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SME restaurants have reported declined earnings and faced challenges to remain open during the Movement Control Order (MCO) period imposed by the Malaysian government due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. SME decision-makers were observed to be making changes regarding their day-to-day operations and management strategies to mitigate MCO restrictions. This paper aims to review the significant adaptations made by SME restaurants in Malaysia throughout the MCO period. Three (3) prominent areas of adaptations made by decision-makers have been identified based upon ceaseless news reports and media contents. The adaptations made commonly depict actions to (i) Nurture Creativity, (ii) Sustain Reputation, and (iii) Maintain Profitability. The outcomes of this paper provide essential survival guides for SME restauranteurs to embrace the COVID-19 outbreak. These can be helpful to related policy and decision-makers to implement the crucial traits of SME restaurants to reduce the impact on SME restaurants for the foreseeable future.

The influence of macroeconomic variables on aspects of business and the country's economy has been a subject of robust discussion. This study was conducted to identify the effect of macroeconomic variables, namely inflation rate, economic growth, exchange rate and share price, on listed companies in South Africa. The goal was to study the long run and short run effects of macroeconomic volatility on company performance because of the world’s recent pandemic experience. To achieve this objective, the study applied the panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model on annual panel data from 2010 to 2020 to analyse the short run and long run effects of macroeconomic variables on a company’s performance. The study results suggested a positive impact of economic growth, exchange rate and share price on asset returns, whilst a company's equity return is supported by economic growth and share price in the long run. The short run revealed that none of the independent variables has a sufficiently significant effect to influence a company's performance changes in the short run. Based on the findings, it was recommended that policymakers and economic authorities should introduce and implement strategies that favour and enhance the country's economic growth and stable exchange rate in order to improve company performance. Additionally, given that the company's short-run performance may highly depend on internal factors such as corporate governance, internal policies and business strategies, these decisions should be taken with precaution and a high level of professionalism.

This paper aims to examine the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on stock markets. This paper also analyses the stock market cointegration of selected global equity indices that performed better and have a quick speed of recovery during the pandemic. This paper also questions how increasing uncertainty and volatility deters investors’ perception of the diversification of equity investments. The dataset for the selected 12 global equity indices has been used from Thompson Reuters’s EIKON database in a given period of time between 2010 and 2021. This paper employs Vector Error Correction Models to assess the relationship among the selected global equity indices. Findings demonstrate that (i) there is an adverse impact of Covid-19 on the Global Equity markets, (ii) there is a clear sign of cointegration in global equity indices, (ii) investors can benefit from investing in particular equity indices that have exhibited quick speed of recovery from the pandemic records lows. The findings finally provide a strong foundation for constructing a resilient equity portfolio in a highly uncertain market environment.

The COVID-19 pandemic is anticipated to continue to the year 2022 and could lead to several business failures if entrepreneurs do not respond adequately. Thus, the purpose of this study is to introduce a framework that captures the impacts and potential responses to the ongoing pandemic. To do that, we conducted telephone interviews with ten entrepreneurs who operate enterprises within Nigeria. Data collected for analysis were transcribed, chronologically arranged, coded, and thematically analyzed using NVivo. Our findings revealed that, during the pandemic, businesses experienced limited opening hours, a decline in their clients' patronage, lower turnover, and employee demotivation. In response, business owners should consider re-strategizing their business activities, maintaining connections with clients, and exploiting available support measures. Our findings have profound theoretical and practical implications. For entrepreneurs and policymakers, they offer insights into the form of challenges confronting businesses during a pandemic. It also provides response activities that entrepreneurs could adopt to mitigate the impact of an epidemic on their enterprises’ performance. For the field of entrepreneurship, it advances the need to integrate public health (health-related issues) into entrepreneurship study and consider its multiple levels of influence on the performance of businesses.

This study examined the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the much sought-after regional economic integration using Southern Africa as a case study. The eruption of COVID-19 stifled world economic activities and unleashed economic uncertainties.  First, the disease forced countries into imposing restrictions that included total closure of businesses and borders and travel bans that resulted in reduced economic activity among countries. Second, Africa was expected to suffer economic reverse of between -2% to -5% in 2020 due to a sharp decline in output growth. This has had adverse implications on trade and financial markets across the region and scuppers the ambitions for regional economic integration. Using a desktop approach the study critiqued and analysed the literature on regional integration and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on prospects for enhanced regional economic integration. The findings revealed that COVID-19 plunged the prospects of regional economic integration into disarray. Owing to imposed restrictions business slumped, trade declined, poverty deepened and vulnerability of populations increased cumulatively negating the quest for regional integration. The study concludes that to manage the aftermath of COVID-19, regional economic coordination should be encouraged. 

