Search results

This study aims to answer the question: What dynamic capabilities do diverse humanitarian organizations have?

We examine this question through the lens of dynamic capabilities with sensing, seizing and reconfiguring capacities. The research team interviewed 15 individuals from 12 humanitarian organizations that had (a) different geographic scopes (global versus local) and (b) different missions (emergency response versus long-term development aid). We also gathered data from secondary sources, including standard operating procedures, company websites, and news databases (Factiva, Reuters and Bloomberg).

The findings identify the operational and dynamic capabilities of global and local humanitarian organizations while distinguishing between their mission to provide long-term development aid or emergency relief. (1) The global organizations, with their beneficiary responsiveness, reconfigured their sensing and seizing capacities throughout the COVID-19 pandemic by pivoting quickly to local procurement or regional supply chains. The long-term development organizations pivoted to multi-year supplier agreements with fixed pricing to counter price uncertainty and accessed social capital with government bodies. In contrast, emergency response organizations developed end-to-end supply chain visibility to sense changes in supply and demand. (2) Local humanitarian organizations developed the capacity to sense demand and supply changes to reconfigure based on their experiential learning working with the local community. The long-term-development local organizations used un-owned and scalable relief infrastructure to seize opportunities to rebuild affected areas. In contrast, emergency response organizations developed their capacity to seize opportunities to provide aid stemming from their decentralized decision-making, a lack of structured procedures, and the authority for increased expenditure.

We propose a theoretical framework to identify humanitarian organizations' operational and dynamic capabilities, distinguishing between global and local organizations and their emergency response and long-term aid missions.

This study aims to debate and highlight the challenges faced by university students regarding e-learning during the global pandemic emergency. Furthermore, it sketches the solutions of e-learning using a theoretical lens of emergency management theory (EMT). Finally, the study argues a case for improvement in existing e-learning systems to enable higher education systems, particularly in a developing country, to recover the losses and increase education quality.

A qualitative research design and phenomenology research approach were applied to conduct the current study. A total of 10 in-depth online interviews were recorded from students studying in Pakistan and the UK. Verbatim transcriptions were analysed using the reflexive thematic analysis approach.

The current study results explained in detail the numerous challenges, including lack of preparedness (students and institutions), low quality of interaction, lack of motivation, lack of class activities and forceful adoption of e-learning. Alternatively, few opportunities also emerged through a set of suggestions such as a comprehensive emergency management plan, introduction of strong student counselling programmes and a strategic plan for quality of online learning content.

This study’s contribution stands out in crucial times of the global pandemic. EMT is applied to understand the different dimensions of preparedness, response, mitigation and recovery from a students’ perspective. Furthermore, considering students as important members of higher education institutions and understanding students’ opinions regarding quality assurance during the global pandemic was imperative.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the important role of cross-sector partnerships and collaboration in global emergency management, relevant in situations such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and grand global challenges.

The paper utilizes exploratory historical methods and examines cross-sector partnerships from three key emerging markets – Pakistan, Turkey and Nigeria. The context of the emerging markets is important given the institutional fragility such markets encountered.

The authors offer a conceptual discussion that explicates the vital role of such partnerships in global emergencies. The authors also highlight the instrumental role of adaptive learning in cross-sector partnerships, which can help multiple stakeholders create and deliver value in response to an emergency like a global health pandemic caused by the COVID-19. Along with the conceptual discussion, the authors further offer practical examples of cross-sector partnerships in emerging economies of Pakistan, Turkey, and Nigeria – undertaken in response to the recent pandemic – emphasizing that such partnerships are crucial to mitigate the emergencies and their consequences on society. Finally, this paper offers theoretical and practical implications for cross-sector collaboration and partnerships in response to the global crisis.

This research is limited to emerging markets context and further research is needed on this important topic.

This paper is relevant given the current global pandemic caused by the COVID-19. There are relatively limited research studies on the cross-sector partnerships and their role in global emergencies, grand challenges and global crisis, thus this paper offers important insights on cross-sector partnerships and their value creation in global crisis situations.

This study aims to analyze the moderating effect of managerial discretion on the relationship between cross-border knowledge search and the high-tech firms’ innovation quality in a global health emergency and addresses the following issues: the influence mechanism of different types of cross-border knowledge search on the high-tech firms’ innovation quality in a global health emergency; and the moderating role of different dimensions of manager discretion on the above relationship.

Based on the firms’ strategy selection methods, the authors divided cross-border knowledge search into three aspects, namely, breadth, depth and balance, and analyzed the impact of cross-border knowledge search on the innovation quality of high-tech firms in a global health emergency, taking managerial discretion as the moderating variable, and divided it into position rights, pay rights and operation rights according to the key rights of firms’ strategic management. Furthermore, the authors constructed a theoretical model, and for an analysis sample, the authors collected data from Chinese high-tech firms from 2013 to 2021.

The empirical results show that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between cross-border knowledge search breadth, depth and balance and the innovation quality of high-tech firms. The position rights, pay rights and operation rights of managerial discretion have partially significant moderating effects on the relationship between cross-border knowledge search breadth, depth and balance and the high-tech firms’ innovation quality.

