Weathering the storms: Unpacking Entrepreneurs' Resilience Using Repertory Grid Technique

The ability to overcome adversity, referred to as resilience, is key to the process of opportunity identification, exploration and exploitation. While resilience has attracted more scholarly attention, little systematic research explored the question of what entrepreneurs’ resilience is. Our study employs Repertory Grid Technique to identify distinguishing attributes of resilience of entrepreneurs’ from the investors’ perspective. Based on 15 interviews with investors, we identify four resilience’s attributes that are specific to the entrepreneurial context; i) entrepreneurs’ ability to successfully (re) engage with investors, ii) (re) leverage their teams and iii) their social capital in new ways and their iv) flexibility in changing their own role within their company.