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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the leadership decisions taken during the crisis and their influence on the goals recognized by managers as crucial for surviving.

During the survey, conducted in April 2020 (one month after the first economic lockdown in Poland), as part of a research project called Sur(VIR)val – Survival during the virus, data was collected from 178 leaders from randomly selected companies from Poland using the CAWI method. Ordered logistic regression modeling was used to examine the impact of the decisions taken by company leaders on the goals seen by leaders as most important for company survival.

The results obtained in the study show that during the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, leaders made decisions that can be seen as oriented toward survival and continuity. Changing to remote working, extending payment deadlines for customers, as well as selective employment reduction turned out to have the greatest influence on strategic support for maintaining current production levels and retaining competent employees in order to survive the crisis.

This study has certain limitations. First, the list of leadership decisions and company goals used as dependent variables is not exhaustive. Second, the selection of business goals oriented toward survival may not derive directly from the lockdown situation. Third, our study did not measure the actual accomplishment of the company goals, but the managerial perceptions as to which ones are crucial for company survival during crises, and which of them should be given strategic support respectively. Fourth, the research sample was randomly constructed and covered only business organizations in Poland. Fifth, the hypotheses were formulated in a way that treated leadership decisions as one construct. Finally, we used survey, with a scale measuring managerial perceptions.

Leaders should ensure that proper IT tools are developed within the organization, and that the skill level of employees is high enough for fast shifting employees on to remote working. At the same time, it is important to maintain IT infrastructure at a high level. In terms of general recommendations for leaders, they should make quick decisions, maintain the most valuable resources of the company (human resources and cash flow) and take actions aimed at taking advantage of opportunities (R&D) during and after the crisis.

Additionally, due to the key importance of human resources for the survival of the organization, leaders should respond quickly by making flexible decisions about sending employees on leave and downtime. As human resources are the most valuable assets of the company from the point of view of its survival, decisions concerning employment reduction should be taken carefully. Leaders who acted in panic after the first lockdown and made employees redundant, later on had problems recruiting skilled employees back and strived to return to full organizational capacity.

Although scholars have investigated leadership decisions and actions taken during economic crises, little is known about how leaders behave when taken by surprise, and what decisions they make when the duration of a crisis is difficult to predict. The results of this study show which leadership decisions during the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 influenced prioritizing critical company goals oriented toward survival.

The paper aims to explain how agility capabilities (competence, flexibility, responsiveness and speed) influence the chance of improving a small and medium-sized enterprise's (SME's) competitive position, measured by market share and profit.

Combining organisational agility with competitiveness, the authors analysed how an SME's activities in the field of agility capabilities – competence, flexibility, responsiveness and speed – influence the chance of improving their competitive position. Data were collected from 1,286 SMEs from Poland using the computer-assisted personal interviews method (CAPI). To analyse the data, the authors used logistic regression and odds ratios.

The study provides empirical evidence of the relationship between agility capabilities and an SME's competitive position. First, the results suggest that all the studied agility capabilities positively impact SMEs' competitive position. Second, the study shows that seeking to increase market share requires particular attention to flexibility, the impact of which is slightly higher than that of the other variables. Third, the findings suggest that the drive to increase profitability requires an appreciation of responsiveness and competence.

The literature contains much discussion about the relationship between agility capabilities and a company's competitive position. However, these studies refer to large companies, whilst the question of the relationship between agility capabilities and competitive position amongst SMEs remains mainly unanswered, which given SMEs' contribution to the creation of economic growth, seems difficult to understand. Although small companies are by nature highly flexible, due to the size of the companies' operations and flattened and decentralised structure, companies' competitive potential is limited as a result of the limited resources that can be devoted to developing procedures for change.