o:29708 The Covid-19 crisis and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Serbia responsive strategies and significance of the government measures en Abstract This paper investigates SMEs’ responses to the COVID-19 crisis and the significance of specific government support measures for overcoming the crisis effects. The results show that SMEs have mostly implemented retrenchment and persevering strategies, whereas innovation and exit strategies were less used, as well as that the strategy selection depends on both the severity of the COVID-19 impact on individual business segments and SME specificities. Additionally, the analysis reveals that, from the SMEs’ perspective, not all of the future government measures are equally significant for recovery. Therefore, in creating an optimum measure package to support SMEs, governments must consider multiple criteria. The SMEs’ responses, as well as the significance of specific government measures, vary depending on the characteristics of SMEs and magnitude of COVID-19 effects on specific business aspects. Keywords: COVID-19, SMEs, strategic responses, government measures 1552099 10.5771/0949-6181-2022-3-404 1552101 0949-6181 2023-05-22T12:56:39.532Z 44 no 46 Zorica Aničić Univerzitet u Beogradu Ekonomski fakultet 33451367 0000-0003-3420-1399 Blagoje Paunović Univerzitet u Beogradu Ekonomski fakultet person 12425575 0000-0002-3215-4499 application/pdf 486551 https://phaidrabg.bg.ac.rs/o:29708 no yes 1 70 1552253 11A03 JEEMS Journal of East European Management Studies 27 3 404 433 2022