COVID-19 is a highly infectious disease-causing serious health hazards and fatalities to humans around the world. The objective of this paper is to identify how COVID-19 caused immense failures to society, particularly Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the hospitality and tourism sectors which provide employment to many people. A literature review examined how preventive measures to control COVID-19 devastated businesses. The review highlighted particular interest to workforce, supply chain and cash flow of SMEs. This research addressed the gap in understanding what and how business was affected as seen by business owners. This research used phenomenology to study businesses crippled by the pandemic. Interviews were conducted with several business owners using a set of unstructured guiding questions. Verbal responses from the participants were transcribed to textual data and analyzed thematically. The results constructed a generalized perception of SME business owners and identified themes reflecting the business individual, the business, and business survival. Importantly, the study revealed several government actions are needed to support surviving businesses and revive lost businesses, specifically, in the form of stimulus funds, moratoriums, extended loans and waivers of interest.

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This study examined the influence of tail risks on global financial markets, which aids in better understanding of the emergence of COVID-19. This study looks at the global and Vietnamese stock markets impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic to identify systemic emergencies. Risk dependent value (CoVaR) and Delta link VaR are two important tail-related risk indicators used in Conditional Bivariate Dynamic Correlation (DCC) (CoVaR). The empirical findings demonstrate that when COVID-19's worldwide spread widens, the volatility transmission of systemic risks across the global stock market and multiple exchanges shifts and becomes more relevant over time. At the time of COVID-19, the world industrial market was larger than the Vietnamese stock market, and the Vietnamese stock market posed a lesser danger to the global market. A closer examination of the link between the Vietnam value-at-risk (VaR) range index sample and the world stock index indicates a significant degree of downside risk integration in key monetary systems, particularly during the COVID-19 era. Our study findings may help regulators, politicians, and portfolio risk managers in Vietnam and worldwide during the unique moment of uncertainty created by the COVID-19 epidemic.

Purpose -The integration of a Learning Management System (LMS) at the Arab Open University (AOU), Kuwait, opens new possibilities for online interaction between teachers and students. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the efficiency of the LMS at AOU, Kuwait as a communication tool in the E-learning system and to find the best automated solution possible. Design/methodology/approach -The study participants were 500 students (270 female and 230 male) from AOU, Kuwait. The participants began to use the LMS in January 2009 and, up to the date of the analysis, used the system continuously during three academic years. The researcher used a quantitative research design because the descriptive statistics were demonstrated in frequency counts and percentages and the responses were analyzed numerically. Findings -This study found that the majority of the AOU, Kuwait students welcome the LMS system at their university. However, there are many reasons why LMSs have failed, including high cost of technology, poor decisions, competition, and the absence of appropriate (or any) business strategies, especially market assessment of consumer demand. Originality/value -This project identifies different milestones in delivering the LMS process and recommends the best solution to automate the E-learning procedure at the Open University, Kuwait. The goal is to reduce time, effort and cost when implementing this new solution. The study suggests that students are important stakeholders whose active involvement increases exchange of pedagogical information and promotes interaction among teachers.

This article evaluates the marketing challenges faced by the Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC). When global companies such as KNPC experience extreme criticism, they usually are tasked with identifying optimum solutions to reverse the negativity. This analysis provides some potential marketing strategies that can be implemented to resolve the issues within this article.