Digital Environmental Turbulence and Venture Adaptive Resilience: The Mediating Role of Strategic Adaptive Capability and the Moderating Role of Entrepreneurial Uncertainty Tolerance Climate

Abstract

Startups increasingly operate within digitally turbulent environments characterized by rapid technological disruption, evolving platform ecosystems, shifting customer expectations, and intensified competitive volatility. Although prior entrepreneurship research acknowledges the importance of adaptation under turbulent conditions, limited attention has been devoted to explaining the internal mechanisms through which startups convert digital environmental instability into adaptive venture resilience. Existing studies predominantly emphasize digital transformation, technological adoption, and innovation outcomes while overlooking the entrepreneurial sensing and strategic capability processes that enable ventures to respond effectively to digital disruption. Addressing this gap, the present study develops and empirically examines a moderated mediation framework grounded exclusively in Dynamic Capability Theory. Specifically, the study investigates how digital environmental turbulence influences adaptive venture resilience through entrepreneurial digital sensemaking and strategic adaptive capability, while also examining the moderating role of entrepreneurial uncertainty tolerance climate. Drawing on survey data collected from 312 startup founders and senior managers operating within Pakistan's digital entrepreneurial ecosystem, the proposed model was tested using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) in SmartPLS 4. The findings reveal that digital environmental turbulence significantly strengthens entrepreneurial digital sensemaking and strategic adaptive capability. Entrepreneurial digital sensemaking further enhances strategic adaptive capability, thereby strengthening adaptive venture resilience. In addition, entrepreneurial uncertainty tolerance climate significantly strengthens the relationship between strategic adaptive capability and adaptive venture resilience. The study contributes to entrepreneurship and strategic management literature by extending Dynamic Capability Theory into digitally turbulent entrepreneurial environments, positioning entrepreneurial digital sensemaking as a critical sensing capability, and reconceptualizing adaptive venture resilience as a dynamic adaptive outcome emerging through continuous strategic reconfiguration processes.