Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Constraints for MSME Resilience: Evidence from Indonesian Multiple-Case Study

Abstract

This study examines how entrepreneurial ecosystem constraints shape MSME resilience in the Jakarta–Bogor–Depok Indonesia corridor using a qualitative multiple-case design. Drawing on 20 MSME case reports across food and beverage, retail, services, and small-scale manufacturing, the study addresses two questions: (1) which ecosystem domains are the most binding constraints, and (2) how MSMEs convert ecosystem resources into resilience outcomes. The analysis shows that market pressure is the most universal constraint (20/20 cases), followed by digital-managerial support infrastructure gaps (18/20), supply chain volatility (13/20), and finance, human capital, and institutional constraints (each 12/20 cases). Cross-case evidence identifies four recurrent mechanisms: market pressure is managed through digital channel orchestration and customer engagement; capital constraints are managed through internal cash discipline and partnership-based financing; input volatility is managed through supplier diversification, local sourcing, and inventory control; and skill gaps are managed through internal training and process standardization. Building on these mechanisms, the study develops a threefold resilience typology: Adaptive Leaders, Operational Survivors, and Vulnerable Traditionalists. The main theoretical contribution is to show that MSME resilience is configurational and depends on inter-domain alignment rather than on isolated ecosystem components or entrepreneur-level grit alone. The practical contribution is a typology-based policy logic that prioritizes integrated intervention bundles, which are finance, digital capability, operations, supply chain, and managerial upgrading, over fragmented support programs.

1. Introduction

Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are widely recognized as the backbone of local economies, not only because they generate employment and household income but also because they sustain everyday consumption and neighborhood services that rarely attract formal investment attention [1,2]. Yet MSMEs are also structurally vulnerable: they tend to operate with thin cash buffers, limited managerial slack, and high exposure to demand shocks, input-price volatility, and local competition [3,4]. These vulnerabilities became more visible during and after COVID-19, when mobility restrictions and demand contractions forced many small firms to reconfigure operations, sales channels, and supplier relations [5,6]. In this context, resilience, the capability to anticipate, absorb, adapt, and recover, has moved from a peripheral concept to a central question for entrepreneurship and small business research [4,7,8].

While much of the resilience literature emphasizes internal capabilities (e.g., dynamic capabilities, learning, improvisation, and resource reconfiguration), small firms’ survival and recovery are also shaped by the external environment that enables or constrains entrepreneurial action [9,10,11]. The entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) perspective is particularly useful here because it conceptualizes entrepreneurship as an outcome of interdependent actors and systemic conditions, which are finance, markets, human capital, networks, institutions, culture, and support infrastructures, rather than an isolated trait of individual entrepreneurs [12,13,14,15]. In ecosystems, “constraints” are rarely single-factor problems; they are often bottlenecks created by misalignment across domains, for example, access to finance without adequate managerial capability, market opportunities without digital reach, or innovation intent without reliable input supply [16,17,18]. Therefore, connecting MSME resilience to EE constraints offers a pathway to explain why some firms adapt faster than others, even within the same region and sector.

Empirical evidence from the twenty MSME case reports in this study demonstrates the relevance of an entrepreneurial ecosystem lens for explaining resilience dynamics. Across sectors, including food and beverage, retail, services, and small-scale manufacturing, the cases consistently indicate market-access and marketing constraints, ranging from limited customer reach and intensified competition to weak branding capabilities and uneven digital adoption. Several reports further describe a post-pandemic competitive environment in which firms increasingly rely on product/service innovation, customer relationship management, and social-media-based promotion to sustain demand.

Financial and cash-flow constraints also appear as recurrent bottlenecks, both in the form of limited capital for expansion and in restricted access to formal credit. In at least one case, small-business credit procedures are portrayed as administratively burdensome and time-consuming, prompting reliance on internal cash optimization and informal partnership arrangements. Input-side pressures are similarly salient: volatile raw-material prices and supply unreliability are reported to erode margins and disrupt operations. In response, MSMEs adopt adaptive measures, such as supplier diversification, local sourcing, and tighter inventory management.

Capability-related constraints are likewise evident, particularly in difficulties recruiting skilled labor, limited opportunities for workforce upskilling, and uneven uptake of digital tools and structured bookkeeping practices. Taken together, these patterns suggest that MSME resilience is not adequately explained as an individual-level trait alone; rather, it is better conceptualized as a context-dependent outcome shaped by ecosystem frictions and by the firm’s capacity to mobilize ecosystem resources (e.g., supplier ties, platform access, community networks, and policy support mechanisms).

This observation matters because EE research and MSME resilience research often advance in parallel, with limited integration at the micro-process level. EE studies frequently emphasize regional attributes, policy environments, and aggregated measures of entrepreneurial output, or they focus on high-growth startups and innovation-driven entrepreneurship [14,16,19]. Conversely, MSME resilience studies often investigate firm-level responses (bricolage, effectuation, dynamic capabilities) without systematically mapping which ecosystem domains create the dominant constraints and how these constraints interact to shape resilience trajectories [4,20,21]. Even where digital transformation is highlighted as a resilience lever, research repeatedly notes heterogeneity in digital readiness and the persistence of “last-mile” constraints, skills, time, routines, and complementary assets that prevent technology from translating into performance [5,22]. Our dataset reinforces this heterogeneity in which some MSMEs actively deploy digital channels and structured operating routines, while others remain largely offline due to time constraints, capability limitations, or operational trade-offs.

Building on the above, this paper addresses three gaps. First, much EE scholarship remains macro or meso (region/city level) and does not sufficiently document how ecosystem constraints are experienced by MSME owners in daily decision-making [14,15,23]. The 20 case reports provide direct owner-centered narratives of constraints (finance, inputs, marketing, technology, HR) and coping actions across sectors.

Second, resilience studies often list strategies (cost-cutting, digital marketing, supplier switching) but less often theorize them as ecosystem-mediated mechanisms (e.g., supplier network reconfiguration as an ecosystem network function; platform adoption as market access infrastructure) [4,7,24]. The cases explicitly connect constraints (e.g., unstable inputs, weak marketing reach, administrative barriers) to specific adaptations (supplier diversification, digital channel strengthening, staff training).

Third, evidence from emerging markets is still uneven, and within-country MSME heterogeneity is frequently underexplored, especially across everyday sectors (street food, small retail, repair services) where resilience has high social value [25]. The cross-sector nature of these cases enables a more comparative, pattern-seeking explanation rather than a single-industry narrative.

RQ1: Which ecosystem domains (finance, markets, human capital, networks, institutions, support infrastructure) most frequently emerge as binding constraints in MSME cases?

RQ2: How do MSMEs translate ecosystem resources (supplier ties, platforms, training support) into resilience practices (adaptation, recovery, reconfiguration), and what patterns differentiate more resilient cases from less resilient ones?

This study makes three distinct contributions to the EE-resilience literature. First, it provides micro-process evidence of how ecosystem constraints are experienced at the owner level: unlike most EE studies that operate at macro or meso scales, this study surfaces how ecosystem frictions, such as credit rejection, digital adoption gaps, supply instability, and competitive pressures, translate into daily operational decisions across 20 MSME cases. Second, it advances a constraint-to-mechanism mapping that links EE functional domains to specific firm-level resilience practices, helping unify EE theory with resilience theory at the practice level. Third, it contributes cross-sector evidence from every day MSMEs, street food vendors, angkringan owners, retail operators, and fashion entrepreneurs in an Indonesian urban-peri-urban corridor, a setting underrepresented in EE research, which is dominated by Western high-tech startup ecosystems. These contributions position the study at the intersection of entrepreneurial ecosystem theory, MSME resilience research, and emerging-market entrepreneurship.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: From Components to Functional Constraints

The entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) perspective explains entrepreneurial outcomes as products of interdependent actors, institutions, and resource flows rather than isolated firm-level attributes. Foundational contributions describe ecosystems as place-based configurations involving policy, finance, culture, support organizations, human capital, markets, and networks [12,13,26]. Later work emphasizes that ecosystem quality is not determined by the presence of components alone, but by the functioning and alignment of these components [27].

This shift from “checklists of elements” to “system functionality” is critical for MSME research. MSMEs may operate in contexts where nominal support exists (e.g., credit schemes, training programs, digital platforms), yet constraints persist because access costs, coordination failures, and capability mismatches reduce actual usability [16,23]. Hence, constraints in EE should be conceptualized as binding bottlenecks, points where interdependencies fail and block value creation.

For analytical clarity, the present study organizes ecosystem constraints into six domains frequently used in EE and MSME research:

• Finance (availability, affordability, and administrative accessibility of capital),
• Markets (customer access, competition intensity, and channel reach),
• Human capital (skills, managerial capability, and workforce quality),
• Networks (supplier/customer ties, and peer and institutional linkages),
• Institutions/policy (rules, bureaucracy, and program design and implementation),
• Support infrastructure (digital tools, logistics, and advisory and training services).

2.2. MSME Resilience: Conceptualizing Response Beyond Survival

Resilience in small business research has evolved from a narrow “bouncing back” view toward a dynamic capability to anticipate, absorb, adapt, and transform under disruption [4,7]. For MSMEs, resilience is especially consequential because limited slack resources amplify exposure to shocks and volatility [3,24].

Recent studies show that MSME resilience is multi-dimensional: operational continuity (short-run), adaptive reconfiguration (medium-run), and strategic renewal (long-run) [28,29]. In crisis contexts, common responses include cost reprioritization, channel migration to digital markets, supply base adjustments, and product/service innovation [5,30,31].

However, treating resilience purely as an internal firm attribute is insufficient for MSMEs. Their response capacity often depends on ecosystem-mediated access to finance, market channels, and external knowledge. Thus, resilience is better understood as a relational and contextual capability, co-produced between firms and their ecosystems [11,32].

2.3. Linking EE Constraints to MSME Resilience Mechanisms

Financial constraints limit inventory buffering, process upgrades, and recovery speed. Credit rationing and high transaction costs in formal finance often force MSMEs into internal cash cycling or informal financing, which can support survival but may constrain scaling [1,33]. In EE terms, this is not only a “capital shortage” issue; it also reflects institutional fit and accessibility of financing mechanisms.

