COVID-19 Insights from Business Sustainability Scholars

Recently released survey data reveals stark differences between the behaviors and beliefs of residents across U.S. states, but also shows that Americans are generally compliant and supportive of actions their local and state governments are taking to slow transmission of the virus and reduce risks. The findings of this survey are not only useful to…

COVID-19 has significantly disrupted global economic output and transnational supply chains. While the direct impacts on production and trade are widely discussed, less attention has been given to the impacts on other practices that ensure the functioning of global markets.   One example of such practices are private regulatory efforts that over the past three…

“We are all disabled now”[i] is a phrase and headline that most of us will have heard during the current pandemic. Many non-disabled social media influencers, radio hosts, TV presenters and members of the general public now consider themselves, and many like them, “disabled” as the daily struggle with self-isolation and social distancing makes work…

Business professors from 53 schools around the world identify 6 priorities for companies in the COVID-19 era The day before our university closed down, my MBA students debated the price that the company that discovers the COVID-19 vaccine should charge. None of us expected the university to shut down indefinitely the next day. Two months…

While we see exciting developments in sustainable finance – e.g., the increasing amounts of sustainable investments – the world is currently facing an unprecedented crisis. At the time of writing, the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) causing the Covid-19-pandemic has resulted in global gridlock with untold health, economic and social effects. The real economy…

The COVID-19 pandemic and our response to it has changed the way we work together, threatening the sustainability and utility of organizations by disrupting work processes related to collaboration, information sharing, and technology. The work that organizations do and the outcomes they offer to the market ultimately depend on people working together, whether in formal…

The Covid-19 pandemic is not just a health, economic, and humanitarian crisis, it is laying bare some undeniable truths in societies worldwide: It emphasises the extent of inequalities, both between and within societies. In the dynamics between nations, these inequalities revolve around the reliance on international funding bodies for humanitarian aid — and what happens…

“Glocalization, the simultaneous occurrence of both universalizing and particularizing tendencies in contemporary social, political, and economic systems.” [1]   While the world is still reeling under the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, we want to remain hopeful and share our thoughts about how to become more sustainable in a post-COVID-19 world. In our commentary, we…

Amidst the current Corona-crisis one chart gained massive popularity in social media. It is called “flatten the curve”, and relates the number of infections to the capacity of public healthcare systems to treat COVID-19 patients in a given period of time. Raising awareness about this simple but scientifically-grounded curve was critical for people to understand…

The COVID-19 pandemic currently wreaking havoc across the world has pushed millions of people into confinement, and is raising uncertainty over the extent of the crisis and a deep fear that successive waves of infections could occur in the future. One alleged advantage of quarantine is that it can be used to renew ideas and…

The cloud of uncertainty looms over the entire globe. Stock markets are in disarray, economy in doldrums and poor has become poorer. Covid 19, a term which did not make any sense just 4 months back has now become a buzz word. For a country which announced complete lockdown for 21 days from 24th March…

Society chooses its dead (Sartre, 1976)[1]   A pandemic could be the context where the world sets aside differences and globally agree on how to best navigate our societies through the crisis. A pandemic does not distinguish between geographies, gender, ethnicity, or religion. Global solidarity, collaboration across old boarders, and a collective flexible humanitarian response…

The Pandemic Calls for Integrated Solutions During this pandemic some businesses are doing better than others with how they are responding to and managing their social and financial performance. Ashim Paun, Co-Head for ESG Research at HSBC stated that “when crises like COVID-19 manifest, particularly with social and environmental causes and implications, investors can see…

Society has been susceptible to man-made and natural catastrophic events since the beginning of time.  A few of the more notable natural disasters include the Antioch earthquake of AD 526, the 1881 Haiphong typhoon, and the more recent 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.[i] Man-made disasters include the great depression, the great credit crisis of…

