How Women Business Owners Responded to COVID-19 in California

Introduction

The Coronavirus disease came to the world in 2019 and has affected the entire economy of the world in massive ways. Many small businesses have closed down; companies have been forced to reduce the number of their employees while others had to cut down the salaries of the workers. The situation has affected the world in various aspects evident to all humanity universally. The pandemic has affected both small and large businesses alike internationally. The local and international businesses have been held at and still awaiting the health experts to devise a vaccine that will see a return to normalcy.

The outbreak prompted a swift shift in the business dynamics for small businesses. The health sector has issues strict guidelines which all businesses need to follow to stay safe and prevent further spread of the disease. Due to these guidelines, businesses have had to adjust, making it difficult to complete traditional face-to-face interactions and moving their businesses to a more online format. In the state of California, 19,000 thousand businesses have closed due to COVID-19, with the Los Angeles area reporting 7.5 thousand business closings, marking one of the largest number of business closings throughout the United States.

The main focus of the study is to explore how women have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Women business owners experience barriers outside the pandemic and it is unknown how they react to the situation. Women business owners experience a plethora of obstacles when opening and running a small business, such as that of limited access to established social and business networks, less access to qualified and knowledgeable mentors, and a decrease in capital expansion. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States government has allowed small businesses to apply for a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, in order to assist them in keeping their workers on payroll, providing business owners with the forgiveness of loans if employee retention criteria are met or if funds are used for eligible expenses.

California has been hit severely by the pandemic following the records and reports presented in March. More than 19,000 small businesses have been closed in the state of California. The women have more been affected as statistics show that 1.55 million businesses are owned by females. this shows how the ender has been widely affected and their sources if income affected significantly. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have recommended social distancing guidelines to both businesses and the community in order to address the COVID-19 pandemic. This has forced many small businesses to adapt their business proceedings to meet these requirements. For example, traditional face-to-face businesses have had to transition to an online platform in order to appropriately respond to the pandemic.

The problem being studied focus of the study is influenced by the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic, as it is unknown how they have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in order to attempt to remain successful in their business dealings. Therefore, the literature review is intended to explore the issue of how women business owners in the state of California have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in order to remain successful in their business dealings.

The purpose of this chapter is to give a review of the topic from various authors and records with relevant information. Since the situation has been experienced through various periods and centuries, the articles consulted will focus on the epidemic and crises in the past and their impacts on small and medium businesses. The chapter will also give an account of the literature search strategy. A systemic literature search is determined to be an excellent component of the review process. It entails searching for studies and aims to attain a transparent report for the study. It leaves the stakeholders clear about the research findings and how the findings of the review are detailed in the relevant evidence. In identifying the supporting studies, the evidence is populated based on the relevant research, contributing to the current study. The author defines past literature from their knowledge on the topic area through the systematic citations that chase the key studies located within each stage of the research process.

The next section focuses on the theoretic framework, where the theory of value by Treacy and Wiersema’s (1993) will be explored. This model aligns with this current study simply because it focuses on three key areas that need to be addressed when responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because many small business owners have had to adjust the manner in which they conduct business, this model will aid in understanding the three key areas of adjustment, customer intimacy, product leadership, and operational excellence. The review will then explore the historical aspects of the topic. The pandemic such as Spanish Flue, H1N1 and the great Recession crisis of 2008-2009 will be explored. The study appreciates that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world experiences different epidemics with significant impacts as the current outbreak. The Spanish flu is one of the pandemics that hit the world and affected the economic massively. The occurrences and consequences of these pandemics reveal how women entrepreneurs add more benefits to the economy’s growth and development. Their case has been at the core of the recovery in history. The development of businesses tends to promote the economy by introducing new products and services, and technologies in the market. The coronavirus’s unprecedented nature has influenced the extensive closure of stores and businesses in the United States and worldwide. The impact of the situation on small businesses across the world is likely to be severe. While the effects of COVID-19 on the economy are showed up in the stock markets and real estate, the small enterprises’ effects are not well appreciated.

Literature Review Search Strategy

The research focuses son previous literature on the same situation and how the subjects were affected. Various online libraries are used to mine data for the research. Official records from government archives are also used to explore the situation and experiences from different ages. There are various elements to consider before the literature review search. The key issues to take into account will ensure the strategy adopted is successful in finding the required data for the study. The search strategy’s basic steps will begin with defining the keywords and phrases that will reflect the concept of the research topic. The search question will be typed after the words are filtered to eliminate those who may not be useful in the research (Cooper et al. 2018). The search engines will be consulted, and the exact words will be typed in the search box. There is a need to ensure the words used are a reflection of the key concepts. Excellent search demands that the words which tell what to do with the information found should be underlined and evaluated. Any limits in the question should be circled, and look for the words that are left. With the information on how to alternate the ways to express the concept, these should be written under the concept.

The next step should be the phrase searching, truncation, and wildcards. After the key concepts are defined, it is critical to use these techniques to increase each of the phrases. Phrase searching is done using double quotation marks to tell the database that the search for the group of words should be in a specific order. When there are different forms of the word, it is critical to cut it back to the root and add truncation symbols. These symbols tend to vary between databases. There may also be variations in the spelling of the words (Whiting et al. 2016). When a search is done with one spelling, there are high chances to miss the relevant results with the alternate spelling. Wildcard characters can be used in the literature review search to replace the letter within a word.

