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The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of government institutions and prompted a broad range of policy measures from governments around the world. Policy responses to the pandemic have varied considerably, both in nature and in success. This paper highlights the policy capacities of the UAE in different areas that have contributed to managing the COVID-19 crisis. Specifically, the paper examines the functional capacity, analytical capacity, fiscal capacity, well-timed information-sharing capacity and political capacity of the UAE in addressing the pandemic.

The study on which this paper was based adopted a mixed-method approach to analyze policy capacities. The trajectory and timeframe of COVID-19 from February 2020 to February 2021 were observed intensively and included in the policy capacity analysis. The secondary dataset was collected from several sources and assessed using rapid content analysis to highlight the formal and institutional policy measures implemented during the crisis. To complement the policy analysis and understand the key role of policymakers, semi-structured interviews were conducted with local officials working in various line departments that formulate and implement policy strategies for the UAE government.

The findings of the study showed that although COVID-19 has severely impacted the UAE, the nation has effectively controlled the spread of the virus and reduced its mortality rate. The UAE government has taken swift policy actions concerning coercive control and mitigation based on a centralized decision-making style, the strengthening of administrative capacity by collaboration, coordination with different departments, successful communication with residents, the allocation of adequate financial resources and a high level of trust in the government by citizens.

This work contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the policy capacity approach to managing the crisis. The UAE case can be used by policymakers as comparative studies of policy designs, tools and capabilities that can be implemented to manage future pandemics and other crises.

This study explored how the Singaporean government responded to the Covid-19 pandemic crisis from early January 2020 to the end of May of the same year. It evaluated the capability of Singapore's leadership management in a crisis during the peak and ravaging period of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The study utilised a systematic design analysis approach, analysing Singaporean cases on the Covid-19 crisis using a systematic and narrative approach to underscore the country's response to the pandemic attack from January 2020 to May 2020.

Against the backdrop of Singapore's peculiar political system of government dominated by the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) and culture of bureaucracy, the government has increasingly executed several control measures, including strict travel bans, contact tracing, the circuit breaker–lockdown, mask-wearing, social distancing orders as well as financial support to businesses and employees from top to the bottom in the country. However, the treatment and health issues of the migrant workers in the dormitories continue to be the major concern among academics and scholars. At the same time, policy inadequacies truncate the excellent measure of Singapore's response to Covid-19. The case point review concluded that the mortality rate in Singapore remains low compared to other nations of the world. Singapore's case points unveil fundamental learning that an excellent leadership-driven harmonised strategic model is essential for crisis management in any society. The finding of the analysis demonstrated that Singapore adopted a contingency and value-based leadership model to advance good governance and tackle the spread of the deadly coronavirus in its country.

The study has demonstrated a profound analysis that has not been conducted hitherto. Investigation of the Singapore case point is not a popular analysis among Nigerian scholars. Therefore, from Nigeria's perspective, the study has showcased the good and the wrong sides of a coin in Singapore's leadership and power dynamic in crisis management.

Recognizing novel entrepreneurial opportunities arising from a crisis is of paramount importance for firms. Hence, understanding the pivotal factors that facilitate firms in this endeavor holds significant value. This study delves into such factors within a representative empirical context impacted by a crisis, drawing insights from existing literature on opportunity recognition during such tumultuous periods.

The authors conducted a qualitative inspection of 14 Italian firms during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. The authors collected a rich body of multi-source qualitative data, including 34 interviews (with senior managers and entrepreneurs) and secondary data (press releases, videos, web interviews, newspapers, reports and academic articles) in two phases (March–August 2020 and September–December 2020).

The results suggest the existence of a process model of opportunity recognition during crises based on five entrepreneurial influencing factors (entrepreneurial knowledge, entrepreneurial alertness, entrepreneurial proclivity, entrepreneurial personality and entrepreneurial purpose).

