Change Induced Factors On Small And Medium Sized Enterprises Performance As A Consequence Of COVID 19 Disruption The Case Of United Arab Emirates

COVID 19 pandemic has become one of the biggest disruptor of progressive business operations in this century. The term, ‘business un-usual is no longer a fad but a reality. This current era has come to be known as the ‘COVID 19 pandemic times’. It has come to be typified with reduced business operations, business closures, restructuring, refocusing and downright activation of business plans and protocols which are rarely employed, like business continuity plans, risk management plans and strategic contingency plans. The phenomenon has been experienced all over the world, however this paper is based on the United Arab Emirates, more specifically the small and medium sized enterprises in its two northern emirates, the emirates of Sharjah and Dubai. With a review of oil based economy, the two emirates have been on an economic diversification model and hence the growth impetus of service industry like tourism and hospitality and manufacturing. These have seen the springing up of many SMEs competing to fill up the emerging opportunities as a result of the economic diversification. The role of SMEs in the entire UAE cannot be underscored since they critically have become one of the pillars of the economy. This paper tested whether the combination of an organisational processes, its manpower and industry relevant government policy has any significant effect on the firm’s sustainable financial performance. For the purposes of the research, 400 hundred units were chosen randomly, which are within the stipulated sample criterion, since as at the end of the last quarter of 2019, there were 400,000 SMEs registered and actively doing business in the UAE. The response rate was 95.75 percent. This high response rate may be attributed to that fact that the questionnaire was online and in both English and Arabic. Piloting of the questionnaire had been done earlier in different emirate called Ajman and the results showed high reliability and consistency of the instrument. The findings indicated that the variable under study have a significant effect on the firm’s sustainable financial performance. The regression model adopted indicated that the predictor variables could explain 15 percent of the outcome. The research therefore concludes that, for a positive impact on an organisations’ sustainable financial performance, the three dependent variables, which were organisational processes, the manpower of the organisation and governmental interventions through appropriate policy framework are necessary. The researchers further recommend that other factors which contribute to the sustainability of the financial performance, non-financial performance or the overall performance, within all the seven emirates of the UAE may also be studied.