Firms’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic

Maximilian Klöckner, Christoph G. Schmidt, Stephan M. Wagner and Morgan Swink

Journal of Business Research, 2023, vol. 158, issue C

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic requires firms to adequately respond. In this study, we first explore in our empirical data how firms responded to the COVID-19 crisis and identify five tactical response types, operational, digitalization, financial, supportive, and organizational responses. Furthermore, our findings indicate that responses vary in scope; Some firms act on their own, while others engage in collaborations. Finally, we find that the response angle is different across firms, as some firms leverage potential and others primarily mitigate risk. Second, we follow an event study design to measure the financial implications of these responses. We find that responses to the COVID-19 pandemic generally entail a positive stock market reaction. Financial and digitalization responses, as well as risk mitigation responses, are consistently evaluated positively. We discuss our findings in context of different theoretical lenses, substantiating the emerging literature on the COVID-19 crisis, and the established literature on crisis response management.

Keywords: COVID-19; Crisis response management; Event study; Pandemic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014829632300022X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:158:y:2023:i:c:s014829632300022x

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113664

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().