Market access constraints, low visibility, channel dependence, and intense rivalry push MSMEs to adopt adaptive commercialization strategies, especially digital promotion and platform-based selling. Yet adoption outcomes vary by absorptive capacity, managerial routines, and complementary capabilities [21]. Therefore, market-domain constraints interact with human-capital and infrastructure domains.

Supply instability and input price volatility are recurrent stressors for small firms. Network diversification (multiple suppliers, local sourcing, relationship-based procurement) can reduce vulnerability and increase flexibility [21,34]. This positions supplier and partner ties as resilience infrastructure rather than merely transactional relationships.

Skills deficits, both technical and managerial, reduce the effectiveness of digital tools, financial controls, and process standardization. Evidence across small-firm contexts indicates that resilience depends not only on strategy choice but on execution capability and organizational learning [4,9]. Hence, training and practical mentoring are central bridging mechanisms between support programs and actual resilience outcomes.

Together, these streams suggest that resilience practices are domain-coupled: for example, digital marketing requires human-capital readiness; supplier diversification may require working capital; and financial planning quality depends on bookkeeping capability. This interdependence directly motivates RQ2.

Prior literature indicates that MSME outcomes under similar shocks can diverge substantially [35,36]. The difference often lies in configuration quality rather than single-factor advantages: stronger cases combine proactive market adaptation, basic financial discipline, and network redundancy; weaker cases show isolated responses (e.g., promotion without operations readiness, or cost-cutting without market repositioning). This suggests that resilience should be analyzed as configurational (patterns of aligned practices across domains), not additive (single-variable effects only). This insight guides cross-case comparisons in answering RQ2.

Despite significant progress, three focused gaps remain. First, the micro-process EE evidence gap: many EE studies remain macro/meso and under-specify owner-level constraint experiences and response sequences. Second, the constraint-to-mechanism gap: resilience studies frequently report strategies but less often map them systematically to ecosystem domains and interdependencies. Third, the everyday MSME cross-sector gap: evidence is still concentrated on startups or single-sector contexts, and less is known about cross-sector MSME patterns in emerging economies.

In summary, while the EE literature provides robust frameworks for understanding firm formation and growth, considerably less attention has been paid to how ecosystem-level constraints shape the resilience of established micro-enterprises during shocks. This gap is particularly acute in the Indonesian context, where MSMEs constitute 99% of all registered business units and represent the primary employment and livelihood mechanism in urban-peri-urban corridors. Existing resilience studies in emerging markets tend to focus on individual firm strategies without systematically mapping which ecosystem domains create the dominant bottlenecks and how these bottlenecks interact to shape resilience configurations. This study addresses this gap by mapping six EE constraint domains to firm-level resilience mechanisms in a purposive multiple-case design from the Jakarta–Bogor–Depok corridor, contributing both empirical evidence and a configural analytical framework applicable to comparable emerging-market MSME ecosystems.

3. Materials and Methods

3.1. Research Design

This study employs a qualitative multiple-case design based on a documentary analysis of existing field documentation to examine how entrepreneurial ecosystem constraints shape MSME resilience. A multiple-case approach is appropriate because the research seeks both (i) pattern identification across heterogeneous business contexts and (ii) mechanism explanation, rather than single-case idiosyncratic description [37,38].

The design is theory-informed, evidence-driven: entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) domains provide the sensitizing framework for coding (finance, markets, human capital, networks, institutions/policy, support infrastructure), while resilience is analyzed as an outcome process (absorb–adapt–reconfigure). The empirical material comprised 20 MSME case reports produced through a structured field documentation activity conducted by student research teams at the Vocational Education Program, Universitas Indonesia, between September and December 2024. Each report documented a guided interview with one MSME owner in the Jakarta–Bogor–Depok corridor and was prepared following a standardized six-domain protocol: (1) business profile and history; (2) financial conditions before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic; (3) identified constraints and barriers; (4) competitive landscape and strategy; (5) products, pricing, and marketing; and (6) operational experience and support expectations. The present authors performed a systematic documentary analysis of these 20 reports as the unit of analysis. The study, therefore, constitutes document-based qualitative research analyzing existing field documentation, rather than primary data collection by the research authors, an approach that is methodologically legitimate provided data quality is assured and analysis is systematic and transparent [35].

Cases were selected purposively using theoretical sampling criteria [35]. Prior to analysis, the lead author screened all submitted reports for inclusion eligibility. A report was included only if it contained documentable evidence on both of the following: (a) at least one experienced ecosystem constraint with an identifiable operational impact on the business, and (b) at least one owner-level response mechanism or adaptive action. Reports documenting only general business descriptions without constraint-response narratives were excluded. Two reports from the initial pool were excluded on this basis, yielding the final analytical corpus of 20 case reports. The case reports are held as an internal educational archive at the Vocational Education Program, Universitas Indonesia, and are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

3.2. Data Analysis

Coding was structured around a theory-driven framework using the six EE domains: finance/capital access, markets/competition, human capital/skills, networks/supply chain, support infrastructure, and institutions/policy as sensitizing categories. These six domains were operationally defined a priori based on the EE literature, with indicator keywords in Bahasa Indonesia and explicit presence thresholds specifying the minimum evidence required to code a domain as PRESENT at the case level (see Supplementary Materials, Section S1). A domain was coded PRESENT only when the case report contained explicit owner-level evidence of an experienced constraint with an identifiable operational impact, not when the domain was mentioned only in theoretical background sections or document-level literature review sections.

In Stage 1, the lead author read all 20 case reports in full and applied the six EE domain codes independently. Coding was recorded in a structured matrix with one row per case, one column per domain, and one column for verbatim or close-paraphrase evidence fragments drawn directly from each report’s constraints, financial, or strategy sections. These evidence fragments constitute the evidentiary chain linking raw case report text to the final domain codes (see Supplementary Materials, Section S1 for full evidence anchors from all 20 cases).

In Stage 2, all domain assignments and evidence fragments were reviewed by co-authors CW and MH against the threshold definitions. Discrepancies, defined as any case where a co-author disagreed with a PRESENT or ABSENT assignment, were flagged and resolved through structured consensus discussion requiring unanimous agreement among all three authors, with the evidence fragment re-evaluated against the domain threshold definition before a final code was assigned. In total, 9 discrepancies were identified across 120 coding decisions (6 domains × 20 cases = 120; disagreement rate 7.5%), primarily concentrated in the institutions/policy domain, where distinguishing owner-level statements from document-level theoretical framing required careful re-evaluation. All 9 discrepancies were resolved before finalizing the frequency counts reported in

Table 1. Entrepreneurial ecosystem constraint frequency across 20 MSME cases.

EE Domain	Breadth (Cases PRESENT/20)	Breadth (%)	Criticality-Depth
Market/Competition	20/20	100%	High—14/20 cases documented pandemic-period revenue drops of 30–50% or named direct competitors creating sustained margin pressure
Support Infrastructure (Digital/Managerial)	18/20	90%	High—digital capability gap identified as primary competitive disadvantage in 12/18 PRESENT cases
Finance/Capital Access	12/20	60%	Very High—7/12 PRESENT cases described capital constraints as primary survival barrier; two cases documented formal credit rejection
Networks/Supply Chain	13/20	65%	Moderate—5/13 PRESENT cases described supply disruption as existential; majority managed through supplier diversification
Human Capital/Skills	12/20	60%	Moderate—5/12 PRESENT cases described HR/skill gaps as blocking growth; remainder managed through internal training
Institutions/Policy	12/20	60%	Low-Moderate—majority of PRESENT cases reflect unmet expectations rather than operational crisis; 3/12 described regulatory burden as critical

. The full two-stage procedure is documented in Supplementary Materials, Section S2.

It is important to note that the frequency counts in Table 1 reflect the number of case reports coded PRESENT per domain, not the number of times a keyword appeared across all 20 documents. A constraint domain was coded PRESENT only when the report documented an operational impact meeting the stated threshold, regardless of whether domain-specific keywords appeared. Conversely, keyword appearances in theoretical background sections did not trigger a PRESENT code even when the relevant term was prominent. This distinction prevents two systematic errors: frequency inflation from theoretical background repetition, and frequency deflation from cases that document constraints in operational language without using headline keywords. Annotated examples illustrating this distinction are provided in Supplementary Materials, Section S2.

In addition to breadth, Table 1 reports a criticality-depth indicator for each domain. Criticality-depth reflects the proportion of PRESENT cases in which the owner explicitly described the constraint as a primary threat to business survival, the most difficult barrier to overcome, or the direct cause of significant operational or financial loss. This assessment was based on the same evidence fragments used in domain coding and was reviewed in Stage 2 alongside the PRESENT/ABSENT assignments.

After domain-level coding was complete, each case received a dominant resilience dimension code based on the response narrative documented in the report, following the absorb–adapt–transform framework established in the resilience literature. Three dimensions were coded: absorptive resilience, defined as operational continuity under pressure without major reconfiguration of strategy, channels, or organizational structure; adaptive resilience, defined as a documented reconfiguration of at least one major operational domain, such as marketing channels, supply base, financial management practices, or workforce management, in response to ecosystem pressure; and transformative resilience, defined as business model innovation, significant market expansion, or organizational capability upgrading that creates new competitive positioning beyond operational adjustment. These dimension codes subsequently informed the typology assignment in Section 5.5, where cases were grouped by cross-domain configuration patterns rather than by individual domain presence alone.

3.3. Quality Assurance in Document-Based Case Analysis

To ensure analytical quality in a document-based multiple-case design, this study adopted four quality assurance measures applied sequentially across the data screening, coding, and analysis stages.

First, inclusion screening. As described in Section 3.1, case reports were screened against two inclusion criteria: documented ecosystem constraints with operational impact and at least one owner-level response mechanism, with two reports excluded from the initial pool on this basis. This screening criterion ensures that all included cases contribute analyzable constraint-response evidence to the cross-case synthesis, rather than diluting the corpus with descriptively thin materials.

Second, systematic coding review. The two-stage coding review procedure described in Section 3.2, in which all 120 domain assignments were independently reviewed by co-authors CW and MH, with 9 discrepancies resolved through consensus, constitutes the primary quality assurance mechanism against single-coder bias.

