TY - JOUR A1 - Hecke, Steven van A1 - Fuhr, Harald A1 - Wolfs, Wouter T1 - The politics of crisis management by regional and international organizations in fighting against a global pandemic BT - the member states at a crossroads JF - International review of administrative sciences : an international journal of comparative public administration N2 - Despite new challenges like climate change and digitalization, global and regional organizations recently went through turbulent times due to a lack of support from several of their member states. Next to this crisis of multilateralism, the COVID-19 pandemic now seems to question the added value of international organizations for addressing global governance issues more specifically. This article analyses this double challenge that several organizations are facing and compares their ways of managing the crisis by looking at their institutional and political context, their governance structure, and their behaviour during the pandemic until June 2020. More specifically, it will explain the different and fragmented responses of the World Health Organization, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund/World Bank. With the aim of understanding the old and new problems that these international organizations are trying to solve, this article argues that the level of autonomy vis-a-vis the member states is crucial for understanding the politics of crisis management.
Points for practitioners
As intergovernmental bodies, international organizations require authorization by their member states. Since they also need funding for their operations, different degrees of autonomy also matter for reacting to emerging challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The potential for international organizations is limited, though through proactive and bold initiatives, they can seize the opportunity of the crisis and partly overcome institutional and political constraints. KW - autonomy KW - COVID-19 KW - crisis management KW - European Union KW - International KW - Monetary Fund KW - international organizations KW - multilateralism KW - World Bank KW - World Health Organization Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852320984516 SN - 0020-8523 SN - 1461-7226 VL - 87 IS - 3 SP - 672 EP - 690 PB - Sage CY - Los Angeles, Calif. [u.a.] ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kraus, Sascha A1 - Clauss, Thomas A1 - Breier, Matthias A1 - Gast, Johanna A1 - Zardini, Alessandro A1 - Tiberius, Victor T1 - The economics of COVID-19 BT - initial empirical evidence on how family firms in five European countries cope with the corona crisis JF - International journal of entrepreneurial behaviour & research N2 - Purpose Within a very short period of time, the worldwide pandemic triggered by the novel coronavirus has not only claimed numerous lives but also caused severe limitations to daily private as well as business life. Just about every company has been affected in one way or another. This first empirical study on the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on family firms allows initial conclusions to be drawn about family firm crisis management. Design/methodology/approach Exploratory qualitative research design based on 27 semi-structured interviews with key informants of family firms of all sizes in five Western European countries that are in different stages of the crisis. Findings The COVID-19 crisis represents a new type and quality of challenge for companies. These companies are applying measures that can be assigned to three different strategies to adapt to the crisis in the short term and emerge from it stronger in the long run. Our findings show how companies in all industries and of all sizes adapt their business models to changing environmental conditions within a short period of time. Finally, the findings also show that the crisis is bringing about a significant yet unintended cultural change. On the one hand, a stronger solidarity and cohesion within the company was observed, while on the other hand, the crisis has led to a tentative digitalization. Originality/value To the knowledge of the authors, this is the first empirical study in the management realm on the impacts of COVID-19 on (family) firms. It provides cross-national evidence of family firms' current reactions to the crisis. KW - Corona KW - COVID-19 KW - crisis management KW - familiy firms KW - strategic management KW - business model adaption Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-04-2020-0214 SN - 1355-2554 SN - 1758-6534 VL - 26 IS - 5 SP - 1067 EP - 1092 PB - Emerald CY - Bingley ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kuhlmann, Sabine A1 - Bouckaert, Geert A1 - Galli, Davide A1 - Reiter, Renate A1 - van Hecke, Steven T1 - Opportunity management of the COVID-19 pandemic BT - testing the crisis from a global perspective JF - International review of administrative sciences N2 - This article provides a conceptual framework for the analysis of COVID-19 crisis governance in the first half of 2020 from a cross-country comparative perspective. It focuses on the issue of opportunity management, that is, how the crisis was used by relevant actors of distinctly different administrative cultures as a window of opportunity. We started from an overall interest in the factors that have influenced the national politics of crisis management to answer the question of whether and how political and administrative actors in various countries have used the crisis as an opportunity to facilitate, accelerate or prevent changes in institutional settings. The objective is to study the institutional settings and governance structures, (alleged) solutions and remedies, and constellations of actors and preferences that have influenced the mode of crisis and opportunity management. Finally, the article summarizes some major comparative findings drawn from the country studies of this Special Issue, focusing on similarities and differences in crisis responses and patterns of opportunity management. KW - administrative culture KW - comparison KW - COVID-19 KW - crisis management KW - governance KW - opportunity management KW - pandemic KW - window of opportunity Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852321992102 SN - 0020-8523 SN - 1461-7226 VL - 87 IS - 3 SP - 497 EP - 517 PB - Sage CY - Los Angeles, California ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Thiele, Lukas A1 - Pruin, Andree T1 - Does large-scale digital collaboration contribute to crisis management? T1 - Digitale Massenkollaboration als Teil von staatlichem Krisenmanagement? BT - an analysis of projects from the #WirVsVirus hackathon implemented in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic BT - eine Analyse von Projekten aus dem #WirVsVirus-Hackathon in Deutschland JF - der moderne