RAPID: Effective Recovery for Organizations from the COVID-19: Optimizing Strategic Responses

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How do business organizations recover from a crisis? Studies of crises show that human communities differ significantly in their responses; a crisis presents individual organizations and communities of organizations with a common problem, yet solutions may be elusive. This project will advance basic knowledge about the effectiveness of organizational recovery in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and global economic crisis. The project will help organizations and managers to better understand the conditions under which organizations responding to a crisis of unprecedented magnitude may recover more effectively. Results will equip organizations and managers with knowledge and skills about how to choose strategic responses to crisis, by highlighting the insights derived from study conditions. In collaboration with the University of Florida Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center, the project will disseminate results to business and scientific communities by providing free-of-charge webinars that explain to managers and researchers the strategic responses that can help organizations, particularly small-and-medium sized enterprises, to more effectively recover from the current crisis. Project findings and activities will help to ensure the economic competitiveness of the United States and promote our nation's safety and security. When crises occur, business organizations need to move strategically to recover, but leaders and managers may be unclear as to which actions to take. The project will provide prescriptive theoretical directions for the development of processes and actions toward effective recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and global economic crisis. The project will classify, explain, and evaluate organizations’ strategic responses to the current crisis for effective recovery and answer three research questions: First, among the multiple paths toward organizational recovery, which ones are more effective? Second, what organizational and environmental factors are most conducive to effective recovery? Third, would dynamic adaptation (e.g., switching resource allocation from the organization’s own rebuilding to community-based self-organizing efforts, and vice versa) be effective for recovery? Interview data will be used to inform, validate and improve a computational model designed to explain and evaluate the effectiveness of strategic responses of organizations. The project will use this model to compare a wide range of variation in responses, and probe the conditions under which certain responses could be more effective for organizational recovery. The project will produce: (1) a multi-level taxonomy of strategic responses to crisis for organizational recovery and (2) an explanation and evaluation of strategic responses to crisis for effective recovery. Using a mixed-method approach, the project will not only corroborate a computational model with interview data, but also use the model to extend understanding beyond case observations. Findings will inform theories of organization regarding business strategy, especially within the context of crises and extreme events.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.