Magnitude of Covid-19 Pandemic Impact on Entrepreneurial Companies’ Operations in Developing Countries

Abstract

Pandemic impact of COVID 19 virus on entrepreneurs' business operation is unquestionable. Yet there are a number of questions about the extent of that impact on the company's strategic and operational activities and in general the magnitude of entrepreneurial vulnerability during this crisis period. The last and still ongoing crisis caused by COVID 19 virus generated different direct and indirect impacts on entrepreneurial businesses, but the resilience of the businesses itself was different according to managerial capabilities of entrepreneurs and industry type within which some company is running its business. In this paper, we will present explanation of magnitude of the entrepreneurial businesses’ changes caused by COVID 19 pandemic crisis using random sample of 202 entrepreneurial companies in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with focus on analysing and recognizing the main COVID 19 pandemic impact on the companies’ strategic and operational activities of the entrepreneurs. This paper will examine business changes intensity in sense of redesign of existing or introducing new strategic options, optimizing business operations, product and services assortment changes and using new technology in overcoming current unconventional crisis in which entrepreneurs have to learn to manage business within new circumstances. It is exceptionally important to recognize the pandemic crisis impact on the business of entrepreneurs with a scope to create an empirically valuable basis for focused action of all stakeholders in limited resources context in order to increase entrepreneurs resilience, not only in pandemic circumstences, but in other similar businesscrisissituation also.