The COVID-19 pandemic has levied an unprecedented impact on small and medium enterprises (SMEs), many of which laid-off employees, lost customers, experienced supply chain disruptions, witnessed financial uncertainties, and saw closures. Despite such sufferings, our knowledge of how these firms can decrease their vulnerability and respond to externally induced crises is incomplete. This manuscript contributes to filling this gap. Based on crisis management literature and studies on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on SMEs, we distil key measures that can enable these firms to mitigate the adverse effects of crises while also leveraging the opportunities these offer. We discuss the boundary conditions and advantages of these measures. Our objective is not to offer a complicated and extensive framework that SMEs may find difficult to adopt but to illustrate key themes that could provide them with a roadmap to manage the adverse effects of external shocks. Implications for scholars and policymakers are outlined.
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Dheer et al. (2022) studied this question.