Financial performances, entrepreneurial factors and coping strategy to survive in the COVID-19 pandemic: case of Vietnam

Vietnam has been one of a few countries that successfully contained the COVID-19 pandemic. However, aggressive measurements against the pandemic were at the expense of economic activities and companies’ financial performances. This cross-sectional study uses a survey of 672 companies in Vietnam and the logistic regression model to explore companies’ coping strategy choices based on their degree of financial distress, companies’ profiles, entrepreneurial factors, and the interactions between them. The results suggest that companies predominantly selected cost-cutting strategies to deal with the economic shutdown. However, the interactions between financial and entrepreneurial factors could significantly increase the likelihood of selecting growth-focused strategies. Besides, when facing a global pandemic such as COVID-19, managers’ perceptions about the spillover effects of global risks were much more impactful than local risks on companies’ coping strategy selections. This paper can help to inform managers to better deal with the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak.