The COVID-19 pandemic and its implications have had a devastating impact on the business sector worldwide, especially on the SMEs’ sector. By highlighting the evolution, and so the specificity, of the Polish SMEs’ sector, by reference to the concept of learning organization, this paper queried the sources of the Polish SMEs’ unsatisfactory response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications. A survey (n = 147) conducted among a sample of Polish SMEs revealed that the Polish SMEs, in general, did not recognize the salience of managerial skills in building their capacity to withstand a crisis. Creating growth opportunities, rather than accumulating and operationalizing their organization’s knowledge, were stressed as the way of navigating challenges. This paper offers an insight into selected factors that influenced Polish SMEs’ sector during the COVID-19 pandemic, and suggests some ways of addressing problems thus identified.

Objectives. The cognitive purpose of the article is to describe the stereotype of the Africans in the profiles of stereotypical perception of the Poles, created under the influence of the media and the low level of cultural competence of the Poles, as well as to identify the Poles’ attitudes towards the Africans and social problems arising in mutual relations. Background. The image of Africa and its inhabitants in the social perception of Poles is an issue still under-studied and burdened with deficit empirical knowledge. He is burdened with stereotypes created over many years by building a distorted image of Africa through the media and pop culture. An important determinant of the subjective image of the inhabitants of Africa in the perception of Poles is also their lack of cultural competence, which is based on the small population of Africans in Poland and limited contacts with them, as well as the lack of tendency of Poles to expand their knowledge about other nations. Methodology. The article is based mainly on qualitative research — on the analysis of secondary data (desk research) coming from research reports, which are supplemented by the results of quantitative research on the perception of refugees and immigrants in the opinion of the young generation of the Poles. The essence of the article is an attempt to answer the question: what is the image of Africans and Africa in Poland and to what extent is it changing? Conclusions. However, the stigmas of the past seem to be disappearing, and Polish society is also opening up to the world in terms of culture. thanks to this, changes in the perception of Poles are visible not only towards Africans but also to other nations. The increase in the population of „foreign” nationalities, including those from Africa, as well as the spatial mobility of Poles observed in Poland mean that the image of Africans is changing. It is still a slow process, but it shows change — moving away from misperception and stereotypes in favor of knowledge and openness.