These words then need to be combined using Boolean operators. These can be formatted into searches using specific words and characters. The technique is also adopted to increase the effectiveness of the search and get better quality results. For example, AND is used to combine words from various concepts and tells the database to find results where all these words are present. Other characters may be brackets which are used when employing both AND and OR in the basic search. Only one search box in the basic search makes the brackets important in the synonyms combined using the Boolean OR. Such elements tell the database to find at least one of the words or phrases from the brackets and those from outside the brackets. It is one of the ways of doing multiple searches at the same time.

Limiters can also be used where most databases offer a range of options to refine the search results by manipulating the search’s specific elements. Each of these databases has its own options for refining the search. These can be; basic limits, type of article, and specific field, among others. The contents found will then need to be reviewed and evaluated. This is a process that helps to make sure the results are all relevant and comprehensive. During the search, it is critical to think of the number of results. The new research areas may have a few dozen articles published whilst a well-established area will have multiple. Each of these articles will need to be reviewed to ensure the article’s title does not deceive the researcher (McGowan et al., 2016). It can be helpful to read through the abstract to ensure the article’s content is relevant to the current study. In the process, it is easier to shortlist the articles with the most relevant information. However, there is still a need to read through the entire article to ensure it can be used alongside the others you all identified to be relevant for the study. The last step is making the most of the search results. The databases are often designed to be mined for information. Therefore, it is essential to make the most of them and get adequate information. Once the relevant citation location is done, the complete record will be reviewed if other terms the listed, which might be useful for searching.

A systemic literature search is determined to be an excellent component of the review process. It entails searching for studies and aims to attain a transparent report for the study. It leaves the stakeholders clear about the research findings and how the findings of the review are detailed in the relevant evidence. Information specialists and review teams tend to work form shared and tactical models of the literature search process (Atkinson, Koenka, Sanchez, Moshontz, Cooper, 2015). The way the tactical model is developed and evolved is often not clear and has not been examined. For this literature review, the search will use a conceptual model by examining the program theory as embodied in the key methodological texts. Key texts are determined to be the best approach for the literature search. Excellence is attributed to the accessibility and prominence within the systematic review practice.

In identifying the supporting studies, the evidence is populated based on the relevant research, contributing to the current study. The author defines past literature from their knowledge on the topic area through the systematic citations that chase the key studies located within each stage of the research process (Rader, Mann, Stansfield, Cooper and Sampson, 2014). The relevant sections of a chapter of the literature search will be read and reviewed to determine the main methodological stages. This will help reveal the process of literature search within each of the guidance documents. The methodological stage is a distinct step in the overall process in which specific guidance is reported. The action is then taken, which will unanimously result in the completed literature search. The chapters and subheadings of the methodological states are extracted from the table using the language as reported in each guidance document. A consensus will be found across the literature search for systemic reviews that suggest the implicit model within the information retrieval society. However, the structure of the guidance will vary based on the documents, the stages reported, and where the major focus is different. Specific areas of guidance will be defined where the guidance is not outlined in other areas in link with the fields of consensus across the guidance.

Theoretical Framework

Treacy and Wiersema’s (1993) introduced the Theory of Value Discipline as a tool business can adopt to devise powerful strategies that they can employ to get out of a situation. According to this theory, successful businesses always excel in customer intimacy, product leadership, and operational excellence. Treacy and Wiersema acknowledge that when a business focuses on the clients’ intimacy, the owners have to evaluate the different constructs that focus on the reach and range of clients. On the aspect of product leadership, the authors discussed the importance of business owners to be creative, relentless, and ahead of the competition (Marius, 2016). Finally, the authors of this theory address operations efficiency and cost reduction by highlighting how business owners need to encourage and foster the cultures of efficiency and cost reduction among their staff. They also need to maximize the efficiency with each of the transactions and focus on the high-quality products at all times. These three areas are necessary to help businesses overcome challenging situations such as global crises.

It is interesting to explore how women-owned small and medium businesses can come out of the current pandemic and recover fast to retain their industry positions. The model can help businesses define how they can be protected from losing market shares to the pandemic. COVID-19 pandemic has seen many women-owned SMEs struggle to retain their positions and uphold their statuses in the midst of the crisis. The knowledge and concept from this theory may have been used to help businesses overcome the past crisis and global issues (Hsu, Huang & Chiou, 2012). This model aligns with this current study simply because it focuses on three key areas that need to be addressed when responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because many small business owners have had to adjust how they conduct business, this model will help understand the three key areas of adjustment, customer intimacy, product leadership, and operational excellence.

The theory helps business owners understand that companies in a competitive market successfully sell value. Merchants can acknowledge that the way a customer defines the market’s value is the only new phenomenon that they need to appreciate. Previously, clients tended to judge the value of a product or service based on the combination of quality and price (Lin, Chen, Wang & Tian, 2017). In the contemporary business environment, clients are different and have extensive knowledge of value, including the convenience of the purchase, after-sale, and dependability. It is easier to assume that businesses in the contemporary markets need to meet all these three elements identified in the theory of value to compete successfully, which may not be the case.

During the pandemic period, businesses need to appreciate that taking a leadership position in the operation industry can be done by narrowing their business focus and not broadening it. Such businesses focus on delivering superior client value in line with the three disciplines of the theory. Businesses can major on the rules of the procedure suggested through the theory. The theorists inform that the following rules need to be observed for a business to take an excellent leadership position;

• Merchants need to make an effort to excel in one of the value disciplines.
• Maintain threshold standards on the other value disciplines
• Control the marketplace by enhancing the value annually.
• Support the value discipline which the business has opted for by delivering a well-selected organizational model.

