Entrepreneurship and the Post-COVID-19 Recovery in Emerging Economies

Entrepreneurs play a focal role in a society's economic recovery from major disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that entrepreneurs' ability to identify and act on entrepreneurial opportunities during the crisis reflects their resilience, and their innovations facilitate new patterns of work, learning, and leisure activities in post-COVID-19 societies. However, how, how quickly they act, and how influential their actions are depends on their context in terms of institutions, resource access, and market volatility. In China, some entrepreneurs have shown great resilience by utilizing network relationships and digital technology, not only to overcome short-term disruptions in 2020 but to shape the evolving 'new normal' where behaviors and capabilities have changed as a consequence of the experience of the pandemic. We discuss drivers of such resilient entrepreneurship during the COVID-19 pandemic in China and call for further research on the interplay between external disruptions, different types of entrepreneurship, and the consequences for resilience in emerging economies.