Micro- and small-sized enterprises’ willingness to borrow via internet financial services during coronavirus disease 2019

When the going gets tough, the entrepreneurs get less entrepreneurial?

We investigate how the 2008-2012 economic crisis relates to entrepreneurs' confidence ten years later and, in turn, their venture's entrepreneurial orientation. Conceptually, we introduce the new concept of 'hard times' to capture an entrepreneur's sense of their venture's hardship during the crisis. Theoretically, we extend ideas on imprinting, to build the argument that hard times cause a persistent reduction in an entrepreneur's entrepreneurial self-efficacy and sense of job security, both of which in turn cause a contemporaneous reduction in their venture's entrepreneurial orientation. We contrast the crisis imprinting hypothesis with a hypothesis from the more established behavioral theory of the firm. Strikingly, rich data of about 300 Flemish entrepreneurs and their ventures are in line with a small crisis imprinting effect.

Micro- and Small-Sized Enterprises’ Sustainability-Oriented Innovation for COVID-19

The economic impact of a public emergency, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, is often reduced by micro and small businesses (MSEs) undertaking sustainability-oriented innovation for public emergencies (SOIPE), which includes production and service innovation, information innovation, marketing innovation, and labor innovation. The originality of this study lies in its prediction and evaluation of COVID-19′s challenges and SOIPE’s requirements to have a keen observation and discovery ability. In this paper, we combined nominal group technique, fuzzy analytical hierarchy process, least squares, and a case study to investigate governance, economic, financial, sociocultural, and environmental sustainability and demonstrate the MSEs’ sustainability evaluation model. In a qualitative study and literature review, MSEs were found to use SOIPE in a variety of ways. Some studies focused on marketing innovation, while others were hampered by their limited understanding. From both a theoretical and empirical perspective, this study suggests that MSEs should identify their optimal SOIPE based on the impact and volatility of a public emergency. In addition, this study presents an assessment of the impact and environmental volatility of a public emergency, as well as MSEs’ SOIPE, which is more helpful for enterprises. Finally, this study creatively introduces the SOIPE of MSEs, which has important policy ramifications.