From these rules by Treacy and Wiersema’s (1993), a business can select one of these values disciplined during this COVID-19 pandemic and find a way to be sustainable or recover from the blow the situation brought to the corporate sector. When a business focuses on operational excellence, there are various aspects they need to consider to become a success in the recovery process. Operational excellence is a valuable discipline that advises merchants to focus on the cost of leadership. Suh business can stir up their recovery by providing the clients with a high-quality product and service at competitive prices and ease of purchase. In the process, the women-owned business can strategically focus internally on streamlining the processes. They can ensure the business makes minimal errors and reduce the superfluous service and standardize and increase the economies of scale. Various big organizations have used this strategy and attained their desired success and market position.

The customers are often among the major assets owned by a business. In the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, merchants may opt to focus on the customer intimacy value discipline in efforts to stay relevant and become a success. firms that feel the clients are important assets of the organization always appreciate their intimacy. These businesses work continuously to meet the requirements of the clients and sustain their relationships with the clients. Getting a large transaction is subordinate to creating a long-lasting intimate bond. Dealing with to excel in this strategy requires organizations to use intensive Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. Under the product leadership, firms that focus on this discipline strive to develop products that beat the market’s rivals (Radivojevic, 2016). Companies, especially startups, are aware that the recovery process will be a challenge. Thus, they are aware of the market’s challenges and the desire to beat the competitors to attract and retail clients. These businesses strive to invest in the research and development programs to create a culture of learning and innovation in such efforts. This is in efforts to meet the demands of both the loyal and new customers in the market as advised by Treacy and Wiersema’s (1993). An organization has a flexible structure and stimulates the performance as well as the creativity of the employees. The new and innovative products are often better, smaller, faster, and trendier. The conglomerate businesses such as Apple and Philips have adopted this measure and became a success. Women entrepreneurs can learn from such conglomerates and define ways to recover and maintain their customer base and market shares.

The SMEs need to understand that selecting the value discipline is similar to choosing the division of clients they need to serve. The choice to do business discipline and customers category is a sole decision. A set of potential clients defines the value within the matrix price, convenience, and quality. These clients are less particular about what they can buy and are about getting the least possible hassle. They are always unwilling to sacrifice the low price or high convenience to acquire products with specific labels. Such consumers desire high-quality goods and services and to get them at the best prices. After the COVID-19 pandemic, the women business owners will need to appreciate that they need to strategize their business dynamics to stay relevant in the market. according to Treacy and Wiersema’s (1993), through the three value disciplines, the theory of value helps merchants understand how to approach recovery. The theory of value informs merchants how their establishments need to select a value discipline to become an industry leader. The discipline selected needs to take account of the firm’s capabilities, the culture, and the strength of the competitors. A greater challenge is always sustaining the focus and to drive strategy relentlessly through the establishment and develop an internal consistency that will confront the radical change.

The theory of value has another concept which the women-owned businesses can adopt in their strategies to recover from the downturn. The supply of value discipline is a fourth element focused on the business’s internal contexts and created value. The best thing about this concept is that it dwells more on the configuration of service sets around an averagely priced and performing product they offer. As a result, the focus of this value in business lies in the configuration building prospect. A company that pursues supply comfort is unique by a set of activities that create value for the clients. This ensures it reinforces the business model and focuses on the other building blocks influenced by the configuration’s focus. In the efforts to recover from a crisis, the businesses need to understand that the power of the supplied comfort is not in the products being offered by the business. The main issue is about the services around the product, which add value through attraction to the clients. Such services that meet the client’s demands when they experience a sense of comfort or urgency are among those that companies focus need to focus on. The clients who seek to experience comfort are always interested in the unique configuration of the business’s value from the target market. The segmentation of this market is driven by the need for comfort sense changes with people depending on the situation. Much focus needs to be on the relationship between the clients and the business. This association needs to fit in the unique value configuration. The company also needs to focus on getting in touch with the clients when they are interested in the products because they feel the need for comfort and a sense of urgency.

Historical Aspects of the Topic

A pandemic is known to impact both the supply and demand aspects of the marketplace. The number of hours’ people work declines following the illnesses and the fear of infection. A sharp decline follows the aspect of the number of aggregate supply. Lockdown in the country results in low retain sales and a significant reduction in leisure activities. The government’s intervention to contain the spread of a virus affects the supply chain and, in turn, the international trade. According to Rebmann, Wang, Swick and Reddick (2013), the companies which experience the decline in sales and production endure losses following fixed short-term costs and decline in the general revenues. The effects in such situations are severely felt in hospitality and personal services. The pharmaceuticals and the medical-equipment sectors are likely to benefit from pandemics.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world experiences different epidemics with significant impacts as the current outbreak. The Spanish flu is one of the pandemics that hit the world and affected the economic massively. The situation at the time closely reflects the current world experiences and responses from both the state administrators and healthcare institutions. Past studies examined the business effects of previous pandemics with a specific focus on small and medium businesses. Luohan Academy. (2020) notes that the pandemic’s economic analysis is determined to explore the indicators on the macroeconomics, such as the GDP rather than micro or firm-level effects. The predictions of the pandemic’s economic and social effects are based on the influenza of 1918, which killed many people. The influenza is widely known as the Spanish Flu. Forty million people perished following this pandemic across the world in 1918 to the periods around late 1919. In 2005, a world bank’s suggestion stated that a similar pandemic would cost the global economy $800 billion and kill millions of people. The report also suggested that the pandemic costs in the future would be greater than the impacts of the Spanish Flu.

