The Case of COVID-19 impact on the level of non-performing loans of conventional commercial banks in Indonesia

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on SMEs in Georgia, identify the challenges of SMEs in pandemic conditions, and analyze government economic policy measures. For this purpose, 102 small and medium entrepreneurs from different regions of Georgia were interviewed. The survey was conducted by sending a questionnaire through digital channels. The results were processed using data analysis, quantitative and qualitative research methods, and presented graphically. As a result, key challenges and development directions that are typical for SMEs operations in Georgia during the pandemic were identified. For 60.8% of surveyed SME owners, lockdown is the main challenge. Sales volume of 45.1% of SMEs decreased. In addition, 39.3% of the surveyed SME owners increased the innovative capabilities of a company and 37.2% increased the sales volume of a company through digital channels. The main challenge of the pandemic, lockdown, gave impetus to a change in entrepreneurial behavior. In a pandemic, entrepreneurial activity has become more favorable through digital channels. During the pandemic, there is a need to continue the government’s program of tax incentives and subsidies for SMEs. In addition, the government should promote education in the fields of entrepreneurship, innovation, and technology.

Higher education for sustainable development (HESD) in the Covid-19 pandemic faces different challenges. Empirically few studies to date have introduced much on the digitalization of higher education for sustainable development. This study aims to explore and explain the digitalization of HESD from different attitudes and to build linkages of the digitalization in HESD. Furthermore, the study makes content analysis where 1,200 tweets on digitalization in higher education for sustainable development are collected from Twitter, and 19 documents have further categorized information data via NVivo. In addition, 22 students and 9 instructors were invited for a semi-structured interview to further supplement this study and confirm its findings. This study finds that attitudes towards digitalization in the study area can be divided into three correlated attitude layers. Teaching attitudes and educational attitudes are the first level, and the second level is the digital platform attitude, technology use attitude, and resource attitude. Furthermore, network attitude, service attitude, and development attitude are the third level. Thus, through the analysis, this study suggests higher education institutions should make improvements in digitalized teaching, education quality via innovation, technological development, resources use, and development via creating a better digital platform or environment is essential for genuinely promoting the HESD.

The effective performance of any company is determined by the degree of motivation of its staff. In a pandemic, it is important to explore changes in the values and motivational profiles of staff, especially young people. The aim of the paper is to study the internal motives of millennials and Generation Z, to identify modern motivational tools, taking into account the challenges of an unstable global ecosystem. To assess the changes in the motives for work, a questionnaire was used. The survey was conducted (at the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021) among young people in Kyiv (Ukraine) aged 17-22 (287 people participated), who had previous work experience. All results were proven to be valid. The results of the study showed that changes in the motivational profile of millennials and Generation Z under the influence of restrictive measures due to the pandemic occurred in the range of values of awareness of individuality: motives for maintaining health, balancing life, personal and professional growth came out to be more relevant. Such changes indicate positive opportunities for young people due to high adaptability to changing and unstable conditions, and, on the other hand, they bring challenges for companies – the loss of personnel. The most optimal models will be career-oriented and adaptive with elements of well-being management to motivate millennials and Generation Z.