Considerable literature has grown around the theme of the impact of knowledge search on the firms’ innovation quality. Nevertheless, only a few studies draw on the combination of global health emergency, cross-border knowledge search and the innovation quality; in particular, no literature has analyzed the relationship between the three from the managerial discretion perspective. Exploring the above relationships has great theoretical value for enriching and improving knowledge management and innovation management theories and provides a theoretical basis and practical support for high-tech firms to face challenges of a global health emergency and to break through the innovation dilemma.

With multiple-related organizations, worldwide infections, deep economic recession and public disorder, and large consumption amount of anti-epidemic resources, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been defined as a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC). Nowadays, Wuhan has recovered from the pandemic disaster and reentered normalization. The purposes of this study are to (1) summarize organization collaboration patterns, successful experience and latent defects under across-stage evolution of Wuhan's cooperation governance mode against the pandemic, and on the basis, (2) reveal how the COVID-19 development trends and organizations' collaborative behaviors affected each other.

Detailed content analysis of online news reports covering COVID-19 prevention and control measures on the website of Wuhan Municipal Government was adopted to identify organizations and their mutual collaborative interrelationships. Four complex network (CN) models of organization collaboration representing the outbreak, preliminary control, recession and normalization stages, respectively, were established then. Time-span-based dynamic parameter analyses of the proposed networks, comprising network cohesiveness analysis and node centrality analysis, were undertaken to indicate changes of global and local characteristics in networks.

First, the definite collaborative status of Wuhan Headquarters for Pandemic Prevention and Control (WHPPC) has persisted throughout the period. Medical institutions and some other administrations were the most crucial participants collaborating with the WHPPC. Construction-industry organizations altered pandemic development trends twice to make the situation controllable. Media, large-scale enterprises, etc. set about underscoring themselves contributions since the third stage. Grassroots cadres and healthcare force, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), financial institutions, etc. were essential collaborated objects. Second, four evolution mechanisms of organization collaboration responding to the COVID-19 in Wuhan has been proposed.

First, universality of Wuhan-style governance experience may be affected. Second, the stage-dividing process may not be the most appropriate. Then, data source was single and link characteristics were not considered when modeling.

This study may offer beneficial action guidelines to governmental agencies, the society force, media, construction-industry organizations and the market in other countries or regions suffering from COVID-19. Other organizations involved could also learn from the concluded organizations' contributions and four evolution mechanisms to find improvement directions.

This study adds to the current theoretical knowledge body by verifying the feasibility and effectiveness of investigating cooperation governance in public emergencies from the perspectives of analyzing the across-stage organization collaboration CNs.

The main aim of this study was to know the role of digital information and communication channels in developing citizens’ understanding regarding COVID-19 with reference to situation awareness. Furthermore, the impact of gender, age, qualification and area of respondents on citizens' perception and comprehension of COVID-19 was also investigated.

This quantitative study used an online survey and received 377 usable responses. The instrument was developed with the help of literature, and it was based on two constructs (perception of the element and comprehension of the current situation) of the situational awareness (SA) model. Data were collected from Pakistani citizens through a convenient sampling technique.

It was observed that the majority of citizens used electronic media, Facebook and WhatsApp for accessing COVID-19-related information. World Health Organization website played an important role in developing citizens’ understanding. Alert messages through mobile phone and apps played role in developing citizen’s understanding regarding COVID-19 situation. They perceived that media was effective in providing social distancing techniques. Moreover, they believed that government campaigns were helpful. Findings revealed that there was no significant impact of gender, age, qualification and area on citizens' perceptions and comprehension of COVID-19 through media.

This study is helpful for authorities in decision-making regarding COVID-19 and also filled the literature gap as, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no comprehensive study has been conducted regarding the SA of COVID-19.

The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 has become a major public health emergency of global concern. Studying the Internet public opinion dissemination mechanism of public health emergencies is of great significance for creating a legalized network environment, and it is also helpful for managers to make scientific decisions when encountering Internet public opinion crisis.

Based on the analysis of the process of spreading the Internet public opinion in major epidemics, a dynamic model of the Internet public opinion spread system was constructed to study the interactive relationship among the public opinion events, network media, netizens and government and the spread of epidemic public opinion. The Shuanghuanglian event in COVID-19 in China was taken as a typical example to make simulation analysis.

Research results show three points: (1) the government credibility plays a decisive role in the spread of Internet public opinion; (2) it is the best time to intervene when Internet public opinion occurred at first time; (3) the management and control of social media are the key to public opinion governance. Besides, specific countermeasures are proposed to assist control of Internet public opinion dissemination.

The epidemic Internet public opinion risk evolution system is a complex nonlinear social system. The system dynamics model is used to carry out research to facilitate the analysis of the Internet public opinion propagation mechanism and explore the interrelationship of various factors.

