Socio-Economic Stability and Sustainable Development in the Post-COVID Era: Lessons for the Business and Economic Leaders

Abstract

This paper focuses on social and economic stability, as well as sustainable development, in the post-COVID era in light of the recent theoretical approaches and leadership practices. As governments worldwide resorted to repeated national- and regional-specific impositions of social and economic isolation in an (often failed) attempt to contain the spread of the coronavirus, their economies have been plunged into recessions, which have been deeper than those associated with the global financial crisis in the past. Successful business and economic leaders need to be aware of the dominant trends unfolding as the COVID-19 pandemic is gradually coming to its end and the New Globalization (a new era of international economy and international relations after COVID-19) is materializing. With global living, international travel, and trade interconnected, businesses need to plan for handling the future outbreaks and their economic, as well as social, consequences. The aim of this paper is to draw the lessons for business and economic leaders in the post-COVID era with a focus on the new trends and challenges for the sustainable development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The paper also presents an empirical model that assesses the novel ways of doing business and innovating using the sustainable economic practices after the COVID-19 pandemic. The model employs our own data collected from 450 managers and owners of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Czech Republic and Russia. Our results show that innovation and digitalization (e.g., smart metering or the Internet of Things (IoT)) are becoming the main drivers of the sustainable economic transformation of small and medium enterprises in the post-pandemic period. These results might be useful for both academic researchers and business practitioners searching for new pathways for innovating their sustainable business practices and recreating their customer base in the post-COVID era.

1. Introduction

The rapid global spread of the COVID-19 virus has rapidly surpassed other known pandemics in recent human history, both by scale and by media coverage [1,2]. In addition to its lethal human cost and destruction of millions of lives, its economic harm was substantial and widespread [3,4]. However, the major issue was that the economic shock brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic raised many questions about the current pace of the ongoing globalization in the 21st century [5,6,7]. Some say that the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has necessarily invited comparisons with the 2008–2009 global financial crisis [8,9]. Reversing this impact makes COVID-19 a global economic shock unlike any other since the Great Depression. The United Nations’ Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic could also lead to increased exclusion, inequality, discrimination, and global unemployment over the medium- to long-term. Thence, it needs to be adequately addressed by the most effective policy tools [10]. Indeed, during the two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, it became increasingly apparent that it posed a plethora of unquantifiable risks for global health and for the world economy [11,12].

The outbreak of COVID-19 shows that infectious diseases can easily spread because of an open globalized economy and that they can easily threaten any nation’s economic stability [13]. However, several factors distinguish the present socioeconomic crisis from the previous ones, meaning a straightforward direct comparison to past global pandemics is not possible. The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns (as well as social distancing and working from home) that it induced led to sharp declines in air pollution in the developed and developing economies because of the reduced economic activity caused by the shutdown. Remarkably, these positive impacts were only temporary, since they did not reflect changes that were needed in the economic structures in the world’s economy in order to adhere to the principles of the sustainable development and to focus on the green economy [14,15].

As the COVID-19 pandemic is slowly but gradually morphing into something that resembles more of an endemic, less lethal variants of coronavirus are circling the world and the whole situation is returning to the (new) normal. In addition, more and more of the population is getting immunity to the virus thanks to the vaccination or contracting the disease. Even though we have to acknowledge that it might still be too soon to deduce and predict how the dust from the COVID-19 pandemic would settle the business practices in the months and years to come, it might be evident that the “New Globalization”, a new era of international economy and international relations after COVID-19, is beginning to materialize and emerge [16,17]. In this new era, the leading role of the developing countries representing the lion’s share of world’s population and natural resources is going to increase. These countries represented by their business and economic leaders are going to be more responsible for promoting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and contributing to the stability of the global economic and social systems as the leaders of the post-COVID era [18,19,20].

Nevertheless, it needs to be noticed that the global public health crisis and the socioeconomic slowdown under COVID-19 have further hindered progress towards the implementation of SDGs [21]. This is especially apparent in the developing countries that are facing debt distress. This distress has been compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and it has further reduced public financing available to SDG initiatives. Implementing SDGs depends heavily on funding support, particularly for the high infrastructure needs and financing gaps [22,23]. These disparities between SDGs visions and practical capacity hamper the efforts of how they are to be followed in the post-COVID world. The effective implementation of SDGs in any country depends on their inclusion within the national socioeconomic development plans [24]. Upgrading through the SDG developmental ladder has become noticeably harder for the developing countries during the economic slowdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic that is still ongoing in a number of cases. Cooperation is critical for strengthening the economic exchange, promoting technical innovation, and building a global culture of sustainable development, which is necessary if efforts at further promoting and implementing SDGs are to succeed [25]. Due to the job-creating potential of a circular economy, development financing also plays a major role in supporting the development of high-value opportunities in many developing countries aimed at meeting SDGs 8 (decent jobs and economic growth) and 9 (innovation, industry, and infrastructure) [26,27,28].

