The purpose is to investigate the current status and future evolution of the workplace within the COVID-19 pandemic context. Documents, publications and surveys from numerous sources have been analyzed to find out more about the employees' and organizations' experience with remote working and the advantages and disadvantages of accessing the workplace during the pandemic. The analysis of the data made possible the identification of patterns within the available literature regarding what has happened and, especially, its influence on the workplace. The revolution initiated by COVID-19 has changed the way companies and employees work and will continue doing so, requiring a constant reinvention of how they operate and causing actions never seen before, generating deep changes in the workplace. Therefore, the idea of the workplace will never be what was expected before COVID-19, where reinvention of work, technology and safety are key points in its transformation process.

Highlights Existence of certain accelerators can generate new business opportunities. Necessity of SMEs digitalization struggling to satisfy customers’ shopping expectations. Cannibalizing offline market share due to online commerce growth. e-Receipt: a highly disruptive element on long-term survival regarding competitors and raising circular economy. Tangible and economical green e-Receipt approach to reduce paper waste footprint.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to comprehend and determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on business organizations and society, together with its relationship to entrepreneurship, innovation, digitization or digital transformation, by means of analysis of the Spanish Internet domains registration data set.Design/methodology/approachFollowing existing literature regarding time series analysis, the authors have designed a SARIMA methodology involving the forecasting of a non-COVID-19 data set from the available data and compared it to the existing COVID-19 data set in order to validate the formulated hypothesis.FindingsThe COVID-19 pandemic was found to be an unfortunate accelerator, regarding entrepreneurship and innovation as a digitization and digital transformation lever, with the results of the Internet domain registration analysis as a reliable indicator.Originality/valueThis research confirms the existence of new non-invasive approaches to complementary information, such as Internet domain registration analysis, that could serve as an early and quick indicator of innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives within business activities.

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PurposeThe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has taken society, business and industries by surprise leading to a worldwide economic recession, pushing organizations to rethink their business model in order to shift from activity shutdown toward sustainable growth. The purpose of this research is to comprehend the implications and relationship between entrepreneurship, innovation, digitization and digital transformation aspects as the levers to achieve this goal.Design/methodology/approachFollowing the existing literature, an empirical approach has been established involving a quantitative analysis of secondary information obtained from official datasets and reports.FindingsThe COVID-19 pandemic was found to be an unfortunate accelerator regarding both consumers' habits and organizations' innovation and digital transformation, breaking with the past leading to new sustainable growth business models.Practical implicationsThe research provides an underlying outcome that addresses how wealth and economic value could be generated within the framework of new economic models in a post-pandemic environment.Originality/valueThe research highlights how the pandemic has disrupted what was known about sustainable business growth, and how this affects the future of business beyond the pandemic scenario, transforming the way society, businesses and customers interact.

The world is shaken by global crises that have severe implications for firms and their management. But what is characteristic of a global crisis, and why do firms and their managers often fail to deal proactively and strategically with coping strategies for crises. This introductory paper explains the characteristics of crises and important underlying management behavior. These behaviors are most important to understand because they might escalate or reduce the effects of a global crisis in firms. We also explain the challenges associated with emphasizing the local effects of crises while ignoring or downplaying their global effects. Finally, we present the papers in this special issue that provide specific answers that can help to deal with aspects of a global crisis.

PurposeExisting studies are scarce, especially on the Industry 4.0 application to firms' innovation and competitiveness, and even more on the application to LATAM and Spanish SMEs. This paper tries to fill this gap by explaining the results of applying a systematic model, to understand which are the SMEs' strengths and weaknesses in relation to the Industry 4.0 transformation.Design/methodology/approachA systematic methodology involving documentation analysis, visits to the companies, interviews with employees and managers, making a preliminary diagnosis, crossing their needs with the enablers that can apply. The fieldwork was carried out during a two month period (2019), on a target sample of 22 SMEs operating under industrial productive activity already exporting or planning their internationalization toward LATAM regions.FindingsThere are relevant barriers that need to be overcome in order to enter Industry 4.0 and, in this specific analysis, the following major classification was obtained: (1) Technological barrier, (2) Training barrier, (3) Economic barrier and (4) Contextual barrier.Originality/valueThis paper provides new insights and sets a starting point regarding LATAM and Spanish’ Industry 4.0 situation, while contributing to the SMEs competitiveness by providing deeper understanding of the barriers and limitations in adopting Industry 4.0, pointing out some implications and suggestions for organizations to implement.

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