Third, cross-case convergence as a validity mechanism. All analytical claims in this study, constraint frequency counts, mechanism identifications, and typology assignments, are based on patterns observed across multiple independent cases rather than single-case evidence alone. A pattern is reported only when it appears across at least two independent cases, and the most central claims (such as the universality of market pressure and digital infrastructure constraints) are supported by convergence across the full corpus. This cross-case convergence approach increases the analytical robustness of the identified mechanisms relative to single-case or anecdotal evidence, and is consistent with the replication logic recommended for multiple-case qualitative research.

Fourth, transparency of the evidentiary chain. All major analytical claims in the manuscript are linked to named case evidence with verbatim or close-paraphrase evidence fragments drawn directly from the case reports. A full codebook specifying domain definitions, indicator keywords in Bahasa Indonesia, presence thresholds, and evidence anchors from all 20 cases is provided in Supplementary Materials, Section S1. The complete 20-case coding matrix is provided in Supplementary Materials, Section S3. This evidence transparency enables readers and reviewers to directly evaluate the evidentiary basis of each analytical conclusion, assess the quality of the underlying case materials, and replicate or extend the coding framework in future research.

4. Results

4.1. Case Sample Profile

The research material comprises 20 documented MSME cases located in the Jakarta–Bogor–Depok corridor. The sample is sector-heterogeneous but F&B-dominant: 14 cases cover food and beverage businesses, including street food vendors, traditional food stalls, quick service restaurants, cafés, and beverage outlets, and six cases cover non-F&B sectors, including sembako retail, stationery retail, cleaning products trade, ornamental fish aquaculture, welding/manufacturing, and fashion/textile (

Table 2. Profile of 20 MSMEs.

No.	Business Name	Business Sector	Business/Market Area	Firm Size	Main Channel(s)
1	Bengkel Las Cipta Mandiri	Service/Small Manufacturing (welding)	Depok; serves Greater Jakarta	Small	Offline, marketplace, customer networks
2	UMKM Hardianto	Retail (basic groceries/sembako)	Bogor (local market)	Micro	Offline only
3	Pondok L.A	Food and Beverage (quick service eatery)	East Jakarta (Rawamangun)	Micro–Small	Offline, word of mouth; GoFood planned
4	Gorengan Ibu Anita	Food and Beverage (fried street food)	Bogor (local market)	Micro	Offline, WhatsApp, basic social media
5	Secret Sushi	Food and Beverage (Japanese food)	North Jakarta	Micro–Small	Offline, Instagram, digital promotion
6	Toko Andalas	Retail (stationery/ATK)	Jakarta (education/office market)	Small	Offline store, e-commerce
7	Garasi Tissue	Trade (cleaning products)	North Jakarta (household market)	Micro	Offline, resellers, limited online
8	Kebab Asap Margonda	Food and Beverage (kebab)	Depok; Greater Jakarta market	Micro	Offline, Instagram/TikTok, social media
9	Ayam Krispi Shakila	Food and Beverage (fried chicken)	Bekasi	Micro	Offline, marketplace/social media
10	Waroeng Arwana	Aquaculture (ornamental fish)	East Jakarta; export to Singapore	Micro–Small	Online shop, community networks, offline
11	Dimsum Madina	Food and Beverage (dimsum)	Depok base; Jakarta reach	Micro	Offline, Instagram, WhatsApp, marketplace, delivery apps
12	MOMOYO Ice Cream	Food and Beverage (dessert/ice cream)	Greater Jakarta (outlet-based)	Small	Offline outlets, Instagram/TikTok, digital promotion
13	Delysh Coffeeshop	Food and Beverage (coffee shop)	Depok (urban market)	Small	Offline, GoFood/GrabFood, social media, e-commerce
14	Ketoprak Telor Tunggawa	Food and Beverage (traditional food/ketoprak)	Depok (Kukusan/Beji)	Micro	Offline, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, ojek online
15	Warung Pecel Ce Ibi	Food and Beverage (traditional food/pecel)	Bogor (Megamendung, peri-urban)	Micro	Offline only (word of mouth)
16	Angkringan Bang Bewok	Food and Beverage (angkringan/snacks)	East Jakarta (Rawamangun)	Micro	Offline, WhatsApp, GoFood (adopted during pandemic)
17	Pukis TJ	Food and Beverage (traditional snack/pukis)	Depok	Micro	Offline, developing online channels
18	Kuliner Jus Kode	Food and Beverage (beverages/juice)	Central Jakarta	Micro	Offline, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp
19	Somay Batagor Mang Asep	Food and Beverage (street food/somay)	Depok (UI Vocational/Kukusan area)	Micro	Offline, WhatsApp, GoFood
20	Pisana.id	Fashion/Textile (Muslim fashion)	Greater Jakarta (Bekasi base)	Micro–Small	Instagram, TikTok, Shopee, offline events

). This sectoral composition reflects the actual structure of the MSME landscape in the Jakarta–Bogor–Depok corridor, consistent with national MSME census data showing food and beverage as the dominant sector in urban-peri-urban Java (BPS, 2022). The sectoral concentration is acknowledged as a boundary condition for generalizability and is addressed through sub-group analysis below.

Regionally, cases are distributed across Depok (n = 8, including Kukusan/Beji and Margonda areas), Jakarta (n = 7, primarily East and North Jakarta), and Bogor (n = 5, including Megamendung and surrounding peri-urban areas). This distribution is analytically relevant to the entrepreneurial ecosystem framework because it captures both dense urban market contexts (Jakarta) and peri-urban market conditions (Bogor), allowing for spatial heterogeneity in ecosystem constraint exposure.

In terms of business scale, the sample is dominated by micro and small enterprises, with annual turnover ranging from Rp 20 million (micro, subsistence-level) to approximately Rp 2.5 billion (small-medium, growth-phase) across cases. Organizational structures tend to be owner-centric with simple hierarchies, although team sizes vary from sole operators to businesses with formal functional divisions, including dedicated digital marketing and operations roles.

Two broad operational orientations are observable across cases: (i) survival-focused businesses, concentrated on maintaining cash flow, customer retention, and daily operational continuity; and (ii) growth-adaptive businesses, actively pursuing market expansion, product innovation, and digital channel development. This preliminary distinction foreshadows the resilience typology developed in Section 5.5.

Regarding sales channels, the majority of cases employed a hybrid model combining direct offline sales with at least one digital channel, social media platforms (Instagram, TikTok, Facebook), marketplace platforms (Shopee, Tokopedia), or delivery applications (GoFood, GrabFood). This pattern provides important context for interpreting the relationship between market constraints, digital infrastructure gaps, and resilience strategies in the following sections.

To assess constraint pattern robustness across sectors, a sub-analysis was conducted comparing F&B (n = 14) and non-F&B (n = 6) sub-groups. Market pressure (20/20) and digital/managerial infrastructure gaps (18/20) appeared consistently across both sub-groups, suggesting these are ecosystem-level constraints rather than sector-specific phenomena. Finance, human capital, and supply chain constraints showed somewhat more distributed patterns across sectors and are discussed with sector-specific caveats where relevant. All findings are interpreted as within-sample analytical patterns; cross-sector generalizability is explicitly bounded to contexts with comparable ecosystem conditions.

4.2. The Most Binding Ecosystem Constraint Domain

A cross-analysis of 20 cases reveals that the constraints faced by MSMEs in the Jakarta–Bogor–Depok corridor do not operate in isolation, but form an interconnected bundle of constraints across six ecosystem domains: markets/competition, finance/capital access, support infrastructure (digital/managerial), human capital/skills, networks/supply chain, and institutions/policy. As reported in

Table 3. Frequency and criticality of constraints by entrepreneurial ecosystem domain (N = 20 cases).

EE Domain	Core Constraint Indicators	Breadth (Cases PRESENT/20)	Breadth (%)	Criticality-Depth 1
Market/Competition	Intense competition, limited customer base, price pressure, pandemic-period demand collapse	20/20	100%	High
Support Infrastructure (Digital/Managerial)	Suboptimal digital marketing, uneven technology adoption, unstructured bookkeeping	18/20	90%	High
Networks/Supply Chain	Input price volatility, unstable supply, dependence on imported inputs	13/20	65%	Moderate
Finance/Capital Access	Limited capital, cash-flow pressure, constrained access to formal credit	12/20	60%	Very High
Human Capital/Skills	Difficulty hiring skilled labor, digital and managerial competency gaps	12/20	60%	Moderate
Institutions/Policy	High expectations for public support, limited program accessibility, administrative friction	12/20	60%	Low–Moderate

Note: ¹ Criticality-depth indicates the proportion of PRESENT cases in which the owner explicitly described the constraint as a primary survival threat, the most difficult barrier to overcome, or the direct cause of significant operational or financial loss. Full coding evidence and evidence anchors for all 20 cases are provided in Supplementary Materials, Section S1.

, market pressure emerged as the most universally binding constraint (20/20 cases, 100%), followed by support infrastructure gaps (18/20, 90%), with finance, human capital, supply chain, and institutional constraints each present in approximately 60–65% of cases.

This pattern suggests a structural logic in how ecosystem constraints operate: market pressure and digital infrastructure gaps function as “front-end constraints”, universally experienced and directly shaping revenue and customer reach, while limited capital, human capital deficits, supply chain vulnerabilities, and institutional barriers function as “back-end constraints” that limit MSMEs’ strategic response capacity when front-end pressures intensify. The interaction between front-end and back-end constraints is central to understanding why some MSMEs successfully adapted, while others remained in survival mode, a dynamic explored in the typology analysis in Section 5.5.

4.2.1. Market and Competition Constraints (Most Dominant)

As shown in Table 3 in the market domain, the most consistent issues are intense competition, limited customer reach, price pressure, and pandemic-period demand collapse. The case of Bengkel Las Cipta Mandiri explicitly mentions increasingly intense competition and difficulty retaining customers when prices are perceived as relatively high, which is a dynamic that illustrates the structural bargaining weakness of micro-enterprises competing without differentiation advantages.

A similar pattern emerged in UMKM Hardianto, where the owner faced simultaneous competitive pressure from minimarkets, supermarkets, e-commerce platforms, and wholesale stores, representing multi-tier market pressure that a single sembako retail outlet cannot easily counter through price alone.

A key finding is that in many cases, a price-war response strategy is counterproductive because it erodes margins and weakens medium-term sustainability without resolving the underlying competitive disadvantage. This confirms that market constraints are not solely promotional issues, but are related to the competitive structure and bargaining position of MSMEs within the broader ecosystem.