staat – Zeitschrift für Public Policy, Recht und Management N2 - In recent years, collaborative approaches to crisis management involving citizens have gained increasing attention. One example is the #WirVsVirus hackathon, which was conducted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and had over 28,000 participants. Because research on large-scale, digital collaboration in crisis situations is scarce, consequences of their use in crisis management remain unclear. This article relies on the open governance paradigm as a lens for studying two projects emerging from the hackathon. Based on nine qualitative expert interviews, we ask how digital open governance affects governance capacity and legitimacy in crisis management. Our findings suggest that digital open governance can contribute to governance capacity and legitimacy, as it mobilises large, diverse groups of citizens to quickly develop citizen-centric, ready-to-use solutions for crisisrelated problems. However, we also identified potential problems, including risks regarding legitimacy and accountability, difficulties with scalable solutions, and questionable long-term impacts. N2 - Kollaborative, partizipative Instrumente zur Krisenbekämpfung haben in den letzten Jahren zunehmend an Aufmerksamkeit gewonnen. Ein Beispiel hierfür ist der #WirVsVirus-Hackathon, der als Reaktion auf die COVID-19-Pandemie durchgeführt wurde und über 28.000 Teilnehmer:innen erreichte. Bislang wurden die Auswirkungen solch groß angelegter, kollaborativer Ansätze zur Krisenbewältigung auf staatliches Krisenmanagement nur selten untersucht. Diese Studie analysiert den Hackathon und die daraus entstandenen Projekte aus der Perspektive des Open Governance-Paradigmas. Auf Grundlage von neun Experteninterviews untersuchen wir, wie sich digitale Open Governance auf die Regierungsfähigkeit und Legitimität in Krisenzeiten auswirkt. Unsere Analyse zeigt, dass digitale Open Governance zur Leistungsfähigkeit und Legitimität staatlichen Handelns in Krisenzeiten beitragen kann, da solche Projekte eine breite und diverse Teilnehmerschaft mobilisieren und in kurzer Zeit bürgerzentrierte, nutzbare Lösungen für krisenbezogene Probleme entwickeln können. Dem stehen allerdings Zweifel an der langfristigen Beständigkeit der Projekte, ihrer Skalierbarkeit, sowie Risiken hinsichtlich der Legitimität und Rechenschaftspflicht entgegen. KW - open governance KW - crisis management KW - capacity KW - legitimacy KW - hackathon KW - Open Governance KW - Krisenmanagement KW - Staatliche Leistungsfähigkeit KW - Legitimität KW - Hackathon Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3224/dms.v14i2.07 SN - 1865-7192 VL - 14 IS - 2-2021 SP - 334 EP - 350 PB - Verlag Barbara Budrich CY - Leverkusen-Opladen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Abramova, Olga A1 - Batzel, Katharina A1 - Modesti, Daniela T1 - Collective response to the health crisis among German Twitter users BT - a structural topic modeling approach JF - International Journal of Information Management Data Insights N2 - We used structural topic modeling to analyze over 800,000 German tweets about COVID-19 to answer the questions: What patterns emerge in tweets as a response to a health crisis? And how do topics discussed change over time? The study leans on the goals associated with the health information seeking (GAINS) model, discerning whether a post aims at tackling and eliminating the problem (i.e., problem-focused) or managing the emotions (i.e., emotion-focused); whether it strives to maximize positive outcomes (promotion focus) or to minimize negative outcomes (prevention focus). The findings indicate four clusters salient in public reactions: 1) “Understanding” (problem-promotion); 2) “Action planning” (problem-prevention); 3) “Hope” (emotion-promotion) and 4) “Reassurance” (emotion-prevention). Public communication is volatile over time, and a shift is evidenced from self-centered to community-centered topics within 4.5 weeks. Our study illustrates social media text mining's potential to quickly and efficiently extract public opinions and reactions. Monitoring fears and trending topics enable policymakers to rapidly respond to deviant behavior, like resistive attitudes toward containment measures or deteriorating physical health. Healthcare workers can use the insights to provide mental health services for battling anxiety or extensive loneliness from staying home. KW - social media KW - Twitter KW - modeling KW - regulatory focus theory KW - crisis management KW - text mining Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jjimei.2022.100126 SN - 2667-0968 VL - 2 IS - 2 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Khaw, Khai Wah A1 - Camilleri, Mark A1 - Tiberius, Victor A1 - Alnoor, Alhamzah A1 - Zaidan, Ali Shakir T1 - Benchmarking electric power companies' sustainability and circular economy behaviors BT - using a hybrid PLS-SEM and MCDM approach JF - Environment, development and sustainability N2 - This research examines the impact of firms’ decision-making, crisis management, and risk-taking behaviors on their sustainability and circular economy behaviors through the mediating role of their eco-innovation behavior in the energy industry in Iraq. Firms are exploring applicable mechanisms to increase green practices. This requires the industry to possess the essential skills to overcome the challenges that reduce sustainable activities. We applied a dual-stage structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach to explore the linear relationships between variables, determine the weight of the criteria, and rank energy companies based on a circular economy. The online questionnaire was sent to 549 managers and heads of departments of Iraqi electric power companies. Out of these, 384 questionnaires were collected. The results indicate that firms’ crisis management, decision-making, and risk-taking behaviors are significantly and positively linked to their eco-innovation behavior. This study confirms the significant and positive impact of firms’ eco-innovation behavior on their sustainability and circular economy behaviors. Likewise, eco-innovation behavior has a fully mediating role. For the MCDM methods, ranking energy companies according to the circular economy can support policymakers’ decisions to renew contracts with leading companies in the ranking. Practitioners can also impose government regulations on low-ranked companies. Thus, governments can reduce the problems of greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental pollution. KW - eco-innovation KW - circular economy KW - crisis management KW - decision-making KW - risk-taking KW - sustainability Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-023-02975-x SN - 1387-585X SN - 1573-2975 VL - 35 PB - Springer CY - Dordrecht ER -