{"title":"The nature of small business digital responses during crises","authors":"Craig Parker , Scott Bingley , Stephen Burgess","doi":"10.1016/j.infoandorg.2023.100487","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Small business revenues worldwide were drastically affected by lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, many small businesses introduced new functionality through the adoption of digital technologies. However, little is known about the nature of these digital technology innovations, including whether they differed across industry sectors. Through a modified case study approach, we examine digital technology responses to the pandemic by small businesses that were identified in Google News. We introduce a new framework designed to describe the nature of the responses. Most small businesses that were examined introduced digital responses by offering new e-commerce facilities and/or converting their existing services to ‘e-services’, with some important cross sector exceptions. Practical suggestions for small businesses are provided.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47253,"journal":{"name":"Information and Organization","volume":"33 4","pages":"Article 100487"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Information and Organization","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1471772723000416","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"INFORMATION SCIENCE & LIBRARY SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Small business revenues worldwide were drastically affected by lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, many small businesses introduced new functionality through the adoption of digital technologies. However, little is known about the nature of these digital technology innovations, including whether they differed across industry sectors. Through a modified case study approach, we examine digital technology responses to the pandemic by small businesses that were identified in Google News. We introduce a new framework designed to describe the nature of the responses. Most small businesses that were examined introduced digital responses by offering new e-commerce facilities and/or converting their existing services to ‘e-services’, with some important cross sector exceptions. Practical suggestions for small businesses are provided.
期刊介绍:
Advances in information and communication technologies are associated with a wide and increasing range of social consequences, which are experienced by individuals, work groups, organizations, interorganizational networks, and societies at large. Information technologies are implicated in all industries and in public as well as private enterprises. Understanding the relationships between information technologies and social organization is an increasingly important and urgent social and scholarly concern in many disciplinary fields.Information and Organization seeks to publish original scholarly articles on the relationships between information technologies and social organization. It seeks a scholarly understanding that is based on empirical research and relevant theory.