Digital Transformation—Top Priority in Difficult Times: The Case Study of Romanian Micro-Enterprises and SMEs

Abstract

Ever since the pandemic context accelerated technology adoption, the digital transformation of enterprises has become part of consumers’ daily lexicon. The highly demanded necessity of companies to integrate digital solutions and provide services and goods in virtual spaces provokes both managers and academia to identify new perspectives. In this context, can digital transformation through marketing represent an option in difficult times? The authors aimed to reveal an answer to this question by researching the attitudes of 837 entrepreneurs involved in digital marketing activity before and during the pandemic, following their behaviour in the post-pandemic context. With quantitative and qualitative methods, unexpected results were unveiled. Financial losses or low performance in terms of profit or turnover do not negatively influence the attitude of the subjects towards digital marketing adoption. Moreover, the most unexpected result was the evolution of turnover from 2020 compared to 2019 as a determining factor for entrepreneurs’ perceptions of their level of digital knowledge. However, the results are discussed in the context of digital transformation through the method of providing services and goods in the virtual space with digital techniques, enriching the literature with the Romanian micro, small and medium-sized enterprises evidence.