The purpose of this review is to summarize existing literature on the causes and impacts of the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic on people and businesses, and to propose a conceptual framework for the global economic recovery. The study used existing most recent empirical literature from available for exploring of the magnitude causes and effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the people and business and summarized the way of the world economic system. The review study uncovered that people and businesses are suffering from vulnerability scenarios that have causes and effects on current macroeconomic and microeconomic indicators. In addition, microeconomic indicators have affected in the categories of unemployed who are soaring, lowering incomes, increasing health spending, household spending, low productivity, mental stress, decreased consumption, social imbalance, collapsing commodity prices and so on. Nevertheless, macroeconomic indicators have affected in the categories of the global financial crisis, supply and demand, capital market volatility, disruption of fiscal policy, monetary policy, aviation industry, international tourism and hospitality, world trade, and high unemployment. The present study concluded that all government and non-government agencies have to play a major and mature role not only in developing of right policies and laws but also in ensuring practices and coordination as well as increase public and business awareness accordingly. The study summarized strategic and policy guideline for the recovery of the global economy by strengthening the health care system, commodity market volatility fix-up, financial market restructuring, resumption of manufacturing and economic activity, special care for micro-, small- and medium-scale enterprises, mitigate the unemployment problem, recovery package for tourism, hospitality and aviation sector, strengthening the global supply chain network, impacts on global immigration and remittance issues and develop sustainable development framework accordingly for recovery of the world economy.

The years 2011, 2012, and 2013 witnessed both significant developments and setbacks in global polio eradication efforts. On the positive side, January 13, 2012, marked a full year since India had detected a case of wild poliovirus. On the negative side, polio continued to be endemic in three countries-Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria-and in those countries the goal of eliminating polio seemed more challenging than ever. Between December 2012 and January 2013, sixteen polio workers were killed in Pakistan, and in February 2013, nine women vaccinating children against polio in Kano, Nigeria, were shot dead by gunmen suspected of belonging to a radical Islamist sect. In addition, after a 95 percent decline in polio cases in 2010, the number of cases in Nigeria rebounded in 2011. Recognizing that polio was unlikely to be eliminated in these countries in the near term, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative moved its target date for eradication from 2013 to 2018.

These setbacks sparked a debate about the appropriate strategy for global eradication of polio. Indeed, some experts believed that recent setbacks were not caused by poor management but were instead the result of epidemiological characteristics and preconditions that might render polio eradication unachievable. These experts argued that global health efforts should focus on the control or elimination of polio rather than on the eradication of the disease.

This case presents an overview of polio and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative and recounts the successful effort to eradicate smallpox. The case enables a rich discussion of the current global strategy to eradicate polio, as well as the issue of whether eradication is the appropriate global public health objective. More generally, the case provides a concrete example of a particular type of global public good, namely infectious disease eradication.

After analyzing and discussing the case, students will be able to:

• Understand the nature of a global public good

• Perform a back-of-the-envelope benefit-cost analysis of polio eradication

• Discuss the appropriate strategy for eradicating an infectious disease

• Apply game theory to analyzing which countries would be likely to contribute funds toward global polio eradication

• Discuss the role of private organizations in the provision of global public goods

Understand the nature of a global public good

Perform a back-of-the-envelope benefit-cost analysis of polio eradication

Discuss the appropriate strategy for eradicating an infectious disease

Apply game theory to analyzing which countries would be likely to contribute funds toward global polio eradication

Discuss the role of private organizations in the provision of global public goods

The aim of this study is to undertake a systematic analysis of the supply chain literature to uncover the changes and patterns of international cooperation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this study, the information on supply chain-related publications in the Web of Science (WOS) database is analyzed using statistical techniques and visual approaches. The focus is on the five countries with the highest number of supply chain publications, accounting for approximately 70% of global publications. This in-depth analysis aims to provide a clearer understanding of the cooperation patterns and their impact on the supply chain during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The results of the study reveal that the growth rate of international cooperation in supply chain research during the COVID-19 pandemic is higher compared to the 5-year and 10-year periods before the pandemic. This suggests that the pandemic has not hindered international cooperation in the field, but instead has increased collaboration. In terms of international cooperation patterns, the findings indicate that China and the USA have a strong partnership, with China being the largest partner for the USA and vice versa. The UK's largest partner is China, India's largest partner is the UK and Italy's largest partner is also the UK. This implies that trade, rather than the pandemic, is a determining factor in supply chain research.

This study examines the patterns of international cooperation in supply chain research during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing insights into the changes and mechanisms of international cooperation in this field. Moreover, the results of this study may offer practical benefits for supply chain operators and managers. By providing a deeper understanding of the international cooperation patterns in the field, this research could contribute to the recovery and growth of the global supply chain.

This study's analysis of the impact of crisis events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, on international cooperation in supply chain research contributes to the theoretical development of the field. Additionally, by examining how academia responds to emergencies, it provides valuable insights for operations and supply chain managers in their pursuit of more effective supply chain management.

This study provides a preliminary examination of the international cooperation patterns of supply chain research in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, representing a novel and early contribution to the existing literature, helping to expand upon current understanding in the field and provide a more comprehensive perspective. Furthermore, this study offers a practical analysis strategy for future supply chain research, fostering progress and growth in the field.