COVID-19 as External Enabler of entrepreneurship practice and research

For decades, entrepreneurship and strategy research has been dominated by agent-centric and inward-looking theoretical perspectives. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the limits of this stance, as its influence on business has been both enormous and palpable. For the most part, the effects of the pandemic are no doubt negative. Business research—and presumably business practice—typically address such influence in terms of failure, resilience, and crisis management among existing businesses. Contrasting this prevalent discourse, we focus instead on positive influence of the pandemic for some emerging and new ventures. We analyze the many possible positive effects on entrepreneurship practice and highlight also positive effects on entrepreneurship research. We illustrate both positives by applying the External Enabler framework. JEL CLASSIFICATION: L26, M13, O3, R11

The “How” and the “Why” of Restoring Goal-Pursuit after a Failure

Maladaptive coping with failure can cause considerable distress and impairment. This study tested a novel cognitive strategy that induces participants to process both the value (“why”) and means (“how”) of reengaging in adaptive goal-pursuit after a failure. Students (N = 263) received bogus failure feedback on an academic test battery, and were randomly assigned to Why-only, How-only, or Combined (How+Why) goal-focused processing, or a “free-thinking” Control condition, before completing a second battery. Cognitive performance, rumination, and negative affect during both batteries were assessed. Trait rumination and an aggregate of emotion-related symptoms were examined as moderators. Results in the overall sample were mixed, with Combined and Control participants both showing some benefits from training. Notably, among high-ruminative and high-symptom participants, Combined training yielded the greatest improvement in reading comprehension and rumination, as expected. Results, though mixed, suggest this novel cognitive strategy may hold promise for enhancing failure resilience in emotionally vulnerable samples.