Small and medium-sized firms contribute significantly to the economy of a country, but these SMEs are often characterized by poor performance and a high failure rate. This is typically attributed to a lack of resources, such as capital, land, and skilled labour. Despite the availability of such tools, many company management experts assert that some SMEs nevertheless fail because they lack a crisis management strategy. According to the body of research, crisis management planning improves lifespan and a sustainable business environment since it involves creating a strategy that aids SMEs in anticipating and responding to the turbulent market by deploying their provisions and capabilities appropriately. The study's objectives are to investigate the current condition of SMEs' crisis management planning in Uganda, as well as how SME owners and managers perceive crisis management planning and what factors could necessitate the creation of a successful crisis management plan for their companies. Diffusion of innovation (DOI) and existing literature serve as the study's theoretical foundations. They reveal how crisis management planning has helped SME withstand unanticipated crises. Future research is necessary to validate the conceptual framework used in this study, which will need the collection of empirical data that will be submitted to descriptive and inferential statistics using structural equation modeling (SEM). Thus, the researchers have devised a model that can be applied to actual data to evaluate the survival of SMEs in Uganda.

Keywords : crisis management planning, small medium enterprises, owners/managers, Uganda, Diffusion of innovation (DOI).