Entrepreneurial Frugality in Crisis: An Interpretative Phenomenological Approach

This chapter develops a more in-depth consideration of entrepreneurial frugality in the crisis regarding the continuing effect of the COVID-19 pandemic in entrepreneurship by applying an interpretative phenomenological approach. The interpretive phenomenology analysis is a qualitative method that examines entrepreneurs’ lived experiences. A qualitative method is used to provide situated insights, rich details, and in-depth descriptions. Moreover, it offers in-depth processual and contextualized knowledge. The current study aims to study why and how entrepreneurial frugality has been affected during the COVID-19 outbreak in Iran. It demonstrated that entrepreneurs are frugal in the periods of crisis and similar situations, and that in the crisis, they shift their expense pattern. The main reason for being frugal for them is themselves and self-constraint. Also, qualitative research revealed that human resources and the network are the two main levers of entrepreneurs in crisis. The study also showed that entrepreneurs could survive and grow their business by focusing and replanning for human resources, marketing, market development, and equipment. This study’s fundamental theoretical contribution at first is the methodology chosen for the research that provides new insight into entrepreneurial frugality. The second is to reduce the gap between theoretical approaches to entrepreneurial frugality and the practical field. The last contribution highlights the importance of human and social support for entrepreneurs in times of crisis.