Impacts vs Implications: Rushed Technology Adoption in Small and Medium Enterprises due to Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The surge of digitalization during the pandemic has long-lasting impacts on business organizations: small and medium enterprises (SMEs) rushed towards digitalization to continue operations with the ever-changing local and international implications of the pandemic. This caused these businesses to adopt digital technologies for work and interconnection, often overlooking the necessary use innovations and skills required for long-term usage, with the aim of becoming agile and resilient against the pandemic. To understand the long-term impacts and implications of rushed technology adoption in SMEs, we used case-oriented qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and content analysis over a collection of thirty semi-structured interviews with SMEs based in Germany. The preliminary findings of our long-term study reveal the haphazard and impulsive decision making in SMEs, rushing towards digitalization to be resilient and agile to the changing work conditions which led to a high demand for technology-related skillset in employees. Through this study we contribute to the understanding of technology adoption, use and appropriation for work in SMEs elaborating the necessity for long-term processual nature which is similar to notion of infrastructuring.