At the severity end of the spectrum, pandemic-period demand collapse was documented across multiple cases: Pondok L. A reported a 50% revenue drop during the pandemic period, while Delysh Coffeeshop documented daily revenue declining from Rp 1 million to Rp 600,000–700,000. A distinct form of market-digital intersection was observed in Warung Angkringan Bang Bewok, where the pandemic-era transition to cashless payment directly caused customer loss because the owner lacked knowledge of digital transaction methods, illustrating how market constraints and digital infrastructure gaps compound each other’s effects. At the higher end of the competitive spectrum, Delysh Coffeeshop named Starbucks, Janji Jiwa, and Tomoro Coffee as direct competitors, representing cross-tier market pressure that growth-phase MSMEs in urban F&B face as they scale.

4.2.2. Support Infrastructure Constraints (Digital and Managerial)

The support infrastructure domain was the second most universal constraint (18/20, 90%), but the nature of the gap varied considerably across cases, from complete digital absence to partial adoption with unresolved capability deficits. This variation is analytically important because it reveals that digital infrastructure constraints are not binary but exist on a spectrum that corresponds closely to the resilience typology developed in Section 5.5.

At the absence end, Garasi Tissue explicitly documented having no digital promotion channels and no technology adoption whatsoever, while Warung Pecel Ce Ibi maintained unstructured manual financial recording with no digital marketing presence despite 30 years of operation. These cases confirm that unstructured bookkeeping is not just a financial management gap, but also limits the quality of daily managerial decisions regarding cash flow, inventory, pricing, and operational efficiency. At the partial adoption end, Warung Angkringan Bang Bewok identified the inability to accept cashless payment as the primary operational constraint during the pandemic, a digital infrastructure gap that directly caused customer loss and is distinct from the more common framing of digital gaps as marketing deficits alone.

The most advanced digital infrastructure was documented in Pisana.id, which maintained a dedicated content creator team, digital marketing personnel, and operated simultaneously across Instagram, TikTok, and Shopee, representing a level of digital maturity that creates compounding competitive advantages across market, HR, and supply chain domains simultaneously. This cross-domain amplification effect of digital infrastructure investment is a key mechanism distinguishing Adaptive Leaders from other typology groups, as discussed in Section 5.5.

4.2.3. Networks and Supply Chain Constraints

In the supply chain domain, the main obstacles are raw material price fluctuations, supply instability, and, in some cases, dependence on imported materials or single-source suppliers. Supply chain constraints were present in 13 of 20 cases (65%), with the most acute cases concentrated in the manufacturing, food production, and fashion/textile sectors.

Bengkel Las Cipta Mandiri cited raw material price fluctuations as a persistent source of cost and margin uncertainty, a structural challenge for small manufacturers whose output pricing must remain competitive, while input costs fluctuate beyond their control. Pisana.id rated supply chain access as the single most difficult constraint it faced, documenting difficulties in sourcing compliant materials that required sourcing trips outside the Bekasi area. Gorengan Ibu Anita documented a more acute disruption: complete supplier failure during a critical period, requiring an emergency pivot to direct sourcing from local farmers, an adaptive response that ultimately reduced input costs and improved supply chain resilience simultaneously.

A cross-case finding is that local supplier networks serve as an important buffer mechanism against price volatility and supply disruptions. Cases that had established relationships with multiple local suppliers showed greater operational continuity during disruption periods, while cases dependent on single suppliers or importers showed higher vulnerability. This confirms that supplier diversification and local sourcing are not merely cost strategies but ecosystem-level resilience mechanisms.

4.2.4. Finance and Capital Access Constraints

The financing domain reveals two core constraint types: limited capital for expansion and technology adoption, and friction in accessing formal financing channels. Financial constraints were present in 12 of 20 cases (60%), but showed the highest criticality-depth among all six domains. In seven of 12 PRESENT cases, the owner explicitly described capital access as a primary survival barrier rather than a secondary concern.

The most acute evidence came from formal credit rejection: Bengkel Las Cipta Mandiri documented that the owner’s attempts to obtain small business credit had repeatedly failed, with the process described as lengthy and requirements as prohibitive. This illustrates that financial constraints in this dataset are structural-operational: not simply a “lack of funds,” but also limited cash flow and constrained investment capacity for technology and management upgrades. At the growth-phase end of the spectrum, Pisana.id experienced a Rp 500 million financial loss in 2022 attributable to production delays and customer refunds, demonstrating that financial vulnerability extends beyond subsistence-level micro-enterprises to growth-phase SMEs with formal organizational structures.

A common adaptive response to formal credit barriers was pivoting to informal credit sources: Ketoprak Telor Tunggawa described a failed bank loan application before successfully accessing financing through a local cooperative at lower interest rates, while Warung Pecel Ce Ibi managed cash-flow gaps through borrowing from product agents. This pattern of informal financial intermediation as a resilience mechanism is consistent with the broader Indonesian MSME literature and confirms that when formal ecosystem financing functions are inaccessible, MSMEs activate informal network-based alternatives.

4.2.5. Human Capital and Skills Constraints

Human capital constraints were present in 12 of 20 cases (60%) and manifested in two distinct forms: workforce skill gaps and owner-level managerial capability gaps. Bengkel Las Cipta Mandiri emphasized the mismatch between job candidates and technical competency requirements, making repeated training cycles a structural necessity rather than a one-time investment, a finding that confirms the human capital domain directly intersects with the market and technology domains: when digital competency is low, market penetration and product differentiation capabilities are correspondingly weakened.

At the owner capability level, Warung Angkringan Bang Bewok identified the owner’s own lack of knowledge about cashless transaction methods as the primary operational constraint during the pandemic, framing human capital not as a workforce issue but as an owner-level capability gap with direct revenue consequences. In the case of Pisana.id, human capital deficits were concentrated in digital design and marketing, demonstrating that digital competency has become a core component of competitiveness rather than an optional add-on, particularly for growth-phase MSMEs competing in national online markets.

The most systematically resolved human capital constraint was documented in Delysh Coffeeshop, which implemented a structured five-category employee training program covering production, service, and digital operations, representing a deliberate adaptive investment in human capital that distinguishes growth-oriented MSMEs from survival-focused ones. Analytically, the human capital domain operates as both a constraint and a resilience lever: cases that invested in capability upgrading showed higher cross-domain adaptive capacity in subsequent periods.

4.2.6. Institutional and Policy Constraints

The institutional domain indicates high expectations for government support, but program access is deemed suboptimal across the majority of PRESENT cases. Institutional constraints were present in 12 of 20 cases (60%), but showed the lowest criticality-depth: the majority of PRESENT cases reflected unmet expectations for government assistance rather than acute regulatory crises in the operational sense.

The most explicit documentation of institutional absence came from Somay Batagor Mang Asep, whose owner stated that throughout the entire pandemic period, no government MSME assistance of any kind was received, a finding that directly reflects the implementation gap between stated national MSME support policy objectives and ground-level program accessibility in the corridor. Pisana.id similarly documented five years of operation without receiving any government or non-government program support, despite operating in a growth trajectory that would typically qualify for development program targeting. Bengkel Las Cipta Mandiri articulated the unmet expectation most precisely, expressing a hope that the government would provide digital training support, a request that links the institutional constraint directly to the human capital and digital infrastructure deficits documented in the preceding sections.

A distinct form of institutional constraint, a regulatory burden rather than support absence, was documented in Somay Batagor Mang Asep, where pandemic-period government mobility restrictions were rated as the single most difficult constraint faced, ranking above capital access, competition, and supply chain issues. Conceptually, this indicates a problem of institutional function rather than institutional absence: policy actors exist, but the transmission of benefits to the MSME operational level is uneven, and regulatory instruments designed for public health purposes created disproportionate economic impacts on micro-enterprise operators with no formal protection mechanisms.

Based on cross-case analysis, the constraint domains can be ranked by prevalence as follows: (1) market → (2) support infrastructure → (3) networks/supply chain → (4) finance → (5) human capital → (6) institutions/policy. However, this sequence does not represent a linear or independent relationship. Market barriers tend to activate other barriers—the need for digital promotion collides with limitations on capital and HR competency, while supply chain instability intersects with financial constraints to create compounding vulnerability. This interconnected constraint structure is the empirical foundation for the configurational resilience framework developed in Section 5.

5. Discussion

5.1. Market Mechanisms: From Competitive Pressures to Demand Stabilization

In many cases, market pressures emerge as a combination of increased competition, limited buyers, and promotional costs that are not always commensurate with the results. In these conditions, MSMEs tend to mobilize digital market infrastructure, namely social media, marketplaces, and delivery apps, and strengthen customer engagement practices. Market barriers are evident in cases reporting marketing difficulties and limited sales/buyers amidst intense competition.

At the same time, several cases demonstrate that a more effective response is not simply increasing promotional intensity, but rather restructuring channel architecture and regularly evaluating promotional ROI. Multi-channel practices and the use of delivery services are evident in the cases of Dimsum Madina and Jus Kode, including efforts to expand reach through digital channels and strengthen customer retention. The data also indicate channel recalibration when a platform is ineffective, for example, shifting promotional strategies based on the channel’s actual performance.

Substantively, these results indicate that demand stabilization is more likely to be achieved when MSMEs combine channel diversification with customer relationship management, rather than relying on a single marketing channel.

5.2. Financial Mechanisms: From Capital Constraints to Operational Sustainability

Limited capital and barriers to accessing formal financing are recurring obstacles. In this situation, MSMEs generally do not immediately undertake aggressive expansion, but instead prioritize short-term cash flow resilience. Several reports highlight financing pressures, the need for capital access, and limited investment opportunities.

Responses that emerge include optimizing internal cash flow, gradually adjusting prices/portion sizes/costs, and utilizing relationship-based support, especially suppliers/agents/partners, as a liquidity bridge. This pattern is evident in cases that illustrate survival strategies through operational cash management and informal funding options. In several other cases, the need to strengthen integrated bookkeeping also emerges as a prerequisite for stronger financial discipline.

Based on a cross-case synthesis, it can be concluded that the current dominant financial mechanisms are continuity-oriented, which is effective in maintaining business continuity, but insufficient to encourage rapid scaling without the support of more accessible formal capital.