Among those developing counties mentioned above, the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) are likely to start playing the key and decisive role in the post-COVID sustainable development [29,30]. This role is particularly important in the today’s state of geopolitical risk, financial instability, and volatile precious metal prices, as well as the turmoil at the energy markets [31]. Therefore, it is the acceptance and implementation of SDGs across the BRICS countries and promoting the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that are likely to become crucial in the post-pandemic era for enhancing financial inclusion, green innovation, and energy efficiency aimed at environmental performance [32,33]. The BRICS countries need to be having an essential role in working together in responding to the risks and challenges to the world’s economy for realizing global recovery and sustainable development in the years to come. Thence, the importance of global economic governance to countries in ensuring sustainable development needs to be further emphasized. Moreover, the support for expanding and strengthening the involvement of emerging markets and developing countries in the international economic policymaking and rule-setting processes also needs to be fostered [34,35]. The developing countries bear historic responsibilities with respect to global climate change; therefore, they need to lead the efforts for increasing mitigation actions and enhancing the unavoidable support provided to them based on financing, technology, and capacity-building [36]. In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic coming to its end, the developing countries are the ones that need to implement responsible economic policies managing policy spillovers, as well as to avoid serious impacts for their economies that might hamper further implementation of SDGs. This is even more critical now, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has exposed vulnerabilities both within developing countries and across global value chains. COVID-19 has upended the global marketplace, slowing progress on economic growth (SDG 8) and production & consumption (SDG 12) for 80 per cent and 70 per cent of world’s countries, respectively [37].

In addition, it needs to be understood that the socio-economic stability and sustainable development in the post-COVID era in the developing countries (including the BRICS countries) depends on the lessons drawn from the pandemic by their business and economic leaders that include, among all, managers, and owners of state and private enterprises (even though the pandemic is still far from being completely over). These people need to be aware of the focus on building the sustainable business and increasing their countries’ resilience in case new disasters, such as COVID-19, would materialize. As far as the COVID-19 pandemic is related to innovation and sustainable economic practices, the notion of the relationship can be shown based on the prompt approaches of the business companies that responded to the COVID-19 crisis by developing organizational innovation products that provided support in the form of goods, processes, and operational innovations leading to sustainable economic development [38,39,40]. There were these innovations that have enabled business companies to respond quickly to the coronavirus crisis [41]. Research into these novel practices is needed to understand how different kinds of threats and opportunities can be effectively addressed in such a multi-level crisis context [42]. All of that would help to deduce the implications for policy makers as they need to consider ways to create opportunity drivers that could help societies and organizations to respond better to any crises in the future [43]. In addition, it has to be understood that it is important to study the leadership in SMEs in the era after COVID-19 crises, which cannot be separated from digitalization and embracing novel technologies, as the pandemic has demonstrated [44,45].

All in all, the main contribution of this paper can be explained in the following bullet-point form:

• The paper presents our views and prognoses regarding how the post-pandemic economic and business landscape would provide new perspectives regarding digitalization and innovation as the main factors of the sustainable economic transformation of small and medium enterprises (SMEs);
• It demonstrates how the COVID-19 pandemic is relevant to a company’s innovations;
• Additionally, it reveals how the pandemic can be pertinent to the sustainable economic practices;
• Furthermore, it shows how the age of business leaders, company age, country, type of business, and position in the company determine the motivation for shifting towards sustainable economic development;
• Finally, the paper employs the original empirical model based on a sample of respondents from the Czech Republic and Russia (one of the BRICS countries), two states featuring a number of similarities but also differing in their geopolitical orientation, pathways of economic transformation, and the attitudes to the sustainable development policies and embracing SDGs.

The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 offers a concise literature review on the post-COVID development of business and economy in the “new normal”. Section 3 presents the sample and the data collection that were used in this paper. Section 4 describes the empirical model investigating the novel ways of doing business and innovating using the sustainable economic practices at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic and explains its main results. Section 5 yields the discussions of the obtained results. Finally, Section 6 features the overall conclusions and implications, as well as articulates the pathways for further research.

2. Literature Review

In general, the COVID-19 pandemic (which is still ongoing as it has not yet been declared an endemic by the World Health Organization (WHO)) deepened the existing inequalities and differences in social and economic spheres and created new ones, while unmasking key social needs and strengths inside and between various groups of countries on the way [46,47].

