The Impact of Digitalization and Managerial Innovation on Resilience in the Face of the COVID-19 Crisis: The Case of SMEs in the Greater Agadir Region

African businesses have been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a considerable impact on the global economy, and Morocco has not been spared. Indeed, Moroccan SMEs have had to face unprecedented challenges that threaten their sustainability. In this context, the resilience of businesses can be significantly strengthened through digitalization and managerial innovation by implementing effective crisis management. This article aims to examine the link between innovation, crisis management, and resilience, with a particular focus on the potential contribution of digitalization and managerial innovation to effective crisis management and, consequently, the resilience of SMEs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Adopting a post-positivist paradigm and employing a hypothetico-deductive reasoning, the transition from the hypothetical model to the empirical phase of the study was conducted through quantitative research on a sample of 32 SMEs located in the Greater Agadir region. The results reveal the absence of a positive impact of digitalization on crisis management and, consequently, on resilience. However, managerial innovation demonstrates a positive impact on the resilience of the enterprise through effective crisis management. Furthermore, our findings also establish a positive and significant relationship between crisis management and enterprise resilience.