Vietnam has been one of a few countries that successfully contained the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, aggressive measurements against the pandemic were at the expense of economic activities
and companies’ financial performances. This cross-sectional study uses a survey of 672
companies in Vietnam and the logistic regression model to explore companies’ coping strategy
choices based on their degree of financial distress, companies’ profiles, entrepreneurial factors,
and the interactions between them. The results suggest that companies predominantly selected
cost-cutting strategies to deal with the economic shutdown. However, the interactions between
financial and entrepreneurial factors could significantly increase the likelihood of selecting
growth-focused strategies. Besides, when facing a global pandemic such as COVID-19, managers’
perceptions about the spillover effects of global risks were much more impactful than local risks
on companies’ coping strategy selections. This paper can help to inform managers to better deal
with the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak.