Ekaterina Chytilová

Institute of Technology and Business in Ceske Budejovice,

Faculty of Corporate Strategy,

České Budějovice, Czech Republic

chytilova@mail.vstecb.cz

ORCID 0000-0002-8559-5669

Impact of digital procurement on economic resilience of enterprises during COVID-19

Milan Talíř

Institute of Management,

Brno University of Technology, Czechia

252620@vutbr.cz

ORCID 0000-0002-6510-1297

Jarmila Straková

Institute of Technology and Business in Ceske Budejovice,

Faculty of Corporate Strategy 

České Budějovice, Czech Republic

4090@mail.vstecb.cz

ORCID 0000-0002-3048-3467

Ján Dobrovič

College of International Bussines ISM Slovakia in Prešov,

Slovakia

jan.dobrovic1@gmail.com

ORCID 0000-0003-0734-4191

Abstract. The main objective of this paper was to determine whether digital procurement positively affected the economic resilience of firms in the manufacturing industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, qualitative research was conducted in Czech industrial enterprises by means of a questionnaire survey in 2021. Based on the research question, 3 hypotheses were formed, which focused on the impact that investing in digital procurement had on the economic resilience of enterprises in selected industries. The parametric two sample one-factor ANOVA and Pearson's Chi-squared test were used to test the hypotheses. The findings rejected the association between investment in digital procurement and the economic performance of the firm during the pandemic. They also failed to confirm the association between digital purchasing and economic resilience of businesses during the pandemic. Another important result was also that digitization of purchasing did not have a greater impact on the economic resilience of firms in the manufacturing industry compared to firms in the construction and agriculture sectors. The research results can be practically implemented in determining the expected benefits of digitizing procurement. The research implications are limited by the fact that it only investigates companies from the manufacturing industry in the Czech Republic and focuses exclusively on the period of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Received: March, 2023

1st Revision: December, 2023

Accepted: March, 2024

DOI: 10.14254/2071-8330.2024/17-1/11

JEL Classification: M21, L14, L26

Keywords: enterprise procurement, global value chain, digitalization