Assessing Firms’ Multi-Dimensional Performance During The COVID-19 Time

Covid-19,or the ’black swan event’,is one of the most dramatic events that changed the globe.Covid-19 is most likely a major environmental transition that has significantly affected the business community’s social,environmental,and economic activities in recent history.Many academics discussed the pandemic’s negative impact on the economy.However,few highlighted the optimistic side of the COVID-19 pandemic,as it brings the concepts of environmental management accounting(EMA)(corporate social responsibility practices(CSR)and green supply chain management(GSCM)practices)back into the light.During the current crisis,fear and uncertainty towards the pandemic led to reconsider the social and ecological practices towards employees,customers,and society and to take advantage of opportunities in the current situation to improve the green and ecofriendly practices.Recent studies showed that people could change or modify their attitudes and/or norms to deal with the concerns of fear and uncertainty that environmental or natural disasters bring.For instance,people who fear disasters lean towards improving their overall welfare and strengthening their unselfish behavior.The context of the thesis report has been completed via four main studies conducted on the context of the Egyptian SMEs.To answer the following main question of What is the role of environmental management accounting(EMA)practices(CSR and GSCM practices)to enhance firms’ performance during COVID-19? Based on the above detailed studies,the originality of this thesis is derived from three main innovative points that contributes to its novelty.These points can be described as follows:(1)This study shows how to utilize the management accounting approach to best describe the role of the EMA practices to assess firms’ performance during the pandemic.(2)This study shows the role of the EMA practices(CSR and GSCM practices)in assessing and enhancing firms’ performance towards its labor and employees during COVID-19.(3)This study shows the role of the EMA practices(CSR and GSCM practices)in assessing and enhancing firms’ performance towards achieving sustainability,(economic,environmental,and social),during COVID-19.(4)This study shows the role of the EMA practices(CSR and GSCM practices)in assessing and enhancing firms’ performance towards its customers during COVID-19.Moreover,the originality of this thesis is extended to its theoretical contribution to the body of knowledge.Based on the management accounting approach the researcher designed a framework for managing and accessing firms’ performance,this research framework aims to show the role of environmental management accounting(EMA)practices(CSR and GSCM practices)to enhance firms’ performance towards its employees,customers,and sustainability performance during COVID-19.This research will contribute to the existing literature in the following theoretical aspects;First,the researcher utilizes the management accounting theory and the contingency theory as a theoretical base to demonstrate how managers utilize the EMA practices(CSR and GSCM)to assess firms’ performance during the uncertain environment of the COVID-19 pandemic.Second this thesis adds to the stimulus-organism-response(SOR)model and the cognitive appraisal theory research by demonstrating how people can adapt their behavior and standards to deal with the concerns of fear and uncertainty and respond to the anxiety caused by COVID-19,and how these feelings led the companies to the usage of EMA practices(CSR and GSCM)practices.Third,this research uses the stakeholder theory as a sound theoretical base for introducing the concept of CSR as a mediator for the association amongst the fearuncertainty against COVID-19 and the labor practices during COVID-19,and to describe CSR’s moderating effect on the relationship between fear-uncertainty and the GSCM practices.Also,it offers a rational conceptual viewpoint to explain the stakeholders’ relationships,which is developed as the leading pattern in the business world since it overcomes the resource-based perspective’s shortcomings.Likewise,the researcher uses the agency theory to describe how managers had to rapidly cope with unanticipated labor issues during COVID-19 while also assisting their workers in adapting to the significant workplace and social environment changes.Fourth,this research utilized "corporate sustainability" and "green economics" theories to represent the impact of green techniques in GSCM on achieving sustainable performance pillars.This research studied the mediating effect of the GSCM on the relationship between the fear and uncertainty towards COVID-19,and the three sustainability performance pillars(economic,environmental,and social).The significance of this study derived from the importance of SMEs as a general driving force for long-term economic growth and job creation,as well as an essential source of income for Egypt’s vast and rising population,where more than 6.3 million people are employed,accounting for almost 43.1% of the labor force.As a result,it is critical to research the impact of COVID-19 on SMEs’ GSCM practices and how CSR influences this relationship.Moreover,SMEs are more likely to be affected by this epidemic since they are characterized by traditional SCs practices and labor-intensive sectors that rely primarily on daily wage workers.In the same vein,Covid-19 has a massive impact on company failures and employment,where most of the jobs at risk are linked to SMEs’ failures.Based on a random sample of 307,304,300,and 298 returned questionnaires in four empirical studies,representing Egyptian SMEs’ personnel(managers,employees,customers),this thesis results show the following: For the first two empirical studies,the results indicate that the fear-uncertainty towards COVID-19 positively affects CSR practices in SMEs.CSR positively impacts labor practices dimensions.However,CSR has an insignificant effect on the social protection and work conditions dimension.Also,CSR has a significant mediating role in the association among fear-uncertainty towards the pandemic and labor practices.Nevertheless,this relation is insignificant regarding social protection and work conditions dimension.For the third empirical study,the results show that fear-uncertainty towards COVID-19 positively affects GSCM.Also,external CSR moderates the association among fear-uncertainty towards COVID-19 and GSCM.But it is not moderated by internal CSR.In addition,GSCM positively affects environmental and social performance.However,it has an insignificant effect on economic performance.Besides,GSCM has a significant mediation effect between fear-uncertainty towards COVID-19 and the firm’s environmental and social performance.However,this mediation relationship regarding economic performance is insignificant.For the fourth empirical study,Preliminary results indicate that the fear-uncertainty towards COVID-19 positively affects customer-centric GSCM.Also,external CSR moderates the association between fear-uncertainty towards COVID-19 and customer-centric GSCM.However,internal CSR does not moderate this relationship.Customer-centric GSCM has a significant positive impact on the perceived environmental and social resilience.However,it has an insignificant effect on the perceived financial resilience.Also,customer-centric GSCM has a significant mediation outcome on the relation between fear-uncertainty of COVID-19 and the perceived environmental and social resilience.However,this relation is insignificant regarding the perceived financial resilience.To summarize,most of the findings of the four empirical studies related to this thesis report showed that the EMA practices help to assess firms’ performance,as these practices have a significant positive impact on the dimensions of the firms’ performance towards labor,customers,and sustainability.This study will offer several practical and managerial implications that can be drawn for both managers and governments to enhance the firms’ performance during the COVID-19 pandemic.