The chapter examines how women-owned small businesses in Bangladesh responded to crisis episodes such as COVID-19 and discusses their resilience to shocking events. The study involved a qualitative exploration of three women-owned online small businesses conducted using the case study method. The cases included businesses that sold jewelry and fashion accessories, both imported and locally procured, and exclusively operated on social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. The findings suggest that the businesses adopted innovative social media strategies to survive the crisis episode, including page boosting and paid promotions, Facebook and Instagram Live coupled with sales and discount promotions, temporary closure, vendor switching, and product basket modification. The enterprises showed an overall moderate level of resilience, with a moderate level of adaptability, agility, and low flexibility with a high vulnerability to crisis events. Recommendations for policymakers and credit institutions are also discussed.

Purpose: This study proposes a framework combining crisis challenges and response actions for crisis survival of small enterprises during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach: We adopted a qualitative research design using a multiple case study method collecting data from four small firms in Bangladesh. Findings: The findings of this study are expected to contribute to the literature on the small enterprise and COVID-19 context, providing useful insight into crisis survival for small firms, especially in developing countries. Research limitations/implications: To counter these challenges, firms adopted short-term and long-term response strategies that resulted in survival for these businesses. Practical implications: We derive a conceptual framework for crisis survival based on the learnings from the cases that would enable small firms to build resilience to crisis episodes. Additionally, we suggest recommendations that small enterprise owners and policymakers can adopt to improve the resilience during exogenous crisis periods. Originality/value: This paper is original Paper type: Research paper

The COVID-19 pandemic has created devastating consequences for all businesses globally, including the small businesses in Bangladesh. The small business sector in Bangladesh is a key driver of its economic growth and has been hit particularly hard by the pandemic due to its pre-existing vulnerabilities and lower resilience to crisis. This chapter investigates the impact of COVID-19 on small-scale businesses, their subsequent response measures, and learning experiences that have created a route to resilience. A qualitative investigation on six small-scale enterprises across manufacturing and service areas was included in the study. The cases covered fashion and clothing and organic food and beverage businesses. The findings of the study suggest that the impacts of the pandemic are primarily financial, operational and supply chain, and logistical in nature. The policymakers need to take urgent measures to ensure the sustainability of this sector amid the ongoing pandemic.

Working Capital Management which includes managing short-term assets and liabilities has a significant impact on a firm’s performance. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of working capital management on the earnings per share (EPS) of the cement companies in Bangladesh. The authors used the secondary data collected from annual reports of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) listed cement companies over the period of 2009-2015. The study used cash conversion cycle as a proxy for Working Capital Management and used the panel data regression technique. The empirical evidence shows that there is an insignificant negative impact of the cash conversion cycle on earnings per share of the cement companies. Size (natural log of assets) and leverage (TD/TA) of the sample firms during the period also have an insignificant negative impact on EPS.