What crisis communication for internationalized SMEs in a pandemic context?[¿Qué comunicación de crisis para las pymes internacionalizadas en un contexto de pandemia?]

Given the scale of the Covid-19 crisis, SMEs need to inform their customers, suppliers and employees of the actions they are taking with the aim of preserving their activities and their business relationships. This article focuses on crisis communication that is implemented by internationalized SMEs in the context of the pandemic. The empirical study is based on the systematic analysis of the websites and social networking sites of 15 Belgian SMEs who generate more than 50% of their total sales from exports. The findings show that those companies communicate to a limited extent on actions taken to deal with the health crisis. SMEs who announce specific measures are mainly oriented towards business continuity and employee safety, and several companies are implementing innovative measures related to the pandemic. Our research enriches knowledge on crisis communication of internationalized SMEs by highlighting their differentiated behaviors in terms of digital communication. We propose several recommendations to improve their use of websites and social networking sites in a crisis context.