Building on the success of our symposium last year (SMEs and COVID-19: Just Surviving or Thriving?) as well as our 2019 White Paper (Inspiring Future Workplaces), we are turning our sights this year to thoughts as to what the future may hold for small business. While recent years have been traumatic, they have also highlighted the critical role small to medium enterprises play, not just in increasingly complex value chains – but as the bedrock of everyday lives.
Building on the success of our symposium last year (SMEs and COVID-19: Just Surviving or Thriving?) as well as our 2019 White Paper (Inspiring Future Workplaces), we are turning our sights this year to what the future may hold for small business. While recent years have been traumatic, they have also highlighted the critical role small to medium enterprises play, not just in increasingly complex value chains, but as the bedrock of everyday lives.
What we found last year was that while there were many ‘doing it tough’ and going out of business, there are also those who are not just surviving but thriving and looking to the future with hope and optimism. Our symposium this year thus provides the opportunity to explore this richness and diversity together. We envisage that the symposium will provide the opportunity to learn with and from each other as well as to strengthen SMEs. Symposium papers are invited but not limited to the following topics:
What is happening in the Australian (and other) SME labour market?
Have the events of the last two years changed how SMEs work forever?
What do young people want from work and how can SME employers engage them?
What tools can help SME practitioners, policy makers and researchers to plan for an uncertain future?
How can we work together to build healthier, happier SME workplaces?
We are now well over a year down the track from the first cases of COVID-19 being reported; however, we still seem a long way from a COVID-normal world. The pandemic continues to provide unprecedented challenges to businesses and there is no doubt that small to medium enterprises (SMEs) are amongst the hardest hit across the globe. SMEs capture the tension the pandemic has presented leaders around the world with the need to balance economic versus health outcomes. This balancing act is on both supply and demand sides. While SMEs are recognised as major contributors to the nations’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and account for over 60 percent of total employment, they are also recognised as the drivers for growth and innovation.
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause major disruptions for SMEs, with many facing the stark options of closure, shutdown or transformation. They are options that are being faced within a dynamic environment, where traditional risk management and contingency plans need to be continually updated and the rhetoric of small business innovation and agility is sorely tested. What we are seeing already is that many SMEs and business owner-managers are showing much higher levels of resilience and dynamism than their larger counterparts. While there are many that are ‘doing it tough’ and going out of business, there are also those who are not just surviving but thriving. Our symposium is a chance to explore this diversity and to see not only what we can learn from this incredible sector of the economy, but how we can work with them to help strengthen the recovery effort. Post-COVID, SMEs’ survival and revitalisation will be key to rebuilding economies across the globe. To achieve this, the rhetoric and realities of COVID-19 and SMEs must be critically examined.
We envisage that the proposed online symposium focuses upon strategies to learn from as well as to strengthen SMEs. Symposium/conference proposals may relate to, but not limited to the following topics:
SMEs and COVID-19 SMEs workforce SMEs Government stimulus packages SMEs business transformation SMEs and gender SMEs resilience SMEs workforce SMEs digital transitions SMEs survival SMEs future
Symposium Objectives
To understand and assess the impact of COVID-19 on SMEs
To identify the theoretical, practical, social, and societal implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on SMEs
To spotlight resilience and transformation of SMEs amid COVID-19 uncertainty
To investigate transferable models of contextual relevance for the long-term sustainability of SMEs
Symposium Participants
Policy makers
University academics
Industry practitioners
Think tanks
Research students
Government organisations
Symposium Output
Enhanced understanding of COVID-19 on SMEs
Policy conversations and research
Academic and practice conversations and collaboration
Publication of symposium abstracts on the SEAANZ website
Invitation to paper contributors for inclusion of work as chapters in an edited book
Key Dates
Submission of Extended Abstracts (500 words) by 25th May 2021
Feedback on Extended Abstracts to be provide by 25th June 2021
Submission of Full Papers (5000 words, including references, tables and figures) by 25th August 2021
Feedback on Full Papers (peer reviewed double blind) to be provided by 25th September 2021
Online Symposium held on 11th November 2021
Invitation for Book Chapters Due by 25th November 2021
By Tim Mazzarol, Geoffrey N. Soutar, Tui McKeown, Sophie Reboud, Sujana Adapa,
John Rice & Delwyn Clark
Abstract This paper examines the perspectives of employers and employees within nano, micro, small, medium, and large firms in relation to HRM practices. The study draws upon a large sample of respondents from firms of all size categories. An online questionnaire comprising established HRM measures was used to collect the data. A multivariate discriminant analysis procedure was used to identify the interrelationships between the employer and employee groups, across firms by size, and how they viewed the importance of the HRM measures. The study found a strong congruence between employers and employees across most constructs and provides insights into the role firm size plays in the formalization of HRM practices and the relative importance of such factors within SMEs.
The full paper is available to SEAANZ members via the SEAANZ website.
