SMEs facing crisis: ideal response or equifinal reactions?

Although small and medium enterprises (SMEs) constitute the backbone of the European economy, studies on resilience and crisis management in SMEs are still scarce. While its limited resources reduce the possibility for an SME to adopt proactive actions of anticipation, its fast decision-making processes can facilitate the identification of effective concurrent actions of coping and reacting during a crisis. Through a descriptive approach on a sample of Italian SMEs, we investigate both the types of causes that undermine their survival and the types of actions they undertake to counter the effects of a crisis and thrive. Our findings contribute to the debate in the resilience and crisis management literature by advancing current understanding of the relationship between sources of threats and response actions in SMEs.