Close menu

SURE

Sunderland Repository records the research produced by the University of Sunderland including practice-based research and theses.

Impression management and leadership in failing or failed business-to-business firms during and post-COVID-19: Empirical insights from Africa

Alo, Obinna, Ali, Imran, Zahoor, Nadia, Arslan, Ahmad and Golgeci, Ismail (2023) Impression management and leadership in failing or failed business-to-business firms during and post-COVID-19: Empirical insights from Africa. Industrial Marketing Management, 113 (2023). pp. 1-13. ISSN 1873-2062

Item Type: Article

Abstract

This paper is one of the pioneering studies to specifically link COVID-19 pandemic with business failures in
African B2B firms and the role of leadership and impression management in mitigating business failures. Based
on the qualitative data from Ghana and Nigeria, our findings show that although B2B firms in emerging markets
are agile and proactive, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered the process of business decline leading to failure in
some cases. Particularly, the lack of technological know-how and the absence of online business activities made it
difficult for B2B firms to continue operations. Further, we found that case B2B African firms needed a balance of
market and non-market strategies to avoid failure caused by the pandemic. Study findings also indicate that
despite the challenges, the COVID-19 pandemic presented opportunities to B2B firms in emerging markets.
Flexible working and employee management are found to be instrumental in avoiding business failure. Finally,
our findings show that, despite the absence of institutional support in African emerging markets, several case B2B
firms quickly adopted digital technologies to communicate with partners and manage online business operations.

[img]
Preview
PDF
Impression management and leadership in failing or failed B2B in Africa.pdf - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives.

Download (723kB) | Preview

More Information

Uncontrolled Keywords: Leadership, Impression management, Failing/failed B2B firms, COVID-19, Africa
Depositing User: Obinna Alo

Identifiers

Item ID: 16209
ISSN: 1873-2062
URI: http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/id/eprint/16209

Users with ORCIDS

ORCID for Obinna Alo: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-2860-6544

Catalogue record

Date Deposited: 26 Jun 2023 15:28
Last Modified: 11 Jul 2023 08:00

Contributors

Author: Obinna Alo ORCID iD
Author: Imran Ali
Author: Nadia Zahoor
Author: Ahmad Arslan
Author: Ismail Golgeci

University Divisions

Faculty of Business, Law and Tourism > Sunderland Business School

Subjects

Business and Management > Business
Business and Management > Business and Management
Business and Management > Human Resource Management
Business and Management > International Business
Business and Management > Management (general)
Business and Management > Marketing

Actions (login required)

View Item (Repository Staff Only) View Item (Repository Staff Only)