Turning a Crisis Into an Opportunity: Innovation During the Pandemic

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has not been uniform across industries. In some, we have witnessed a remarkable degree of innovation which has seen the establishment of a vast array of business models. By contrast, in others innovation has been rather slack. These conflicting trends raise the questions of whether the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the demise of certain industries or hastened the emergence of others. By coupling the crisis management literature with organizational learning theory and by relying on 23 in-depth interviews, the chapter provides a taxonomy of the various types of innovation responses to the existing crisis and disruption. The taxonomy is instrumental to gain a better understanding of how companies across countries and industry sectors respond to disruption by innovating and the valuable lessons that can be drawn from this experience.