5.3. Supply Chain Mechanisms: From Input Volatility to Cost Buffering

Volatility in raw material prices and supply instability create significant cost pressures, especially for MSMEs with thin margins. In this context, business actors mobilize supply networks through vendor diversification, strengthening local suppliers, and improving inventory/process management.

The case of Ibu Anita’s Fried Food, for example, noted fluctuations in raw material prices and issues with distributor supply stability, and then responded by adjusting to more reliable suppliers from the local market. The Jus Kode case highlights the importance of local supplier partnerships and operational efficiency to withstand cost pressures. In the case of Pisana.id, strengthening local vendors also served to maintain consistent quality and material availability.

Analytically, this pattern suggests that cost resilience is determined not only by price negotiation skills, but also by the ability of MSMEs to build redundant supply networks and disciplined stock/process control as shock-absorbing mechanisms.

5.4. Capability Mechanisms: From Skills Gap to Operational Reliability

Human resource capability constraints emerged in the form of difficulties in acquiring skilled personnel, limited digital competencies, and weak execution consistency at the operational level. Some MSMEs emphasized the need for skills enhancement and management improvements as prerequisites for sustainability. In response, MSMEs developed internal training, on-the-job coaching, established standard operating procedures (SOPs), and implemented performance-based incentives. In some cases, human resource development was specifically directed at digital design/marketing competencies and more systematic financial governance.

The limited staff management in other cases reinforces the argument that the capability dimension is the foundation for other response domains.

These findings suggest that investing in internal capabilities improves the reliability of day-to-day operations while increasing the probability of success for market and digital strategies.

The findings across 20 MSME cases demonstrate that resilience outcomes are determined by the quality of the response configuration, not by a single intervention (

Table 4. Cross-case matrix of constraint, resource mobilized practice and outcome.

Mechanism Cluster	Dominant Constraint	Resource Mobilized (Ecosystem)	Practice (Firm Level)	Resilience Outcome	Resilience Dimension
Market Mechanism	High competition, limited customer base, low promotion efficiency	Social media platforms, marketplaces, delivery apps, customer base/relationships	Multi-channel selling, channel performance review, customer engagement and retention routines	More stable demand, broader market reach	Adaptive resilience
Financial Mechanism	Limited capital, frictions in formal financing access, liquidity pressure	Partner/supplier networks, internal financial control, bookkeeping tools	Internal cash optimization, gradual cost/price adjustment, stepwise expansion	Operational continuity preserved	Absorptive resilience
Supply Chain Mechanism	Input price volatility, unstable supply availability	Local vendors, alternative suppliers, stock-control routines	Supplier diversification, local sourcing, process efficiency and inventory discipline	Cost buffering and improved production continuity	Absorptive–adaptive resilience
Capability Mechanism	Technical, digital, and managerial skill gaps	Internal training, SOPs, coaching, performance incentives	Upskilling, work standardization, execution-quality improvement	Higher operational reliability and more consistent service quality	Adaptive–transformative resilience

). Cases that demonstrated better outcomes generally displayed a combination of the following simultaneously:

• market channel diversification and customer engagement,
• cash discipline and incremental expansion decisions,
• supplier diversification and cost/inventory control,
• human resource training and process standardization.

Conversely, in cases with partial responses, for example, digital promotions without improved cash management or without strengthening team capabilities, the resulting impacts tended to be short term and more vulnerable to subsequent shocks. Thus, the primary contribution of this study lies in confirming that MSME resilience within the entrepreneurial ecosystem framework is configurational and based on cross-domain orchestration.

5.5. Resilience Typology Across Cases

The three resilience typologies were derived through an abductive process. After Stage 2 consensus coding was complete for all 20 cases, the authors conducted a cross-case configuration analysis: for each case, they recorded which EE domains were coded PRESENT, what response mechanisms were documented, and what resilience dimension dominated. Cases were then grouped by configuration similarity, specifically, by the number of domains with documented adaptive responses and the orientation of those responses (growth-seeking versus continuity-seeking versus reactive). The typologies were not imposed prior to analysis; they emerged from the configuration patterns observed after coding was finalized. Three distinct configurations were identified, yielding the typology presented in

Table 5. MSME resilience typology based on cross-domain configuration analysis.

Typology	n	Case Numbers	Dominant Resilience Dimension	Configuration Criteria
Adaptive Leaders	6	5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 20	Adaptive–transformative	Simultaneous adaptive responses across ≥3 EE domains; at least one response creating expanded market reach, new revenue channels, or organizational capability upgrading; growth-oriented outcomes documented
Operational Survivors	9	1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 14, 15, 16, 18	Absorptive–adaptive	Consistent operational management and constraint response across 1–2 domains; business continuity as primary goal; partial domain adaptation without major strategic reconfiguration
Vulnerable Traditionalists	5	2, 6, 7, 17, 19	Absorptive (reactive)	Limited cross-domain response; reactive rather than proactive adaptation; reliance on single-mechanism responses; documented fragility indicators, including revenue decline, technology non-adoption, and absence of formal financial management

Note: Case numbers correspond to the MSME profile sequence in Table 2 and Supplementary Materials, Section S3. Domain coding evidence for each case is provided in Supplementary Materials, Section S3.

.

5.5.1. Adaptive Leaders (n = 6; Cases 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 20)

Cases in this group documented simultaneous adaptive responses across three or more EE domains, with at least one response creating expanded market reach, new revenue channels, or organizational capability upgrading. What distinguishes Adaptive Leaders from other typology groups is not the absence of cfonstraints, all six cases documented multiple ecosystem pressures, but rather the cross-domain breadth and growth orientation of their responses.

Pisana.id (Case 20) represents the most developed example in the corpus. Adaptive responses were documented across all six EE domains: supplier diversification to address supply chain volatility, requiring sourcing trips outside the Bekasi area to find compliant material providers; a formal functional organizational structure with dedicated content creator and digital marketing personnel to address human capital gaps; simultaneous operation across Instagram, TikTok, and Shopee to expand market reach beyond the local corridor; a down-payment payment system to manage cash-flow risk from production delays; and design software adoption to improve production capability and product differentiation. With reported annual omzet exceeding Rp 2.5 billion, Pisana.id illustrates how cross-domain adaptive capacity translates into measurable growth outcomes even within a micro-to-small enterprise scale. Importantly, Pisana.id also documented never having received any government or non-government MSME program support, demonstrating that Adaptive Leader status was achieved through internal capability development rather than institutional assistance.

Delysh Coffeeshop (Case 13) demonstrates Adaptive Leader characteristics in the urban F&B sector. Facing direct competition from Starbucks, Janji Jiwa, and Tomoro Coffee, the business responded through simultaneous adaptation across market (GoFood/GrabFood integration, bundling promotions, active social media), human capital (structured five-category employee training program covering production, service, and digital operations), and supply chain (pivot from imported to locally sourced ingredients to reduce cost exposure) domains. This multi-domain response enabled revenue stabilization after the pandemic-period decline without sacrificing product quality positioning.

Secret Sushi (Case 5) illustrates Adaptive Leader characteristics on a larger organizational scale, with 500 employees and a formal HRD structure. The business navigated pandemic-period distributional and geographic constraints through active Instagram promotion and digital channel development, maintaining market presence and customer engagement despite supply disruptions. The formal organizational infrastructure, including dedicated HR management, differentiates this case from the owner-centric structures dominant in the corpus and represents a qualitatively different level of organizational adaptive capacity.

Waroeng Arwana (Case 10) represents the only transformative case in the corpus. The ornamental fish aquaculture business expanded beyond local market constraints through online community engagement with aquarium hobbyist networks and export channel development to Singapore, a market reach expansion that fundamentally reconfigured the business’s competitive positioning from a local retail supplier to an international niche exporter. This transformation was achieved with a capital base that remained at the micro-to-small level, demonstrating that transformative resilience does not require large capital investment but rather creative ecosystem network mobilization.

Dimsum Madina (Case 11) and MOMOYO Ice Cream (Case 12) complete this group. Dimsum Madina documented active multi-platform digital adoption across Instagram, WhatsApp, marketplace platforms, and delivery apps, combined with structured supplier relationship management and a delivery reach extending from Depok to the broader Jakarta metropolitan area. MOMOYO Ice Cream demonstrated adaptive agility through a successful platform pivot from TikTok, where promotional results were insufficient, to Instagram, where engagement and conversion rates improved, combined with multi-outlet expansion across Greater Jakarta. Both cases show the cross-domain coordination characteristic of Adaptive Leaders: digital channel decisions informed by market feedback, supply management aligned with production scale, and organizational capacity adjusted to match growth trajectory.

5.5.2. Operational Survivors (n = 9; Cases 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 14, 15, 16, 18)

Cases in this group documented consistent operational management and constraint response across one to two EE domains, with business continuity as the primary goal rather than growth expansion. Operational Survivors are distinguished from Adaptive Leaders by the bounded scope of their adaptive responses, effective within their domain of focus but not generating cross-domain capability upgrading, and from Vulnerable Traditionalists by the documented presence of at least one deliberate adaptive mechanism that enabled operational continuity through the pandemic period and beyond.

Pondok L.A (Case 3) exemplifies the absorptive end of this group. The owner managed a 50% pandemic-period revenue drop primarily through cost absorption and preservation of existing customer relationships, without major channel reconfiguration or product innovation. The business continued operating throughout the pandemic period and stabilized post-pandemic, representing successful absorptive resilience in the face of severe demand shock, but the absence of documented digital channel adoption or supplier diversification positions it clearly within the Operational Survivor rather than the Adaptive Leader configuration. Plans for GoFood and Instagram adoption were expressed but not yet implemented at the time of documentation, suggesting a transitional position that may move toward Adaptive Leader configuration with institutional support.

Bengkel Las Cipta Mandiri (Case 1) illustrates Operational Survivor dynamics in the manufacturing sector. The business responded to human capital constraints through internal training cycles and to market constraints through customer network maintenance and competitive pricing discipline, but formal credit rejection and persistent digital capability gaps remained unresolved, leaving two major back-end constraints active, while front-end operational continuity was maintained. The inability to access formal credit specifically constrained the technology investment that would enable the business to address its digital infrastructure and market reach limitations simultaneously.

