Walking the tightrope amidst crises: Juggling between causation and effectuation logics to achieve resilience. Responses of hospitality Italian SMEs during Covid-19 lockdown

Covid-19 pandemic has profoundly affected the whole international and global system. This event was unforeseeable and the consequent crisis was of an exogenous nature. For this reason, entrepreneurs had to adopt decisions and actions to counter-balance unexpected contingencies. In particular, we inquired what were the entrepreneurial decision-making logics adopted during the lockdown related to the Covid-19 pandemic. We used the well-established approach of effectuation and causation to determine their contribution to the ability of an SMEs to be resilient during that period. Using a Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling technique (PLS-SEM) and Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA) we were able to that assess that both decision-making logics have an impact on how entrepreneurs reacted to crisis. Specifically, effectuation seems to improve the agility of the SME; complementarily, causation also is important to improve preparedness. Both agility and preparedness are positively connected to resilience. Our study expands research on causation and effectuation and provides support to the modern stream of literature according to which the two are complementary approaches.