The impacts of the 1918 pandemic on the United States was not uniform across the regions. While some places were able to take precautions, including closing schools and churches, a positive correlation was identified between the population density and deaths. It is a statistic supported by the cities within the United States which register high mortality rate than in the rural regions (Karlsson, Nilsson and Pichler, 2014). Also, the white people were struck relatively harder by influenza than the non-white populations. The majority of people in the urban areas were highly affected by the situation. the patterns in the period seem to be different from the current COVID-19 pandemic series. according to Long and Feng, (2020), the experiences of the Spanish Flue’s effects on the economy are based on printed media because of the lack of economic data. Various reviews suggest that the firms in one of the US states decline by 70%. The average business losses at the time were estimated at $100,000 per day. Most of these businesses, especially those serving in the entertainment sector, suffered double-digit revenue loss. Other businesses that operate in the healthcare industry and products encountered a positive increase in revenues.

The mortalities significantly reduced the supply of labor. The result was an increase in labor and capital’s marginal product per worker, which then increased the real wages. The states that experienced a high number of deaths per capita also endured many growths in the income following the outbreak. After the containment, the per capita per worker’s increase resulted in higher output per worker and higher income. There were also implications for the pandemic’s economic activities as most pregnant women gave birth to children with medical conditions in life. The situation reduced the supply of labor in the market and increased the costs of healthcare. There are reasonable inferences on the socio-economic impacts of the current pandemic. The estimations can be made with guidelines from the experiences of the 1918 pandemic. The deaths are relative to racial issues, income, and region of residence. The high mortality rates are likely to be among the densely populated areas within the cities, which are likely to have many low-income and minority populations than in the rural areas. The issues of lockdown and quarantine tend to hurt the businesses in the short-run. Some businesses face massive losses in their revenue, while others experience an increase in their businesses. The impacts of the 1918 pandemic have more resemblance with the modern-day COVID-19.

The world has experienced many other pandemics post the 1918 Spanish Flue, which has affected the economy in similar ways. According to Rassy and Smith (2013), the H1N1 pandemic, popularly the Swine Flu, had closely similar effects. Different countries imposed travel restrictions to Mexico, which resulted in reduced demand and cancellations. Various airlines had to cut their frequent flights to Mexico and suspended flights for more than a month. The tourism sector in Mexico was recovering from the global financial crisis of 2008 when the pandemic brought the industry to a standstill. The reports and records for the H1N1 virus came from the Swine and led many consumers to reduce pork consumption (Nesta, 2017). The domestic demand plummeted, and states across the world banned the imports of the port from Mexico. The economic impacts of the H1N1 pandemic in Mexico were short-term. By the end of 2009, the arrivals, revenue, and hotel reservation in most places had recovered. The port production for the year 2009 was met as consumers’ confidence was restored, and the demand went back to normal.

The Avian Flu in East Asia is another pandemic with massive economic impacts similar to the 1918 influenza pandemic. According to Brahmbatt (2005), the pandemic had direct economic costs on the poultry sector following the disease’s losses and control measures implemented to control the spread. The poultry losses implied that there would be financial losses to the farmers, and the product’s supply chain would decline. The distribution effects from the limited livelihood by Poultry dependent rural communities and losses made during the time were among the severe impacts of the disease. The findings on the possible impacts of influenza imply the concurrent decline in the global aggregate demand and the international trade resulting in the decline in the national income. The extent of the loss was estimated at $1.5 to $2 trillion, which reflects a 5 percent decline in the global GDP under one year. There were uncoordinated measures designed to prevent the spread of the pandemic, especially for the service sector, such as tourism and retail sales, and hospitality, among others. Potential impacts also included absenteeism from the workplace, disruption of business activities, and production processes. There were also reforms in the business dynamics as the procedures led to supply shocks that may impact the national and global supply chain. The emergency measures, including the restrictions and quarantines, also resulted in the decline in the supply chain and breakdown of the domestic and international logistics services. Other than the imminent costs associated with the disruptions, the effects of the illness and the mortality rates affected the labor supply and production across the world. However, the effects depended on the demographics and the ease of transmission, and the virulence of the disease.

Other economic effects emerged from the costs of healthcare and the treatment. The firm levels reports show how these businesses’ resilience is likely to get through the characteristic steep downturn in the demand and cash flow caused by the pandemic slightly minimal damages. These would be companies governed over ten years with a strong balance sheet. The businesses exposed to these severe impacts experience bankruptcy. In 2003, there was a severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) with critical macro-economic impacts (Brown and Smith, 2008). The economic impacts of the pandemic were similar to the other outbreaks experienced across the world. Small and medium businesses suffered major blows as the economic dynamics changed significantly and to the worst. The losses associated with the SARS pandemic were, however, short-term.

