Решения в сфере кризис менеджмента малых и средних предприятий Санкт-Петербурга в рамках ограничений, введенных в связи распространением COVID-19: стратегии выживания фирм
Цель исследования заключается в выявлении основных проблем и стратегий МСП Санкт-Петербурга в период кризиса COVID-19.
Для достижения поставленной цели были проанализированы следующие исследовательские вопросы:
1. Каковы основные проблемы российских МСП в экономическом и политическом контексте, вызванные пандемией COVID-19?
2. Каким стратегиям следовали предприниматели в условиях кризиса COVID-19? Какие из этих стратегий оказались более успешными?
3. Какие факторы влияют на адаптацию стратегии в условиях новых вызовов 2020 года?
Было установлено, что с точки зрения предпринимателей отсутствие равноправного взаимодействия с властями препятствовало получению финансовой поддержки и последующим инновационным действиям. Кроме того, было выявлено, что проблему низкой доступности банковских кредитов многие предприниматели решали за счет неформального финансирования и участия в профессиональных организациях. Наконец, в большинстве случаев из-за отсутствия ресурсов для осуществления новаторских проектов, предприниматели стремились удержать текущую долю рынка. Данная задача решалась с помощью укрепления деловой репутации и кастомизированного подхода. Что касается правительственной помощи, то было установлено, что наиболее востребованной поддержкой для МСП является финансовая. Кроме того, в качестве одной из важных проблем было отмечено отсутствие консолидированного подхода к распространению информации для предпринимателей. В то же время мораторий на плановые инспекции был охарактеризован как наиболее ощутимая мера по смягчению последствий локдауна. Теоретический вклад заключается в расширении и уточнении сведений о стратегиях выживания малых предприятий в кризис и тех факторах, которые влияют на адаптацию определенного плана кризис менеджмента.
ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………………… 5
PART 1 ………………………………………………………….. 8
1.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 8
1.2 Objectives, gap, research questions ……………………………………………………………………………… 9
PART 2 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 11 2.1 Basic Concepts and Definitions ……………………………………………………………………………………… 11 2.2 SME Support measures for COVID crisis in Russia …………………………………………………………… 14 2.3 Strategic priorities of SMEs within the Pandemic ……………………………………………………………… 21 PART 3 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 24 3.1 Impact of the pandemic crisis on the economic activities of SMEs in Saint Petersburg…………….. 24 3.2 Main obstacles and countermeasures. ……………………………………………………………………………… 25 3.3 Summary……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 37 PART 4 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 38 4.1 Literature review …………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 38 4.2 Selective strategies that proved an adequate response to the crisis. ……………………………………….. 42 4.3 Introducing possible contributions to existing research ………………………………………………………. 48 PART 5 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 49 5.1 The rationale for the elaboration of the interview guide ……………………………………………………… 49 5.2 Data analysis ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 54 PART 6 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 58 6.1 Findings …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 58 6.2 Conclusions………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 68 6.3 Limitations …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 79 REFERENCES ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 79 APPENDIX ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 87
The current situation related to the pandemic of the new viral infection COVID-19 is sharply changing patterns of the world’s economy and Russian Federation is no exception. Indeed, according to the International Labor Organization, the coronavirus pandemic could have a serious devastating effect on the world economy, reduce the GDP growth rate to 8% and leave about 25 million unemployed (International Labor Organization, 2020). According to the World Trade Organization, in 2020 global trade is expected to decline by 13-32% (WTO, 2020) and this is an extremely alarming signal for businesses, especially small and medium ones.
In Russia, we are fully affected by COVID-19. While governmental corporations and comparatively big enterprises do have a margin of safety, as Business Ombudsman Boris Titova states liquidity cushion, degree of flexibility, and profile of the labor force is drastically different when it comes to smaller enterprises (Интерфакс, 2020). In conditions of the Russian economy, proactive measures must now be taken to ensure the sustainability of SMEs and at the same time take care of the safety of individual entrepreneurs.
To find out how badly the COVID-19 pandemic has affected companies, many kinds of research are currently conducted. For instance, some papers suggest that “businesses relying on physical space and shops, such as supermarkets, traditional food markets, restaurants, car dealers, movie theaters, gyms, and bars, suffered losses, whereas local neighborhood markets (convenience stores) and online markets did particularly well” (Bouey, 2020). Other managerial studies highlight severe measures that heads of enterprises were compelled to undertake in order to tackle with the situation and cover cash flow shortages: ”apply for a loan, shut down the business completely and partially to reduce costs, lay off employees and cut staff salary” (Shafi, 2020). However, from my perspective, it is tremendously significant to concentrate attention on SMEs as due to the over mentioned reasons they were more affected by the spread of the virus. Not only due to the direction of their operations but also because of the vulnerable size, they already have and probably will suffer more in the nearest future: one-fifth of SMEs are at risk of shutting down permanently within three months (The International Trade Centre, 2020) according to the International Trade Center.
In the course of this research, it is necessary to assess the current state of the economic activities of small and medium enterprises in Russia, to find out what are the most acute problems that this type of companies face, how effective were the strategic measures of SMEs owners/managers to maintain the continuous functions during the pandemic crisis in conjunction
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with the degree of overall productivity of interaction between the government and small firms. Another important field for investigation is the assessment of the situation with staff members and the unemployment of individual entrepreneurs.
The majority of entrepreneurs are faced with difficult times to go through. The main challenges were: a decrease in revenue, the risk of stuff contamination, interruptions in supply chains, a lack of crisis management, and uncertainty considering the nearest future. Considering the last notion, it will be useful to point out the view of organizational psychologists. They say that in some cases the level of stress is so high that “ given the uncertainty and breadth of the COVID- 19 shock, work and organizational psychologists urgently need to apply the field’s current knowledge for the purpose of sense-making to both help individuals and organizations manage risks” (Kniffin, 2020). Surely, for some SMEs predictability in an uncertain time is much-needed to prolong economic activities. It is highly important to make the most out of the pandemic situation to prevent the extinction of small businesses and foster the development of the leading contributor to the growth of the SMEs-oriented economy.
This kind of research does imply certain limitations and taking into account the exceptional circumstances of COVID-19 restrictions they probably manifested themselves quite clearly.
The first point is the lack of respondents from a tourism sector that plays a pivotal role in the city’s economy. Despite the fact that an appropriate entrepreneur was found, there was no way to organize an interview because of a heavy workload in the context of a crisis situation in this sector of the economy. This factor has limited the scope of research but can serve as an option for future investigations. The second thing that has hindered the research is the inability to see the business operations in real life and better depict the context of operations. As it has been stated earlier when it comes to SMEs many small details can influence the strategy adoption and not all of them can be captured through the screen of the computer. Further, the observation and interaction with the businessmen were organized during the academic year which can be considered as a short period of time. Probably this explains the absence of exit strategy cases. A more prolonged investigation can bring useful results considering this point. Lastly, it is rather important to underline that this research analyzes the situation in one of the most developed regions of the country. Thus, for wider and more generalized recommendations it may be useful to take into account other regions of the Russian Federation as the economic landscape of our country is diverse and miscellaneous.
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