Conceptualization of SMEs’ business resilience: A systematic literature review

Muhammedamin Hussen Saad, Geoffrey Hagelaar, Gerben van der Velde and S. W. F. Omta

Cogent Business & Management, 2021, vol. 8, issue 1, 1938347

Abstract: Attention for business resilience research in the academic world has increased considerably, despite fragmented literature on definitions, measurements, and of variables influencing the concept. Therefore, there is a need to take stock of current knowledge on the areas and structure them to lay the foundation in this field. We also give due attention to the resilience of SMEs in a highly vulnerable setting (i.e., developing countries), as the nature of this settings requires resilience research attention (in terms of rate of recurrence and complexity of disruptions). We deployed a well-structured systematic review procedure. This paper offers (1) an overview of SMEs resilience literature from 2000 to November 2018 comprising 118 articles, and (2) special attention, within that overview, to developing countries. This review concludes that resilience literature is very much varied in its definitions and measurements, and is inconclusive about its influencing factors. Furthermore, little resilience research has focused upon the context of SMEs in developing countries, which is perhaps surprising given the contribution made by these businesses in such a setting. Based on the review results, we describe distinguishing features of resilience; give options to extend the theoretical foundations of research into resilience in the future.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/23311975.2021.1938347 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:oabmxx:v:8:y:2021:i:1:p:1938347

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://cogentoa.tandfonline.com/journal/OABM20

DOI: 10.1080/23311975.2021.1938347

Access Statistics for this article

Cogent Business & Management is currently edited by Len Tiu Wright and Tahir Nisar

More articles in Cogent Business & Management from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().