From the time in 1918, the women-owned businesses suffered major setbacks. Traditionally, especially in the Spanish Flu periods, women had not entirely entered into a gender equality fight to be recognized in the economic sector. The businesses owned by females were few and were affected severely. The 1918 Spanish Flu almost killed women’s dreams of owning a business and becoming CEOs in their enterprises. They were just beginning to set foot in the economic sector through the activists demanding women’s rights and empowering them to pursue various goals. A few years after the pandemic, recovery began, and women continued with the aspirations to become excellent merchants and achieve their dreams through businesses. The subsequent pandemics after them had massive impacts on the women-owned businesses, although the rate of empowerment favored their recovery (Kato and Charoenrat, 2018). The women’s struggle to earn a place in society and participate in economic activities influenced them to seek ways to recover. Various financiers came out to support the women-owned businesses and facilitated their recovery. Rants from banks and other non-government organizations saw the women emerge again after most of these pandemics. Their empowerment has been a major approach to having them emerge as victors in the business sector despite the losses they endure. Their participation in economic activities is commendable because they promote the growth and stability of the GDP.

The occurrences and consequences of these pandemics reveal how women entrepreneurs add more benefits to the economy’s growth and development. Their case has been at the core of the recovery in history. The development of businesses tends to promote the economy by introducing new products and services, and technologies in the market. The most important aspect is that women entrepreneurs provide employment opportunities and challenge existing companies to compete and increase productivity. The players and actors in the business industry believe in supporting these startups and medium businesses to stir up the economy (Jandoc, Mendoza and Quimboet, 2020). The large entities and government institutions often look for ways to support the economy and increase revenue income. The best-identified approach is always to support startups and upcoming businesses to grow and increase economic activities. The women have been identified as the main individuals operating startups and medium businesses. They are more likely to manage these SMEs than males. As a result, they are the receivers of the grants and financial assistance from the market’s different stakeholders.

According to Cepel, Gavurova, Dvorsky & Belas (2020), over the past few years, women have been recorded as owners of small businesses’ fast-growing division. The women of color are categorized as the fast-rising cohort of all the merchants. The businesses owned by women are known to be the major employers and stabilizers of the economy, as studies suggest following the Great Recession of 1008-09. The minorities and women-owned businesses added 1.8 million jobs from 2007 to 2012. The companies owned by males lost more jobs at the time, while the businesses owned by the white men and women lost up to 1.6 million jobs. The women-run businesses tend to focus more on the sectors such as healthcare and education and qualifying for considerations as social entities. They are designed for both profit and positive social and environmental impacts.

Most small businesses are being challenged or decimated by the coronavirus crisis. A global network that connects the women-owned entities to the market opportunities do=conducted a survey in April 2020. WEConnect International identified that more than 85% of the people surveyed were affected by the pandemic. Most of the participants admitted that they were adjusting their products and services to change the economic climate. They are further trying to secure financing to be able to stay in business. Women business owners take steps to adapt by cutting unnecessary expenses. Others have shifted to the digital model, and some are growing in response to the local and global needs.

The crisis is determined to be a major stimulant to economic and technological innovation. The 2008-2009 financial crisis resulted in the developing of unique business models such as Uber and Rent the Runway. These are both online merchants offering services to consumers. Businesses are already taking up these challenges, including the coronavirus pandemic. For instance, liquor distillers have been swift to produce new products such as hand sanitizers, which were the key products in demand during the pandemic. The crisis has influenced such firms to become innovative and find alternatives to become relevant and stay in the market. Another example is MD Ally, a business that allows 911 and other emergency responders to route the nonemergency systems. The business was founded in March 2020 and managed to grow in the market during a period when the United States’ economy was shutting down. The business is today one of the successful SMEs hiring many workers as others lay off their employees.

Literature Review

The coronavirus’s unprecedented nature has influenced the extensive closure of stores and businesses in the United States and worldwide. Stores, factories, and many other entities have closed due to the policy mandate and the downward demand shifts. Most of the closures are feared to be permanent because of the incapacity to pay for the current expenditures and still survive the shutdown. The impact of the situation on small businesses across the world is likely to be severe. While the effects of COVID-19 on the economy are showed up in the stock markets and real estate, the small enterprises’ effects are not well appreciated. There is a lack of timely business-level data from the government and other relevant agencies.

The impacts of coronavirus can affect anyone, but the impacts are not universal for men and women. Past epidemics’ experiences suggest that COVID-19 is set to affect the vulnerable groups and increase their existing inequalities. The results of a recent global survey of merchants reinforce the insight and shed light on the gender disparities in the disease’s impacts (Fernandes, 2020). On May 28th, 2020, a survey was conducted from thousands of business owners and managers across countries. The exercise was launched on an active Facebook Business Page to determine the disease’s impact on the different businesses worldwide. There have been subsequent surveys from that time intended to inform the policymakers on how they can best respond to COVID-19. The Future of Business survey is conducted every month to assess the micro, small and medium businesses, and their experiences during the pandemic.

According to (Cepel, Gavurova, Dvorsky & Belas (2020), 26% of businesses across the world have not been operational during the period of the survey. Although there was a significant variation at the regional and country-level, the data shows that the epidemic has widely disabled businesses. Concerning the gender gap, females’ businesses had high chances of closing than the male-operated entities with consideration of the regional attributes.

The data above presents the gender-disaggregated business closure rates by region. in every region among the sample countries, there is a gender gap in the rates of closure at the time of the survey. In Sub-Saharan Africa, most of the businesses owned by males were temporarily closed. The women-run businesses may disproportionately be affected by the contraction in the economic activities following the coming of COVID-19 for various reasons (Bansal, 2020). These include the differentials by government restrictions, financial abilities, the sector of operation, and the time spent on domestic responsibilities. The closure is related to the timing of COVID-19 outbreaks and the resulting restrictions placed on the entities. The lockdown policies across states are among the issues that imposed the gender gap in the business closures.

