TY  - JOUR
A1  - Appel, Alexandra
A1  - Hardaker, Sina
T1  - Strategies in Times of Pandemic Crisis — Retailers and Regional Resilience in Würzburg, Germany
JF  - Sustainability
N2  - Research on the COVID-19 crisis and its implications on regional resilience is still in its infancy. To understand resilience on its aggregate level it is important to identify (non)resilient actions of individual actors who comprise regions. As the retail sector among others represents an important factor in an urban regions recovery, we focus on the resilience of (textile) retailers within the city of Würzburg in Germany to the COVID-19 pandemic. To address the identified research gap, this paper applies the concept of resilience. Firstly, conducting expert interviews, the individual (textile) retailers’ level and their strategies in coping with the crisis is considered. Secondly, conducting a contextual analysis of the German city of Würzburg, we wish to contribute to the discussion of how the resilience of a region is influenced inter alia by actors. Our study finds three main strategies on the individual level, with retailers: (1) intending to “bounce back” to a pre-crisis state, (2) reorganising existing practices, as well as (3) closing stores and winding up business. As at the time of research, no conclusions regarding long-term impacts and resilience are possible, the results are limited. Nevertheless, detailed analysis of retailers’ strategies contributes to a better understanding of regional resilience.
KW  - resilience
KW  - COVID-19
KW  - pandemic crisis
KW  - regional resilience
KW  - retail
KW  - owner-operated retailers
KW  - textile sector
KW  - Germany
Y1  - 2021
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-233991
SN  - 2071-1050
VL  - 13
IS  - 5
ER  -