The Impact of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Pre-Crisis Preparedness on the Operational and Financial Impacts of Legal Restrictions During the COVID-19 Pandemic

This bachelor’s thesis examines crisis management in small and medium-sized enterprises in the context of widespread legal restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The main objective of the research is to evaluate the impact of these companies’ pre-crisis preparedness on the extent of the forced restrictions on their operations and on the overall financial impacts. The theoretical section defines the vulnerability of smaller enterprises and summarizes existing knowledge on organizational resilience. The practical section is based on quantitative research conducted in the form of a questionnaire survey. The research sample consisted of 103 representatives of small and medium-sized enterprises operating in the Czech Republic. The collected data were subsequently statistically analyzed using a normality test and then Spearman’s correlation coefficient. The results reveal a surprising finding that challenges traditional theoretical approaches. It turned out that the level of pre-crisis preparedness had no statistically significant effect on mitigating either operational or financial losses. The dominant and entirely decisive factor in companies’ financial decline was exclusively the severity of external legal restrictions imposed by the state. The study thus demonstrates that, under conditions of extreme institutional intervention, traditional crisis planning loses its effectiveness. The concluding discussion formulates recommendations for business practice. Instead of creating rigid plans, management should shift its focus to building maximum operational flexibility and rapid digitization, which will enable companies to maintain contact with customers even during a complete physical shutdown of the economy.