Semester Award Granted

Spring 2025

Submission Date

May 2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Clifford McCue

Abstract

This dissertation examines the disaster resilience of disadvantaged small businesses that have engaged in contracting activities with the U.S. federal government from 2018 to 2023. Federal government agencies procure goods and services from small businesses in the private sector through contracts that allow those businesses to be competitive in the market and overcome the impact of disasters on their activities. The notion of disaster resilience has traditionally focused on natural hazards like wildfires, earthquakes, tornadoes, or hurricanes; however, lately, it has been increasingly applied to diverse contexts. Business resilience to disasters refers to businesses' ability to return to their pre-disaster activities and thrive following a calamity. Starting in early 2020, the COVID-19 virus caused millions of deaths worldwide and unprecedented business disruption for approximately two years. In March 2020, President Trump declared the pandemic resulting from the virus a national disaster. In response, the U.S. Congress enacted the CARES Act, which included the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to help American small businesses, primarily those owned by individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, continue operating during and after this disaster. Millions of businesses, including recipients of federal government contracts, benefited from the program. With a focus on small businesses that were awarded federal government contracts each year from 2018 to 2023 and are owned by members of disadvantaged communities, such as minorities, women, and veterans, this dissertation explores the impact of the PPP loans on the disaster resilience of those businesses. Using publicly available government spending data from USASpending.gov and PPP loan information from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), this dissertation analyzes the post-pandemic contracts awarded to those businesses by the federal government to determine the PPP’s impact on contracts awarded to those businesses post-pandemic. Following the data analysis, I found that, in general, PPP loans positively impacted the disaster resilience of small businesses engaged in federal government contracting. My findings revealed the effectiveness of the PPP as a federal disaster loan program. This dissertation applies the institutional theory on the impact of the PPP, as a policy, on business resilience, and addresses academic recommendations for additional studies on business resilience and federal disaster financial assistance for businesses engaged in public procurement.

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