The Spanish company in the face of COVID-19: adaptation factors to the new scenario
Article Sidebar
Published:
2021-03-29
Keywords:
Management, ICT, flexibility, innovation, COVID-19, PLS-SEM, adaptability, competitive environment
Main Article Content
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has radically and unpredictably changed the competitive environment for companies, with Spain being one of the western countries most affected. In this new context, to face extremely dynamic, complex, and hardly predictable competitive environments, companies must adapt by having or developing a series of specific resources and capacities. This article aims to show that the development of Information and Communication Technology, labor flexibility and the capacity to innovate are factors that favor organizations having the ability to adapt to the new and changing competitive environments caused by the health emergency of COVID-19, reflecting the organization’s ability to adapt through its ability to give continuity to both the management and monitoring of its operations and the relationship with its customers throughout all levels of the sales process. To analyze this relationship, company managers were interviewed during the months after the declaration of the state of alarm in Spain. Through the application of the multivariate analysis technique Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), it has been estimated that high levels of ICT development, labor flexibility or capacity to innovate are positively related to a better adaptation of companies to both the new needs of their customers as well as the operating limitations imposed in their respective markets.
Article Details
Section
Monographic section
Authorship: The list of authors signing must include only those people who have contributed intellectually to the development of the work. Collaboration in the collection of data is not, by itself, a sufficient criterion of authorship. "Retos" declines any responsibility for possible conflicts arising from the authorship of the works that are published.
Copyright: The Salesian Polytechnic University preserves the copyrights of the published articles, and favors and allows their reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Ecuador license. They may be copied, used, disseminated, transmitted and publicly displayed, provided that: i) the authorship and the original source of their publication (journal, editorial and work URL) are cited; (Ii) are not used for commercial purposes; Iii) mention the existence and specifications of this license.
References
Alday, M. Á., Amigo, M. C., & Heras, H. A. (2020). Estructuras organizativas para organizaciones resilientes. Una reflexión desde el punto de vista del diseño organizativo. Boletín de Estudios Económicos, 75(231), 475-500.
Almeida, F., Santos, J. D., & Monteiro, J. A. (2020). The Challenges and Opportunities in the Digitalization of Companies in a Post-COVID-19 World. IEEE Engineering Management Review, 48(3), 97-103. https://doi.org/10.1109/EMR.2020.3013206
Atkinson, J. (1984). Manpower strategies for flexible organisations. Personnel management, 16(8), 28-31.
Barney, J. B. (2001). Resource-based theories of competitive advantage: A ten-year retrospective on the resource-based view. Journal of management, 27(6), 643-650. https://doi.org/10.1177/014920630102700602
BDE (2020). Informe trimestral de la economía española. Boletín económico/Banco de España [Artículos], n. 4, 2020.
Bharadwaj, A. S. (2000). A resource-based perspective on information technology capability and firm performance: an empirical investigation. MIS quarterly, 169-196. https://doi.org/10.2307/3250983
Blanco, R., Mayordomo, S., Menéndez, Á., & Menéndez, Á. (2020). El impacto de la crisis del Covid-19 sobre la situación financiera de las empresas no financieras en 2020: evidencia basada en la Central de Balances. Boletín Económico, (4/2020), 1-23.
Bloom, N., & Van Reenen, J. (2007). Measuring and explaining management practices across firms and countries. The quarterly journal of Economics, 122(4), 1351-1408. https://doi.org/10.1162/qjec.2007.122.4.1351
Bloom, N., Sadun, R., & Van Reenen, J. (2010). Recent advances in the empirics of organizational economics. Annual Review of Economics, 2(1), 105-137. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.economics.050708.143328
Bloom, N., Garicano, L., Sadun, R., & Van Reenen, J. (2014). The distinct effects of information technology and communication technology on firm organization. Management Science, 60(12), 2859-2885. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.2013
Brynjolfsson, E., & Hitt, L. (1995). Information technology as a factor of production: The role of differences among firms. Economics of Innovation and New technology, 3(3-4), 183-200. https://doi.org/10.1080/10438599500000002
Bueno, E. (2007). Organización de empresas. Estructura, procesos y modelos. Pirámide.
Chin, W. W. (1998). The partial least squares approach to structural equation modeling. Modern methods for business research, 295(2), 295-336.
Chin, W. W. (2010). How to write up and report PLS analyses. In Handbook of partial least squares (pp. 655-690). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Cobo Romaní, J. C. (2009). El concepto de tecnologías de la información. Benchmarking sobre las definiciones de las TIC en la sociedad del conocimiento. ZER-Revista de Estudios de Comunicación, 14(27), 295-318.
Crick, J. M., & Crick, D. (2020). Coopetition and COVID-19: Collaborative business-to-business marketing strategies in a pandemic crisis. Industrial Marketing Management, 88, 206-213. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2020.05.016
Diamantopoulos, A., & Siguaw, J. A. (2006). Formative versus reflective indicators in organizational measure development: A comparison and empirical illustration. British journal of management, 17(4), 263-282. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2006.00500.x
Dijkstra, T. K., & Henseler, J. (2015). Consistent partial least squares path modeling. MIS quarterly, 39(2). https://doi.org/10.2307/26628355
Draca, M., Sadun, R., and Van Reenen, J. (2007). Productivity and ICTs: A Review of the Evidence. In The Oxford Handbook of Information and Communication Technologies (pp. 100-147). Oxford University Press.
Duchek, S. (2020). Organizational resilience: a capability-based conceptualization. Business Research, 13(1), 215-246. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40685-019-0085-7
Fields, Z., Abdullah, Z. M., Musisi, A. N., & Mitchley, N. K. (2020). Using Collective Creativity and Industry 4.0 Technology to Reduce the Negative Impact of a Pandemic on Entrepreneurs. In Handbook of Research on Using Global Collective Intelligence and Creativity to Solve Wicked Problems (pp. 133-155). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-2385-8.ch007
Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of marketing research, 18(1), 39-50. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800104
Freije, I., & Aláez, M. (2020). Resiliencia estratégica: ¿una capacidad estratégica distintiva o umbral? Boletín de Estudios Económicos, 75(231), 453-474.
Garamendi, A. (2020). La economía española y su tejido productivo: La resiliencia, el valor para superar esta crisis y mirar el futuro. Boletín de Estudios Económicos, 75(231), 433-451.
Grant, R. M. (2014). Dirección estratégica. Thomson-Civitas.
Gruszczynski, L. (2020). The COVID-19 pandemic and international trade: Temporary turbulence or paradigm shift? European Journal of Risk Regulation, 11(2), 337-342. https://doi.org/10.1017/err.2020.29
Guderian, C. C., Bican, P. M., Riar, F. J., & Chattopadhyay, S. (2020). Innovation management in crisis: patent analytics as a response to the COVID?19 pandemic. R&D Management. https://doi.org/10.1111/radm.12447
Hair, J. F., Hult, G. T. M., Ringle, C. M., Sarstedt, M., Castillo Apraiz, J., Cepeda Carrión, G., & Roldán, J. L. (2019). Manual de partial least squares structural equation modeling (pls-sem). OmniaScience Scholar.
Hair, J. F., Risher, J. J., Sarstedt, M., & Ringle, C. M. (2019). When to use and how to report the results of PLS-SEM. European Business Review. https://doi.org/10.1108/EBR-11-2018-0203
Hax, A. C., & Majluf, N. S. (2015). Estrategia para el liderazgo competitivo. De la visión a los resultados. Prentice-Hall.
Heinonen, K., & Strandvik, T. (2020). Reframing service innovation: COVID-19 as a catalyst for imposed service innovation. Journal of Service Management.
Hermann, C. F. (1963). Some consequences of crisis which limit the viability of organizations. Administrative science quarterly, 61-82. https://doi.org/10.2307/2390887
Hu, L. T., & Bentler, P. M. (1998). Fit indices in covariance structure modeling: Sensitivity to underparameterized model misspecification. Psychological methods, 3(4), 424. https://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.3.4.424
Lee, S. M., & Trimi, S. (2020). Convergence innovation in the digital age and in the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Journal of Business Research, 123, 14-22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.09.041
Lengnick-Hall, C. A., Beck, T. E., & Lengnick-Hall, M. L. (2011). Developing a capacity for organizational resilience through strategic human resource management. Human resource management review, 21(3), 243-255. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2010.07.001
López-Mielgo, N., Montes-Peón, J. M., & Vázquez-Ordás, C. (2012). ¿Qué necesita una empresa para innovar? Investigación, experiencia y persistencia. Revista Europea de Dirección y Economía de la Empresa, 21(3), 266-281. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.redee.2012.05.005
Milgrom, P., & Roberts, J. (1992): Economics, Organization and Management. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc.
Milliman, J., Glinow, M. A. V., & Nathan, M. (1991). Organizational life cycles and strategic international human resource management in multinational companies: Implications for congruence theory. Academy of management review, 16(2), 318-339. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1991.4278949
Observatorio Nacional de las Telecomunicaciones y de la Sociedad de la Información (2011). Informe e-pyme 2010: Análisis sectorial de la implantación de las TIC en la PYME española. Ministerio de Industria, Comercio y Turismo del Gobierno de España. En: [http://www.ipyme.org/Publicaciones/Informe-epyme10.pdf]
Observatorio Nacional de las Telecomunicaciones y de la Sociedad de la Información (2020). Informe e-pyme 2019: Análisis sectorial de la implantación de las TIC en las empresas españolas. Madrid: ONTSI. http://doi.org/10.30923/2341-4030-2020
OECD (2021). OECD Economic Outlook No 108 (Edition 2020/2), OECD Economic Outlook: Statistics and Projections (database). https://doi.org/10.1787/c59fcffd-en
Pearson, C. M., & Clair, J. A. (1998). Reframing crisis management. Academy of management review, 23(1), 59-76. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1998.192960
Prajogo, D. I., & Ahmed, P. K. (2006). Relationships between innovation stimulus, innovation capacity, and innovation performance. R&D Management, 36(5), 499-515. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9310.2006.00450.x
Putra, I., Sunarsih, N., Novitasari, L., & Setini, M. (2020). Exploring the relationship between social capital, innovation capability and innovation during the coronavirus pandemic. Uncertain Supply Chain Management, 8(4), https://doi.org/857-864. 10.5267/j.uscm.2020.5.007
Ravichandran, T. & Lertwongsatien, C. (2005). Effect of information systems resources and capabilities on firm performance: A resource-based perspective. Journal of management information systems, 21(4), 237-276. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421222.2005.11045820
Sánchez, Á. M., Jiménez, M. J. V., & Pérez, M. P. (2011). Innovación y flexibilidad de recursos humanos: el efecto moderador del dinamismo del entorno. Revista Europea de dirección y economía de la empresa, 20(1), 41-68.
Schaltegger, S. (2020). Sustainability learnings from the COVID-19 crisis. Opportunities for resilient industry and business development. Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal. https://doi.org/10.1108/SAMPJ-08-2020-0296
Sharma, H. B., Vanapalli, K. R., Cheela, V. S., Ranjan, V. P., Jaglan, A. K., Dubey, B., & Bhattacharya, J. (2020). Challenges, opportunities, and innovations for effective solid waste management during and post COVID-19 pandemic. Resources, conservation and recycling, 162, 105052. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.105052
Smart, C., & Vertinsky, I. (1984). Strategy and the environment: A study of corporate responses to crises. Strategic management journal, 5(3), 199-213.
Volberda, H. W. (1996). Toward the flexible form: How to remain vital in hypercompetitive environments. Organization science, 7(4), 359-374. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.4250050302
Taleb, N.N. (2008). El cisne negro: el impacto de lo altamente improbable. Paidós.
Thompson, A. & Strickland, A. (2004). Administración estratégica. MacGraw Hill.
Weick, K. E., & Sutcliffe, K. M. (2001). Managing the unexpected (Vol. 9). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Werts, C. E., Linn, R. L., & Jöreskog, K. G. (1974). Interclass reliability estimates: testing structural assumptions. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 34, 25–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/001316447403400104
Wright, P. M., & Snell, S. A. (1998). Toward a unifying framework for exploring fit and flexibility in strategic human resource management. Academy of management review, 23(4), 756-772. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1998.1255637
Almeida, F., Santos, J. D., & Monteiro, J. A. (2020). The Challenges and Opportunities in the Digitalization of Companies in a Post-COVID-19 World. IEEE Engineering Management Review, 48(3), 97-103. https://doi.org/10.1109/EMR.2020.3013206
Atkinson, J. (1984). Manpower strategies for flexible organisations. Personnel management, 16(8), 28-31.
Barney, J. B. (2001). Resource-based theories of competitive advantage: A ten-year retrospective on the resource-based view. Journal of management, 27(6), 643-650. https://doi.org/10.1177/014920630102700602
BDE (2020). Informe trimestral de la economía española. Boletín económico/Banco de España [Artículos], n. 4, 2020.
Bharadwaj, A. S. (2000). A resource-based perspective on information technology capability and firm performance: an empirical investigation. MIS quarterly, 169-196. https://doi.org/10.2307/3250983
Blanco, R., Mayordomo, S., Menéndez, Á., & Menéndez, Á. (2020). El impacto de la crisis del Covid-19 sobre la situación financiera de las empresas no financieras en 2020: evidencia basada en la Central de Balances. Boletín Económico, (4/2020), 1-23.