Pandemics result in significant devastation, leaving considerable destruction in their wake. Numerous researchers contend that the coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic exceeded prior pandemics in various aspects. The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted global economies, businesses, and societies, resulting in substantial damage and lasting effects. The aviation industry experienced a significant near-collapse for the first time since the advent of aeroplanes, attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic. This research was initiated to synthesise existing studies on the strategies utilised by Small, Medium, and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) to sustain operations during disasters such as COVID-19 in South Africa. This systematic literature review analyses the survival strategies and failures of SMMEs in Africa in response to the economic disruptions induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Sixteen accredited journals were incorporated into the data analysis. The thematic analysis identified several themes from the original data: Networking and Accessing Financial Support, Response to Crisis Conditions, Digital Technology, Disruption of Supply Chains, and Inadequate and Insufficient Government Support. This study synthesises existing research to identify factors that supported SMMEs in sustaining operations and recovering from challenges induced by the pandemic. This study offers significant insights into the survival strategies and challenges faced by SMMEs during the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa. African leaders should supervise the execution of digital transformation initiatives, focused financial assistance, and strategies for long-term business continuity.

International commerce across southern Africa has increased significantly in recent years. This phenomenon has been replicating what has been happening on the African continent as a whole, and it does indicate that the region has significant growth in economic opportunities. Hence, the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic interrupted international commerce and caused significant concern. The emphasis of this work was on the global economic interconnectivity in the Southern African region prior to and during the Covid-19 pandemic. The main objective of this study was to determine how the Covid-19 pandemic influenced international commerce in Southern Africa. The study was qualitative in nature, as well as secondary data collection methods were used. The research used a documentary review as its analysis method. This included compiling and analysing more than 60 online resources relating to various and relevant the Covid-19 pandemic and international commerce from several past research. The study found that the world economy, particularly the economies of Southern African nations, was encountering certain difficulties before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. It was stated that as a consequence of the pandemic, Southern African countries implemented a slew of steps in an effort to overcome the issues posed by the Covid-19 pandemic interruptions.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced a new phase of company operations. The advent of digital transformation (DT) has fundamentally transformed the global business landscape. Despite the global prevalence of this phenomenon, there is limited understanding of digital transformation (DT) in the context of COVID-19 and its impact on private sector organizations in developing nations. This study investigates the impact of COVID-19 on the process of digital transformation in privately owned companies located in underdeveloped nations. To accomplish this objective, a systematic literature review was conducted following the PRISMA (2020) principles, resulting in a selection of 26 studies. This study employs an inductive methodology, where pertinent topics are identified as they arise from the literature throughout the analysis stage. The technology-organization-environment framework (TOE) was subsequently employed to provide a contextual framework for these issues. The research findings suggest that the presence of resources, both financial and technological, is a crucial determinant in the adoption of digital transformation. The adoption of DT has been significantly influenced by various factors, including the role of governments, competitive forces, security, and other relevant considerations. Although organizations in underdeveloped nations encountered numerous hurdles, it was found that digital transformation progressed rapidly in all areas. Companies underwent substantial transformations to embrace digital transformation (DT), including the use of digital business models to facilitate remote operations and heightened investment in education, skills, and innovative digital tactics. Given the recent emergence of COVID-19, there remain numerous uncertainties regarding the enduring impacts that COVID-19 has had on organizations.

This research explores how marketing strategies have been changed to adapt to the impactful challenges of the pandemic and economic recession in Botswana's Consumer Goods (FMCG) business landscape. The research adopted an interpretivism philosophical model, an inductive research approach, mono-method wherein qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions. The findings provided substantive evidence that there has been a transition in strategic marketing measures during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Botswana retail landscape and the transition in strategies did have an influence on the customer value proposition (CVP) output of retail businesses.

The manufacturing sector is vital in the South African economy, especially in international trade. Nonetheless, the covid-19 and fuel price fluctuations have convulsed both global and domestic production and trade. This study analsed how an increase in new cases of covid-19 and fuel price shocks affected motor vehicles export in South Africa. The assessment used monthly time series from March 2020 to March 2022. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) and error correction models assisted in determining both long-run and short-run relationships among variables.  The results suggested an inverse relationship between new covid-19 cases, fuel prices and motor vehicle exports in both the long and short run.  This study recommends introducing new vehicle models that are fuel efficiency, tax and levy reduction on fuel to reduce the effect of the high fuel price of vehicles export. Increasing awareness, precaution and encouraging vaccination could assist in lowering COVID-19 infection.