Entrepreneurial Resilience in Turbulent Times: Navigating Crisis and Disruption

Abstract

Pakistan has been grappling with violent disruptions for nearly three decades. Alongside the Afghan war, incidents rooted in religious, linguistic, and ethnic conflicts have severely damaged the country’s social, economic, institutional, and political infrastructure. These acts of organized violence manifest in multiple forms and carry wide-ranging economic, social, and psychological consequences. They reduce economic activity by destroying infrastructure, generating uncertainty, discouraging investment, and stalling overall business growth. This paper examines the impact of such violence on entrepreneurship, using Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), as a case study. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with 10 entrepreneurs who were direct victims of the bomb blast at Meena Bazaar which is one of the deadliest attacks in Peshawar’s history, claiming 100+ lives, injuring over 200 individuals, and destroying the entire marketplace. Thematic analysis of the data reveals that such violent events significantly hamper entrepreneurial activity by reducing sales and customer engagement. Some entrepreneurs closed their businesses, while others continued operations without pursuing growth. Additionally, entrepreneurs and their families experienced both financial and psychological distress. Interestingly, this study also emphasizes that entrepreneurs in the violence-affected marketplace rely on multipronged coping strategies that are based on personal resilience as well as collective adaptation. Spiritually grounded explanations helped individuals endure trauma. Together, these patterns depict that resilience among the entrepreneurs in such contexts is both relational and reflective. It is also deeply embedded in social networks and rooted in personal belief systems. This shifts the focus beyond entrepreneurial failure or success, toward a more processual and contextual understanding of resilience under crisis conditions. This research offers a novel contribution by exploring the relationship between violent conflict and entrepreneurship in the context of Peshawar.