Our paper synthesizes evidence from a broad array of studies about COVID-19′s economic and social impacts on innovations and sustainable practices. The evidence suggests that communities and countries entering the pandemic with better infrastructure and economic development were in a better position to respond [48,49,50]. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments worldwide have had to make rapid decisions and deploy a whole array of measures without proper planning in order to protect communities that were threatened. For instance, a study from Turkey demonstrated the need to protect public health and to provide public services with continuity, which made government purchasing a critical priority as it formulated its COVID-19 response [51]. As Gorodensky et al. describe, the exceptional circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic now also provide opportunities for international organizations and governments to continuously reinforce integrity and accountability protections, as well as to foster integrated approaches for risking management in public procurement [52]. As Sheikh et al. put it, during the COVID-19 crisis, regulatory authorities have introduced exceptional transparency measures to evaluate COVID-19 vaccines. They also had to decide who was to get these vaccines first and the developing countries were often placed at the end of this queue [53].

When it comes to the corporate innovation and sustainable practices for organizations in the face of the unprecedented crisis, such as the COVID pandemic, the best solutions might include core technology (such as AI, IoT, or Big Data analytics from smart meters), as well as innovations (such as patents, licenses, green certificates, etc.) that can help reduce losses from threats and promote innovation to achieve survival goals [54,55]. As a result, many business companies are looking for ways to reduce economic losses and reorient their strategies towards a new concept of sustainability [56]. This means they must face the challenge of long-term structural change and need to use economic constraints as a driving force to improve their governance programs. This is especially true for the executives and investment professionals who have seen their business travel and mobility reduced since the COVID-19 pandemic began [57,58]. During the crisis, firms have been investing in green systems, such as clean energy and technology, to augur the effective use of resources (even though the business type and the area of operation predetermine the investments and innovations) [59,60,61]. Governments are also playing an important role in providing short-term measures, such as subsidies for clean energy projects and investments in green infrastructure. By doing this, they can help ensure long-term sustainability for businesses affected by the pandemic [62,63]. Leveraging policy responses, social innovation, and addressing climate change can help bring innovative solutions to the table. Innovative collaboration between governments, the private sector, civil society, and social economy actors can provide a successful alternative business model to complement government action in the crisis situation (such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic) [64,65].

Some studies show that COVID-19 responses are impacting diverse populations in different countries in varying ways, frequently reinforcing existing structural inequality in income and poverty, socio-economic inequalities in education and skills, and generational inequality with specific impacts on children (including vulnerable children), families with children, and youth [66,67]. This is not to mention that COVID-19 has worsened existing structural and social inequalities, with especially adverse health outcomes for people who are already socially disfavored. Similar to the structural inequalities, the health outcomes of COVID-19 followed patterns of existing health disparities [68,69].

Many studies demonstrate that economic growth has typically exceeded consensus expectations throughout the pandemic, with households and businesses maintaining surprising levels of activity and expenditure, despite their distancing from society [70,71,72]. The results from some studies indicate that “test and isolate” policies can be central in minimizing the societal costs of the pandemic [73,74]. Another issue is digitalization and the digital surge that the pandemic brought with it—the level of digitalization became apparent from country to country due to the effectiveness of the measures aimed to stop the pandemic and involving digital tools and technologies. Moreover, this is not to mention that parents in lower-income countries were far more likely than those in higher-income ones to say that their children would experience digital obstacles during the COVID-19 pandemic [75,76,77].

As the first (still ongoing) global pandemic in over a century, coronavirus has spread around the globe at unprecedented speeds taking thousands of lives through the healthcare system, and thus, the ultimate decision in many cases was to shut down economies, ban international travel, and apply strict quarantine measures. Nevertheless, there are some areas in which the COVID-19 challenges and opportunities can be considered in terms of the experiences of education and training: resilience in higher education, resilience of the national economy, and employment, as well as in incomes [78,79]. In some cases, the pandemic forced the businesses to join efforts aimed at helping to address the emerging risks from the pandemic that had been identified in various sectors in order to create a better future for everyone [80]. Of course, this required pulling these together within the structure run by the central authority, but a critical element here is the autonomy level of the government on a community level with citizens feeling that they have personal ownership over how things were run. There have been many efforts amidst the pandemic to engage in this sort of change, and ideas that were seen as radical are now being deployed across an array of diverse groups, and in both developed and developing countries [81,82].

