New product innovations in times of crisis: How did women entrepreneurs survive the COVID-19 crisis?

Abstract

To prevent the COVID-19 virus from further spreading, several governments worldwide imposed strict mobility and activity restrictions, including a lockdown of all economic activities. These restrictions affected industrial businesses more than consumer businesses, who were allowed early relaxations from the pandemic restrictions. Women entrepreneurs (WEs) managing these businesses responded by introducing new product innovations that helped them survive the crisis and build a foundation for future growth. However, the resources used by WEs to introduce new product innovations differed across consumer and industrial businesses. In this study, we examine the difference in resources used by WEs across industrial versus consumer firms that enabled them to introduce new product innovations during the pandemic lockdown. We surveyed 388 WEs, 243 of them managing industrial firms and 145 running consumer firms, in the immediate aftermath of the lifting of the COVID-19 lockdown in India. Our analysis finds that WEs leveraged their socio-psychological resources, such as networking, resilience, and entrepreneurial orientation, to innovate new products during the crisis. Specifically, resilience helped industrial firms, and networking helped consumer firms introduce new product innovations during the COVID-19 crisis. The interplay of resilience, networking, and entrepreneurial orientation helped both industrial and consumer firms introduce new products.