Impact of covid-19 pandemic on entrepreneurial actions in India: A thematic analysis

This study attempts to address the restructuring of the various psychological traits of entrepreneurs following a sudden announcement of lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic. The only doable strategy ‘Lockdown’ affected the complete business ecosystem during COVID-19 circumstances. Entrepreneur, a significant contributor to the system also get impacted due to pandemic. The basic questions arise here are, what changes do entrepreneurs feel in their behaviours or actions? How did they deal with this unexpected situation while reshuffling their traits? We tried to answer these questions in the study coupled with exploring entrepreneur's strategies.

Additionally the study traverses future directions of entrepreneurship in India after the pandemic days through thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). In this exploratory study in-depth interviews were conducted, translated, and transcribed to generate codes. Themes from responses were created after meticulously inspecting responses. A thorough review of literature is applied to analyse psychological traits of entrepreneurs. Respondents were chosen via convenience sampling technique.

The study reveals conclusion by performing thematic analysis under five different dimensions 1) uniqueness of the pandemic circumstances, 2) Problems faced by entrepreneurs during this crisis, 3) changes in entrepreneurial psychological traits, 4) Survival Strategy, and 5) entrepreneur's future expectations/trends. Various themes under the five dimensions above are discussed; therefore, the study culminates in the fact that entrepreneurs fought for their survival in the lockdown period, transformed entrepreneurial traits and reorganized entrepreneurial actions.

To date, very little research has been done on the reshuffling entrepreneurial actions and traits due to the Covid-19 pandemic, because the pandemic has already had major repercussions on the global economy. This study tries to bridge the gap by conducting qualitative research on the alteration of entrepreneurial traits and actions. While the markets were closed and there were hardly any companies in operation, the study studies the consequences of the pandemic era for entrepreneurs.