Scientists generally agree that the pandemic brought about many changes to the way business and economics used to be conducted on a daily basis [83,84,85]. Today’s executives and business leaders need to recognize these changes and prepare to lead their businesses into the post-COVID-19 reality once the pandemic would be over. There are quite a few high-level strategies any leaders can adopt that will help them navigate their businesses in the post-COVID-19 world. Many researchers argue that today’s leaders need to review their companies and try to figure out where gaps might exist in their preparations as a business for the post-COVID world [86,87]. Additional resources may be an essential asset for strengthening executives’ leadership skills and adjusting the corporate strategies toward an economically sound post-COVID-19 world [88]. Businesses could examine the “no-regrets” moves that could be taken when working toward economic recovery after COVID. Looking forward, governments and policymakers might need to develop financial policy interventions that mitigate post-COVID impacts for small businesses, as Belitski et al. put it [89]. As it is happening in many countries, funds are now being allocated to supporting small and medium businesses, with tracking of who is receiving funding and how this is helping small businesses to become more resilient and grow through the crisis, which is critical for its survival. Many studies reveal that protecting and supporting the health of small businesses and entrepreneurs in the post-COVID world would be crucial, because they are going to play a particular role after the crisis and during the expected boom following the pandemic. It also needs to be noted that the changes that small-business owners are making to survive the downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic are, in part, dependent on business size [90,91,92].

Other studies found that more small business owners are planning to maintain the new operations and services that they have established in the midst of the pandemic [93,94]. Accessing start-up and growth funding in the COVID-19 conditions is an even greater challenge for entrepreneurs with new businesses that are less than 1 year old than it is for entrepreneurs with older or established businesses [95]. Among entrepreneurs with a newly funded business, finding new customers outpaced the financing for starting a business as the most reported difficulty during COVID-19. Specifically, whereas allocating financing or loans to start a business was the top problem prior to the pandemic, finding new customers became the top problem during the pandemic [96]. However, the share of entrepreneurs who have been less than a year in business that reported funds to start the business being the major challenge increased even further during the pandemic [97,98].

Finally, it also appears that the cultural change is going to be one of the most critical drivers for business success in the post-COVID-19 era once the pandemic is finally eradicated. In the post COVID-19 era, a greater demand for increased innovation is likely to arise, as well as the move away from the comforts of doing business as usual [99]. By identifying emerging entrepreneurs, understanding what is essential for them to succeed, and providing small and medium businesses with as much support as possible, communities can close stubborn gaps in fairness and cultivate new pathways for marginalized populations to gain economic opportunities in the post-pandemic world.

3. The Data

In this section of our paper, we are building and testing the empirical model that employs the quantitative research design and focuses on assessing the new ways of doing business and implementing innovations using sustainable economic practices in the post-pandemic era. The model employs our own data collected from 450 managers and owners of SMEs in the Czech Republic (136 respondents) and Russia (314 respondents) between March 2021 and November 2022.

The two countries involved in our research have been selected on purpose because of their similarities and yet their striking differences. Both of them represent typical post-Communist and post-transition economies that shook off the Communist rule in the early 1990s but have chosen somewhat different economic, social, and geopolitical pathways of development that resulted in the divergent implementation of the sustainable development agenda and SDGs. The Czech Republic became a Member State of NATO in 1999 and of the European Union (EU) in 2004, while the Russian Federation went on to become a member of BRICS in 2009 and the founding member of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in 2014. Yet, both countries committed to achieving the 2030 Agenda and make efforts to implement SDGs. For example, according to the UN Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform, in the Czech Republic, about 75% of government expenditures are in compliance with SDGs’ priorities (the country ranked 8th in SDG Index) [100]. Even though the Czech Republic is a small country, it managed to fully incorporate SDGs into its development cooperation strategy and activities, even though decarbonization and the social and welfare system now pose major challenges at the economic, social, and environmental levels [100]. In the case of Russia, the country yielded noticeable progress particularly in SDG1 “Poverty Eradication”, SDG4 “Quality Education”, and SDG8 “Decent Work and Economic Growth” (even though it ranked only 62nd in the SDG index), even though a number of targets in certain areas still need the focus and cooperation of the stakeholders, business, and general public in order to be achieved. The concept of sustainable development was adopted just in 1996, and since then, the SDGs have become a part of the 12 national projects and the comprehensive plan for the modernization and expansion of the Russia’s backbone infrastructure [101].

To sum it up, both countries had a similar starting position but are now very far away in terms of achieving the 2030 Agenda and implementing SDGs. The low position of Russia on the ranking can be perhaps explained by its vast territory and logistical problems, even though UN DESA reports point out that the addition of the spillover indicators lowered the SDG Index score for many rich countries, particularly Switzerland, the United States (ranked 42nd in the SGD index), and several Gulf States (such as the United Arab Emirates that ranked 77th) [102].

We employed a questionnaire as the research instrument for this study. In total, we obtained the responses from surveys with 314 respondents from Russia (aged 25–73 years; 13.3% females and 86.7% males) represented by the managers of SMEs from the two Russian regions (Moscow region and Yekaterinburg region) who completed a questionnaire voluntarily and anonymously. In addition, we also obtained the data from the 136 respondents from the Czech Republic (aged 23–67 years; 42% females and 58% males). In total, we obtained a sample of 450 valid survey questionnaires to use.

