“…During the pandemic, businesses had excess resources and there were attempts to retain these resources, but this led to higher costs and inefficiencies (Elisa et al, 2021;Kumar et al, 2018). Operations were also placed at risk due to infection rates in the business, lockdown measures, and legislative requirements that the small business had to deal with (Christopher et al, 2021;Chuanrong & Xinba, 2021). This was also the case with the distribution of misinformation and the lack of awareness in the pandemic by small businesses, which created risks with relation to the operations of the business (Chang et al, 2020;Xiaosong et al, 2022).…”