The paper aims to investigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on working capital management policies among Polish small and medium-sized enterprises operating in Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs). The results show that the firms adopted a moderate–conservative strategy for their working capital management. Moreover, the evidence confirms that the COVID-19 pandemic crisis did not change Working Capital Management (WCM) strategies significantly. The companies that have high financial security as a result of the high ratio of Liquidity, Quick, and cash conversion cycle (CCC) have tried to attract more new customers in the market by increasing the due date of accounts receivable so they can improve their sales performance, and also reduce the liabilities turnover to be able to work with more suppliers in the market. Moreover, among the various WCM strategies, the companies with a higher CCC ratio, along with those whose bulk of current assets consisted of accounts receivable and short-term investments, managed to have higher sales returns. Finally, our outcomes indicate that the firms operating in large cities have lower sales returns, meaning even Polish small and medium-sized enterprises’ ability within GPOs with the aid of the central unit can also get high return on sales (ROS) results.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19全球危机对营运资本管理政策的影响：来自波兰的证据

本文旨在调查COVID-19大流行对在集团采购组织（GPO）中运营的波兰中小型企业的营运资金管理政策的影响。结果表明，这些公司在营运资金管理方面采取了中度保守的策略。此外，有证据表明，COVID-19大流行危机并未显着改变营运资金管理（WCM）策略。由于流动性，快速性和现金转换周期（CCC）比率高而财务安全性高的公司已尝试通过增加应收帐款的到期日来吸引更多新客户进入市场，从而改善销售性能，并减少负债周转率，以便能够与市场上更多的供应商合作。而且，在各种WCM策略中，具有较高CCC比率的公司，以及其大部分流动资产由应收账款和短期投资组成的公司，都设法获得了更高的销售回报。最后，我们的结果表明，在大城市中运营的公司的销售回报率较低，这意味着即使波兰中小型企业借助中央部门在GPO中的能力也可以获得较高的销售回报率（ROS）。