For our data collection, we used the non-random sampling based on the snowball technique assisted by the opportunity sampling technique via our contact points (the “gatekeepers”). The main reason to select this method was due to the opportunity to reach the Internet-based population (which also tends to be younger and better educated, as well as more profound in using the Internet), which otherwise would not be reachable [103,104] and enables communication with people who might not have time to meet face-to-face, hence the online survey research [105]. The sampling selection and the cooperation with the local gatekeepers was based on the extensive graduate student network comprised of the graduate students with contacts at SMEs (family business, relatives, friends, and business contacts, which in some way, might have also created a certain bias). The graduate students were prepared on how to deal with the selection of respondents, approaching those respondents, and obtaining and recording their answers. To ensure the ethical norms and standards that are typical for this type of surveys, written informed consent was obtained from all subjects prior to the study via the simple online form, which was a part of the questionnaire survey.

Our measurements for corporate innovation and sustainable economic practices involved obtaining various business licenses, certificates, or even patents and copyright for the company’s goods and services and using wasteful systems, a circular economy, or shifting to the renewable energy sources.

Even though the way the respondents have been selected and how the sampling has been arranged represent the limitation of this study (our sample tends to tilt toward younger and better educated respondents than the underlying population), its results are nevertheless meaningful and can shed light on the socio-economic stability and sustainable development of SMEs after the COVID pandemic with a possibility to provide important lessons for the business and economic leaders in both countries.

The gatekeepers got in touch with the respondents via social networks and messenger apps (VKontakte, Telegram, Viber, and WhatsApp) or using personalized e-mails addressed to the participants. All respondents completed our questionnaire voluntarily and anonymously and were assured that their answers would be used solely for academic purposes. As for the ethical clearance or ethical standards as a reference in collecting primary data, this study has been conducted in accordance with the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Institutional Review Board of Czech University of Life Sciences.

Almost all respondents who took part in our survey had higher degree education (Master’s (or Specialist’s) degree or higher, 76%). Their positions at their respective enterprises included top managers (63%), business owners (34%), and chief financial officers (7%). The SMEs in question were mostly from the fields of business & construction (17%), textile and clothing production (30%), chemical industry (17%), steel industry (26%), paper & plastic (7%), and electronics (3%).

Our questionnaire touched upon several topics connected with the challenges and adaptation strategies for the post-COVID period. Nevertheless, only some selected questions have been used for the purposes of our research and for building the empirical model described in this paper. The questions were presented to the respondents in a form of a 5-point Likert-type scale, which offered the possibility of selecting the answer from 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree).

Table 1. Motivation to innovate for enhancing productivity (cross-tabulations of responses by countries).

			1-Disagree a	2 a	3 a	4 a	5-Agree a	Total
Country	Czech Republic	%	10	12	30	18	30	100
	Russian Federation	%	18	20	25	15	22	100
Total		%	15	18	24	17	26	100

Note: ^a The pandemic made our company start innovating (e.g., patents, certificates, business licenses) for enhancing productivity and adhering to the post-COVID sustainable economic development, 1—strongly disagree, 5-strongly agree. Source: own results.

that follows shows the cross-tabulation of the responses indicating the motivation to innovate for enhancing productivity at the enterprise. The measure of innovations can be expressed as the number (or the mere existence) of various patents, certificates, copyrights, or business licenses obtained by the enterprise for its goods, services, or products, as defined in similar studies [106,107,108].

From the results reported in Table 1, it becomes evident that even though the COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on innovations (perhaps by showing the business and economic leaders that old and obsolete companies without access to the new technologies or production processes could not survive the pandemic and would inevitably go bankrupt), the acceptance of innovations as being the key element of enhancing the company’s productivity is still quite moderate (especially in the case of Russia where innovations are often predetermined by access to bank loans and governmental funding) and perhaps might require more time to become evident to all players in the market (regardless of the countries represented in our sample).

Table 2. Motivation to use sustainable economic practices (e.g., wasteful systems, circular economy, or energy efficiency) (cross-tabulations of responses by countries).

			1-Disagree a	2 a	3 a	4 a	5-Agree a	Total
Country	Czech Republic	%	4	12	25	27	32	100
	Russian Federation	%	8	21	28	19	24	100
Total		%	6	16	27	24	27	100

Note: ^a The pandemic motivated our company to use sustainable economic practices (e.g., implementing wasteful systems, principles of the circular economy, or energy efficiency) for conducting our business according to the SDGs and Agenda 2030, 1—strongly disagree, 5-strongly agree. Source: own results.

that follows demonstrates the results of the cross-tabulations of the responses related to the motivation of using sustainable economic practices (such as installing wasteful systems of production, adhering to the principles of the circular economy, energy efficiency and energy-saving measures (smart metering), or using renewable energy) for improving the enterprise business performance in the post-COVID period.