Various scholars have highlighted that, in times of crises, it is not easy and indeed very challenging for entrepreneurs to identify novel entrepreneurial opportunities. However, recent research has shown that crises can also positively impact entrepreneurs and their capacity to identify new entrepreneurial opportunities. Given these findings, not much research has analyzed the process by which entrepreneurs identify novel entrepreneurial opportunities during crises. This study shows that some entrepreneurial influencing factors are very important to identify new entrepreneurial opportunities during crises.

The spread of COVID-19 is not just a health crisis. The pandemic has taken a geopolitical dimension. The health crisis amplified the competitive dynamics between the USA and China, affected the provision of global public goods and injected instability into the global order. In line with the geopolitical zero-sum thinking, both the USA and China have sought to capitalize on the crisis to boost their international profile. Instead of working together to mitigate the health and economic impacts of COVID-19, the two powers fear that the other will exploit the current situation to accrue political, economic or military gains that will give it an edge after the pandemic subsides. The spread of COVID-19 has set off a “battle of narratives,” in which China and the USA are accusing each other of failing to rise to the challenge. The world seems to be falling into a “Kindleberger Trap,” in which the established power is unable to lead while the rising power is unwilling to assume responsibility. The COVID-19 crisis is occurring amid the collapse of global cooperation. The USA, the traditional leader of international collective efforts in times of crisis, has abandoned its role entirely. The lack of leadership at the global level during an international crisis may cause the breakdown of the international order.

This paper examines the US-China competitive dynamics through the lens of the work of Charles Kindleberger, which both liberals and realists regard as foundational when examining the dynamics of global crisis management. This paper also uses the meta-geopolitics framework to determine the ability of both China and the USA to respond to the current COVID-19 crisis and its implications for their power and standing in the international system.

This paper concludes that the only way to escape the Kindleberger trap is “to embed Sino-American relations in multilateralism.”

As rivals, both the USA and China are seeking to capitalize on the crisis to boost their international profile. This paper probes how China and the USA navigated the ongoing COVID-19 crisis to determine whether or not they are currently in a “Kindleberger Trap,” using elements of the meta-geopolitics framework of analysis, namely, health issues, domestic politics, economics, science and international diplomacy. Using the meta-geopolitics framework will help us determine the ability of both China and the USA to respond to the current COVID-19 crisis and the implications of that on their power and standing in the international system.

The purpose of this study is to explore and gain a greater understanding of women's entrepreneurship during the COVID-19 pandemic. How have women entrepreneurs changed their entrepreneurship during the COVID-19 pandemic? What dimensions are highlighted by women entrepreneurs for a sustainable entrepreneurship during the COVID-19 pandemic?

This study was conducted with a qualitative design where multiple case studies were conducted with 30 women. Data were collected through qualitative interviews with the women entrepreneurs in Asia and Europe.

The results from this study show that women entrepreneurs have mainly focused on financial resources. Economic sustainability is required for companies to survive a crisis in the form of a pandemic. This study has shown what lessons women have from the pandemic where the four D’s model constitute a first step to a theoretical contribution. For women, it is about dollars (e g economic sustainability), demand from customers, the role that digitization has played and distribution both to customers and from suppliers.

Practical implications from this study are that women entrepreneurs need to be prepared for economic crises to a larger extent. The economic sustainability plays a key role in sustainable businesses for women entrepreneurs in any kind of context.

Women's entrepreneurship looks different, and more knowledge is needed about their conditions. It contributes to increased social sustainability.

This study contributes to an increased understanding of how women's entrepreneurship has been affected during a global crisis.

It has been a tremendous challenge for organisations to navigate and survive the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper proposes a novel multi-level conceptual model, based on the resource-based view (RBV), to address the pandemic crisis and highlight the importance of strategic human resource management (SHRM) in promoting employee motivation and organisational resilience. The paper aims to provide insights and practical guidance for organisations to leverage their internal resources and capabilities to thrive in the post-pandemic landscape.

