Social capital, entrepreneurial skills, and business performance among rural micro-enterprises in times of crisis

Technological changes that come with industrial revolution have largely affected businesses, as well as society. With the current technological shift and Fourth Industrial Revolution, many questions arise regarding the impacts and effects on current ways businesses operate. This study presents a retrospective analysis and overview of previous industrial revolutions. The aim of the retrospective analysis is to identify common characteristics that may lead to lessons learned for the forthcoming Fourth Industrial Revolution and thus complement the current debate on technological change. All previous industrial revolutions have led to change in business environments and new challenges for managers and owners. The findings show that all previous revolutions have led to increase in the number of service jobs created. The key approach of successful countries during the times of industrial revolution has included education as the source of new skills and knowledge necessary for adaption. Countries that were able to produce high skilled people could not only invent, but also adapt to new technologies sooner than others. Similarly, these approaches included introduction of new managerial practices in order to be able to utilize new technologies and new skilled workers effectively. The research article processes secondary data together with literature review on this topic.

This study aims to investigate the impact of social distancing policies on SMEs in Indonesia. It used a quantitative method with a survey design. Respondents were all SMEs in Indonesia that are affected by social distancing policies during the COVID-19 pandemic. It involved a total of 587 SME samples selected randomly. The data were collected through observations, questionnaires, and literature studies. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics with SPSS software to determine the mean value. The result showed that social distancing policies affect SMEs during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is indicated by the decreasing income and demand for SMEs products, and even some have no income (mean values of 2.40) due to the social distancing policies. Besides, the policy’s impact is also shown in the increasing cost of raw materials and production costs due to supply chain problems (mean values of 4.79). The policy’s impact raises anxiety for SMEs to survive so that business actors change their plans by utilizing information technology (mean values of 4.81). This change is a strategy to survive due to the impact of the applied policies. Although social distancing policies affect SMEs’ survival during the pandemic, research findings show that SMEs in Indonesia did not terminate employment (mean values of 4.37) due to the presence of economic stimulus policies that helped SMEs survive and grow during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In today’s competitive business environment, human resources are one of the most critical assets particularly for service-focused organizations. Consequently, employees’ morale has become invaluable for maintaining outstanding organizational performance and retaining employees. One of the most important factors which may affect employees’ satisfaction is workplace bullying from employers and colleagues at large. It is considered a negative and unethical issue which may degrade, humiliate and create a risk to a healthy working environment. Therefore, the main objective of this research is to investigate the extent to which workplace bullying may affect the organizational outcomes of a sample of five-star hotels in Egypt. Two questionnaires were distributed among the subjects of the sample; bell desk staff, kitchen stewards and head departments. The results of this research confirmed that there is a correlation between workplace bullying, employees’ morale and turnover intentions but, showed no correlation between workplace bullying and employees’ work performance.