ABSTRACT
The current COVID-19 pandemic has generated unprecedented disruption in the tourism sector, requiring innovative solutions to reshape future work for sustainability. Despite the several benefits of tourism and innovation, studies examining the interlinkages among tourism, pandemic uncertainty, and innovations for sustainability are rare. To fill this gap, this paper investigates the impact of the pandemic on tourism arrivals, and the effects of tourism arrivals and pandemic impacts on the sustainable development of France. The paper further considers the innovation influences on pandemic uncertainty to consider it key for the control of the pandemic. Autoregressive distributed lag results based on 25 years of historical data show that the immediate effects of pandemic discussion on tourism arrivals are insignificant. However, in the long run, such effects become significantly negative, revealing that a rise in pandemic discussion reduces tourism arrivals in France. We find that tourism arrivals and pandemic discussions have positive significant effects on the sustainability of France. The tourism arrivals and pandemic discussion interaction results reveal that tourists who are aware of the pandemic significantly contribute to sustainability. Significant evidence shows that a rise in innovation helps to reduce pandemic uncertainty. However, innovation's short-term effects are more prominent compared with the long-term effects, indicating that the pandemic can be countered in the short run with the help of innovative solutions. Thus, relying on innovation, especially innovations related to COVID-19 will reduce the pandemic's risk. Our results were robust to various econometric methodologies. We have drawn policy implications to focus on tourism development and constant innovations for sustainable recovery.
ABSTRACT
Our research examined the attitudes of owners and managers of small and medium-sized enterprises in the V4 countries, who behave responsibly - they use corporate social responsibility in their managerial practice on issues focused on the market and operational area of business. The paper is based on a questionnaire survey with data collection from September 2019 to January 2020. Statistical methods of Pearson's chi-square and z-score were used to assess the hypotheses. The results proved that there are significant differences in companies in services and tourism in the context of implementing the CSR concept. Entrepreneurs who implement social responsibility with a significant positive difference agree that a company places great emphasis on the innovation of its products and services. Researchers found that the sector has an impact on the perception of decreasing customers' requests on specific products/services. We found that corporate social responsibility and its implementation in corporate practice positively affects the relationship of V4's small and medium enterprises in the services and tourism sector to service production innovation issues, which helps increase business performance and decline customer complaints.
ABSTRACT
Social media has become explosive, permeating every sphere of the socio-cultural lives of individuals and businesses, and causing nations to technologically evolve. The dramatic growth in the adoption and use of social media has become beneficial to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), significantly contributing to resolving a nagging challenge of effectively advertising their goods and services. Consequently, SMEs can achieve business growth and sustainability through increased adoption and harnessing the opportunities provided through the use of social media. The COVID-19 pandemic has provided an impetus for both consumers and SME businesses to leverage interaction through social media, which may lead to business growth. This research thus sets out to identify how social media contributes to the growth of SMEs within a developing country context. To accomplish this objective, primary data was collected from SMEs in the hospitality industry across the sixteen administrative regions of Ghana using survey and simple random sampling techniques. Questionnaires were distributed to the managerial staff of each randomly selected survey participant. Out of the 900 questionnaires distributed, 718 were filled correctly for the data analysis. The researchers quantitatively analyzed the responses using Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling(PLSSEM) statistical software ADANCO 2.0 version. The results indicated that Small and Medium Enterprises are capable of using social media for customer attraction, business marketing strategy, communication channel and increased financial performance. © 2021 John Amoah et al., published by Sciendo 2021.
ABSTRACT
The aim of the study is to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on entrepreneurs’ attitudes towards the selected business risks in the SME segment. 1502 SMEs took part in the research, while 822 of them provided their responses regarding business risks before the COVID-19 crisis and 680 during the COVID-19 crisis in Czech and Slovak business environment. Market, financial, and personnel risks were considered by Czech SMEs as the three most significant business risks, both before and after the COVID-19 crisis. The statistically confirmed differences in SMEs’ attitudes based on the time of providing responses are most apparent in the perception of financial and personnel risks. 35.7% SMEs in Czech Republic and 35.3% in Slovakia considered financial risk as one of the three most significant business risks before the COVID-19 crisis. During the crisis, it changed to 53.6% SMEs in Czech Republic and 59.7% in Slovakia. Before the crisis, up to 67.8% SMEs in Czech Republic and 62.8% in Slovakia considered personnel risk as one of the three most significant business risks. During the crisis, it was only 27.2% in Czech Republic and 29.4% in Slovakia. © 2020, Centre of Sociological Research. All rights reserved.