Thesis (BS Agribusiness Economics) -- University of the Philippines Mindanao, July 2022

The COVID-19 pandemic has caught the world unprepared, stalling economic processes including that of the Philippine micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Philippine MSMEs comprise 99.5% of the business population. However, despite the huge number of MSMEs , they are also considered to be less resilient during times of natural disasters due to resource constraints, and limited access to coping strategies in order to adapt and withstand such events, organizational resilience is needed. Leadership and culture are critical factors in the development of resilience in the organizations along with its five indicators: leadership, staff engagement, situation awareness, decision-making, and innovation and creativity. The study?s objective was to analyze the level of resilience of Philippine MSMEs in terms of leadership and culture. With the use of parametric and non-parametric tests, it also aimed to compare the leadership and culture scores of the socio demographic and business profiles of the Philippine MSMEs. Lastly, it aimed to determine the aspects affecting the resilience level in terms of leadership and culture of the MSMEs through ordinary least squares regression (OLS) and quantile regression. The results suggest that MSMEs, to some extent, agree that their enterprises are resilient in terms of leadership and culture scores are observed in the gender, position, years of employment, and the number of employees variables. The econometric analysis revealed that age, years of employment, and the number of employees are significant factors in the leadership and culture of MSMEs. Age is perceived as negatively significant while the years of employment and the number of employees are positively correlated with leadership and culture resilience. Position is also observed as negatively significant in all the models except leadership. It is therefore recommended for MSMEs to consider giving leadership roles and responsibilities to the younger employees or expand their function in the company to further improve their leadership skills and experience. Employee retention strategies may also be employed, with the increase in the years of employment in an individual being correlated with increased leadership and culture resilience.