Resilience of the Hungarian SME sector during and after the pandemic
Abstract
The study examines how resilient Hungarian small and medium-sized enterprises were during and after the COVID–19 pandemic. Based on a randomly selected sample, our empirical analysis explores both the objective (financial and operational data) and subjective (self-assessment-based) dimensions of resilience. Using revenue-based recovery indicators, we classify firms into resilient and non-resilient groups; the latter are further divided into four clusters: resurgent rebuilders, wounded partial returners, steadily growing balanced firms, and stagnant constrained firms. Our results show that resilient firms flexibly reduced both their wage bill and material expenditures during the crisis, whereas most non-resilient firms exhibited cost rigidity. Resilient companies also started from higher levels of indebtedness, implying greater financing capacity. We found no significant link between digitalization and financial resilience, but we did identify a positive relationship between objective and subjective resilience. The findings contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of corporate crisis management practices and the resilience of SMEs.
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