The effect of crisis events on sustainability of SMEs in Visegrad region of Europe: perspectives from leadership and strategy

Purpose This paper aims to quantify the effect of crisis events on corporate sustainability from the perspective of small and medium-sized enterprise owners and managers from European Visegrad region in key business sectors particularly in manufacturing, trade, and services. Design/methodology/approach Utilizing structural equation modeling (SEM) on a sample of 725 SMEs across the Visegrad region, the authors identified sector-specific differences in how crisis events influence business sustainability perceptions. This study uses different statistical measures to analysis of the data and have found various interesting results. Findings Findings reveal that the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war, while both impactful, had distinct effects on SME sustainability. Manufacturing SME leaders perceived the war as having a stronger adverse impact than COVID-19, whereas in the trade sector, only the pandemic significantly influenced sustainability. In the services sector, both crises were deemed crucial, with the pandemic perceived as the most impactful. Research limitations/implications The implications of this study enhance crisis management and sustainability theories by illustrating how SMEs across sectors respond to distinct crisis events and adapt business models to maintain operations despite disruptions. These findings offer valuable insights for national institutions, enabling more targeted support for SMEs within key business sectors to strengthen resilience in the face of future crises. Since the study depends on survey data, and since the survey was conducted in four EU countries, the results suffer from external validity issues. This flaw has been considered as one of the limitations of this study. Originality/value The originality of this study lies in incorporating the sectoral view, focusing especially on SMEs, and providing the owners’ and managers’ perspectives. Also, the study adds values toward existing literature particularly in the domain of small and medium enterprises.