A Conceptual Model of Adaptive Mechanisms in Innovation-Oriented Agricultural Entrepreneurship

The war in Ukraine has presented the agricultural sector with an unprecedented combination of risks, including the loss of production assets, climate volatility, supply chain disruption and institutional instability. In such circumstances, traditional models of entrepreneurial resilience, which are primarily designed for peacetime or isolated natural or economic shocks, lose their adaptive capacity. Meanwhile, there is virtually no comprehensive theoretical synthesis of the mechanisms by which agribusiness adapts to multiple simultaneous threats. This article aims to substantiate a conceptual model of adaptive management mechanisms for innovative agribusiness by integrating the theories of dynamic capabilities and adaptive management with institutional economics. The subject of this study is the processes through which agro-industrial enterprises adapt to conditions of institutional instability and armed conflict. The study is based on the systematic organisation and critical analysis of scientific literature on dynamic capabilities theory, classical adaptive management, and institutional economics. It also draws on a synthesis of empirical studies on agribusiness adaptability under various types of shock. As a result, a four-level conceptual model has been developed. This model sequentially combines an exogenous shock in the form of armed conflict with a reinterpreted triad of dynamic capabilities—sensing, seizing and transforming—for wartime conditions. It also incorporates an institutional moderator and the final outcome of 'bounce forward' adaptive resilience. The practical value of the model lies in its potential use as an analytical tool for assessing the preparedness of agricultural enterprises for multiple crises, developing state policy to support the agricultural sector during wartime and the post-war period, and for formulating enterprise management strategies that take into account the quality of the institutional environment.