“If you don’t close the shop, they can kill you”: how civil conflict impacts the entrepreneurial process

The question of how crises impact the entrepreneurial process remains critical for researchers and policymakers, particularly in the context of developing countries. We use retrospective interview data from entrepreneurs during the Sierra Leone Civil War (1991-2002) to theorise how the war affected their entrepreneurial process. Our findings reveal volatile crisis conditions—characterised by chaos, insecurity, and fear—and their pervasive influence on every stage of the entrepreneurial process. We identify four distinct phases that emerge during such extreme conditions: crisis-driven motivation, adaptive ideation, resourcing, and enaction. These phases underscore entrepreneurship's dynamic and adaptive nature in crisis contexts, offering novel insights into the mechanisms entrepreneurs employ to innovate, mobilise resources, and sustain their ventures. These findings provide critical theoretical contributions to the literature on entrepreneurship and crises while offering practical implications for supporting entrepreneurial resilience and recovery in adverse settings.