Pathways to survive in abrupt adversities: a configurational approach to understanding the resilience of new venture teams

New venture teams (NVTs) face challenges caused by adversity, making team resilience crucial for venture survival. While team resilience factors have been identified, we do not yet understand how they combine. We examine their combinations from a configurational approach. Based on a fsQCA analysis of team resilience factors in thirty-eight NVTs and five follow-up in-depth case interviews, we explore how team resilience factors combine to form particular team resilience pathways for survival in adversity. Our analysis reveals three pathways: relaxed team improvisers, validated team visionaries, and relational team connectors. The theoretical implications include enhancing the framework regarding the resilience of NVTs and introducing a new causal mechanism based on the causal complexity of team resilience factors.