The Business Response to COVID-19: the CEP-CBI Survey on Technology Adoption, 2020-2021

This project undertook two new surveys of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) across the UK to shed light on (i) the extent to which, in response to the COVID-19 crisis, SMEs have been adopting technologies or organisational practices that we might consider to be “productivity enhancing”; (ii) whether such innovation persists into the longer run; (iii) its impact on firm survival, performance, employment and worker productivity; and (iv) how government policy might promote the persistence of productivity enhancing changes into the recovery phase. This project will build the evidence base on how to best support businesses, helping to build resilience while also understanding the resulting impacts on employment and firm performance. We collaborated with the Confederation of Business Industry (CBI), building on their quarterly surveys of SMEs to include additional questions on technology adoption (and process/product innovation more generally), enablers and barriers – crucially including business views on potential policy levers. The first deliverable was a report summarising the data collected in July 2020, including analysis of heterogeneity by sector, region and firm type. Approximately 12 months after the initial survey we re-surveyed firms to understand any persistence in technological innovation beyond the immediate crisis. We also plan to track company performance via secondary datasets and changes detectible on their websites (e.g. new online offers). The second deliverable was a report summarising the findings of the second survey. We present new data from two surveys of 375 and 425 UK businesses conducted in July 2020 and July 2021 in partnership with the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), which seeks to understand the way in which firms have innovated in response to the pandemic. We find that the pandemic has caused enormous business disruption, which has prompted many firms to focus on innovation.

本项目针对英国境内的中小企业（Small and Medium Sized Enterprises, SMEs）开展了两轮全新调研，旨在厘清四大核心议题：其一，为应对新冠疫情（COVID-19）危机，中小企业采纳了哪些可被归类为提升生产率（productivity enhancing）的技术或组织实践，其普及程度如何；其二，此类创新能否在长期持续；其三，该类创新对企业存续、经营绩效、就业状况及员工生产率产生了何种影响；其四，政府政策应如何推动生产率提升类变革在经济复苏阶段得以延续。

本项目旨在构建一套科学证据基础，以明确最优企业扶持路径，在助力企业增强韧性的同时，厘清此类举措对就业与企业绩效的后续影响。

本项目与商业工业联合会（Confederation of Business Industry, CBI）合作，在其针对中小企业的季度调研框架内新增了一系列问题，涵盖技术采纳（以及更广泛的流程/产品创新）、创新助力因素与阻碍因素——核心内容包括企业对潜在政策杠杆的看法。

首份交付成果为2020年7月收集数据的总结报告，其中包含按行业板块、区域及企业类型划分的异质性分析。

在首轮调研结束约12个月后，我们对受访企业进行了回访，以探究疫情紧急阶段之外的技术创新持续性情况。

我们还计划通过二手数据集及企业网站可观测到的变化（例如新增线上服务）追踪企业经营绩效的动态。

第二份交付成果为总结第二次调研结果的报告。

本研究呈现了2020年7月与2021年7月开展的两轮调研的全新数据，受访英国企业分别为375家与425家，调研由本项目与英国工业联合会（Confederation of British Industry, CBI）联合开展，旨在探究企业应对疫情的创新路径。

研究发现，疫情给企业带来了极大的运营冲击，促使众多企业将重心转向创新。