When all doors close: Implications of COVID-19 for cosmopolitan entrepreneurs

Abstract

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic is an external shock that has disrupted the foundations of everyday life. For cosmopolitan entrepreneurs, the impact is even more decisive as it confronts their core values and jeopardises their identities, ways of working and the lifestyles they cherish. Cosmopolitans are individuals who identify themselves as citizens of the world and voluntarily move from country to country in pursuit of self-fulfilment in both life and work. Cosmopolitan entrepreneurs are future-oriented and open to the world and the opportunities it may provide. Beyond securing, maintaining and improving their professional and/or economic positions, their mobility is an elementary part of the cosmopolitan life itself, something they find attractive, interesting and stimulating. Thus, a cosmopolitan entrepreneur’s business is often non-location-bound to enable continued mobility. With our interview-based research, we shed light on how COVID-19 has changed the lives of Finnish-born cosmopolitan entrepreneurs, discussing what they feel about the changes and how they see their future.

Creative reconstruction: a structured literature review of the early empirical research on the COVID-19 crisis and entrepreneurship

“…The pandemic confronted entrepreneurs with a situation that was not necessarily a black swan event, but which involved having imperfect information to base decisions upon, that is, it was accompanied by high degrees of uncertainty. As a consequence, many otherwise viable business models were challenged (Nummela et al 2020 ), in particular by the infection control measures that put much economic activity on hold. When describing this uncertainty, the literature in the sample has primarily focused on the resulting challenges for entrepreneurs; reduced entrepreneurial activity and investor reactions.…”

“…For instance, for some entrepreneurs forced inactivity seemed to reduce stress, and forced them to reflect on their values, lives, and entrepreneurial identity. That process in some cases led to the discovery of new fields for entrepreneurial activity (Nummela et al 2020 ). A connected theme is visible in the work of Seidenschnur ( 2020 ) analyzing the communication in a regional level social media network.…”

“… Opportunity Primary qualitative and quantitative USA 86 female entrepreneurs, 74 female entrepreneurs, two firms Univariate statistical analysis; case studies A crisis should be responded to with a discovery-driven approach that simultaneously reduces risks and seizes opportunity Mirza et al ( 2020 ) How does COVID-19 affect the behavior of investment funds? Resilience Secondary quantitative Europe 266 capital market, money market, and alternative investment funds Univariate statistical analysis Only social entrepreneurship funds are resilient Nummela et al ( 2020 ) How has COVID-19 changed the life of cosmopolitan entrepreneurs? Uncertainty Primary qualitative Finland 25 cosmopolitan entrepreneurs Reports interview excerpts Lockdowns limit the mobility of cosmopolitan entrepreneurs, challenge their business model but at the same time reduce stress Prah and Sibiri ( 2020 ) How does the COVID-19 crisis affect migrant entrepreneurs?…”

Standing up against crisis-induced entrepreneurial uncertainty: Fewer teams, more habitual entrepreneurs

“…The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis has already triggered empirical research aiming to illuminate how the crisis has affected innovative entrepreneurial activity. For instance, Kuckertz et al (2020) illustrate the challenges for innovative startups posed by infection control measures and how they cope, Nummela et al (2020) describe the challenges faced by cosmopolitan entrepreneurs, Brown and Rocha (2020) document a decline in available early-stage financing for nascent entrepreneurs and Manolova et al (2020) provide initial evidence of entrepreneurs adjusting their business models.…”

From Decision to Survival—Shifting the Paradigm in Entrepreneurship during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…The shifting of the entrepreneurial paradigm was caused by changes in consumer behavior. Thus, the entrepreneur could transform the crisis created by the pandemic into an advantage [38], and, implicitly, this was conducive to discover a new field of entrepreneurial activity [39]. All the previous aspects could be synthetized in the Fisher et al point of view that suggested the notion of entrepreneurial hustle, defined as "an entrepreneur's urgent, unorthodox actions that are intended to be useful in addressing immediate challenges and opportunities under conditions of uncertainty" [40].…”