The results reported in Table 1 once again confirm that the motivation for using the sustainable economic practices after the COVID-19 pandemic remains quite moderate, even though the larger share of the respondents is rather inclined to use them in their daily business. This might be explained by the fact that the intended changes need some time to be accepted by the people, even though their intuition and all available evidence points to the direction of the desirability of these changes. In addition, the results indicate the prevailing motivation to use sustainable economic practices in the Czech Republic in comparison with that in Russia, which might be subjected, similar to the previous question reflected in Table 1, to the more complicated access to government funds and loans that are required for “going green”.

4. Empirical Model: Innovations and Sustainable Economic Practices in the Post-COVID Era

From our results reported in the previous section, it becomes quite clear that even though the popularity of sustainable economic development and the awareness about Agenda 2030 and the SDGs increased after the COVID-19 pandemic, the share of respondents who fully support the shift towards the green economy and are capable of introducing profound changes into the established ways their SMEs operated remain quite modest. This finding can be perhaps explained by the fact that such notable and fundamental changes that mean changing the old ways and establishing the new ones might take some time to settle and to be accepted by the general public and the business community alike. The pandemic made many people aware of the necessity to face global climate change and to realize that they are the ones who should start doing something sustainable in the first place, but these changes need more time to settle inside people’s minds. The reasons why this transition might take some time can be financial, as well as social or psychological, ones; the availability of funding, grants, or bank loans required for sustainable modification in any business company, large or small, is not at its best in the post-COVID period marked by economic stagnation.

In this section, we are building and testing our empirical model of motivation for using innovations and sustainable economic practices in small and medium enterprises in the post-COVID era. We are using a sample of our own data collected from 450 Czech and Russian SMEs for constructing the ordinal regression model aimed at analyzing the determinants of companies’ motivation for shifting to the sustainable economic development in accordance with the principles listed in Agenda 2030.

Our formal empirical model can be written in the form of Equation (1), which follows:

motivation = logit (α₀Age + α₁CompAge + α₂Country + α₃ b_type + α₄Position + e)

(1)

where:

motivation—motivation for shifting towards sustainable economic development;

Age—age of the respondent;

CompAge—company’s age;

b_type—type of business (construction, textile and clothing production, chemical industry, steel industry, paper & plastic, or electronics);

Position—position at the company (e.g., owner, manager, CFO);

e—an error term.

Table 3. Motivation for shifting towards sustainable economic development after the COVID-19 pandemic (ordinal regression analysis).

	Innovations		Novel Technologies		SD principles
	Estimate	Sig.	Estimate	Sig.	Estimate	Sig.
Threshold 1	2.185	0.367	−0.465	0.922	2.842	0.086
Threshold 2	3.446	0.028	0.996	0.503	3.842	0.005
Threshold 3	4.879	0.000	2.994	0.049	4.594	0.000
Threshold 4	6.353	0.000	4.469	0.000	5.998	0.000
Age	−0.035	0.202	−0.038 *	0.058	−0.033	0.319
Company’s age	−0.445 **	0.843	−0.433 **	0.496	−0.683 **	0.089
Construct	0.511 **	0.499	0.568 ***	0.301	0.383 *	0.645
Textile	0.069 *	0.979	0.076 *	0.961	0.371 *	0.978
Chemical	0.592 ***	0.794	0.562	0.879	0.684	0.962
Steel	0.724 *	0.007	0.464 **	0.231	0.375 *	0.142
P&P	0.611 *	0.064	0.007 *	0.871	0.642 *	0.065
Electro	0.833 ***	0.654	0.895 ***	0.757	0.982 ***	0.851
Owner	0.092 **	0.933	0.654 **	0.131	0.435 **	0.082
Manager	−0.463	0.655	−0.010	0.983	−0.234	0.632
Cox and Snell	0.093		0.083		0.092
Nagelkerke	0.097		0.074		0.092
McFadden	0.047		0.043		0.041
Sig.		0.000		0.001		0.002
N	450

Note: *** Significant at the 0.01 level; ** Significant at the 0.05 level; * Significant at the 0.1 level Source: own results.

that follows below reports the results of our ordinal regression empirical model that is estimated and presented over the three main categories: (i) applying innovations (obtaining various business licenses, certificates, or even patents and copyright for the company’s goods and services); (ii) using novel technologies (e.g., smart meters or the Internet of Things (IoT); and (iii) introducing the principles of the sustainable development (e.g., wasteful systems, circular economy, or shifting to renewable energy sources).

