How Filipino nano-entrepreneurs survive adversity through culturally embedded resilience strategies

Purpose This study explores how Filipino nano-entrepreneurs experience and respond to overlapping personal and business adversity, and how their lived stories inform a culturally grounded understanding of entrepreneurial resilience. Design/methodology/approach We used descriptive phenomenology with 16 Filipino nano-entrepreneurs in the Metro Manila food sector. Data were generated through pakikipagkumustahan and pakikipagkuwentuhan and were triangulated with field observations, photographic documentation and follow-up visits. The analysis was guided by Richardson's metatheory of resilience and resiliency, viewed through the lens of Sikolohiyang Pilipino. Findings Four culturally embedded resilience strategies organize how participants manage adversity: pagkamaka-Diyos (spiritual grounding), lakas ng loob (morally guided perseverance), diskarte (creative problem-solving) and pakikisama (relational interdependence). Read against Richardson's reintegration pathways, these strategies enable resilient reintegration through pagbabago ng pananaw, a transformed perspective and continued operation rather than through revenue growth. The pakikisama paradox illustrates that the same relational orientation can entrench precarity when ties become exploitative. Originality/value This study extends Richardson's metatheory by specifying cultural mechanisms of reintegration and engages bricolage, effectuation and social capital research to demonstrate that diskarte and pakikisama complicate and do not replace, those frameworks. Survival under prolonged structural adversity is presented as a valid resilience outcome. The findings offer policymakers and development organizations a concrete diagnostic for designing culturally compatible support that strengthens existing kapwa-based systems and reduces dependence on exploitative informal credit.