An entrepre¬neurial perspective on how the pandemic affected the Romanian SMEs

Abstract

"The Pandemic affected significantly the economies worldwide. The SMEs represent the backbone of all economies as they are the main source of added-value, innovation/progress, development and they also generate a significant number of jobs. Besides this, it is a known fact that they are very vulnerable to the environment in which they operate as they do not possess enough resources and power to face the important threats such as those caused by the COVID-19. Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to present some insight on how the Romanian entrepreneurs were affected by the crisis caused by Covid-19. Through interviews we collected data concerning the main problems they faced, the changes that have made on their business model and how their business were affected in terms of number of employees, turnover, product/service portfolios or investments. Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, entrepreneurs, SMEs, impact, crisis. JEL Classification:M20, L26"