INTRODUCTION
COVID-19 pandemic has been a disruptive period for many industries all over the world, bringing abnormal conditions and filled with uncertainty (Kapoor, K. et al., 2021). Out of all, manufacturing industry is seemed to be especially vulnerable, as it stays upon physical work that became restricted during pandemic. Suddenly emerged crisis of an extraordinary context posed a necessity for all production firms to develop the new strategies in order to hedge the pandemic effect through restructuring of the business processes and adaptation for the “new reality”.  The manufacturing industry tends to be conservative towards the shifts, usually it is not considered as innovative and modern in terms of strategy changes. Nevertheless, during the pandemic crisis this industry faced lockdowns with follow us disturbances within supply chain, workforce shortage, financial instability, etc. (Kapoor, K., et al., 2021) To cope with the pandemic challenges, the companies have adjusted their operational activities to the new context, sometimes being fully uncertain of the external market development.  The global textile industry, including the high-end segment of fabric manufacturers was not an exception (Deloitte research, 2021, p. 26). The pandemic crisis within a niche, similarly to the other production firms, provoked the doubts and uncertainties with regard to the strategic development of the firms: How should the firms have acted in such an uncertain environment? Which strategic approaches would have been more efficient in sustaining the firm's competitive edge within a field? The firms may react differently for the adaptation to the challenges posed by various economic crises: either with internal organizational redesigning activities or with some external measures oriented on the realignment of the environment to which it belongs. (Chattopadhyay, P., et al., 2001) It has been determined that during the economic crisis periods, filled with ongoing uncertainty, with respect to the scarcity of the available resources, SMEs would be in a more advantageous position while utilizing the adaptive approaches (Baker, W. & Sinkula, J., 2009) such as effectual decision-making (Sarasvathy, 2001). So far the effectuation theory has been studied with respect to different fields, including the manufacturing industry as a whole. For instance, a general study upon the manufacturing industry (Brettel, M., et al. 2014) detected both causal and effectual approaches for the sufficient flow of the organizations, also posing a link for the further in-depth studies within the context. In a line with that study in a combination with the analysis of an existing researches there has been determined the gap in literature on the effectuation theory with regard to the specialized competing industries. Despite the various number of studies that consider contextual differences in terms of firm development level and its country of origin with the follow up regional context complexities, there is gap in literature on the effectuation theory with regard to the industrial specifics. Effectuation theory has not yet been studied in-depth with regard to some particular manufacturing sub-industries, especially under conditions of crisis.  Elimination of such a gap would be beneficial from many perspectives: apart from the pure theoretical enhancement of the existing findings in the field, the research oriented on that matter would also help to determine the approaches to cope with the crisis periods within a chosen niche. Effectuation theory with its causal and effectual logic is an efficient tool to systemize the strategic toolset of production firms under crisis conditions.  To identify specifics of manufacturing industry under pandemic crisis, the focus is selected to be on the textile firms within the high-end segment. This segment provides good example as during COVID-19 crises firms suffer from decreased demand, introduced obligatory working restrictions, decreased availability of the marketing channels, etc. With  the  help  of  the  currently  existing  theoretical  materials, research and frameworks, also basing on the primary sources of information, the strategic responses of the firms within a niche would be analyzed through the lens of effectuation theory in a more comprehensive manner by digging  deeper  into  the context that  has  not  been  investigated well.  With regard to that as well as to the theoretical gap, the goal of the bachelor thesis is to develop propositions on the specifics of firms’ strategic responses to crisis.  In a line with goal of the thesis, the research object is the luxury segment in the textile industry, while the research subject is the specifics of the strategic responses to crisis in the textile industry limited with the luxury fabric manufacturers.  The thesis might be defined as an inductive qualitative empirical research based on the case studies. Therefore, even though the theoretical and industry overview parts are going to be written majorly on the basis of the secondary data, the analytical parts will be fully based on the primary sources of information retrieved from the semi-structured interviews with the representatives within a niche.  To achieve the outlined goal, the following objectives are taken into consideration: conduct a general analysis of the premium-quality textile industry; analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis on the industry with regard to different regions within a sample; with the use of qualitative research (interview-based), investigate which strategic approaches firms utilized for hedging the negative impact of the pandemic; with the use of thematic analysis, evaluate and systemize the utilized approaches of firms with regard to the effectual/causal logics of the effectuation theory; on the basis of the effectual/causal logic as well as the conducted evaluation and systematization, identify the most efficient instrument set for the firms within a niche to cope with a disruptive periods; outline the possible limitations within a research as well as develop future research directions. Referring to the structure of the research, the thesis consists of six chapters: “Theoretical background on crisis coping strategies and effectuation theory”, “Textile industry overview”, “Research methodology”, “Analysis of the data”, “Research findings”, “Discussion of results”. The first chapter “Theoretical background on crisis coping strategies and effectuation theory” provides a general background on the current commonly recognized managerial approaches for an organizational development, including the strategic responses to cope with a crisis. The chapter mainly focuses on the effectuation theory, highlighting the difference of the effectual and causal logics. Last, but not least the chapter highlights the gap in studies of an effectuation theory with regard to the specialized competing industries. The second chapter “Textile industry overview” follows from the determined gap. It starts from a general description of a textile industry, then focusing mainly on the premium-quality fabric manufacturers. The chapter also highlights the influence of the COVID-19 on the niche with regard to different regions. The third chapter “Research methodology” describes in detail the process of data collection for the research with the specific reasoning for the utilization of those instruments and general logic. It also describes the sample of the firms, which has been chosen for the interview in order to collect the case-based data.  The forth chapter “Analysis of the data” is meant to investigate the strategic logic utilized by each company within a sample with the use of thematic analysis with regard to the effectual/causal logics in order to evaluate the successfulness of such a decision-making pattern and to further systemize the overall picture. The fifth chapter “Research findings” is an outcome of the analysis, evaluation and systematization process, which represents a developed propositions on the firm strategic responses to crisis within the luxury segment of the textile industry.  The sixth chapter “Discussion of results” provides theoretical and practical implications, uncovers the limitations in the conducted research, and suggests the propositions to broaden the scope of the determined findings. The “Conclusion” part summarizes all of the chapters.
В статье рассматривается влияние COVID-19 на текстильную промышленность, в частности, на ее высший сегмент. Автор подчеркивает, что текстильная промышленность, как и другие отрасли, столкнулась с трудностями в условиях пандемии, и подчеркивает необходимость разработки новых стратегий для адаптации к новым условиям. Он также отмечает, что эффектная теория управления может помочь компаниям адаптироваться к кризисным периодам.