Getting by with a little help from my friends: the impact of the pandemic on the collaboration of small Finnish food and beverage ventures

Ventures' social ties are important enablers of value creation. Particularly during crises, the value of relationships is highlighted as scale-limited ventures can draw from their partners' resources to find opportunities for survival and renewal. Crises also shape ventures' collaboration opportunities by disrupting networks and changing ways of engagement. Yet, longitudinal research on the impact of crises on ventures' collaboration remains limited. In the current study, we combine pre and during-pandemic interviews with social media data from 14 packaged food and beverage ventures to explore the impact of the crisis on venture collaboration. The data illustrates four distinct approaches to collaboration during the pandemic, differing in terms of scope of collaborations, variety of different partner types, proportion of developmental collaborations, and engagement in collaboration due to or despite the crisis. The findings show that the crisis significantly shaped ventures' collaborations, which may shape their social capital beyond the crisis.