Tomasz Sikora

Department of International Marketing, 

SGH Warsaw School of Economics,

Poland

tsikora@sgh.waw.pl

ORCID 0000-0001-6737-470X

The impact of strategic agility on the performance of Polish and Finnish SMEs during the COVID-19 pandemic. A comparative study

Ewa Baranowska-Prokop

Department of International Marketing, 

SGH Warsaw School of Economics,

Poland

ebarano@sgh.waw.pl

ORCID 0000-0001-8983-800X

Abstract. This paper examines the correlation between the strategic agility (SA) of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as evaluated by one sub-dimension (opportunity focus) of the EMICO scale (Fiore et al., 2013), and their performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research is based on data from two groups of companies operating in Poland and Finland. Telephone and online interviews (CATI, CAWI) were conducted with owners and managers of SMEs from both countries in December 2020 and January 2021. The findings have not found any significant relationships between strategic agility and performance for the two SME samples from Poland and Finland when interviews were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, our first hypothesis was not confirmed. This may be explained by the unprecedented disruptions in social and economic life, on the one hand, and the wide availability of generous state-sponsored assistance programs, on the other hand, which both distorted market mechanisms. Our second hypothesis, assuming the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on firms’ performance, has been confirmed. However, the negative impact was more substantial for sales dynamics (affected by market disturbances and restrictions) than for profits (improved by government assistance programs) for both SME samples.

Received: August, 2024

1st Revision: April, 2025

Accepted: June, 2025

DOI: 10.14254/2071-8330.2025/18-2/10

JEL Classification: D80, L20, M53

Keywords: strategic agility, performance, SME strategy