Coping with the New Normal Imposed by the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons for Technology Management and Governance

Abstract

The reliance of many facets of society on technology and online platforms has grown exponentially during the COVID-19 pandemic. This drastic change has impacted all industries and service sectors alike including the health-care sector, education, retail, travel, food, and government agencies. The observations made in the last six months provide us with valuable insights for technology management and information systems. In this piece, we discuss some of these key insights.

Tracking the maturity of industry 4.0: the perspective of a real scenario

“…The influence and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on this sample is aligned with the first two scenarios pointed by Herath et al [ 57 ]. To date of this study, no company under sample was forced to close down.…”

“…The organizations’ response to COVID-19 pandemic had to be quick to its unprecedented demands, changing work practices in a short time period to train or to prepare the organizations to these new normal, new work practices where the IT technologies are the central role regarding to aspects such as behavioral, temporal, societal, and organizational [ 56 ]. According to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on several business sectors, Herath et al [ 57 ] pointed out three scenarios: some organizations had to rethink their business models, some had to reduce their operations, and many were forced to close down.…”

COVID-19 affected remote workers: a temporal analysis of information system development during the pandemic

“…Firstly, the COVID-19 global pandemic has fundamentally altered the way in which ISD teams and managers work. COVID-19 has impacted remote working, altering our daily work routines (Herath & Herath, 2020), changing our work behaviours (Fink, 2020), and shifting work patterns (Leidner, 2020). Within ISD specifically, teams tweaked their ISD practices and routines to accommodate more appropriate agile techniques during COVID-19 (Batra, 2020).…”

Reflections on Blended Learning in Management Education: A Qualitative Study with a Push-pull Migration Perspective

“…Although it is too early to judge how reactions to COVID-19 will affect education systems around the world, there are signs suggesting that it could have a lasting impact on the trajectory of learning innovation and digitization (Herath & Herath, 2020). In a short time, the COVID-19 has been instrumental in implementation of innovative solutions in educational institutions worldwide.…”