The survey data indicated that tourism and other consumer-based businesses tend to be affected widely. Most business closure sectors include travel agencies in the hospitality sector, education and child care services, and performing arts and entertainment, among others. The significant gender difference in the type of service that men and women operate is critical. For instance, men are more likely to operate in the professional service sector, which faced low business closure than education and childcare services or wellness and personal grooming, where women are the majority of owners. The female-owned businesses are highly concentrated in the consumer-oriented services where the demand in shock is hitting hardest (Jacqueline, 2020). The accounting for the sectoral differences narrows some of the gender gap closure and does not fully explain the differences.

A significant proportion of the operational business owners are forced to manage their domestic and care responsibilities, while the females still do bulky work. The issue could be due to the extra loads that come from staying home during quarantine and caring for children out of school and family members who have fallen ill. The extra domestic burden is evident when the respondents are asked about the most needed policies when the pandemic is affecting businesses. The women owners with family’s report that their main priority is the support for household members’ care. The male business owners with families rank this requirement 6th in their list of policy needs.

The research and survey findings note that 33% of businesses have outstanding loans. Most of them indicate that a loan payment deferral is a needed policy. The gender differentiation in having the current business loan in the sample is not significant. Therefore, there is limited information about the size of these loans and financial obligations. There is a high regional disparity in the likelihood of a business to receive financial assistance (Fairlie, 2020). The common types of assistance include grants from the government and unemployment benefits. Both the male and female businesses are affected by the lockdown policies and measures to support being implemented to assist the businesses to overcome the crisis. Going forward, there needs to be careful considerations of the differential impacts concerning the gender of the COVID-19 pandemic and the different constraints that men and women face. These will be important to help build effective policy interventions.

According to Cukier (2020), many governments, including the Canadian administration, responded to the COVID-19 crisis in time. The government launched programs that would normally take months to implement. The most important aspect to note from this is that the systemic barriers to women and diverse populations are exacerbated in the crisis. Statistics from Canada indicate that the small and medium-sized businesses with less than twenty employees have been affected the most during the pandemic (Martinez & Dilani, 2020). The attributed reason is that women are more likely to own newer and smaller businesses and are most affected. The pandemic has cost 40.6% of women-owned businesses that had to lay off their employees and others close their entities. Women-run businesses laid off a disproportionately high percentage of the workers.

Women are the majority of small and medium enterprises with one or more employees. However, they tend to account for only 38% of the self-employed Canadians, the existing support programs targeting these small and medium businesses unintentionally exclude the women. The successful women ventures, especially the service sector, depend more on contractors rather than the employees. Some may not meet the eligible non-deferrable expenses criteria, which excludes some women from the program focused on companies with employees. Women are more shouldering the burnt from unemployment and bearing the burdens of unpaid caregiving. This includes child care, homeschooling, and household duties. The major challenge for women entrepreneurs is child care (Mo, Cukier, Atputharajah, Boase & Hon, 2020). They report feeling like failures in both roles of workers and parents. They add mental health challenges and family stress. Racialized indigenous newcomers and disabled women face additional barriers. They are disadvantaged from accessing support and loans. There is evidence that the world needs to unpack most of the categories to appreciate the intersectionality. An example is the experience from racialized people, which is not uniform anti-Black racism has significant impacts on the black merchant women.

Over the past two decades, extreme poverty across the world has declined. Unfortunately, COVID-19 came in 2019 and struck the world hard. Businesses have been lost, and people have lost their jobs, especially the women. The weakened social protection systems have left many of the poor in the society vulnerable and have little to no safeguard to weather the storm. A recent release by the “From Insights to Action” indicates that the pandemic has pushed 96 million people into extreme poverty and is expected to affect more by 2021. The number is expected to bring the total number of women and girls living in poverty on USD 1.90 or less to 435 million. The pandemic has increased the poverty levels and widened the gender poverty gaps. More women are extremely pushed into poverty than men. This is the case among the people aged 25 to 34 at the height of their production levels for every 100 men between the ages of 24 and 34, in poverty across the world. The ratio is feared to increase to more poverty in women in the future. The increase in the poverty levels has displayed the precarious economic security for women. They earn less and hold less secure jobs than men.

Coronavirus and the measures adopted to prevent it from spreading is driving a disproportionate increase in the levels of unemployment and decreasing the working time of women. The women who run small businesses are feared to have lost more than 50% of their income following the social distance requirement that reduced the number of customers visiting the market. Most women admit that their businesses have been growing but interrupted abruptly by the virus. Since the disease was announced in California, life has never been the same. Under normal circumstances, most women claim to have made a good amount from their businesses, which has been cut by more than half with the pandemic’s coming. Research has also identified that the most impacted industries have more women. According to Martinez & Dilani (2020), the financial impact on hospitality has been staggering. People today worry themselves depending on how long this goes on and the decisions to make to become financially stable. They have similar concerns with many others across industries. Within some of these sectors where informal employment is common, workers were already subject to low pay and poor working conditions and lacked social protection before the pandemic. Globally, 58% of women have been noted to work in informal employment (Martinez & Dilani, 2020). These estimates suggest that these informal businesses lost more than 60% of their income during the first month of the pandemic.

