Societal crises—characterized by heightened uncertainty, disruption, and fundamental departures from normal functioning—are becoming increasingly prevalent. While commonly regarded as threats to entrepreneurial ventures, these crises can also act as enablers for new forms of value creation and capture. Drawing on a systematic review of 31 empirical articles from top management and entrepreneurship journals, we identify three interconnected mechanisms—resource value transformation, market engagement transformation, and entrepreneurial agentic transformation—that reveal how crises enable ventures in ways rarely observed under stable conditions. Our findings emphasize the importance of managing tensions between immediate survival and long-term opportunity development, as well as balancing individual actions with collective, community-oriented efforts. We also pinpoint critical boundary conditions, including crisis type, institutional setting, and specific venture and entrepreneur attributes, which shape how effectively these mechanisms unfold. By synthesizing insights across multiple studies, our review proposes a holistic understanding of crisis-enabled entrepreneurial value creation. We close by offering avenues for future research on prolonged but less visible crises, cross-crisis comparisons, and collective entrepreneurial engagement, providing a foundation for ventures to turn crises into opportunities.