This paper conducted a comprehensive literature review of the existing research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, SHRM, RBV, job satisfaction, turnover intentions and organisational resilience, covering the main contributors to this research stream and their findings.

The conceptual model presented in this paper offers five testable propositions to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on employee motivation and organisational resilience and how organisations can navigate challenging times through SHRM, which enables RBV. It highlights the foundational role of RBV and identifies the resources employed by SHRM as intervening constructs that significantly enhance employee outcomes, including motivation, job satisfaction, turnover intention and organisational resilience.

The proposed model counsels that organisations need to look beyond the straightforward application of SHRM and should enable the RBV climate to protect and uphold employee motivation and organisational resilience. Finally, measurement and analysis implications are presented for future research opportunities and managerial interventions to mitigate the impact of difficult times such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Currently, there is a lack of research regarding the conceptualisation of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on employee and organisational resilience. Therefore, the proposed model discusses the significance of the alignment of SHRM and RBV as a moderator of the relationships between the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, employee motivation and organisational resilience.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the on-going COVID-19 pandemic and its potential influence on tourist behaviour in the short- to medium-term. While the influence of the pandemic on tourist’s perceived risk and its impact on their future travel behaviour is understandably yet to be established, the present paper discusses the potential nexus. Additionally, this paper provides tourism practitioners with some recommendations for mitigating the effect of potential heightened perceived risk on travel and tourism decision-making post the COVID-19 crisis.

The present paper synthesises contemporary academic literature on perceived risk and post-crisis tourism with emerging information associated with the unfolding COVID-19 crisis.

This paper draws empirical evidence from studies related to previous health crises and their impact on tourism, as well as tourist behaviour. By discussing previous studies within the context of the on-going COVID-19, it is possible to anticipate the influence that perceived risk associated with the pandemic may have on the post-crisis behaviour of tourists. Also, short-term measures to mitigate the effects of risk on tourism are posited to guide practitioners in the future recovery of the sector.

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented and on-going crisis for the global tourism industry. Hence, the present paper serves as a primer to a broader discussion within the tourism discourse and provides theoretical direction for future tourism research.

Key to the recovery of the global tourism industry will be encouraging both domestic and international tourism activity. However, while the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on tourist behaviour is yet to be substantiated, previous research predicts a situation of heightened perceived risk and the potential cognitive dissonance that may negatively influence tourist decision-making. To mitigate this potential effect, governance, augmented immigration policy, destination media profiling, recovery marketing and domestic tourism will be critical interventions.

This paper is one of the first to discuss the potential influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the post-crisis decision-making process of tourists and their conative behaviour. As a primer to further empirical research, this paper sets a pertinent research agenda for academic inquiry within an evolving and increasingly uncertain global tourism market.

The paper refers to the framework of ambidexterity to explain the strategic paths of manufacturing SMEs in turbulent times, by investigating SMEs' strategic reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors adopted an inductive approach methodology. Using a qualitative research method, Italian manufacturing SMEs in different industries were interviewed to outline how they have faced the negative effects of the COVID-19 by considering the strategies implemented during the pandemic.

The study identifies three ambidextrous strategies for manufacturing SMEs to positively overcome the COVID-19 crisis: (1) playing different roles within the same market (business-to-business and business-to-consumer) simultaneously, (2) simultaneous entrance and management of multiple markets and (3) exploiting manufacturing knowledge for exploring product and business model innovation (simultaneous learning processes).

Results enrich the theoretical discussion on ambidexterity and SMEs, by stressing the strategic dimension of ambidexterity and including a more fine-grained analysis of the different firm’ strategic paths in times of crisis.

The paper provides practical suggestions for manufacturing SMEs on how they can react during turbulent times and crises by implementing ambidextrous strategies also thanks to the use of digital technologies.

This paper contributes to outlining the conditions for SMEs' resilience in the international competitive context by highlighting the perspective of ambidexterity based on the analysis of multiple case studies from manufacturing industries.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.