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Purpose The impact of COVID-19 outbreak freeze economic actors and hold innovative startups. This triggered the researchers to investigate the effect of the pandemic on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Egypt and how do these start-ups deal on the whole with this serious situation. Design/methodology/approach The research in hand used both qualitative and quantitative methods. It started first with semi-structured interview questions addressed to a number of participants, then a quantitative study took place, ending with conclusion and recommendations. Findings There is an agreement among all participants that entrepreneurs should always be flexible and seek for investments in innovation. However, there is a discrepancy among participants’ opinions regarding the measurements taken by the Egyptian Government post the pandemic outbreak. Research limitations/implications The field study results and the exploratory research results would have come out more accurate if it was not confined only to geographical limitation (Cairo Governorate). Practical implications The research in hand suggests that practical measurements should not only provide first aid to start-ups by alleviating the pressure caused by constrained cash flow but also consider long-term measures embedded in and supported by the wider entrepreneurial ecosystem to ensure start-ups rapid recovery and growth. Social implications SMEs attribute to social and economic change and have an impact on the local public and social services sector as a result of the business’s activities. Originality/value This study first illustrates the challenges entrepreneurs are facing because of the pandemic, then it presents how entrepreneurs are dealing with the effects of the crisis.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent the level of human development affects the relationships between entrepreneurial activities (EAs) and total factor productivity (TFP). The paper's objectives are threefold. First, it seeks to examine the effect of EA on TFP. Second, it attempts to test for the moderating effect of human development on the relation between EA and TFP, using the generalized methods of moments (GMM), in a panel data across two groups of countries based on their human development index during the period 2000-2008. Third, it tests the causality between TFP, EA, research and development (R&D), unemployment and inflation across countries. Design/methodology/approach – Cross-countries study using a panel GMM for two groups of countries based on their human development index during the period 2000-2008. Findings – Empirical evidence provides that EA have a positive significant relation across countries on TFP in the higher human development levels. The outcomes point toward the role of policies supporting EA as a vital tool to accelerate development and growth via channels such as: better education levels, enhancing R&D, creating more jobs, and stable monetary policy. Research limitations/implications – From the paper limitation is it focusses only on very high human and high human development countries and not studying medium and low-development countries but this limitation is refereed to source of the entrepreneurship data. Practical implications – This paper provides a comparative analysis of the empirical results and presents prospective explanations for the observed relationships between different groups of countries to study the dynamics of change with relative short time series. Originality/value – The study is of value for policy makers of the important relation between levels of development among countries as engine to growth via EA. Moreover, the findings provide a set of policies for governments to undertake tenable actions to accelerate the effectiveness of the institutional setting.

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