Factors Impacting SME Business Resilience Post-COVID-19

Kerry Brown, Ferry Jie, Thi Le (), Jalleh Sharafizad, Fleur Sharafizad and Subhadarsini Parida
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Kerry Brown: School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University, 270 Joondalup Drive, Joondalup 6027, Australia
Ferry Jie: School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University, 270 Joondalup Drive, Joondalup 6027, Australia
Thi Le: Business School, Murdoch University, 90 South Street, Murdoch 6150, Australia
Jalleh Sharafizad: School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University, 270 Joondalup Drive, Joondalup 6027, Australia
Fleur Sharafizad: School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University, 270 Joondalup Drive, Joondalup 6027, Australia
Subhadarsini Parida: UniSA Business, University of South Australia, Adelaide 5001, Australia

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 22, 1-15

Abstract: The ability of an organization to respond to a crisis with agility is vital for business leaders to maintain business continuity. Our paper examined how business owners responded to the challenges caused by the pandemic. Using online surveys for data collection, we investigated a critical agility issue of supply chain risks through understanding the interrelationship of various business capability factors. Partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM) was applied to a sample of 220 participants who were owners of micro, small, and medium businesses in Western Australia. The findings showed that the businesses’ efficiency, financial strength, and flexibility in sourcing affected the businesses’ supply chain risks negatively. More support for labor productivity, asset utilization, waste elimination, financial reserves, portfolio diversification, and credit access needs to be introduced to enhance the resilience of the business supply chain. This paper is novel, as we used the data collected in Western Australia, where the SMEs were still affected by the global supply chain disruption but lacked protracted lockdowns, as had occurred nationally and globally during the COVID-19 period.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; business resilience; supply chain risks; business capabilities; SMEs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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