The Dark Side Effect of Entrepreneurial Resilience Diversity on Pivoting: The Role of Team Reflexivity

Abstract

Resilience is widely recognized as a form of psychological capital that helps entrepreneurs cope with challenges in the face of adversity by actively adjusting business strategies. Prior research has investigated the effect of resilience on pivoting, which is an important entrepreneurial decision to forgo the original business opportunity and exploit new opportunities. Despite the increasing empirical evidence on the effect of resilience on strategic changes and the pivot, the literature may have overstated the benefits of entrepreneurial resilience while neglecting its potential dark sides. Hence, the current study focuses on the structure of resilience within an entrepreneurial team and introduces the concept of resilience diversity. Drawing from sensemaking theory, we develop a research framework that investigates the dark-side effects of resilience diversity on team reflexivity and pivoting and the moderating effect of environmental hostility. Empirical results from a two-wave survey of 112 entrepreneurial teams in China reveal that resilience diversity negatively affects pivoting by impairing the quality of team reflexivity. Moreover, the mediating effect of team reflexivity is strengthened in hostile environments. These findings contribute to the literature on entrepreneurial resilience, pivot, and team reflexivity, and provide important practical implications for entrepreneurial teams.