. We also controlled for Industry using the Danish Industrial Classification and Standard Industrial Groupings' 10 categories. Because some categories had few observations, we pooled the financial and insurance, real estate, and other business services categories. Each industry was a dummy. We also controlled for Crisis impact. Particularly, we categorized whether during the lockdown (March 11 to September 1, 2020) SMEs experienced a turnover decrease (Crisis victim, coded 0), unaffected turnover (Crisis immune, coded 1), or a turnover increase (Crisis exploiter, coded 2). Finally,  because financial preparedness matters, we controlled for Liquidity ratio and return on investment ROI (both in percentages and standardized), whose data we extracted from the Danish Register data, specifically "Navne & Numre." Table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, and Pearson's correlations of the dependent, independent, and control variables. The highest correlation among variables used in same models was between Retrenchment (broad) and Innovation (broad), at 0.51. From this correlation, together with variance inflation factors all below 2, it could be concluded there was no serious threat of multicollinearity. Fig. 1 graphically shows the distribution of the dependent variables, ranging from a 75% drop in turnover to a 125% increase in turnover during the lockdown period from March 11, 2020 to September 1, 2020.

Multivariate statistics
To test our hypotheses, we introduced first the control variables and then each independent variable separately, and finally all independent variables together. Table 2 shows results related to the broad crisis strategies, and Table 3 shows results for the narrow crisis strategies. Model 5 in Table 2 shows an insignificant association between Retrenchment (broad) and Turnover expectation (β = − 0.90; SE = 1.40; p = n. s.). Further, Persevering (broad) (β = 4.50; SE = 1.32; p < 0.001) and Innovation (broad) (β = 2.73; SE = 1.28; p < 0.05) were significantly related to Turnover expectation, thus rejecting H1a while accepting H2a and H3a. Adding broad crisis strategies increased R 2 by 141% from 0.041 to 0.099.

Post hoc analysisdifferences in crisis impact
We completed a post hoc analysis to provide further insight into our results, especially to explore the heterogenous crisis effects. We were particularly interested in whether applied crisis strategies function generically or depend on how the crisis influenced SMEs in the first place. The descriptive data (Table 1) shows that during the lockdown from March to September 2020, 39% of the SMEs were Crisis victims (i.e., experienced a drop in turnover), while 29% were Crisis immunes, and 32% were Crisis exploiters (experiencing a turnover increase during first COVID-19 wave). We tested the dependency by interacting the Crisis impact with the Crisis strategies, using Crisis immune as a reference (Table 4). We found that associations between broad strategies and turnover expectations were generic and not dependent on how the COVID-19 crisis originally affected the SMEs, whereas some narrow crisis strategies depended on the COVID-19 impact. Particularly, we found that compared to Crisis immunes, Crisis exploiters experienced a lower expected turnover if they followed a Retrenchment (narrow) crisis strategy (β = − 28.26; SE = 11.76; p < 0.05) but a higher expected turnover if they followed an Innovation Fig. 1. Expected change in turnover from 2020 to 2021 (in percentages). K. Klyver and S.L. Nielsen (narrow) crisis strategy (β = 33.98; SE = 10.88; p < 0.01). Together, these posthoc results indicate that the heterogeneity in how SMEs are impacted by the crisis matter for which strategy are effective.
As another robustness test, we reran all models controlling for the expected health crisis length measured in months. Expected health crisis length was negatively correlated with expected turnover (β = − 0.32; SE = 1.44; p = 0.03) but our remaining results stayed robust with all key associations being in similar directions and no change in associations being significant or not, with only one Note. В coefficients are reported; standard errors in parentheses. Ϯp <.10; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001 (two-tailed).
exception. That is, controlling for expected health crisis length resulted in the interaction of Crisis exploiter and Persevering (broad) becoming marginal significant (β = 5.71; SE = 3.26; p = 0.08). We also checked whether effects of crisis strategy depend on Firm age or Firm size; however without any significant results except older SMEs that marginally significant expect higher turnover (β = 7.30; SE = 3.76; p = 0.05).