As we struggle with how best to combat COVID-19 in many parts of the world, stark differences have emerged in both the strategies and relative success rates of individual countries in stopping the spread of the novel coronavirus. Remarkably, China and South Korea have successfully arrested the expansion of the virus, while others, including the…

COVID-19 is one of the most urgent, intractable, grand societal challenges of our time. While posing enormous challenges to the entire globe, the virus has also unleashed the desire to “do good” through organized efforts to help those suffering. As a result, it could be argued, now more than ever, the time is ripe for…

The priority of any serious nation is public health, education, economics and security (in that order). Not the other way round. My appreciation of how global health crises and international business reinforce each other and impinge on socioeconomic life is filtered through the lens of my fieldwork experience in the “West” and in the “global…

While the world might recover from the Wuhan, China-based 2020 novel coronavirus, it is likely that the virus will leave the world governance system in a different state.  Globalization as we knew it is over and a new world order will emerge, with dramatic consequences to our field. Globalization involves the movement of people, information,…

While many nations, companies, and individuals are still reeling from the negative effects of the financial crash that began in 2007 and then ground on through the years, the Covid-19 has hit hardly affecting many economies, and specially those related to the service industries. Services are often among the first and hardest hit by turmoil.…

Currently, over 30% of the world’s population faces stay-at-home measures in an effort to stop the spread of the Coronavirus. While necessary to tackle this global pandemic, extended physical distancing is causing another global crisis as people face mounting social isolation, disconnection, loneliness, and depression. To make up for the loss of physical human connections,…

This blog has forged such a focused trail that I would only blur its brightness and weaken its vigor if I added even a short sentence on how businesses are responding to the pandemic. As someone who is native to natural sciences (forestry) and a migrant to social sciences (business), I have viewed the pandemic…

As COVID started to hit hard in different countries, news appeared in the media covering the shortages of products in the supermarkets. While lots of arguments have been push forward (and dozen of meme have been developed) to describe this phenomenon from a demand perspective, its supply dimension should be carefully investigated too.   Back…

Throughout human history, crises have been pivotal in developing our societies. Pandemics have helped advance health-care systems, wars have fuelled technological innovations and the global financial crisis helped advance tech companies like Uber and Airbnb. The present coronavirus pandemic will arguably not be an exception; entrepreneurs can be expected to rise to the challenge. Businesses play a key role…

The corporate governance of firms and the role of the board of directors are at a crossroads. On the one hand, it has never been more vital to the workings of a business. On the other, it has never been more challenging. As boards grapple with new regulations about transparency and accountability, sustainability concerns, executive…

Covid 19 is now wreaking havoc in more than 130 countries in the world. It is destroying livelihood of so many people and till now more than 80000 people have lost their lives with number of people infected close to 1,4million. Europe and USA are the worst affected. The number of cases in India is…

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) has spread across the globe with devastating consequences. The advent of the pandemic on the African continent – in most of the 54 nations that make up this young, beautiful, vibrant yet fragile continent -holds important lessons for the practice of corporate citizenship and responsible business.   There is Power and Promise…

Throughout the human history, societies have struggled with achieving and maintaining equality. However, it is the persistently rising levels of inequalities that have made the contemporary global society among the most unequal. Since industrial revolution, in order to make ‘progress’, we have focused on making systems efficient and acquiring material wealth. As a result, we…

It’s a common sight in stores across Canada: empty shelves where bottled water used to be. Online, bottled water is selling online for anywhere from $30 to $75 a case as people panic-buy supplies. But why the sudden rush on bottled water in places with high functioning infrastructure? Public health authorities have suggested all Canadians stock…

The Excruciating Choice Governments face an “excruciating choice” between “flattening the (coronavirus) curve” by imposing quarantines and lockdowns and the huge, unprecedented economic impact on the world economy that is already in recession. The Health and Human Services Department of the US Federal Government is planning for the possibility of an 18-month medical and economic…