Gorengan Ibu Anita (Case 4) demonstrates single-domain adaptive resilience in the supply chain domain: the emergency pivot from a failed distributor to direct local farmer sourcing resolved the immediate supply chain crisis effectively and reduced input costs, but market, digital, and financial constraints remained largely unaddressed. This case illustrates how domain-specific adaptive success can coexist with broader ecosystem constraint persistence, a configuration that sustains operations but does not generate the cross-domain capability accumulation characteristic of Adaptive Leaders.

Kebab Asap Margonda (Case 8), Ayam Krispi Shakila (Case 9), Ketoprak Telor Tunggawa (Case 14), Warung Pecel Ce Ibi (Case 15), Angkringan Bang Bewok (Case 16), and Kuliner Jus Kode (Case 18) share a common Operational Survivor configuration: partial digital adoption primarily WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, or GoFood, combined with offline-dominant sales, price-competitive positioning, and limited managerial formalization. These cases maintained operational continuity through and after the pandemic period. Warung Pecel Ce Ibi (Case 15) represents the absorptive anchor of this group, 30 years of operation sustained entirely through quality consistency and word-of-mouth customer loyalty, with no digital channel adoption and informal financial management, but with documented operational continuity and stable peri-urban community market positioning that reflects deep local ecosystem embeddedness rather than strategic vulnerability.

5.5.3. Vulnerable Traditionalists (n = 5; Cases 2, 6, 7, 17, 19)

Cases in this group showed limited cross-domain response, reactive rather than proactive adaptation, and documented fragility indicators, including revenue decline not recovered to pre-pandemic levels, technology non-adoption despite competitive pressure, and absence of formal financial management systems. What distinguishes Vulnerable Traditionalists is not simply the presence of multiple constraints: all typology groups faced constraints, but the absence of documented deliberate adaptive mechanisms beyond single-point reactive responses, such as price reduction, temporary production scale-down, or product abandonment.

UMKM Hardianto (Case 2) illustrates this configuration most clearly. With annual revenue of only Rp 20 million against a capital base of Rp 50–500 million, the business faces a structural revenue-to-capital gap that signals deep operational fragility. No digital channel adoption was documented despite facing simultaneous competitive pressure from minimarkets, supermarkets, e-commerce platforms, and wholesale stores across multiple market tiers. No supplier diversification was documented despite supply chain exposure. The sole documented competitive response was price maintenance, a passive strategy that preserves short-term customer relationships but does not address the underlying structural vulnerabilities that make the business highly exposed to further market erosion.

Garasi Tissue (Case 7) illustrates Vulnerable Traditionalist characteristics in the trade sector. Persistent human capital constraints, including the documented need to dismiss incompetent employees and the ongoing difficulty finding qualified replacements, combined with the complete absence of digital promotion channels and no documented government or institutional support, create a compound vulnerability configuration where constraint accumulation across HR, market, and institutional domains simultaneously limits adaptive capacity. The business’s sole adaptive mechanism was reactive workforce management, which addressed operational symptoms rather than the underlying capability deficit.

Toko Andalas (Case 6) documents institutional and regulatory constraints as the primary fragility driver: policy and regulatory barriers were explicitly listed as operational constraints, and HR deficits combined with limited digital integration to create a configuration where constraint accumulation outpaced adaptive capacity. Pukis TJ (Case 17) was in the early stages of developing online marketing channels at the time of documentation but had not yet implemented them, leaving the business in a digitally transitional but still vulnerable configuration, the gap between aspiration and implementation representing a form of strategic fragility distinct from outright technology rejection.

Somay Batagor Mang Asep (Case 19) illustrates Vulnerable Traditionalist characteristics despite 25 years of operation. The owner adopted WhatsApp and GoFood during the pandemic as reactive responses to mobility restrictions, but this single-domain digital adaptation was crisis-driven rather than strategically planned and did not generate sustained cross-domain capability upgrading. Government mobility restrictions were rated as the single most difficult constraint faced, ranked above capital access, competition, and supply chain issues, and the owner explicitly documented receiving no MSME government assistance throughout the entire pandemic period, despite being among the most operationally exposed business types as a street food vendor. The combination of reactive single-domain adaptation, institutional support absence, and structural micro-scale constraints positions this case within the Vulnerable Traditionalist configuration despite its operational longevity.

The Vulnerable Traditionalist label does not imply business failure: all five cases were operational at the time of documentation, but rather a resilience configuration that is structurally exposed to future shocks without the cross-domain adaptive capacity to absorb, reconfigure, or transform in response. The operational longevity of cases like UMKM Hardianto (3 years) and Somay Batagor Mang Asep (25 years) within this typology suggests that survival is possible through ecosystem embeddedness and local market loyalty even without strategic adaptation, but that this survival mode carries increasing exposure as competitive and technological pressures intensify.

5.5.4. Configurational Resilience: Cross-Typology Patterns

Across the three typologies, a consistent configurational logic is observable: resilience outcomes are determined not by the presence or absence of individual constraints, but by the cross-domain breadth and growth orientation of adaptive responses. This finding supports a configurational rather than an additive understanding of MSME resilience, where the combination and coordination of responses across domains generate outcomes that exceed what any single-domain response could achieve.

Three cross-typology patterns are particularly notable. First, digital infrastructure investment functions as a cross-domain amplifier: cases that resolved support infrastructure constraints showed downstream improvements in market reach, human capital utilization, and supply chain management simultaneously. This amplification effect is most visible in the contrast between Adaptive Leaders, where digital adoption preceded or accompanied market expansion and organizational capability upgrading, and Vulnerable Traditionalists, where digital gaps constrained adaptive responses across all other domains by limiting both market reach and managerial decision quality.

Second, financial constraint severity is decoupled from financial constraint breadth. Finance was coded PRESENT in only 12 of 20 cases (60%), but showed the highest criticality-depth among all domains, meaning that when financial constraints are experienced, they tend to be experienced as existential rather than manageable. This creates a constraint trap, particularly visible in the Vulnerable Traditionalist configuration: capital inaccessibility blocks investment in the digital, human capital, and supply chain adaptations that would improve resilience, while the absence of those adaptations perpetuates the revenue stagnation that makes capital access more difficult. Breaking this trap appears to require either informal credit network activation, as documented in Ketoprak Telor Tunggawa’s cooperative pivot, or institutional intervention at the formal credit access level.

Third, the institutional support absence is consistently documented but rarely operationally acute in isolation. The 12 cases with institutional constraints coded PRESENT almost uniformly described unmet expectations rather than regulatory crises. However, the cumulative effect of institutional absence, particularly the absence of digital training programs and accessible credit facilities, reinforces the back-end constraints that limit Operational Survivors from transitioning toward Adaptive Leader configurations. Somay Batagor Mang Asep’s explicit documentation of zero government assistance received during 25 years of operation and Pisana.id’s documentation of five years of growth-phase operation without institutional support together suggest that institutional ecosystem functions in the Jakarta–Bogor–Depok corridor are failing to reach the MSMEs that most need them, a finding with direct implications for the policy recommendations developed in Section 5.7.

5.6. Theoretical Discussion: Entrepreneurial Ecosystem and Configurational Resilience

5.6.1. EE as a Functional System, Not a List of Components

EE literature often identifies domains such as markets, financing, human resources, institutions, networks, and support infrastructure. This study confirms that the presence of these domains does not automatically translate into resilient performance; what determines this is whether they are functional and interconnected at the operational level of MSMEs.

Empirically, several cases indicate that formal financing or support channels are nominally available, but actual access is hampered by administrative friction and the business’s absorptive capacity. This pattern is reflected in cases that report difficulties accessing formal capital, while simultaneously relying on internal/relational mechanisms to maintain liquidity.

In other words, “component presence” ≠ “functional effectiveness”. The finance domain only strengthens resilience when accessibility, instrument suitability, and business managerial capabilities work together. The same argument applies to the digital domain: platforms are widely available, but differences in content capabilities, simple analytics, and execution discipline make the impact of digital channels highly uneven across cases. Therefore, this study supports the interpretation of EE as a cross-domain functional architecture, not merely an inventory of actors/programs.

5.6.2. Constraints Are Interdependent, Not Singular

The results of RQ1–RQ2 indicate that the dominant constraints (market, finance, support infrastructure, human capital, supply chain) do not operate in isolation. Instead, they are causally linked and mutually reinforcing.

• Market and digital capability: Competitive pressure drives the adoption of digital channels, but outcomes depend on the quality of human resources and managerial routines (not just the presence of social media accounts).
• Digital capability and finance: Expanding digital channels requires working capital/promotion; when liquidity is tight, market strategies tend to be defensive and short-term.
• Finance and supply chain: Cash constraints limit the ability to purchase safety stock; as a result, MSMEs are more vulnerable to input price volatility and supply disruptions.
• Supply chain and market performance: Unstable supply reduces service/product reliability, which in turn affects customer retention.

From a theoretical perspective, these findings reinforce the notion that resilience cannot be explained by a “one constraint–one solution” model. What is relevant for the constraint-response configuration is whether improvement in one domain is supported by an improvement in other domains that are prerequisites.

5.6.3. Resilience as a Result of Ecosystem Mobilization, Not Individual Psychological Attributes

The narratives of practices in 20 MSMEs indicate that resilience emerges when MSMEs successfully mobilize resources around them: loyal customers, local suppliers, distribution partners, platform channels, and internal governance practices. A consistent example is the combination of multi-channel marketing, supplier diversification, and cash discipline that results in demand stabilization or operational continuity. Therefore, resilience in the MSME context is more appropriately understood as an embedded relational capability, not simply the mental toughness of the owner. Personal resilience remains important, but without the orchestration of market, supply, financial, and internal capability networks, resilience outcomes tend to be fragile.

This study has three main theoretical implications: first, it advances the understanding of EE from the “inventory domain” to the “functionality domain”. The evaluation focuses not only on whether programs/actors are available, but also on whether they are accessible, usable, and connected to the operational needs of MSMEs. Second, this study emphasizes the importance of the logic of interdependence: market, digital capability, finance, and supply chain must be understood as interlocking systems. Third, this study reinforces the concept of configurational resilience: resilience outcomes are determined by the alignment of cross-domain practice packages, not the strength of a single owner or a single intervention. Thus, the most central theoretical contribution is that interdomain alignment is a determining factor that distinguishes resilience that merely maintains continuity from resilience that sustains adaptation and gradual growth.