Discussion
Exogenous shocks such as the COVID-19 crisis hit societies broadly. Reduced spending, export, import, and decreased gross national product are typical indicators. However, businesses are hit heterogeneously; some experience growth (i.e., crisis exploiters), some are unaffected (i.e., crisis immunes), and others suffer (i.e., crisis victims). In many Western contexts, including the Danish, political measures unproportionally constrained businesses by locking down certain industries but not others (Born et al., 2021;Sebhatu et al., 2020). Yet, regardless how the political lockdown measures affected the SMEs, our study simultaneously shows that SMEs' strategic crisis strategy matters for optimistic-versus-pessimistic expectations for the future. Particularly, and consistent with Wenzel et al.'s (2020) predictions, we find that SMEs following a narrow retrenchment strategy expected decreasing turnover in 2021, whereas SMEs following broad persevering, broad innovation, or narrow innovation strategies expected increasing turnover in 2021.
Most importantly, we find distinctive differences between the broad and narrow strategies. That is, although broad use of retrenchment is not linked to expectations, narrow retrenchment strategies for SMEs experiencing growth during the crisis seem ineffective. Further, although persevering seems to work when implemented broadly, it appears to be ineffective when only certain focused measures are implemented. Our post hoc analysis further reveals that the effectiveness of narrow strategies (i.e., narrow retrenchment and narrow innovation) depends on the crisis impact that the SMEs experienced in the first place. Table 5 provides an overview of our results.

Theoretical contributions and practical implications
Our study makes one primary theoretical contribution. We extend the external enabler theory with the extreme, high-impact, and sudden external changes-in this situation, a pandemic-that until now have been less explored (Davidsson et al., 2020. We thus add to the prior insight, which had focused primarily on external changes that emerged more slowly. Interestingly, our study suggests that strategic reactions matter, and it leaves less to randomness, unluck, and determinism. Strategic crisis actions distinguish those SMEs that expected a positive rather than a negative development, emphasizing crisis as both a disabler and an enabler, as creating winners and losers, and, most importantly, as dependent on how SMEs react to the crisis. However, our findings are also important for practice. First, an important distinction between narrow and broad crisis strategies matters for the effectiveness of the strategies. Even though both broad and narrow strategies may be effective-they vary in their resource requirements. Focused strategies do not necessary require the same resource slack (Agusti et al., 2020), which can be crucial for those SMEs constrained by liabilities of smallness and lacking liquidity (Cowling et al., 2020). SMEs should choose their crisis strategies also dependent on their available resource slack.
We also show that crisis strategies are not generic but depend on how SMEs were affected in the first place (Bartik et al., 2020). Thus, SME should strategically react according to the unique ways in which the crisis impacted the firm and not be imitative responses to competitors' reactions (Smith et al., 2001). There is no best way to organize or manage a SMEs through a crisis. Rather, crisis strategies-as with entrepreneurial actions in general-should be viewed not only as actions determined by the environment (Scott and Davis, 2015), but also as actions that shape the environment and provide new meanings and opportunities (Elfring et al., 2021). Crisis exploiters-that is, SMEs that experienced a growth in turnover during the first COVID-19 wave-especially seem to be in a position from which active engagement in innovative activities, rather than cost cutting, can generate further growth.

Limitations and avenues for future research
Some limitations and avenues for future research are associated with our study. First, we approached crisis strategies as though they were only a matter of choice, but they are not always so. Resources limits strategic options. Persevering and innovation are both strategies that require slack resources (Agusti et al., 2020). This implies that for firms without slack resources, the only possible solution in the short run would be retrenchment. Second, during a crisis that is constantly and unpredictably developing, temporality and timing obviously matter (Berends et al., 2021). Although we looked at different strategies, it is likely that their effectiveness depends on the sequence, temporality, and timing of their combinations. For instance, it may be that an early retrenchment strategy could generate the buffer and resource slack necessary for SMEs to innovate later during the crisis. Finally, despite the global nature of the COVID-19 crisis, the crisis did not hit countries simultaneously or equally, and countries reacted differently politically (e.g