Factors affecting SMEs business resilience during the first Covid-19 outbreak: evidence from Italian yacht-building firms
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Keywords

Covid-19
yacht-building
SMEs
resilience

How to Cite

Patuelli, A., Zare, S., & Lattanzi, N. (2023). Factors affecting SMEs business resilience during the first Covid-19 outbreak: evidence from Italian yacht-building firms. Piccola Impresa Small Business, (3). https://doi.org/10.14596/pisb.3346
Received 2022-02-22
Accepted 2022-09-20
Published 2023-03-28

Abstract

Purpose: The business resilience literature provides several factors that help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) deal with situations of grave uncertainty. Yacht-building firms are a niche of SMEs, which play a key role within the local ecosystem, composed of SMEs and artisans. This research aims to understand the drivers of yacht-building firms’ resilience when the Covid-19 pandemic started.
Design/methodology/approach: Focusing on a selection of Italian firms, we adopted a qualitative strategy, analyzing the data with the Gioia method. Five dimensions drove yacht-building firms’ resilience: localized relationships, product attributes, organizational changes, internal capital, and a positive can-do attitude.
Findings: We present a unique finding: following the pandemic, yachts are considered a safe place, which contributed to firms’ resilience. The paper offers several contributions to the literature and practical implications, answering a call for more empirical studies on the drivers of resilience among SMEs.

https://doi.org/10.14596/pisb.3346
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Copyright (c) 2023 Alessia Patuelli, Shahab Zare, Nicola Lattanzi