5.6.4. Green Resilience and Sustainability Dimensions of Configurational Resilience

The configurational resilience framework developed in this study, where cross-domain orchestration of market, financial, supply chain, digital, human capital, and institutional resources determines resilience outcomes, carries an underexplored sustainability extension that warrants theoretical attention. While the empirical evidence in this study was not designed to measure environmental outcomes directly, the adaptive mechanisms documented across 20 cases exhibit latent environmental co-benefits that suggest a Green Resilience dimension of configurational MSME resilience.

Local sourcing strategies, documented as a core absorptive-adaptive mechanism in multiple cases, including Gorengan Ibu Anita’s pivot from failed distributors to direct local farmer sourcing and Delysh Coffeeshop’s substitution of imported ingredients with locally sourced alternatives, carry latent carbon footprint reduction benefits through shortened supply chain transportation distances. While these sourcing decisions were motivated by cost management and supply stability rather than environmental objectives, their environmental co-benefit is structurally embedded in the adaptive logic: local sourcing reduces both supply chain vulnerability and supply chain carbon intensity simultaneously. This convergence between economic resilience mechanisms and environmental sustainability outcomes suggests that local supply chain resilience and green supply chain management may be more complementary than the literature has typically treated them.

Digital channel adoption, documented as the near-universal support infrastructure adaptive mechanism (18/20 cases), similarly carries latent environmental co-benefits. The shift from travel-intensive, offline-only sales interactions to digital ordering, social commerce, and delivery platform integration reduces the carbon footprint associated with customer travel to purchase points and owner travel for promotional activities. Cases such as Pisana.id, which conducts product promotion, customer engagement, and order processing entirely through digital platforms without requiring physical showroom visits, represent a model where digital transformation and carbon footprint reduction are structurally aligned outcomes of the same adaptive investment.

From a theoretical perspective, these observations suggest that the cross-domain orchestration logic central to configurational resilience can be extended to incorporate environmental governance as a third outcome dimension alongside economic continuity and adaptive capacity. This extension, which we term Green Resilience, proposes that MSMEs, which achieve high cross-domain alignment in their economic resilience strategies, simultaneously generate environmental co-benefits through the structural properties of local sourcing and digital transformation. This theoretical proposition is consistent with the emerging literature on competitive ethics and carbon reduction in digital enterprises, which identifies digital transformation as a mechanism for simultaneous economic competitiveness and environmental responsibility improvement.

We emphasize that Green Resilience is advanced here as a theoretical proposition grounded in the structural properties of the adaptive mechanisms documented in our cases, rather than as an empirically demonstrated finding. The case reports analyzed in this study did not systematically measure carbon emissions, energy consumption, or environmental outcomes. Future research should design primary data collection instruments that simultaneously capture economic resilience mechanisms and their environmental impact metrics, enabling direct empirical testing of the Green Resilience proposition in MSME ecosystem contexts.

5.7. Practical and Policy Implications

5.7.1. Practical Implications for MSME Owners and Managers

A. Adaptive Leaders: move from stabilization to scalable growth

For firms already combining digital channels, innovation, and operational discipline, the priority is scaling readiness rather than basic survival support. Recommended actions for MSMEs are to upgrade from platform presence to channel profitability management (CAC/retention tracking, campaign ROI discipline, customer segmentation). They need to formalize growth finance routines (rolling cash-flow forecast, working-capital thresholds, inventory turns) and lock in supply resilience through dual sourcing and quality contracts with local vendors. They also need to build second-line managerial capability (SOP ownership beyond founder-centric control), higher conversion efficiency, and more predictable growth, while preserving resilience under demand and cost volatility.

B. Operational Survivors: strengthen “bridge capabilities” to escape the survival plateau

This group is operationally stable but constrained in scaling due to limited capital depth, digital capability, or managerial formalization. MSMEs need to prioritize minimum viable digitalization: one primary social-commerce channel, one marketplace, and a simple CRM routine. They need to implement basic financial governance: weekly cash discipline, unit economics by product, expense caps tied to sales cycles, adopt lean process upgrades (inventory cadence, supplier lead-time tracking, service consistency standards), use phased growth pilots (micro-expansion tests) before fixed-cost commitments, and transition from continuity-only outcomes toward adaptive expansion with controlled risk.

C. Vulnerable Traditionalists: establish resilience foundations first

For firms with low digital/managerial adoption and narrow local dependence, the key is foundational capability building, not immediate expansion. MSMEs need to establish operational basics: daily bookkeeping, simple stock cards, and gross-margin awareness per product. They also need to build entry-level digital market access: WhatsApp Business + one social channel with routine posting and response standards. Also, they need to reduce supply risk through supplier mapping (primary/backup/local alternatives), introduce owner/team training focused on practical execution (pricing, customer handling, digital content basics), and reduce fragility under market and cost shocks, enabling progression to Operational Survivor status.

5.7.2. Policy Implications: From Fragmented Support to Integrated Resilience Architecture

The evidence suggests that policy underperforms when programs operate in silos (credit-only, training-only, platform-only). What is needed is integrated sequencing by typology.

Finance accessibility reform with capability linkage. They need to simplify micro-credit onboarding and documentation pathways for viable micro/small firms, couple financing with mandatory lightweight cash-flow coaching and bookkeeping adoption milestones, use disbursement tranches tied to operational indicators (inventory discipline, repayment behavior, channel performance), and obtain credit availability without absorptive managerial capability, which weakens finance-domain functionality.

Applied digital upgrading, not generic digital literacy. They need to replace broad digital seminars with sector-specific clinics: pricing on platforms, conversion content, ad-spend efficiency, and customer retention routines. They need to provide short-cycle mentoring (6–12 weeks) with measurable outputs (active storefront, conversion uplift, repeat-order rate) and encourage a channel diversification strategy according to business model maturity. Digital infrastructure is only resilience-relevant when converted into repeatable market practices.

Local supply resilience programs. They need to support local vendor matchmaking and micro-contracting templates for MSMEs, facilitate collective procurement pilots for high-volatility inputs, and introduce practical inventory and lead-time management toolkits. Supply chain buffering is a core resilience mechanism in thin-margin MSMEs.

Workforce and managerial micro-certification. They need to deliver modular training on frontline operations, service quality, and supervisory routines, offer micro-credentials linked to incentive schemes and business mentoring follow-up, and target owner-managers and key staff simultaneously to reduce founder dependency. Human-capital deficits are a cross-domain bottleneck that weakens market, digital, and financial outcomes simultaneously.

5.7.3. Place-Based Implementation for Jakarta–Bogor–Depok: Smart City Spatial Affordances and Intercity Resilience Infrastructure

The Jakarta–Bogor–Depok corridor exhibits heterogeneous urban digital maturity that creates differentiated spatial affordances for MSME resilience, a dimension that policy implementation must explicitly account for rather than treating the corridor as a homogeneous target area. Drawing on smart city and urban digital transformation research, which demonstrates that city-level digital infrastructure development generates asymmetric competitive advantages for locally embedded firms, the three cities in this corridor represent meaningfully different ecosystem contexts for MSME resilience support.

Jakarta, as the metropolitan core with denser digital infrastructure, higher consumer digital fluency, and more developed logistics networks, provides MSMEs with spatial affordances that favor market access acceleration, digital channel conversion, and premium market positioning strategies. MSMEs in Jakarta face higher competitive intensity, as illustrated by Delysh Coffeeshop’s direct competition with national coffee chains, but also benefit from larger addressable markets and more sophisticated digital consumer behavior. Policy nodes in Jakarta should therefore prioritize digital conversion quality (from platform presence to revenue performance), premium channel strategy development, and competitive differentiation support rather than basic digital literacy.

Bogor and Depok, as peri-urban nodes with partially developed digital infrastructure and stronger offline market traditions, present a different spatial affordance profile. MSMEs in these areas, including Warung Pecel Ce Ibi in Megamendung and Gorengan Ibu Anita in Bogor, show deep local market embeddedness but face constraints in reaching metropolitan demand without digital channel investment. The peri-urban context creates specific resilience challenges: supplier access requires travel to urban wholesale markets, digital infrastructure quality is less consistent, and consumer digital adoption is more heterogeneous. Policy nodes in Bogor and Depok should therefore prioritize supplier stabilization and local sourcing network development, cost efficiency upgrading, and gradual digital channel introduction calibrated to local consumer adoption rates rather than metropolitan digital standards.

The intercity linkage dimension of the corridor represents the highest-leverage policy opportunity. Rather than treating Jakarta, Bogor, and Depok as separate MSME ecosystems, coordinated smart city development initiatives across the corridor, shared digital logistics platforms, unified MSME support portals, cross-city market access programs, and mentor pool coordination could reduce the spatial affordance gap and improve resilience equity across the corridor. This reframes the intercity linkage recommendation as smart city infrastructure policy rather than simply business support program coordination: the corridor’s MSME resilience outcomes are partly determined by the digital infrastructure investments made at the city level, making urban digital transformation a form of ecosystem-level resilience investment.

Three specific intercity linkage mechanisms are recommended. First, a corridor-level digital marketplace aggregator that enables Bogor and Depok MSMEs to access Jakarta metropolitan consumer demand through shared logistics infrastructure, reducing the market access asymmetry that currently advantages urban-core MSMEs. Second, a unified supplier-MSME matching platform that connects peri-urban agricultural and artisanal producers with urban MSME buyers, simultaneously supporting local sourcing resilience and the Green Resilience co-benefits identified in Section 5.6.4. Third, a cross-city MSME mentor and trainer pool that shares practitioner expertise across the corridor, reducing the human capital development asymmetry between Jakarta’s more developed business support ecosystem and the relatively thinner support infrastructure in Bogor and Depok peri-urban areas.

This spatial differentiation is essential because resilience constraints are structurally shared across the corridor, with market pressure, digital gaps, and financial constraints appearing in all three city contexts, but the intensity of constraints and the feasible response pathways vary systematically by local market density, digital infrastructure maturity, and ecosystem connectivity. Smart city development that ignores this spatial heterogeneity risks concentrating resilience gains in already-advantaged urban cores while leaving peri-urban MSMEs, which typically serve the most economically vulnerable populations, without accessible support pathways.