Figure 1 that follows below summarizes the obtained results in a graphical manner showing the main factors impacting the motivation for shifting towards sustainable economic development in the post-COVID era.

Our results demonstrate that while the owner’s or manager’s age does not have any effect on the motivation, the company’s age negatively affects the motivation towards introducing the innovations or novel technologies or shifting towards the principles of sustainable economic development. This might be explained as well-established companies with good access to any markets (regional, national, or international) and a long business history and well-established connections might not be interested in wasting their time and resources in innovating in fear of losing their clients and markets.

When it comes to the areas in which the companies represented in our sample operated, it turns out that those SMEs that worked in the chemical industry, electronics, construction, and textile & clothing were the ones that felt the need to innovate and to implement the novel green technologies with the purpose of achieving sustainable economic development with regard to the SDGs and their objectives. This finding shows that sustainable development principles would be easier to promote and to build in the companies that are already familiar with the novel technologies and clearly perceive their advantages and perspectives due to the nature of their business. It turns out that not all economic activities lend themselves to innovation as easily, as there are different degrees of implementation and varying business focuses. In addition, this is correlated with our finding related to access to the markets. It simply might be that some companies are destined to operate based on the small local markets due to the nature of their business (e.g., small fast-food facilities or garbage collectors) without ambition or the possibility of innovating, implementing novel technologies, or even starting to think about adopting the sustainable development principles.

Another interesting finding was that companies run by their owners (rather than appointed or hired managers) tend to be more innovative and open to the sustainable development technologies and principles. This finding might be a reflection of the well-known “agent–principal” paradigm: those people who own their own SMEs are keener to keep them in operation for the generations to come, just as the sustainable development agenda stresses.

5. Discussion of Results

As the post-COVID development of business and economics is slowly becoming a reality, it is difficult to see how the economic costs, in isolation, or risk of economic downturn could still be used as a legitimate argument against action on environmental issues or for transforming small and medium business toward resilience. The overall impact of the pandemic is the interplay between this and the consequences of the accumulation of vulnerabilities that have been building in the economic system for the last two decades and is now amplifying the pandemic’s impacts. Many issues brought by the pandemic, such as the digital surge or the importance of artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), which today’s business and economic leaders came to know and appreciate, are likely to stay with us in the more SDG-oriented countries (such as the Czech Republic) or those less focused on sustainable development (such as Russia).

In addition to the COVID-19 immediate socioeconomic impacts, the pandemic also affected the developed and developing countries via global supply chain disruptions, tourism sector shutdowns, falling commodity prices, decreased migrant remittances, capital flight, bankruptcy of vulnerable small businesses, and reduced foreign investment. These are replicated through worsening inequalities and reinforced by policy responses that failed to protect the most vulnerable from the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic. As the COVID-19 pandemic and the disease outbreaks recorded in history repeatedly demonstrate, the root causes and consequences of environmental destruction mirror the social and political and economic conditions at play at the underlying level. One of the key aspects that distinguishes the early COVID-19 crisis from the other global crises is that its effects are relatively apparent and can be measured directly thanks to ubiquitous digitalization (e.g., smart metering or IoT).

Over the last decades, the world economy has grown more reliant on just-in-time, supply-chain-driven global trade, while manufacturing jobs have been offshored from older industrialized countries, leading to their de-industrialization and a general worsening of wages and labor standards, as production has gradually moved to lower-wage/lower-regulation countries. As COVID-19 is gradually becoming endemic across the world, the shift in focus toward sustainable and inclusive growth needs to be made by the economic and business leaders and embraced at all levels, including the managers and owners of SMEs. The global community will need years or decades to evaluate the full scope of COVID-19 and its impacts on our economy and society, including their effects on inequalities, health, and citizens’ wellbeing. The recent crisis is exposing further fault lines in our economic structures, not the least being the increasing precarity of employment. SMEs might become a solution for tackling these processes by offering individuals a way to engage in business and make money working for themselves.

Moreover, it becomes clear that greater consideration should also be given within the realms of politics beyond epidemiology and public health because health crises, such as COVID-19, carry wide-ranging consequences for individuals and societies. For example, the small businesses (that often constitute the backbone of the economies of many countries) need financial support and help in order to not only stay afloat but also to start innovating and implementing sustainable economic practices. The roles and responsibilities of SMEs in the COVID-19 crisis and its mitigation need to be more clearly defined and enhanced. The interconnected challenges in environmental, social, and governance sectors reinforced the role of sustainable investment strategies as a necessary component of enterprise development in the post-COVID era. It is very likely that the pandemic would result in significant repercussions of economic stagnation and rising unemployment. Even though some globally standardized approaches are currently being implemented to address the post-COVID-19 issues, their limitations are being exposed by the way in which they collide with the complexities of different social, economic, and political contexts, triggering wider indirect effects and posing challenges for the stakeholders and policymakers all around the world.

