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While the long-term economic consequences of the pandemic are unclear, we do know that many small businesses are struggling, particularly vulnerable because of how they’re financed — especially minority-owned small businesses, which are more likely to be denied loans and pay higher interest rates. How to boost their chances? Shorter pay terms.

In a world beset by the COVID-19 pandemic, we face situations that test our deepest values. And when a threat to personal safety triggers the fight or flight response, our values-based decision-making is at greater risk. Mary Gentile’s Giving Voice to Values framework can help prepare us to be our best selves in trying times.

While the future has always been unpredictable, the global uncertainty caused by the novel coronavirus is at a record high. To help us steer through this unprecedented crisis, Professor Saras Sarasvathy shares insights on entrepreneurial decision-making and offers four strategies seasoned founders use to turn uncertainty into opportunity.

A revolution in the way we understand business: It can and should seek to improve the state of the world. In an excerpt from their forthcoming book, Darden Professors R. Edward Freeman and Bidhan L. Parmar, experts in stakeholder theory, discuss models for businesses not solely driven by profit maximization.

Does career risk inhibit entrepreneurship? Research from Darden Professor Ting Xu and colleagues shows the effect of leave policies on entrepreneurship and explores the extent to which longer job-protected leave leads to new ventures, creating jobs in industries in which experimentation before entry has low costs and high benefits.

The old normal is history. But the world will not stay still, and technology will advance, its adoption even accelerated due to COVID-19. Ed Hess discusses the need for democratization of technology and its potential to address societal challenges including income inequality, low social mobility, the expense of health care and access to education.

Faced with limited customer flow, forced shut down of operations and a looming economic recession, the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic leaves small-business owners to make decisions with little idea of what the future may hold. What lessons can they take from the success and resiliency of businesses that have survived crises in the past?

If the COVID-19 crisis triggered health, economic, social and psychological changes that mean we will be living and working through destabilizing moments now and for the foreseeable future, all the more reason now to adopt and practice essential skills of Leading Mindfully. How should we start thinking in new ways that better represent reality?

University of Virginia Darden School of Business Professor Lalin Anik joins the Batten Institute’s Sean Carr to explore the evolution of consumer behavior in response to COVID-19, how brands are reacting, and what the future may hold as people look to them for trust and meaning amidst the uncertainty.

China’s progress towards modernization and marketization gave women unprecedented opportunities to launch and scale private enterprises and make billions in the process. Professor Ming-Jer Chen shares insights on how China managed to forge a new class of super-successful female founders.