Impression management and leadership in failing or failed business-to-business firms during and post-COVID-19: Empirical insights from Africa

Abstract

This paper is one of the pioneering studies to specifically link COVID-19 pandemic with business failures in African B2B firms and the role of leadership and impression management in mitigating business failures. Based on the qualitative data from Ghana and Nigeria, our findings show that although B2B firms in emerging markets are agile and proactive, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered the process of business decline leading to failure in some cases. Particularly, the lack of technological know-how and the absence of online business activities made it difficult for B2B firms to continue operations. Further, we found that case B2B African firms needed a balance of market and non-market strategies to avoid failure caused by the pandemic. Study findings also indicate that despite the challenges, the COVID-19 pandemic presented opportunities to B2B firms in emerging markets. Flexible working and employee management are found to be instrumental in avoiding business failure. Finally, our findings show that, despite the absence of institutional support in African emerging markets, several case B2B firms quickly adopted digital technologies to communicate with partners and manage online business operations.