The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on performance of small enterprises that are e-commerce adopters and non-adopters

  • Received August 3, 2021;
    Accepted September 15, 2021;
    Published September 27, 2021
  • Author(s)
  • DOI
    http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ppm.19(3).2021.38
  • Article Info
    Volume 19 2021, Issue #3, pp. 467-477
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Researchers have emphasized the role of e-commerce for small enterprises in improving their performance. However, there is limited evidence on the use of e-commerce by small enterprises, and e-commerce adopters and non-adopters dealing with COVID-19. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the differences in the impact of COVID-19 on income between small enterprises that are adopters and non-adopters of e-commerce. This study also explored the impact of restrictions on community activities, the intention to adopt e-commerce, and the types of assistance required by small enterprises due to the pandemic. Data were collected through an online questionnaire survey among small enterprises that operate in the culinary field (1,024 small enterprises in Indonesia). The data were analyzed using descriptive analysis, cross-tabulation, and the Mann-Whitney test. This study finds that non-adoption of e-commerce caused small enterprises to experience a decline in income, which worsened due to restrictions of community activities, compared to adopters of e-commerce. Therefore, to overcome this negativity, small enterprises were pushed to adopt e-commerce. Finally, working capital assistance is the main assistance required due to the pandemic both by e-commerce adopters and non-adopters. This study has significant implications for how small enterprises and governments may benefit from e-commerce dealing with extreme disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Acknowledgment
We are grateful to Mulawarman University for providing us with the funding necessary to gather the necessary data for the study and complete this empirical investigation. We also would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and seminar participants at Mulawarman University for their helpful feedback.

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    • Table 1. Profile of respondents (N = 1024)
    • Table 2. Distribution of decrease in income of small enterprises
    • Table 3. Mann-Whitney test results for decrease in income of small enterprises
    • Table 4. Impact of restrictions to community activities (RCA)
    • Table 5. Mann-Whitney test results for restrictions to community activities worsen small enterprise performance
    • Table 6. Intention to adopt e-commerce
    • Table 7. Types of assistance required due to the COVID-19 pandemic
    • Conceptualization
      Dirga Lestari
    • Funding acquisition
      Dirga Lestari
    • Supervision
      Dirga Lestari
    • Validation
      Dirga Lestari
    • Writing – original draft
      Dirga Lestari
    • Data curation
      Saida Zainurossalamia ZA, Rizky Yudaruddin
    • Formal Analysis
      Saida Zainurossalamia ZA, Wirasmi Wardhani
    • Methodology
      Saida Zainurossalamia ZA, Siti Maria, Wirasmi Wardhani
    • Resources
      Saida Zainurossalamia ZA, Rizky Yudaruddin
    • Visualization
      Saida Zainurossalamia ZA
    • Project administration
      Siti Maria
    • Writing – review & editing
      Wirasmi Wardhani
    • Investigation
      Rizky Yudaruddin
    • Software
      Rizky Yudaruddin