Globally, there are concerted efforts by the private sector to find creative ways of contributing to tackling the pandemic. Some businesses are adapting their manufacturing systems to produce some of the essential materials and equipment required to combat the pandemic such as sanitisers, ventilators, testing kits, et cetera. Others, especially those in the biochemical and…

As COVID-19 has spread across the world it has had major impacts on supply chains. While we don’t yet have reliable trade data for the beginning of this year, it is reasonable to assume that the impact on trade flows may be even greater than that for the GFC in 2009, where world trade fell…

From early December 2019 to March 2020, in merely more than three months, the World has witnessed an epic spreading and destruction of the coronavirus which originated in Wuhan, China. The collapse of healthcare system and the economic consequences that follow have few modern equivalences. We are in a pivotal point of modern human history…

In times of crisis such as wars, hurricanes, earthquakes, or pandemics like the one we are experiencing now, leaders play an especially important role, since their decisions and actions may have life or death consequences. The coronavirus pandemic presents a critical challenge to leadership at all levels and in all organizations. How are leaders in…

Will a global pandemic and recession push businesses to hit the reset button in their business/stakeholder relationships? Will upper echelons (finally) walk the talk that they set out to accomplish, as represented in the 2019 Business Roundtable’s (BRT) Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation signed by 181 CEOs who committed to lead their companies…

The words in this essay’s title come from the late songwriter Leonard Cohen’s masterpiece ‘Anthem’. The idea is that everything is flawed. Yet, there is also hope despite the flaws. It is through the cracks where the light comes in. Certainly, the cracks in our economic, social, political, leadership, and ecological systems have become manifest…

As the COVID-19 crisis unfolds, the focus of business leaders and others has been on immediate responses and short-term time horizons. This is for good reason. Yet there are initial signs of how the crisis may be shaping longer-term assumptions about business and its context. The spread of the pandemic has brought to the fore the need for…

In the current global crisis, companies are carrying out solidarity initiatives: donating masks and medical supplies, putting their operational capacity at the service of health authorities, or financially contributing to research on the SARS-COV-2 coronavirus and its associated disease, COVID-19. As a consequence of these initiatives, several companies have an active presence in mass media,…

COVID-19 has brought significant disruptions to the economic and social lives of Nigerians and people all over the world, with significantly adverse effects on vulnerable communities. Beyond the financial cost to individuals and government, the cost of human lives cannot be overemphasized. In the fight to curb the spread of the coronavirus, there has already…

The worldwide spread of the Covid-19 infection has no precedent in the modern world as a health crisis that calls upon the extraordinary and immediate unity of all constituents of our society. Often seen as a utopia in contemporary society, unity must now concretely permeate our daily lives. While doubts are raised about the effectiveness…

COVID-19 is certainly a massive ecological shock to humanity, and in the most dire scenarios, it could lead to collapsing social systems in vulnerably communities and polities. How will we as organizational scholars make sense of COVID-19 scenarios and the role that organizations play in driving them? In my view, the pandemic and other looming…

If we are going to end social distancing, we will need to find a way to know who has COVID-19 and where they are.  Temperature and symptom tracking, testing, and contact tracing are regularly mentioned as a part of long-term solutions.[1]  This is a lot of data about individuals that will be tracked and reported…

Countries around the world are taking unprecedented action to stem financial collapse due to COVID-19. Governments are acting as insurers of last resort, providing liquidity to both individuals and corporations in dire straits. In these perilous times, the insurance sector itself will also be paying out claims, whether it’s to people who have experienced damage to life…

Our lives are being rapidly and fundamentally reshaped by COVID-19. Waking up to the new normal of staying home, keeping our distance, and working and socializing almost entirely virtually takes some getting used to.  But let’s not make any mistake. We are among the lucky ones. Most of the people reading this will have a…

COVID-19 has been overwhelming global health systems – filling up wards and ICUs, ripping through supplies and equipment, and testing the capabilities of health workers and front-liners. It is arguably one of the most life-altering events our world has seen in recent history. There is, however, a grimmer reality that we must face, a consequence…