The situation across the industries and different employment types and businesses shows how many women have been affected by the pandemic. The quarantine measures keep people at home, schools have been closed, and day-care facilities closed. The burden of unpaid care and domestic work has increased tenfold following this situation. Before the disease outbreak, women spent an average of 4.1 hours per day performing unpaid work while men spent 1.7 hours. The findings indicate that women did three times more unpaid care than men across the world. Both men and women report increased unpaid labor since the kick of the pandemic. However, women are continuing to carry most of the bulk of the work. The responsibility of caring for the sick and elderly in the family usually fall on the women. The condition forced the female business owners to stay at home to take care of their family members who contracted the disease. They were unintentionally denied the opportunity to seek the little income that may come in the midst of the pandemic.

According to Cepel, Gavurova, Dvorsky & Belas (2020), the consequences will be heftier than the pandemic. The economic insecurity is not only for employment but for the income loss today. The outbreak is expected to have a snowball effect on women and girls’ lives for years to come. The impacts on education and employment have long-lasting consequences that, if they go unaddressed, will reverse the hard-won gains in gender equality. The estimates indicate that more than 11 million girls may leave school by the end of the crisis. Lack of education and economic insecurities are a major way of increasing the vulnerabilities to gender-based violence. The insufficient economic resources make the women unable to escape abusive partners and face greater sexual exploitation and trafficking. Such consequences cannot disappear when the pandemic subsides. Women are likely to experience long-term challenges in workforce participation and income.

Various efforts have shown how women are responding to the pandemic. The outbreak has seen the small-business owners scrambling for financial survival and looking for resources to help them chart a path forward when quarantines are lifted. The federal government has initiated a plan as other organizations and agencies embarked on funds. Some of these efforts are specifically directed to help the women business owners to recover from the pandemic. For instance, wine brand Barefoot launched two grants in association with the New Voices Foundation (NVF) to help advance the women of color enterprises. The COVID-19 business recovery Grant offers $25,000 in recovery aid to black women-owned hair salons that have been affected by the shutdowns. There is also a Barefoot Grant program that provides five businesses with $10,000 each to acknowledge and celebrate the ways people work to highlight the beauty of black women. The qualifying beauty includes the products and toiletries, skincare, and cosmetics, among others. The additional funds are designed to support the mentorships and business coaching for the recipients of the aid.

Texas Bankers Association and its charitable partner, the Texas Bankers Foundation, have worked together with San Antonio-based nonprofit LiftFund to offer support to the n=minority and women-owned small businesses affected by the disaster. The Texas Unity Grant Program was established to help give rapid financial support to the businesses after the disaster and tragedies. It has helped them to reopen their businesses and cater to the other impacts of disruption. Businesses in the retail and service sector are eligible for $25,000. Unilever’s skincare brand also announced that it would invest $1 million over the next two years to support the women of color entrepreneurs affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization partnered with IFundWomen if Color and presented a leading platform for diverse businesses to raise capital through crowdfunding, grants, and coaching. The program started with half the amount to relief to help 200 women of color businesses fall in the IFWOC community.

The history of women and employment has been discussed for a long time. The issue has been debated on topics related to gender equality. Women started gaining roots in the employment and business environment until the pandemic struck. Many women had already been employed, and many others have started their businesses as small and medium based entities. Their success has been beneficial to the economy, to their families and communities. They have been a major entity that fights to reduce poverty levels across states. their success showed how women have potential and can take the country to another level. However, the issue has been roughly affected by the pandemic. The women-owned businesses have been closed following the strict guidelines to be followed. The lockdown and quarantine guidelines saw many businesses closed and lost a great deal of income. The most unfortunate include the women who were servicing loans and grants they used to start their businesses. Such women have no chance of surviving the pandemic and recover their businesses. Banks and financiers have also been affected and cannot waive or ignore the defaulters. The pandemic has hit every sector, and none is willing to risk more than they have already lost (Bouey, 2020). The situation has seen countries across the world go back to their previous levels of poverty. As women close their businesses, they join the unemployed population in the country and live in poverty. They have no choice but to acknowledge the fact that their sources of income have been affected. While it is critical to appreciate what most of them have done to recover, there is little information as the pandemic is still ongoing, and most businesses have not been able to emerge. The few businesses seen to have hit the market are those whose women-owners had adequate financial savings and whose industries of operation gave them more reasons to reinvest. Some sectors do not allow the owners to reinvest that soon. These include the small tour and travel companies., hotel and retail sectors where social distancing is still a major requirement. The number of people accessing these facilities is minimal and would not give the expected reinvestment returns.

The economic blow is set to have uneven impacts on the populations in the US. The burden is most felt on the women of color as the country’s policies and the norms have pushed them into the workforce. They have been forced to leave their businesses and assume the low paying roles in the employment sector and others have limited workplace protection. The policymakers’ decisions, especially the white men, implying that they have deliberately failed to establish a robust care infrastructure (Carvalho, Elliot and Spray, 2020). The administrators have failed to address the outdated mismatch between the school and work schedules. All these factors contribute to the vicious cycle of racism and sexism. The fallout from the pandemic has made bare these failures in the American institutions and social structures. Decades of government failures have resulted in the equitable social policy and have forced the vast majority of Americans to do it alone during the tough times. Incremental and Band-Aid policy solutions follow it. The system which leaves the working parents struggling to manage their issues is determined to fail. The level to which the mothers of color and all other races have been able to sustain their work is remarkable.