Bloom, N., & Van Reenen, J. (2007). Measuring and explaining management practices across firms and countries. The quarterly journal of Economics, 122(4), 1351-1408. https://doi.org/10.1162/qjec.2007.122.4.1351
Bloom, N., Sadun, R., & Van Reenen, J. (2010). Recent advances in the empirics of organizational economics. Annual Review of Economics, 2(1), 105-137. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.economics.050708.143328
Bloom, N., Garicano, L., Sadun, R., & Van Reenen, J. (2014). The distinct effects of information technology and communication technology on firm organization. Management Science, 60(12), 2859-2885. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.2013
Brynjolfsson, E., & Hitt, L. (1995). Information technology as a factor of production: The role of differences among firms. Economics of Innovation and New technology, 3(3-4), 183-200. https://doi.org/10.1080/10438599500000002
Bueno, E. (2007). Organización de empresas. Estructura, procesos y modelos. Pirámide.
Chin, W. W. (1998). The partial least squares approach to structural equation modeling. Modern methods for business research, 295(2), 295-336.
Chin, W. W. (2010). How to write up and report PLS analyses. In Handbook of partial least squares (pp. 655-690). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Cobo Romaní, J. C. (2009). El concepto de tecnologías de la información. Benchmarking sobre las definiciones de las TIC en la sociedad del conocimiento. ZER-Revista de Estudios de Comunicación, 14(27), 295-318.
Crick, J. M., & Crick, D. (2020). Coopetition and COVID-19: Collaborative business-to-business marketing strategies in a pandemic crisis. Industrial Marketing Management, 88, 206-213. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2020.05.016
Diamantopoulos, A., & Siguaw, J. A. (2006). Formative versus reflective indicators in organizational measure development: A comparison and empirical illustration. British journal of management, 17(4), 263-282. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2006.00500.x
Dijkstra, T. K., & Henseler, J. (2015). Consistent partial least squares path modeling. MIS quarterly, 39(2). https://doi.org/10.2307/26628355
Draca, M., Sadun, R., and Van Reenen, J. (2007). Productivity and ICTs: A Review of the Evidence. In The Oxford Handbook of Information and Communication Technologies (pp. 100-147). Oxford University Press.
Duchek, S. (2020). Organizational resilience: a capability-based conceptualization. Business Research, 13(1), 215-246. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40685-019-0085-7
Fields, Z., Abdullah, Z. M., Musisi, A. N., & Mitchley, N. K. (2020). Using Collective Creativity and Industry 4.0 Technology to Reduce the Negative Impact of a Pandemic on Entrepreneurs. In Handbook of Research on Using Global Collective Intelligence and Creativity to Solve Wicked Problems (pp. 133-155). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-2385-8.ch007
Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of marketing research, 18(1), 39-50. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800104
Freije, I., & Aláez, M. (2020). Resiliencia estratégica: ¿una capacidad estratégica distintiva o umbral? Boletín de Estudios Económicos, 75(231), 453-474.
Garamendi, A. (2020). La economía española y su tejido productivo: La resiliencia, el valor para superar esta crisis y mirar el futuro. Boletín de Estudios Económicos, 75(231), 433-451.
Grant, R. M. (2014). Dirección estratégica. Thomson-Civitas.
Gruszczynski, L. (2020). The COVID-19 pandemic and international trade: Temporary turbulence or paradigm shift? European Journal of Risk Regulation, 11(2), 337-342. https://doi.org/10.1017/err.2020.29
Guderian, C. C., Bican, P. M., Riar, F. J., & Chattopadhyay, S. (2020). Innovation management in crisis: patent analytics as a response to the COVID?19 pandemic. R&D Management. https://doi.org/10.1111/radm.12447
Hair, J. F., Hult, G. T. M., Ringle, C. M., Sarstedt, M., Castillo Apraiz, J., Cepeda Carrión, G., & Roldán, J. L. (2019). Manual de partial least squares structural equation modeling (pls-sem). OmniaScience Scholar.
Hair, J. F., Risher, J. J., Sarstedt, M., & Ringle, C. M. (2019). When to use and how to report the results of PLS-SEM. European Business Review. https://doi.org/10.1108/EBR-11-2018-0203
Hax, A. C., & Majluf, N. S. (2015). Estrategia para el liderazgo competitivo. De la visión a los resultados. Prentice-Hall.
Heinonen, K., & Strandvik, T. (2020). Reframing service innovation: COVID-19 as a catalyst for imposed service innovation. Journal of Service Management.
