COVID-19 has developed chaos and uncertainty for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) causing mass downsizing. Under such uncertainty, innovation is key to survival and agility to growth. This study examines role of knowledge coupling and business process digitization (BPD) in sustaining innovation through market capitalizing agility (MCA) besides downsizing strategy. Data have been collected from top and mid management of Chinese manufacturing SMEs and analyzed with knowledge-based view and self-tuning model through Smart-PLS 4. Knowledge coupling positively contributes to MCA and innovation irrespective of downsizing strategy. Effect of BPD on innovation performance is same; however, insignificant on MCA in no-downsizing sample. Likewise, MCA positively influences innovation performance and positively mediates between knowledge coupling (BPD) and innovation performance only during downsizing. This study is first of its kind to establish mediating effect of MCA between knowledge coupling (BPD) and innovation performance during downsizing phase and offers significant theoretical and practical implications. JEL Classification: J63, O31
In today's world of global competition, every business must be able to maintain a competitive advantage in both goods and services. Because of the rapid spread of COVID-19 beginning in the year 2020, small and medium-sized enterprises or SMEs have attempted to improve the flow of communication with their customers using social customer relationship management. There is a lack of knowledge about how social CRM can be effective for SMEs during the COVID-19 outbreak to increase customer focus, despite the growing interest in the adoption of social media by corporations. Much less is known about the factors that impact SME decisions to adopt social CRM and the impact that these factors have on competitive advantage in the event of the COVID-19 outbreak. Accordingly, the authors aim to conduct an empirical investigation into the role that social media can play, which has a significant impact on the management of customer relationships in SMEs.
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