Operational Resilience of Tech Small and Medium Enterprises Under War-Induced Uncertainty in Ukraine
(2025) ENTN19 20251Department of Business Administration
- Abstract (Swedish)
- As geopolitical instability and war increasingly affect entrepreneurial ecosystems, there remains a critical gap in understanding how ventures sustain operations under conditions of active, prolonged conflict. While existing resilience literature often focuses on temporary crises or post-conflict recovery, this study explores how tech small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Ukraine build operational resilience under war-induced uncertainty. The full-scale Russian invasion in 2022 presents a severe and ongoing disruption, making Ukraine a compelling context for investigating real-time adaptation in high-risk environments.
This study adopts qualitative, abductive research using the Gioia methodology to analyze semi-structured... (More) - As geopolitical instability and war increasingly affect entrepreneurial ecosystems, there remains a critical gap in understanding how ventures sustain operations under conditions of active, prolonged conflict. While existing resilience literature often focuses on temporary crises or post-conflict recovery, this study explores how tech small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Ukraine build operational resilience under war-induced uncertainty. The full-scale Russian invasion in 2022 presents a severe and ongoing disruption, making Ukraine a compelling context for investigating real-time adaptation in high-risk environments.
This study adopts qualitative, abductive research using the Gioia methodology to analyze semi-structured interviews with executives of eight tech SMEs that operated both before and during the war. The research is situated at the intersection of Operational Resilience Theory, Dynamic Capabilities, and the Resource-Based View, enabling a process-oriented understanding of how disruption absorption, resource reconfiguration, and strategic continuity unfold under systemic instability.
The study contributes to resilience and crisis entrepreneurship literature by extending its theoretical application to active war zones, offering a dynamic conceptual model that illustrates how operational resilience is dynamically constructed over time as a response to the war-induced disruptions. It provides practical insights for founders, ecosystem actors, and policymakers seeking to support SMEs navigating extreme uncertainty. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9198790
- author
- Aldaniyaz, Adina LU and Chekh, Yaroslav LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- ENTN19 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- Operational resilience, war-induced uncertainty, tech SME, disruption absorption, dynamic capabilities, financial resilience, workforce resilience, technological resilience.
- language
- English
- id
- 9198790
- date added to LUP
- 2025-06-23 09:59:21
- date last changed
- 2025-06-23 09:59:21
@misc{9198790, abstract = {{As geopolitical instability and war increasingly affect entrepreneurial ecosystems, there remains a critical gap in understanding how ventures sustain operations under conditions of active, prolonged conflict. While existing resilience literature often focuses on temporary crises or post-conflict recovery, this study explores how tech small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Ukraine build operational resilience under war-induced uncertainty. The full-scale Russian invasion in 2022 presents a severe and ongoing disruption, making Ukraine a compelling context for investigating real-time adaptation in high-risk environments. This study adopts qualitative, abductive research using the Gioia methodology to analyze semi-structured interviews with executives of eight tech SMEs that operated both before and during the war. The research is situated at the intersection of Operational Resilience Theory, Dynamic Capabilities, and the Resource-Based View, enabling a process-oriented understanding of how disruption absorption, resource reconfiguration, and strategic continuity unfold under systemic instability. The study contributes to resilience and crisis entrepreneurship literature by extending its theoretical application to active war zones, offering a dynamic conceptual model that illustrates how operational resilience is dynamically constructed over time as a response to the war-induced disruptions. It provides practical insights for founders, ecosystem actors, and policymakers seeking to support SMEs navigating extreme uncertainty.}}, author = {{Aldaniyaz, Adina and Chekh, Yaroslav}}, language = {{eng}}, note = {{Student Paper}}, title = {{Operational Resilience of Tech Small and Medium Enterprises Under War-Induced Uncertainty in Ukraine}}, year = {{2025}}, }