The Role of Local Government in Improving Resilience and Performance of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Indonesia

During the COVID-19 pandemic, several studies focused on financial programs and SMEs’ performance, but research on the relationship between non-financial programs, resilience, and SMEs’ performance is still sparse. This study fills the gap by analyzing the role of local government in increasing SME resilience and performance by purchasing products (through civil servants) from SMEs and by facilitating online training to SMEs. This study also investigates the role of the local government in strengthening the relationship between resilience and SME performance. Data was collected using an online questionnaire distributed to SMEs in Malang Regency. As many as 410 questionnaires were received and eligible for statistical analysis using WarpPLS. The results show that resilience is positively and significantly related to the performance of SMEs. The local government programs have been proven to improve SME performance directly and indirectly through resilience. Local government programs are not proven to strengthen the relationship between resilience and the performance of SMEs, indicating that the role of government in developing countries such as Indonesia is more appropriate to be “rowing rather than steering” not “steering rather than rowing”.