continuity through economic prioritization, (2) profit-driven crisis response with opportunistic sustainability considerations, (3) crisis response anchored in established sustainability values, and (4) evolving through established sustainability values. We draw on the business-responsibility matrix that provides a structured way to analyze and compare firm responses to crises, making visible the link between actions, entrepreneurial values, and sustainability orientation.
Author(s): Tomlinson O, Sinkovics N, Sinkovics RR, Fath B
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Small Business Economics
Year: 2025
Volume: 65
Pages: 2005-2032
Print publication date: 01/10/2025
Online publication date: 19/06/2025
Acceptance date: 28/05/2025
Date deposited: 20/06/2025
ISSN (print): 0921-898X
ISSN (electronic): 1573-0913
Publisher: Springer New York LLC
URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-025-01080-9
DOI: 10.1007/s11187-025-01080-9
Data Access Statement: Due to the qualitative nature of the interviews and confidentiality concerns that could compromise participant privacy, the full datasets are not publicly available. However, individual case summaries for Patterns 1 to 4 and the Business-Responsibility Matrix are publicly accessible in the OSF repository at (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/A35Z2).
Notes: JEL Classification L26 · M14 · Q56 · Z13
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