Stephen E. Lanivich, Michael Asiedu Gyensare, Samuel Adomako, Kyle Stockdall, Laci M. Lyons
This study builds on the conservation of resources theory to postulate how founders’ characteristics affect resiliency and how resiliency affects strategic entrepreneurship behavior through the resource-induced coping heuristic. Ventures (N = 223) were surveyed with a multiple-respondent, time-lagged data collection approach to test our hypotheses using structural equation modeling. Findings provide preliminary evidence supporting our theory development. This research extends arguments in the literature for including individual-level factors in models of entrepreneurship through a cognitive perspective and exemplifies how founders’ psychological characteristics can be included as resources for a resilience capability portfolio. The discussion advances conversation considering recent research to identify further areas of inquiry important for developing a fuller understanding of resiliency concepts in the entrepreneurship context.