Digital Factors Influencing Small and Medium-Sized Businesses in the Context of COVID

Education has become an important mechanism in the goal of gender equality achievement. For many decades, access to education was one of the key issues for women. These days it is an issue of not only developing countries but of developed ones as well. Women have become more active in higher education, especially in achieving master degree or PhD. This is due to that public policies are directed at the improvement of the structure of higher education. It includes promotion of human resources diversification among academic staff. This article studies the vision of women regarding higher education. What is the importance of it? This is especially carrier opportunities in higher education. It also discusses carrier opportunities for women in other fields, which has influence on women desire to continue their education. What influence does it have on private life? Higher education also covers state of selfdevelopment, personal improvement and family relationships. The study was provided under the framework of social behavior communication change, which includes four key factors of social behavior. There was conducted a semistructured interview among women. For the interview analysis, Dedoose software was used. According to the results of the study, there have been identified two main factors, which have a great Impact on women participation in higher education. These factors are cultural standard family issues. Major outcomes of higher education for women: potential realization, promotion of women rights. This determines the importance of social behavior in the development of a policy, development of laws and regulations.

1. Eller R., Alford P., Kallmünzer A. Peters M. (2020) Antecedents, consequences, and challenges of small and medium-sized enterprise digitalization. Journal of Business Research.. 112.. 119-127.

2. Godwin M., Mehmet K., Justus H. (2020) Digitalization and economic growth: A comparative analysis of Sub-Saharan Africa and OECD economies. Telecommunications Policy. 2020. 44.

3. KPMG: Impact of COVID-19 on the key economic sectors of Kazakhstan [Electronic resource]. – Mode of access: https://home.kpmg/kz/ru/home/insights/2020/05/covid-key-economy-sectors.html (Retrieved from 01.08.2021)

4. Erkan, T.E., Rouyendegh, B.D. (2012). ERP business productivity evaluation by using multicriteria decision making among end users in Turkish manufacturing Industry. 2nd World conference on Information Technology (WCIT-2011) AWER Procedia, 1, 245-249.

5. Strategy for Denmark’s Growth. (2018). [Electronic resource]. – Mode of access: https://eng.em.dk/media/10566/digital-growth-strategy-report_uk_web-2.pdf (Retrieved from 25.06.2021)

6. Vial G. (2019) Understanding digital transformation: A review and a research agenda // The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 28(2), 118– 144.

7. Sebastian I., Ross J., Beath C., Mocker M., Moloney K., Fonstad N. (2017) How big old companies navigate digital transformation . MIS Quarterly. (2020), 16(3), 197–213.

8. Guo, H., Yang, Z., Huang, R., & Guo, A. (2020). The digitalization and public crisis responses of small and medium enterprises: Implications from a COVID-19 survey. Frontiers of Business Research in China, 14(1), 1-25.

9. Michaelidou N., Siamagka N. T., Christodoulides G. (2011) Usage, barriers and measurement of social media marketing: An exploratory investigation of small and medium B2B brands // Industrial Marketing Management (2020), 40(7), 1153– 1159.

10. Peltier J. W., Schibrowsky J. A., Zhao Y. (2009). Understanding the antecedents to the adoption of crm technology by small retailers: Entrepreneurs vs owner-managers. International Small Business Journal, 307–336.

11. Eryeşil, K. (2021). Digital Leadership, Leadership Paradigm of the Digital Age: A Conceptual Framework. Equinox Journal of Economics Business and Political Studies, 8(1), 98-112.

12. Pan C. L., Lin J., Wang Y., Zhou Z., Mo Y. (2020) Bibliometric analysis of digitization business economy. Web of Conferences, 214, 3– 16.

13. Şchiopu R. (2020) Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Business Excellence. 385- 397.

14. Acciarini, C., Borelli, F., Capo, F., Cappa, F., Sarrocco, C. (2021). Can digitalization favour the emergence of innovative and sustainable business models? A qualitative exploration in the automotive sector. Journal of Strategy and Management, 30(8), 143-1160.

15. Priyono, A., Moin, A., Putri, V. N. A. O. (2020). Identifying digital transformation paths in the business model of smes during the covid-19 pandemic // Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity, 6(4), 1–22.

16. Fletcher, G., Griffiths, M. (2020) Digital transformation during a lockdown. International journal of information management, 55.

17. Fitriasari, F. (2020) How do Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) survive the COVID-19 outbreak? Jurnal Inovasi Ekonomi, 5(02), 53–62.

18. Kane G., Palmer D., Phillips A. N., Kiron D.,Buckley, N. (2015) Strategy, not technology, drives digital transformation. MIT Sloan Management Review, 6.

19. Nambisana S., Wrightb M. , Feldman M. (2019) The digital transformation of innovation and entrepreneurship: Progress, challenges and key themes. Research Policy, 48(8).

20. Ministry of National Economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan Committee on Statistics Kazakhstan [Electronic resource]. – Mode of access: https://stat.gov.kz/ (Retrieved from 10.07.2021)