6. Conclusions

Overall, it becomes apparent that the world is now experiencing a developmental and ongoing transformation concerning global capitalism as the New Globalization is replacing the COVID-19 pandemic. The coronavirus crisis has clearly exposed the vulnerability of an interconnected global economy and showed the path for business enterprises (including the SMEs) towards sustainable economic development (both for such SD-focused countries as the Czech Republic and for such fossil fuel-focused states as Russia). As business and economic leaders across the globe attempt to handle the consequences of the pandemic, they are going to need to face up to the reality that the global economy is not functioning the way they thought it would be. They also need to start taking into consideration the new trends and challenges for the sustainable development and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and to promote it at all levels, including the small businesses. Under the combined impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global governance system faces deep and unprecedented challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic crisis can be viewed as a natural experiment of sorts, which captured how various countries responded as they faced the global emergency. Scientists are warning us that even a worse pandemic could strike the world any moment now, which again highlights the need for global collaboration and sustainable economic and social change. The COVID-19 pandemic is still far from under control in most countries all over the world, owing to the delay in vaccination rates and the uneven recovery from pandemic-induced economic downturns. The pandemic is certain to underscore the risks inherent to the excessive dependence on global supply chains, spur the renationalization of manufacturing, and strain notions of international interdependence. SMEs, both in BRICS countries and all around the world, need to draw lessons from that and adapt their strategies and business resilience accordingly.

Despite the fact that our study has its limitations (the method of selection of the respondents or the sampling process and the over-representation of more educated and younger respondents proficient at using Internet technologies), we believe that it still yields some important results, outcomes, and lessons for the socio-economic stability and sustainable development of SMEs after the COVID pandemic, not just in the Czech Republic and Russia, but also in other developed and emerging economies in pursuit of sustainable development.

In general terms, our results demonstrate that the COVID-19 pandemic would likely have a deep impact on the SME agenda. Business and economic leaders need to seize the opportunities presented by the industrial transformations and to promote global innovation and sustainable development focus. Countries, such as Russia from our case study, need to accelerate development in digital economies and their green transformation. Cooperation would be needed to create an even stronger business community of a shared future, as well as generating stronger dynamics to boost economic development, as well as for achieving more balanced international relationships. This will lay more solid foundations for building an even stronger world economic community with a shared future, create strong momentum for the rise of developing countries, and for more balanced international relations. Today, when the commodity prices are high, world inflation continues to climb, the international financial markets are in turmoil, and the global economic recovery is losing steam, it is important for governments to promote innovations and stimulate SMEs in promising sectors (such as textile, chemistry, or electronics, as our results demonstrate). As we move into the next phase after the coronavirus crisis, policy attention would need to shift toward economic emergencies and what role SMEs should play in this recovery. With large stimulus packages beginning to roll out across the globe, governments, businesses, and society at large all have both a duty and self-interest in looking beyond the immediate measures that would bolster livelihoods and employment and take a step back to consider the policy and economic forces that led up to the COVID-19 crisis. Much of the political discourse has focused on the need for large stimulus packages for SMEs to jump-start the global economy once the pandemic crisis has passed. However, it is also important to identify the perspective industries in which the SMEs can excel and to support younger SMEs owned by their managers. In terms of the Czech Republic, this would mean financial flows offered by the governments and the private sector for the selected companies. In the case of the Russian Federation, this might mean further promoting SMEs’ awareness of Agenda 2030 and SDGs, as well as concentrating on industrial agglomerations specializing in the most perspective sectors (such as clothing and textiles or electronics, as identified by our research).

Speaking about the pathways for further research on this timely and relevant topic, the possibility of running a comparative study with an aim to assess the innovations in business and sustainable development in all BRICS countries comes to mind. The results are likely to differ somewhat due to the varying level of technological maturity, as well as due to the advancements in the information and communication technologies (ICTs). Another interesting pathway would be a focus on studying the growth that online businesses provides as an opportunity for ensuring that SMEs offering their goods or services online are supported in more equitable ways and helping budding entrepreneurs, especially those from minority communities and economically marginalized residents, start their businesses. If the local economic development officials want to capitalize on this new opportunity and help more SMEs succeed, they need to know where these businesses are located, how many of them exist, and which tools and services they need. This is important information to gather for future studies on government support to small businesses and entrepreneurs in order to assess the demand for and the unmet needs for loans and funds, particularly by the SMEs that seek to innovate and embark on the sustainable economic development path following the SDGs and the transition to the green economy.