Assessing the effectiveness of Covid-19 financial product innovations in supporting financially distressed firms and households in the UAE

Staying afloat? Using a reflective cycle approach to examine the effects of crisis on the business resilience of SMEs during COVID-19

This study seeks to explore the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on the business resilience of SMEs in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as an emerging economy, and specifically in Dubai, a thriving global business hub. Our objective is to examine the challenges experienced by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in this region and how business leaders respond to the unprecedented crisis to stay afloat. We obtained rich descriptions from 26 respondents comprising SME owners and managers, using semi-structured interviews and a reflective process model to discern different aspects of business volatility, leadership roles, and financial management. All respondents endured the crisis periods by implementing numerous changes and initiatives to explore new norms of working, uncharted business territories, fulfill current projects, and develop innovative solutions and diversification in their businesses. Many have turned challenges into opportunities, progressing successfully through the three challenging periods of crisis using diverse approaches to stay resilient. The paper concludes with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications and future research directions.

Fast, furious and focused approach to Covid-19 response: an examination of the financial and business resilience of the UAE logistics industry

While many other countries around the world were struggling to mitigate the immense health and economic effects of the global Covid-19 pandemic, the UAE Government ensured that no shortage of the supplies of goods and services affected the country. This has been attributed to the government’s robust financial support to the supply chain and logistics industry during the pandemic (Atayah et al. 2021 ). The UAE imports over 90% of its commodities from overseas—including foods, drinks, pharmaceuticals, automobiles, clothing, electronics, building materials, logs, paper, plants, machinery, tools, and raw materials. All these products pass through the operations of the country’s supply chain industry, which depends heavily on the financial institutions. Due to the above assertion, we found it necessary to empirically examine the challenges, threats and successes of the country’s supply chain operators in order to ascertain their financial and business resilience during the pandemic based on the survival strategies and financial resources they received and employed during the unrelenting pandemic. Accordingly, this research has examined the financial and operational resilience of the country’s supply chain organizations as reflected in their ability to maintain efficient financial strategies and stable business operations despite the scourging pandemic. Our initial findings indicate that Covid-19 pandemic interruptions on the nationwide distribution of goods and services in the UAE have been very minimal due to the government’s robust financial support to the logistics industry, and consequently the business resilience developed by the industry operators.