The COVID-19 pandemic and resilience of SMEs in Lithuania

Abstract

The article focuses on a relevant scientific and practical problem of the present, i.e., the resilience of organisations in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim is, upon analysing the response of organisations to the threats related to the COVID-19-caused restrictions on economic activity, to identify the predominant behaviour of organisations that predetermines their resilience. The theoretical part discusses the leadership aspect of the heads of organisations and the ability of organisations to survive in the conditions of uncertainty. The findings of the research in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) of Klaipėda Region are presented. The research methods chosen to deal with a scientific problem in the theoretical part include an analysis of literature sources, systematisation, synthesis, generalisation, and comparison. In the empirical research, quantitative research, i.e., a questionnaire survey and data processing methods, was applied. Due to the specificity of the region, the majority of the surveyed business entities (71.3%) are from the services sector, while the rest of the surveyed companies belong to the manufacturing (15%) and trade (13.7%) sectors. The research established that most of the organisations surveyed benefited from the government support. On assessing the survey data and summarising the response and efforts of organisations to deal with uncertainties, a conclusion was drawn that SMEs' response to uncertainties was mainly focused on the protection against threats and avoidance of risk, however, the organisations lacked preparedness and consistency when dealing with unforeseen circumstances.