Similar to the Spring issue of the Journal, the release of this issue coincides with the ongoing coronavirus 19 pandemic, which exposed humanity to new realities that require re-thinking of the traditional and past routine practices. Nearly everyone has encountered unprecedented uncertainties of various kinds (e.g. Akerlof
1970; Knight
1921). The pandemic exposed the world to challenges never experienced before. Different countries and firms were exposed to different levels of crises and smaller firms, especially internationalized SMEs (iSMEs), were no exceptions. As in the Spring issue (See Etemad
2020a, accessible at
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10843-020-00279-z), this issue of the journal views the current occasion facing us as an opportunity to expand beyond the coverage of the four articles contained in this issue. …
At time, time pressure alone can deprive a firm of sufficient time to formulate alternative strategies and experimentation to resolve difficulties. Retrospectively, many unsuspecting, and thus unprepared, SMEs collapsed in the COVID Pandemic crisis due to lack of time to deploy strategic solutions.
In favour of full disclosure, I live in a Province of Canada that suffered from COVID pandemic heavily and the highlighted Canadian SMEs were in the news that attracted my attention and encouraged reflection on their rapidly responsive cases; but these firms were not the only ones. Many agile and innovative smaller firms re-oriented to respond the pandemic-caused emergencies as social opportunities.
In the early days of the pandemic in the mid-March, 2020, the average market value of Canadian Stocks declined between 25% to 35% due to the shut down of the Canadian economy that affected “not essential items” more severely than others. For example, professional and even recreational sports were ordered shut-down to avoid further infection of the highly virulent virus due to social contacts in the community.
In the immediate aftermath of the social locked-down and consequent economic shut-down, Rick Blackshaw, CEO of CCM Hockey, in a press release stated: “We are deploying our culture of innovation and craft, which normally protects the world’s best hockey players doing battle on the ice, for a new purpose. [Now] protecting our healthcare workers on the front lines of the most important battle of our time.”
The Corby Spirit and Wine Ltd. Distillery, based in Walkerville, Ontario, Canada, has been in operation for more than 160 years. It added the pure alcohol to its production line on March 19, 2020 for producing hand sanitizer, and donated the product to contribute to health-care systems fight against the lethal COVID-19crisis at the time.
The foreign firm may have relations with firms located in the family’s origin; thus giving the family firm a competitive advantage in acquiring goods and services from there. This topic will be further discussed in the article discussing diasporic transnational enterprises later in this part.
Related to decision-makers’ emotions, the related question of who and with what state of emotions should be included in, or excluded from, opportunity assessment decisions. Furthermore, should the indirect impact of decision-makers’ context and timing should be also considered or not.