Hermann, C. F. (1963). Some consequences of crisis which limit the viability of organizations. Administrative science quarterly, 61-82. https://doi.org/10.2307/2390887
Hu, L. T., & Bentler, P. M. (1998). Fit indices in covariance structure modeling: Sensitivity to underparameterized model misspecification. Psychological methods, 3(4), 424. https://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.3.4.424
Lee, S. M., & Trimi, S. (2020). Convergence innovation in the digital age and in the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Journal of Business Research, 123, 14-22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.09.041
Lengnick-Hall, C. A., Beck, T. E., & Lengnick-Hall, M. L. (2011). Developing a capacity for organizational resilience through strategic human resource management. Human resource management review, 21(3), 243-255. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2010.07.001
López-Mielgo, N., Montes-Peón, J. M., & Vázquez-Ordás, C. (2012). ¿Qué necesita una empresa para innovar? Investigación, experiencia y persistencia. Revista Europea de Dirección y Economía de la Empresa, 21(3), 266-281. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.redee.2012.05.005
Milgrom, P., & Roberts, J. (1992): Economics, Organization and Management. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc.
Milliman, J., Glinow, M. A. V., & Nathan, M. (1991). Organizational life cycles and strategic international human resource management in multinational companies: Implications for congruence theory. Academy of management review, 16(2), 318-339. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1991.4278949
Observatorio Nacional de las Telecomunicaciones y de la Sociedad de la Información (2011). Informe e-pyme 2010: Análisis sectorial de la implantación de las TIC en la PYME española. Ministerio de Industria, Comercio y Turismo del Gobierno de España. En: [http://www.ipyme.org/Publicaciones/Informe-epyme10.pdf]
Observatorio Nacional de las Telecomunicaciones y de la Sociedad de la Información (2020). Informe e-pyme 2019: Análisis sectorial de la implantación de las TIC en las empresas españolas. Madrid: ONTSI. http://doi.org/10.30923/2341-4030-2020
OECD (2021). OECD Economic Outlook No 108 (Edition 2020/2), OECD Economic Outlook: Statistics and Projections (database). https://doi.org/10.1787/c59fcffd-en
Pearson, C. M., & Clair, J. A. (1998). Reframing crisis management. Academy of management review, 23(1), 59-76. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1998.192960
Prajogo, D. I., & Ahmed, P. K. (2006). Relationships between innovation stimulus, innovation capacity, and innovation performance. R&D Management, 36(5), 499-515. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9310.2006.00450.x
Putra, I., Sunarsih, N., Novitasari, L., & Setini, M. (2020). Exploring the relationship between social capital, innovation capability and innovation during the coronavirus pandemic. Uncertain Supply Chain Management, 8(4), https://doi.org/857-864. 10.5267/j.uscm.2020.5.007
Ravichandran, T. & Lertwongsatien, C. (2005). Effect of information systems resources and capabilities on firm performance: A resource-based perspective. Journal of management information systems, 21(4), 237-276. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421222.2005.11045820
Sánchez, Á. M., Jiménez, M. J. V., & Pérez, M. P. (2011). Innovación y flexibilidad de recursos humanos: el efecto moderador del dinamismo del entorno. Revista Europea de dirección y economía de la empresa, 20(1), 41-68.
Schaltegger, S. (2020). Sustainability learnings from the COVID-19 crisis. Opportunities for resilient industry and business development. Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal. https://doi.org/10.1108/SAMPJ-08-2020-0296
Sharma, H. B., Vanapalli, K. R., Cheela, V. S., Ranjan, V. P., Jaglan, A. K., Dubey, B., & Bhattacharya, J. (2020). Challenges, opportunities, and innovations for effective solid waste management during and post COVID-19 pandemic. Resources, conservation and recycling, 162, 105052. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.105052
Smart, C., & Vertinsky, I. (1984). Strategy and the environment: A study of corporate responses to crises. Strategic management journal, 5(3), 199-213.
Volberda, H. W. (1996). Toward the flexible form: How to remain vital in hypercompetitive environments. Organization science, 7(4), 359-374. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.4250050302
Taleb, N.N. (2008). El cisne negro: el impacto de lo altamente improbable. Paidós.
Thompson, A. & Strickland, A. (2004). Administración estratégica. MacGraw Hill.
Weick, K. E., & Sutcliffe, K. M. (2001). Managing the unexpected (Vol. 9). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Werts, C. E., Linn, R. L., & Jöreskog, K. G. (1974). Interclass reliability estimates: testing structural assumptions. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 34, 25–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/001316447403400104
Wright, P. M., & Snell, S. A. (1998). Toward a unifying framework for exploring fit and flexibility in strategic human resource management. Academy of management review, 23(4), 756-772. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1998.1255637