ABSTRACT
Small and Medium sized Businesses (SMBs) make up majority of employment in Africa (around 80%). Understanding the digital transformation that SMBs in Africa went through during the pandemic can play an important role in uncovering how to build solutions that better support the African business and African worker. In this paper we report on findings from a qualitative study with 40 SMBs in Kenya. The study aimed to understand the lived experience of digital transformation, the impacts of COVID-19 on their businesses, and how they responded to such impacts using technology. We found that COVID-prompted digital transformation was reactive and opportunistic, plus social and collective. Moreover, the socialness of business goes way beyond digital transformation, and influences how SMBs in Kenya start, develop and are sustained. In illustrating this, we offer a lens to understanding work and workers of SMBs in Kenya and similar contexts across the globe. © 2022 Owner/Author.
ABSTRACT
The Covid-19 pandemic was first discovered in 2019 and was resistant to all available cures despite all efforts. Vietnam, as well as other nations, suffers significant economic harm due to its presence. Businesses in Vietnam, particularly small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), must plan for this scenario. It has been shown that E-marketing is a successful technique for finding and communicating with consumers worldwide. The disease has been aided by lockdowns and social isolation in the Covid-19 pandemic. This study seeks to discover the impact of several variables on small business owners' plans to utilize e-marketing in Vietnam as part of the Covid-19 pandemic. The study used both qualitative and quantitative research techniques. The qualitative approach is used to confirm and modify a scale, whereas quantitative research is used to help establish a range. The results show that 04 variables impact e-marketing intention, including (1) Compatibility, (2) attitudes towards the use of E-marketing, (3) perceived usefulness, and (4) perceived barriers to use, (5) subjective norms, where perceived usefulness is the most critical influence. The research has put forward many proposals to enhance the desire of businesses to utilize E-Marketing. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic small businesses made headlines as hard hit by customer losses, revenue declines, and business closures. Yet, the impacts have been felt disproportionately by small businesses that suffered interruption due to pre-existing socioeconomic stressors and/or concurrent natural hazards experienced during the pandemic. To illuminate those compound impacts, we conducted a survey of over 1350 U S.-based small businesses. Our findings indicate that those businesses that experienced concurrent natural hazards during the pandemic were associated with relatively greater negative impacts. But importantly, enterprises that are historically underrepresented group operated (HUGO)-minority, women, and veteran-operated businesses- saw largely amplified negative impacts from COVID-19. In terms of the magnitude of COVID-19 impacts, the effect size of belonging to HUGO was more than twice as large as the effect size of experiencing a concurrent natural hazard during the pandemic. These results provide evidence for the disproportionate impacts that HUGOs face due to the pandemic, which are exacerbated when compounded by natural hazards. Given these results, there is evidence that the opportunity gap between HUGO and non-HUGO businesses is significant ahead of additional stressors or shocks. This opportunity gap is further accelerated when compounded with other events, here the compounding of natural hazards and COVID-19. Additional interventions need to be offered to HUGO businesses in areas with high likelihood of overlapping incidents. Further work is required to address social inequity and economic fragility of HUGO businesses, especially those that face the complexity of additional shocks, such as natural hazards.