Global pandemics and the businesses in Lithuania

Abstract

This publication analyzes the situation of businesses in the context of global pandemics. Business is an integral part of everyday life, facing risks and challenges daily, and in rare cases, such as pandemics and quarantine. Therefore, it is necessary for companies to have a contingency plan in place to deal with unexpected or expected challenges, i.e. what activities it would be possible to reorient to, how to perform activities by working remotely etc. Both the public sector and the private sector are closely interlinked. And every new environmental factor, be it state regulation, technological development, or the changing needs of humanity, and in this case, pandemic and quarantine, affects business in one way or another and leads to the success of some, the failure of others. At present, the coronavirus Covid-19, which is spreading all over the world, and the quarantine introduced in many countries are of great importance to business. This paper also presents a small-scale qualitative research data showing the impact on different types of businesses in Lithuania. The main scope of this paper is measuring the level of impact of the pandemic COVID-19 for businesses in Lithuania. Methods were used as follows: i) analysis, comparison and interpretation of scientific literature and documents; ii) qualitative approach applying structured interview with selected leaders/managers of the companies in Lithuania.