What is Essential? This is a question my family and I have asked many times in recent weeks, as Covid-19 forces us to reconsider both the meaning of that word, and the values that drive different people’s answers. Collectively, as a society, asking this question has led to us facing some fairly uncomfortable truths about…

As the Covid-19 threat started to hit home in the United States, I was just preparing to begin teaching my Strategies for Sustainability course.  I usually begin each class session with a broad question to prime the ensuing discussion; for that opening class I used two: (1) why do businesses need to address sustainability issues?…

Good ol’ rugged individualism. We are in control of our own fates. Masters of our own domain. Yadayayada. Problem is, another’s rugged individualism can screw it up for all of us. Though you and I may be doing the right thing, if another unconstrained iconoclast is not, we can still be harmed. We are at…

As you may know, some of my work surrounds scenario planning. Primarily, that work surrounds strategizing for climate change, but scenario planning is a versatile strategic planning method for navigating uncertainty. Others in this forum have provided excellent suggestions about what to do now. My focus is to help organizations come out of COVID-19 with…

As many of you know, I research resilience, that is, the capacity of individuals, organisations and communities to recover from substantial adversity. In this essay, I offer some of my own experiences and observations, and hope that they can contribute to tackling major global challenges such as the Covid-19 health emergency and climate change. I…

In this short essay, I would like to explain why a behavioral perspective on corporate social responsibility (CSR) is useful in helping us understand and possibly also offer solutions for some of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and, more generally, other natural environmental disasters and stressors.   Our research over the past 15+ years…

This note is both a call for immediate action and hopefully also inspiration for companies to act against the COVID-19/Coronavirus outbreak in the form of rapid responsible innovation — innovation developed in a short period of time in a state of emergency with the hope of protecting people and saving lives. The current global pandemic…

Coronavirus has slowed down economic activity and temporarily reduced China’s carbon emissions. However, there is a deeper implication for climate policy: decarbonization depends on global supply chains for inputs required for electric vehicles, solar panels, and wind turbines. In 2015, solar and wind contributed to about 7% of global electricity.  Their salience is projected to increase…

Is it possible for businesses to manage such a seemingly “unmanageable” problem as COVID-19? We have been researching multinational enterprises’ responses to natural disasters and political risks for two decades now and the answer is a qualified yes. A key finding of our research is that local knowledge (e.g, community or regional knowledge about available resources…

The events of the past few weeks have given us a glimpse into what the future of life in the Anthropocene might look like. The global community has been faced with a collective crisis, one that requires that we work together to address a problem that we have globally created.  When the Spanish flu killed…

First and foremost, the Covid-19 pandemic is a human tragedy. At the same time, it leads individuals, organizations, and states around the globe to adopt unprecedented measures at breathtaking speed. While all the attention is focused on the crisis, the situation is at the same time highly paradoxical. States such as the UK that have…

The coronavirus, or COVID-19, and climate change are very different problems. But the global response to the coronavirus gives me hope that we can tackle other global threats.   It is hard to see the positive in the novel coronavirus and its associated disease, COVID-19. Not only has COVID-19 made people very sick, it has…

  “And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this cleared speck on the earth struck me as something great and invincible, like evil or truth, waiting patiently for the passing away of this fantastic [human] invasion.”  Joseph Conrad, Hearth of Darkness, 1899     Hope & cooperation or fear & despair: how does humanity respond to…

In the last week you’ve probably had the capacity of your e-mail Inbox tested with communication from dozens of businesses, each telling you about their response to the COVID-19 outbreak.   The majority of those messages will have told you to “Stay Home, Stay Safe.”   A very small minority will have told you what…

Social media extravaganza To stay productive these days I try not to spend too much time on social media…I’m failing miserably of course. On Twitter many people are worrying about the Coronavirus (COVID-19), blaming others for not doing enough to flatten the curve, or sharing videos of epic Zoom blunders. LinkedIn is used to praise…