Les microentreprises féminines et la pandémie de COVID-19 à Brazzaville en République du Congo : simples stratégies ou innovations sociales?

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to identify the strategies developed by businesswomen engaged in micro-entreprises and to verify whether these constitute social innovations or mere strategies. To do this, life stories were collected during the period of pandemic confinement, particularly in April 2020. The analysis of these narratives shows that the strategies implemented by these women are ambidextrous, i.e. combine both exploitation and exploration strategies. The exploitation strategies relate to travel, to flexibility in workforce management and to adjusting working days and hours to maintain a certain level of activity in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis. On the other hand, the exploration strategies focus on finding a new clientele and on developing new products during this period. The criteria of Bund and his colleagues (2013) show that the objectives targeted by the exploration strategies are indeed social innovations. Finally, these results have repercussions on the adaptation and survival strategies of women’s microenterprises in times of crisis.