ABSTRACT
COVID-19 pandemic, a consensus crisis that has had a profound effect on societies and economies globally, compelled family businesses to respond strategically in order to remain afloat. We examine the role of their owner-managers' emotions in the strategic response to the COVID-19 pandemic, drawing on 38 in-depth interviews with owner-managers of small family businesses in Cyprus. Our findings reveal that owner-managers have experienced mainly negative emotions during the pandemic, including higher levels of stress, insecurity, fear, and doubt. By reflecting on these emotions, owner-managers can activate affective mechanisms and apply a stewardship logic to respond strategically. We contribute to the family business literature by conceptualizing key processes at the intersection between owner-manager emotions and strategic responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. By focusing on individual (that is, owner-manager) emotional processes and stewardship attitudes, our study provides a microfoundational explanation of strategic responses during external crises and offers both theoretical and practical implications. © 2023 International Council for Small Business.
ABSTRACT
The outbreak of COVID-19 has brought the world to a standstill, with severe consequences on economic and health systems, requiring the identification and implementation of innovative solutions. This study's aims are threefold: first, to examine the impact of balanced and combined dimensions of ambidexterity on for-profit organizations' innovation performance related to pandemics;second, to uncover whether and to what extent such innovation performance contributes to tackling global health grand challenges (i.e., mortality rate, risk of infection, and life expectancy) associated with pandemics;and, third, to investigate the moderating role of social equalities in health in the relationships between innovation performance and health-related outcomes associated with pandemics. To uncover how for-profit firms tackle the health-related consequences of pandemics, we examine whether they have introduced product innovations to the health sector, defined as the market introduction of a new or significantly improved good, that have helped address the health challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a panel dataset (1974–2020) with 15,062 firm-year observations from the United States, we show that both the separate and the synchronous implementation of the balanced and combined dimensions of ambidexterity have a strong positive effect on firms' innovation performance and, particularly, innovation initiatives related to the pandemic. The results also reveal that innovation activities (i.e., granted patents and citations focused on COVID-19) negatively affect mortality rate and risk of infection, as well as the positive impact of innovation on increasing life expectancy, with social equalities in health moderating this relationship. Taken together, we make novel contributions to the literature on how to tackle the health-related consequences of pandemics through innovation and provide actionable managerial guidance on how firms can enhance innovation performance. © 2023 The Authors. Journal of Product Innovation Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Product Development & Management Association.