Department of Entrepreneurship

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Browsing Department of Entrepreneurship by Author "Nabirye, Barbara"

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    Cognitive Flexibility, Entrepreneurial Innovativeness and Entrepreneurial Action.
    (2023) Nabirye, Barbara
    Entrepreneurial actions are unearthed during times of turmoil to stimulate business performance. Such actions drive the innovation of new products and services in an organization that awaken demand and keep a firm operational (Furlotti et al., 2019). Since entrepreneurial actions are activities known to be practiced pre start up (innovation) and actual start up, they require the presence of individuals who are flexible in decision-making process in order to keep a firm in a stable state amidst continuous challenges (Giones et al., 2020; Caliskan & Lounsbury, 2022). Entrepreneurial actions enable SMEs to achieve their specified goals as they adapt to the changing environment and reduce the risks that may occur (Sproul et al., 2019). Enhancing entrepreneurial innovativeness and cognitive flexibility among individuals augment the rate of entrepreneurial actions that manifest in organizations (Yinus et al., 2019; Shepherd et al., 2020). In the existence of several scholarly works and the interest of improving entrepreneurial actions in firms, globally issues of SMEs failures are rampant especially during hard times. For example, according to Engidaw (2022), 43% of SMEs worldwide either closed temporarily or permanently because of the hard times as a result of COVID-19 pandemic. Gourinchas et al. (2021) in their study about the 17 European countries established that Italy had the highest failure rate of SMEs at 22.6%. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Report (2022) shows that SMEs in different regions and countries were hit differently by the pandemic. In Latin America a total of 2.6 million SMEs either permanently or temporarily closed, in America 1/5 of SMEs closed down temporarily and 1/3 closed permanently, in China 80% of SMEs closed down in 2020, Indonesia 49%, Thailand 71% Philippines 61%, UK 24% in 2020, India 47% and Bangladesh 50% of SMEs closed down. In Ethiopia, around 30% of the SMEs were hit severely and were forced to be closed down. In Uganda, more than 55% of SMEs were harshly hit and forced closed down (Kyeyune, 2022).