A recent study published in July 2026 uncovers a compelling phenomenon regarding local business resilience in the City of Heroes. The research, conducted by a team of scholars from Universitas Widya Kartika Surabaya—comprising Esti Retnaningtyas, Arief Budiman, and Muis Murtadho—demonstrates that home-based culinary MSMEs in Surabaya deploy highly adaptive survival strategies to withstand digitalization pressures, even without advanced technological capital. These findings are critical as they challenge the conventional assumption that digital transformation must always involve high-tech platform adoption to achieve business sustainability.
Digital Imperatives and the Readiness Gap in Surabaya
National policy mandates to drive mass digitalization frequently misalign with the actual capacities of micro-scale enterprises. According to Surabaya municipal data, out of 287,543 registered MSMEs, only about 35.63 percent (102,456 units) have adopted digital platforms into their operations. The remaining 64.37 percent continue to operate conventionally or limit their digital usage to rudimentary tools.
Home-based culinary MSMEs represent a significant segment within this digital adoption deficit. Typically operating from residential premises or modest stalls with constrained capital, these businesses rely heavily on family labor and localized customer bases. The inherent nature of culinary products—characterized by high perishability, reliance on fresh ingredients, and the importance of sensory quality and personalized relationships—means that joining expensive, commission-based third-party delivery platforms often conflicts with their thin profit margins.
A Simple Methodology to Capture Lived Experiences
To gather authentic data, Esti Retnaningtyas and her team employed a qualitative phenomenological design. This approach aimed to understand deeply how business owners interpret resource constraints and survival in their daily operations. Through purposive sampling, the researchers selected five home-based culinary owners across five distinct districts in Surabaya to represent dense, active urban food spaces.
The selected areas cover Pabean Cantikan district (coffee stall and penyetan), Mulyorejo (daily catering), Rungkut (snacks and beverages), Tegalsari (traditional cakes and heavy meals), and Kenjeran (traditional herbal drinks). Data collection involved semi-structured interviews, non-participatory observation of daily operations, and extensive documentation. The compiled transcripts were systematically analyzed using NVivo 15 software to ensure rigorous cross-informant thematic verification.
Four Pillars of Non-Digital Survival Strategies
The thematic analysis by the Universitas Widya Kartika Surabaya research team revealed four primary pillars that drive the resilience of these home-based culinary enterprises:
The Concept of "Resilience through Constraints"
The study culminates in a novel conceptual framework termed "Resilience through Constraints". Esti Retnaningtyas and her colleagues illustrate that limitations in capital, digital literacy, and high-tech access do not precipitate business failure. Instead, these very constraints stimulate resource-based creativity and strengthen an independent local market ecosystem anchored in mutual trust.
Theoretically, these findings validate the relevance of the Resource-Based View (RBV), which posits that sustainable competitive advantage stems from internal assets that are valuable, rare, inimitable, and non-substitutable (VRIN). In this urban context, social capital, ancestral recipes, community solidarity, and operational flexibility successfully meet the VRIN criteria, serving as the ultimate shields against aggressive digital corporate competition.
Policy Implications and Benefits for Society
The insights from this research carry vital implications for policymakers, academics, and economic empowerment institutions. Municipal governments are advised to pivot away from solely pushing MSMEs onto third-party digital delivery platforms, which frequently slash thin profit margins by charging 15 to 20 percent commission fees. Instead, public support should match the realistic capabilities of micro-operators, focusing on incremental digital literacy training, streamlined micro-licensing, affordable digital infrastructure, and reinforcing localized business networks.
For the broader business landscape and public, this study proves that even in a heavily digitalized world, emotional proximity and uncompromising product consistency still hold a definitive, unshakeable place in the hearts of urban consumers.
Author Profiles & Research Source:
Retnaningtyas, E., Budiman, A., & Murtadho, M. (2026). Survival Strategies of Urban Home-Based Culinary MSMEs in Surabaya Amid Digitalization without High-Tech Capital. Indonesian Journal of Advanced Research (IJAR), 5(7), 1157-1174.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.55927/ijar.v5i7.16829
Link: https://journal.formosapublisher.org/index.php/ijar
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