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PurposeThis study aims to investigate the impact of environmental scanning on organizational resilience through the mediation of organizational learning and innovation based on organizational information processing theory (OIPT) within Egyptian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) during the COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopted a cross-sectional design to collect the data used to carry out mediation analysis. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample consisting of 249 Egyptian SMEs. The smart partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique was adopted to test the hypotheses.FindingsEnvironmental scanning does not have a direct effect on organizational resilience. However, organizational learning and innovation fully mediate the relationship between environmental scanning and organizational resilience.Research limitations/implicationsThe sample size was small, covering only Egyptian manufacturing SMEs. The results may differ in the service sector and other countries. The study was cross-sectional which is limited to tracing the long-term effects of environmental scanning, organizational learning and innovation on organizational resilience. Accordingly, a longitudinal study may be undertaken.Practical implicationsManagers in Egyptian SMEs should use signals from environmental scanning activities as input for learning and transforming business processes through innovation to develop organizational resilience.Originality/valueThis study is the first to investigate the role of environmental scanning in building organizational resilience through organizational learning and innovation based on the perspective of OIPT within Egyptian SMEs during the COVID-19 crisis.
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PurposeThis study aims to investigate the impact of environmental scanning on organizational resilience through the mediation of organizational learning and innovation based on organizational information processing theory (OIPT) within Egyptian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approachThis study adopted a cross-sectional design to collect the data used to carry out mediation analysis. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample consisting of 249 Egyptian SMEs. The smart partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique was adopted to test the hypotheses. FindingsEnvironmental scanning does not have a direct effect on organizational resilience. However, organizational learning and innovation fully mediate the relationship between environmental scanning and organizational resilience. Research limitations/implicationsThe sample size was small, covering only Egyptian manufacturing SMEs. The results may differ in the service sector and other countries. The study was cross-sectional which is limited to tracing the long-term effects of environmental scanning, organizational learning and innovation on organizational resilience. Accordingly, a longitudinal study may be undertaken. Practical implicationsManagers in Egyptian SMEs should use signals from environmental scanning activities as input for learning and transforming business processes through innovation to develop organizational resilience. Originality/valueThis study is the first to investigate the role of environmental scanning in building organizational resilience through organizational learning and innovation based on the perspective of OIPT within Egyptian SMEs during the COVID-19 crisis.
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The COVID-19 pandemic’s characteristics, including how quickly it spread, and the emergence of new virus variations, raise serious questions about the pandemic’s potential repercussions and complications in the food and beverage industry, among other industries. The global COVID-19 pandemic highlights the pressing need to reconsider how we manufacture and market food and beverage goods. During the epidemic, SMEs must build organizational resilience (OR) in order to recover economically, socially, and communally. Relational capital (RC) is a crucial factor that can be deployed by SMEs to acquire the resources existing in the external networks to adapt to disturbances;however, the impact of RC on the resilience of Egyptian food and beverage SMEs is under-examined. Additionally, it is unclear how RC promotes organizational resilience. In this regard, we argue that social interactions and regular communication can let an SME and its business partners exchange information and best practices, thereby enabling it to immediately establish backup plans to deal with the disruption. In order to achieve our aim, we investigated how relational capital affected organizational resilience both directly and indirectly through environmental scanning, utilizing partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS–SEM).The results from 217 Egyptian food and beverage SMEs demonstrate that relational capital directly and positively affected organizational resilience. Besides, the RC–OR relationship is partially mediated by environmental scanning. Our current study, therefore, adds to the extant literature through being one of the few studies to address the topics of relational capital and resilience altogether during crisis times within a developing country, an issue that has not been sufficiently investigated in exiting literature. Moreover, our current study is the first one to empirically investigate the role of relational capital in facilitating environmental scanning activities of SMEs to ultimately foster their resilience. Our results, thus, prove that a large amount of information relevant for recovery are inherent within an SME’s external relations network. We provide implications for theory and practice.
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Purpose>This paper aims to examine the impact of environmental scanning (ES) on competitive advantage (CA) through the mediation of organizational resilience dimensions within manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Egypt.Design/methodology/approach>This study adopts a cross-sectional design to collect data. This study used a self-administered questionnaire to collect data from a sample of 249 Egyptian SMEs. This study employed the Smart partial least square structural equation modeling technique to test the hypotheses.Findings>ES positively affects CA both directly and indirectly through the mediation of organizational resilience dimensions, namely, robustness and agility. However, ES does not affect integrity;therefore, integrity does not mediate the ES–CA relationship. These results indicate that organizational resilience partially mediates the relationship between ES and CA.Research limitations/implications>The sample size was small, covering only Egyptian manufacturing SMEs. The results may be different in the service sector and other countries. The study was cross-sectional which could not trace the long-term effects of ES and organizational resilience on CA. Therefore, a longitudinal study should be conducted, based on resource availability.Practical implications>Managers in Egyptian SMEs should scan their environments to build organizational resilience and, in turn, enhance their CA.Originality/value>To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is among the first endeavors to investigate the role of ES in building CA through organizational resilience in the context of Egyptian SMEs.