AN ENTREPRENEURIAL APPRAISAL OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: MEASURING DIGITALIZATION EFFICIENCY

• Main Authors: Lungu, Anca Elena, Georgescu, Mircea Radu, Işan, Vasile
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Black swan event; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Data envelopment analysis; Digital technology; Efficiency; Entrepreneurs; Entrepreneurship; Hypotheses; Pandemics; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
• ISSN: 2671-132X; 2671-132X

The current sanitary crisis caused by the rapid spread of the SARS-COV-2 virus dramatically changed social and economic behaviours. The drastic restrictions forced entrepreneurs to find new solutions for running their business in order to survive. Besides these, one of the most significant alternative was the transition towards the online environment or, in other words, the digitalization of entrepreneurial activities all around the world. Nonetheless, the digital divide issue persists. Considering the aforementioned aspects, the main goal of this research endeavour is to examine and measure the efficiency or inefficiency in terms of business digitalization, by taking into account the national context and the entrepreneurial activity. The selected sample includes 47 countries, due to restrictions in terms of available data. The year under analysis is 2021. To achieve this goal, the article first provides a brief review of the specialty literature on two main topics under analysis: entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship digitalization. Then, the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) empirical method is used for measuring the efficiency or inefficiency for each country, based on three distinct scenarios and considering different inputs and outputs. Applying the DEA method allowed us to qualify if the given input(s) had been maximized in the achieved output(s). The results divide the sample into two main categories: efficient and inefficient countries. There are relatively significant discrepancies between the results achieved when running each of the three scenarios. The second one strongly changes the perspective, if we take into consideration the relative efficiency of 22 countries, compared to 10 and 11, respectively, as was the case for the other two scenarios. In each of the cases studied, Japan was the most important peer benchmark. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the digitalization of entrepreneurial activity can be considered a fail in several cases, regardless of the income level (see Finland, France - high income or Hungary, Romania - medium income). In the selected sample, the lowest rates of using more digital technology to sell products or services during the pandemic were registered in France (9%), Slovakia (17.2%), Poland (20.1%), Romania (28%), Hungary (28.3%), and Finland (32.2%). Conversely, the highest values were registered in Latin America. The lack of or inefficient infrastructure, bureaucracy, and barriers imposed by the national governm