Organizations such as Visa and Lowe’s have been determined to help the women in the United States recover from the effects of the pandemic. These establishments’ main focus has been on the women of color business owners to help them overcome the situation as presented by the pandemic and hastened by the racial system. Visa launched a program to award grants to the black-based women-owned small businesses in the United States. It is an extension of the partner5ship with IFundWomen, and they note the disproportional impacts on the COVID-19 pandemic and how they have been on the black business owners (Dai, Hu and Zhang, 2020). The partnership extension includes a new series of grants and educational resources. The grants are designed to help the women through training and education on how they can emerge again after the challenges they faced from the pandemic. Lowe’s Companies, Inc. started a first-round grant application in efforts to offer relief to minority and women-led small businesses. The vetting process for these businesses is managed by the Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC), the largest community development organization.

Conclusion

The literature review reveals how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected businesses across the world. while the topic was focused on the women-owned businesses in California, the review considers the global experience to emphasize on the nature of the situation. the global concept of the literature review helps present a picture of how the SMEs in California have been affected. The literature search strategy used in the study proves to be an appropriate approach, owing to the amount of data retrieved relevant to the topic. A systemic literature search is determined to be an excellent component of the review process. For this literature review, the search will use a conceptual model by examining the program theory as embodied in the key methodological texts. The author defines past literature from their knowledge on the topic area through the systematic citations that chase the key studies located within each stage of the research process.

In the next section, a theoretical framework has been used to explore how a model can be used to address the topic. As the topic is determined to explore how the women-owned businesses recovered from the pandemic, the model gives excellent steps and guidelines to show some of the recovery tactics available. It is interesting to explore how women-owned small and medium businesses can come out of the current pandemic and recover fast to retain their industry positions. The model can help businesses define how they can be protected from losing market shares to the pandemic. The knowledge and concept from this theory may have been used to help businesses overcome the past crisis and global issues. This model aligns with this current study simply because it focuses on three key areas that need to be addressed when responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. The customers are often among the major assets owned by a business. In the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, merchants may opt to focus on the customer intimacy value discipline in efforts to stay relevant and become a success. firms that feel the clients are important assets of the organization always appreciate their intimacy. The SMEs need to understand that selecting the value discipline is similar to choosing the division of clients they need to serve. The choice to do business discipline and customers category is a sole decision. A set of potential clients defines the value within the matrix price, convenience, and quality.

Under the historical aspects of the topic, the literature review explores the various pandemic and crises that affected businesses in the past. the nature and impacts of these pandemics seem to be similar across these periods. The economic impacts included laying off employees, shutting down businesses and cut down supply of products and services. Some of these pandemics came a period when women were striving to attain better positions in the economy (Auzzir, Haigh and Amaratunga, 2018). Their desire to be appreciated and recognized in the society saw them emerge with innovative ideas and businesses. The literature review confirms that women own most of the small and medium sized businesses.

The Spanish flu is the first pandemics discussed in the historical section. It is one that hit the world and affected the economic massively. The situation at the time closely reflects the current world experiences and responses from both the state administrators and healthcare institutions. Past studies examined the business effects of previous pandemics with a specific focus on small and medium businesses. The second discussed pandemic was the H1N1. The famously known name for this epidemic was the Swine Flu, had closely similar effects to the 1981 outbreak of the Spanish Flu. Different countries imposed travel restrictions to Mexico, which resulted in reduced demand and cancellations. Various airlines had to cut their frequent flights to Mexico and suspended flights for more than a month. The epidemic struck the world at a time when the tourism sector in Mexico was recovering from the global financial crisis of 2008. Unfortunately, it brought the economic operations in the country to a standstill. The reports and records for the H1N1 virus came from the Swine and led many consumers to reduce pork consumption.

The Avian Flu was the other outbreak that emerged from East Asia. The disease was associated with massive economic impacts similar to the 1918 influenza pandemic and the H1N1. The pandemic had direct economic costs on the poultry sector following the disease’s losses and control measures implemented to control the spread. The poultry losses implied that there would be financial losses to the farmers, and the product’s supply chain would decline. The extent of the loss was estimated at $1.5 to $2 trillion, which reflects a 5 percent decline in the global GDP under one year. There were uncoordinated measures designed to prevent the spread of the pandemic, especially for the service sector, such as tourism and retail sales, and hospitality, among others. The SARS also struck and depicted similar economic impacts.

The recovery tactics from these past pandemics have been incorporated to the current COVID-19 to assist in the resuscitation of the economy. Women-owned businesses have borrowed tactics and business concepts post these pandemics to try and establish better recovery options for their businesses. The efforts of the women have been met with assistance from governments and other organizations. these establishments have offered help to these business owned by women through grants and financial assistance. The financial aid has been influenced by the fact that the women-owned businesses make up a significant part of the activities that stimulate the growth of the economy. The women of color have been among the major beneficiaries to these grants and financial aid. The women also made efforts to recover their businesses to retain the position in the economic sector. This is a position they have struggled to attain from decades ago, and are inspired to sustain their business to continue being recognized as excellent contributors to the global GDP. Californian women have been recognized among this population owing to the rate at which they have made efforts to recover their businesses after the severe hit by coronavirus pandemic.