E-Business Resilience in the Face of Disruption: Strategies, Challenges, and Opportunities for Saudi Women Entrepreneurs

Disruptions have become a major nightmare for businesses, especially for small business owners. Unlike large companies that have the resources, organizational structure, and innovation capabilities, small business owners have limited resources and tight budgets at their disposal. This is especially true for female small business owners who face additional hurdles in times of disruptions due to a lack of support, insufficient resources, and psychological factors among other limitations. This study explores how Saudi female entrepreneurs in the e-commerce sector manage challenges, adapt to disruptions, and embrace new opportunities during times of crisis and what are the key factors influencing their decision-making processes to ensure business sustainability. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 12 women entrepreneurs and analyzed via reflexive thematic analysis. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) was employed as a theoretical lens to interpret the findings and explain the underlying drivers of entrepreneurial action. The findings identify resilience not as a static trait, but as a dynamic, temporal process manifesting across five distinct stages: Motivation, Opportunities, Disruption, Adaptation, and Sustainability. Emotions throughout these stages were analyzed to further examine the role they play in shaping entrepreneurial resilience. The research contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by providing a staged framework of resilience, particularly for women. It also contextualizes resilience as a dynamic capability shaped by crisis-induced shifts in cognition, social pressures, and digital adaptation pathways.