Effects of Teleworking and Strategic Orientations on Resilience in the Post-Pandemic Period

Abstract

This study investigates the effects of the strategic orientations of SMEs, which are in the group most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic process, which exemplifies volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) conditions, on their organizational resilience, and the differentiation of SMEs organizational resilience according to the teleworking style they prefer. The research model and hypotheses were examined by using the Structural Equation Modeling technique on the data collected by the survey method by interviewing 500 SME owners/partners/senior executives operating in the service sector in Turkey. In addition, teleworking methods were compared with post-hoc tests. As the results, technology, market, learning, and entrepreneurial orientations affect organizational resilience positively and significantly. Technology orientation plays an important role for companies to have telework skills in order to ensure business continuity and to increase their organizational resilience. It was determined that organizational resilience in SMEs differed according to the type of telework. The systematic and regular types of telework adopted by firms provide higher organizational resilience than those applied in exceptional and temporary situations. And companies with different strategic orientations combinations will likely have higher organizational resilience. With its perspective and findings, this research both contributes to the relevant literature and is an eye-opener for practitioners.

Building telework capability in the new business era for SMEs, using spherical fuzzy AHP methodology for prioritizing the actions

“…The strongest support for the work attributes dimension and the business strategy sub-dimension, which stand out as the factors with the highest impact on telework in our findings, was given by research results of Yorulmaz et al [67]. In the research they conducted in the service sector, the effects of telework types on resilience were investigated, and based on the results of the research; it was suggested that the company adopt regular telework models as a business strategy.…”

“…Each company implements telework in various ways that will suit itself and its business model. A wide range of application types is encountered, from working entirely from home to working remotely in exceptional cases [67].…”

“…Research results reveal that telework applications emerged as a business strategy to ensure business continuity [13,44] and to develop [26], especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yorulmaz et al [67] and Stoian et al [60] suggest that telework should be developed as a business strategy to ensure resilience and business continuity. Implementing telework as a business strategy in the company will facilitate adapting the whole system to telework and ensure business continuity during adverse events such as crises and disasters.…”

“…Telework, the most prominent type among flexible working arrangements [8], increases company resilience and business continuity [20,46]. According to a study on this subject, the types of telework companies adopt, include in their business processes, and implement regularly provide high resilience [67]. In addition, in the literature, telework offers an increase in corporate performance [4], is the best solution for companies in times of shock and crisis [25,28], allows communication with customers in times of crisis [47], a business strategy that contributes to resilience [60] and helps to provide economic resilience [6].…”