5.8. MSME Resilience and Sustainability: Broader Implications

The resilience of MSMEs extends beyond firm-level survival to encompass systemic sustainability outcomes across economic, social, and environmental dimensions. This broader framing is particularly relevant for a journal focused on sustainability, as MSME resilience in the Jakarta–Bogor–Depok corridor generates sustainability co-benefits that are structurally embedded in the adaptive mechanisms documented throughout this study.

5.8.1. Economic Sustainability

The 20 cases collectively support direct employment, ranging from sole operators to businesses with formal multi-person teams, with workforce sizes documented across the corpus suggesting aggregate direct employment of at least several hundred workers across the corridor. Beyond direct employment, the MSME continuity supports household economic stability for owner-families who depend on business income as their primary livelihood, as well as indirect employment in local supplier and distribution networks. In the Jakarta–Bogor–Depok corridor, where informal and semi-formal employment constitutes a substantial share of household income, the economic sustainability function of MSMEs is not marginal but structural. The contrast between Adaptive Leaders, who show revenue growth and employment expansion, and Vulnerable Traditionalists, who show revenue stagnation and structural fragility, illustrates that MSME resilience outcomes have direct implications for local employment sustainability: ecosystem constraints that push MSMEs toward the Vulnerable Traditionalist configuration do not merely affect individual businesses but erode the employment base of urban-peri-urban communities.

5.8.2. Social Sustainability

Many of the MSMEs in this study serve neighborhood-level consumption needs that larger commercial enterprises do not profitably serve. Street food vendors, such as Somay Batagor Mang Asep and Gorengan Ibu Anita, provide affordable nutrition access to students, workers, and lower-income households at price points, Rp 3000 to Rp 10,000 per serving, that supermarkets and restaurant chains cannot replicate. Similarly, Warung Pecel Ce Ibi in Megamendung provides basic food access to a peri-urban community where commercial alternatives are sparse. The resilience of these MSMEs, therefore, preserves community access to affordable goods and services, a social sustainability function that is particularly salient in densely populated urban-peri-urban settings where food security and daily consumption access are community-level concerns rather than purely individual market choices. When MSMEs in this category fail, or shift to survival-mode contraction, the communities they serve lose access to affordable goods and services that the formal market does not replace. This social sustainability function of MSME resilience is systematically underweighted in policy frameworks that evaluate MSMEs primarily through revenue and employment metrics.

5.8.3. Environmental Sustainability

As developed theoretically in Section 5.6.4, the adaptive mechanisms documented in this study carry latent environmental co-benefits that connect MSME resilience to the environmental sustainability dimension. Local sourcing strategies adopted as economic resilience mechanisms in the cases that include Gorengan Ibu Anita, Delysh Coffeeshop, and Bengkel Las Cipta Mandiri reduce supply chain transportation distances and associated carbon emissions relative to import-dependent or distant-supplier alternatives. Digital channel adoption, documented in 18 of 20 cases as a market resilience mechanism, reduces reliance on travel-intensive sales interactions and physical distribution activities that generate transportation-related emissions. While these environmental co-benefits were not explicitly measured in the case reports, representing a methodological limitation of the current study, their structural embeddedness in the adaptive mechanisms documented across typology groups suggests that supporting MSME resilience and supporting environmental sustainability are more complementary policy objectives than they are typically treated.

Future research should design primary data collection instruments that simultaneously capture economic resilience mechanisms and their environmental impact metrics, such as energy consumption, transportation emissions, and supply chain carbon footprint, enabling direct empirical testing of the Green Resilience proposition advanced in Section 5.6.4. Integration of environmental measurements into MSME ecosystem research represents a research agenda that is both theoretically grounded in the configurational resilience framework developed in this study and practically relevant to the sustainability policy objectives of the Jakarta–Bogor–Depok corridor’s urban development agenda.

6. Limitations

This study has six important limitations that readers should consider when interpreting the findings and their generalizability.

The study analyzes existing field documentation produced by research teams rather than conducting direct primary interviews by the research authors. This limits the authors’ ability to probe for clarification, verify first-hand accounts, or pursue emergent themes beyond what was captured in the standardized six-domain protocol. While the document-based approach is methodologically legitimate for multiple-case analysis, provided data quality is assured and analysis is systematic, it introduces a layer of mediation between the MSME owners’ experiences and the final analytical conclusions that primary interview-based research would not have. Future research should conduct direct primary interviews with MSME owners using the EE constraint domains as a structured protocol, enabling richer, more responsive data collection.

Fourteen of 20 cases cover food and beverage businesses, which reflects the actual sectoral composition of the MSME landscape in the Jakarta–Bogor–Depok corridor, but constrains cross-sector generalizability. While a sub-analysis comparing F&B and non-F&B sub-groups showed consistent patterns for market pressure and digital infrastructure constraints, findings related to supply chain dynamics, human capital requirements, and institutional support expectations may be more F&B-specific than the overall analysis implies. Cross-sector findings should be interpreted with caution, and future research should deliberately oversample non-F&B sectors, particularly manufacturing, technology services, and creative industries, to assess the robustness of the configurational resilience framework across a broader sectoral range.

Absence of formal inter-coder reliability statistics. Formal reliability statistics, such as Cohen’s Kappa, were not computed. Coding consistency was maintained through a structured two-stage co-author review process in which all 120 coding decisions were reviewed by two co-authors, with nine discrepancies identified and resolved through consensus discussion, yielding a 7.5% raw disagreement rate. While this represents a qualitative rather than quantitative reliability check, it is a systematic process that substantially reduces single-coder bias. Future research replicating or extending this coding framework should implement formal inter-coder reliability protocols with a minimum Kappa threshold of 0.70 between independent coders prior to analysis.

The 20 cases were selected purposively using theoretical sampling criteria rather than through random probability sampling. Findings, therefore, constitute analytical generalizations to the configurational resilience theory rather than statistical generalizations to the population of MSMEs in the corridor. The typology assignments, Adaptive Leaders (n = 6), Operational Survivors (n = 9), and Vulnerable Traditionalists (n = 5), reflect configuration patterns in this purposive sample and should not be interpreted as population prevalence estimates. Future research using representative random sampling would enable an assessment of how common each configuration is across the full MSME population.

The study is geographically restricted to the Jakarta–Bogor–Depok corridor, an urban-peri-urban setting in the Greater Jakarta metropolitan area. Ecosystem dynamics, particularly the relative accessibility of digital infrastructure, formal financing, and institutional support, may differ substantially in other Indonesian regional contexts, such as Eastern Indonesia, secondary cities outside Java, or rural MSME ecosystems. The configurational resilience framework developed here is offered as a theoretically transferable analytical tool, but its empirical application in other geographic contexts requires local ecosystem calibration rather than a direct assumption of parameter equivalence.

The study captures MSME constraints and response patterns at a single point in time, the documentation period of September to December 2024, and does not follow resilience trajectories longitudinally. The typology assignments reflect configurations at the time of documentation: businesses classified as Vulnerable Traditionalists may have subsequently upgraded their adaptive capacity, while Adaptive Leaders may have encountered new constraint configurations that altered their resilience trajectory. Long-term resilience outcomes, including whether Adaptive Leader configurations sustain growth over multiple years or whether Operational Survivors successfully transition to higher adaptive capacity, cannot be assessed from cross-sectional data. Future research should adopt longitudinal panel designs tracking the same MSME cases across multiple years to assess whether and how resilience configurations evolve in response to ecosystem changes.

7. Conclusions

This study shows that MSME resilience in Jakarta–Bogor–Depok is best explained through an entrepreneurial ecosystem lens that emphasizes functional alignment across domains, not the mere presence of ecosystem components. Across 20 cases, the most binding constraints were concentrated in market pressures, financing limitations, uneven digital-managerial infrastructure, capability gaps, supply chain volatility, and institutional support deficits. These constraints did not operate independently; they interacted and amplified one another, creating compound vulnerability configurations that isolated single-domain responses could not fully resolve.

The study demonstrates that resilience outcomes emerge through identifiable mechanisms linking ecosystem constraints, resource mobilization, and firm-level practices. Market pressure was addressed through digital channel orchestration and customer engagement; financial pressure through internal cash discipline and relationship-based support; supply instability through supplier diversification and local sourcing; capability gaps through internal training and process standardization; and institutional barriers, where accessible through informal network activation and community-based resource mobilization.

The analysis also shows that resilience is not a binary condition. Some MSMEs displayed mainly absorptive resilience by preserving continuity; others demonstrated adaptive resilience by reconfiguring routines and channels; and a smaller number exhibited transformative resilience through organizational upgrading and market expansion. The resulting typology, Adaptive Leaders, Operational Survivors, and Vulnerable Traditionalists, clarifies why outcomes diverge even under similar ecosystem pressures and provides a configural framework applicable to comparable emerging-market MSME ecosystems.

The main theoretical implication is that entrepreneurial ecosystem analysis should move from “component inventories” to inter-domain functionality and alignment quality. Resilience is not determined by the presence of ecosystem elements but by whether those elements are accessible, usable, and functionally connected to the operational needs of MSMEs. The main practical implication is that support should be typology-based and integrated, linking finance, digital upgrading, supply chain stabilization, and managerial capability development rather than delivered as isolated programs.

Beyond firm-level outcomes, this study demonstrates that MSME resilience generates broader sustainability co-benefits. Economically, the continued operation of these 20 businesses sustains employment and household income for hundreds of workers and families in the corridor. Socially, many of these MSMEs serve neighborhood-level consumption needs, affordable food, basic goods, and local services that larger enterprises do not profitably provide. Environmentally, the local sourcing and digital adoption mechanisms documented across cases carry latent carbon footprint reduction co-benefits, suggesting that economic resilience and environmental sustainability may be more complementary than policy frameworks typically recognize.

Overall, this study concludes that the decisive factor for MSME resilience is cross-domain alignment capacity: the stronger the inter-domain alignment, the greater the ability to sustain operations, adapt under pressure, and pursue gradual growth. Future research should extend this framework through longitudinal panel designs that track resilience configuration trajectories over time, broader geographic sampling beyond the Jakarta–Bogor–Depok corridor, deliberate oversampling of non-F&B sectors, and primary data collection with formal inter-coder reliability protocols addressing the limitations of the current study while building on its configural analytical foundation.