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Did Bulgarian innovative business manage to cope with COVID-19 crisis – a point of view of the future generation of business managers

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: It is hard to measure just a few years after the pandemic the negative impact in its all dimension that COVID-19 and all restrains and social isolation measures had on the economy in all levels (national, international, global).Nevertheless, the current paper presents the attitude and opinion of the Bulgarian students in Business Administration assessing whether Bulgarian business managed to cope successfully with all challenges during and immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic.There is a special focus on the innovative intensive sector of the economy and the ability of the companies in their sectors to cope with challenges, comparing with the rest business organizations.The paper presents results of 2-years conducted survey among students in their final year of Bachelor degree in Business Administration.Our results reveal that students assess very positively the decisions and changes that management of the explored companies had made in order to cope with the difficulties coming from COVID-19 restrains and crisis.According to them, companies in innovative intensive sectors were more able, flexible and change oriented during crisis.Therefore, companies in these innovative intensive sectors were more prepared for the challenges of pandemic crisis and their level of recovery is higher than the companies in the rest of sectors.However, students show great confident to the decisions of the company's management and the majority accept all activities made by the management to overcome the negative consequences of COVID-19 without any further comments or recommendation.Their average score is Very good 5,06 (in maximum 6,00).Our conclusions are that this very highly positive assessment could be explained in two major lines: firstly, students do not have sufficient business experience in real environment and therefore they are more willing to trust and accept the management decisions.Second line: this very positive result could be based on the lack of sufficient critical thinking and here is the crucial role of the academic education.

Source: Journal of Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues

DOI: 10.9770/k4774454923

Authors: Kiril Anguelov, Miglena Angelova

Institutions: Technical University of Sofia, University of National and World Economy

Language: English

Topic: COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts

Subfield: Economics and Econometrics

Field: Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Decent work and economic growth

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $916