Innovating and transforming during COVID‐19: insights from Italian firms

Abstract

During the COVID‐19 pandemic, a huge number of firms had to stop their activities due to the lockdown situation that has been decided in most countries. However, to contribute to the many emergencies caused by the pandemic through purpose‐led actions, many of those firms have reacted with innovative projects and changes in their manufacturing activities. In this paper, we address why and how these efforts have been implemented and how the situation of these firms evolved after the peak of the health crisis. Drawing on the literature about the purpose and R&D/innovation management concerning health emergency, we develop a conceptual framework to understand how different types of purpose‐led actions (i.e., short term and/or long term) and different R&D management strategies (i.e., exploitation or exploration of R&D, innovation, and manufacturing competencies) can characterize firms’ rapid response for the benefit of the community in the fight against COVID‐19, for example through the provision of medical equipment or other products and services. We validate the framework using the cases of 21 Italian firms which have taken very fast actions during the peak of the COVID‐19 emergency.

Building SMEs’ resilience in times of uncertainty: the role of big data analytics capability and co-innovation

“…First, it provides implications for considering CI as a viable strategy, especially in a time of crisis. This important theoretical implication is in line with Ferrigno and Cucino (2021) who investigated SME innovation in a context of crisis by emphasizing how SMEs have implemented collaborative behaviors to develop innovative projects during the recent COVID-19 outbreak. Second, we show how big data SMEs are more able than other companies to recognize business opportunities in line with Eggers (2020).…”

R&D management at a time of crisis: what are we learning from the initial response to the COVID‐19 pandemic?

“…However, more poignantly, we noticed how companies' and governments' logics shifted in this initial crisis phase from being driven by a traditional, purely economic value paradigm, to a societally-driven one (Ahn et al, 2019). This shift towards a 'purposeled' logic (Ferrigno and Cucino, 2021) was universal across the sample, in both large (e.g. Bergami et al, 2021;von Behr et al, 2021) and small (Battaglia et al, 2021;Clauss et al, 2021) companies.…”

“…Several papers presented results regarding how companies repurposed their competences and were able to use them either to meet the needs of society and/or to remain economically viable (e.g. Ardito et al, 2021;Bergami et al, 2021;Clauss et al, 2021;Ferrigno and Cucino, 2021;Hanisch and Rake, 2021;Puliga and Ponta, 2021;von Bher et al, 2021;Radziwon et al, 2021). These papers link several concepts present in extant literature (e.g.…”

Crisis‐driven innovation of products new to firms: the sensitization response to COVID‐19

“…Internalizing stakeholders’ understanding of the firm and its potential to use resources appears to be important to a firm’s sensitization when it is at risk of becoming like most others – bystanders. Assessing unfamiliar stakeholder‐originated ideas carefully (cf., Chesbrough and Crowther, 2006) and exploring how to use resources for new purposes matter during a crisis (Ferrigno and Cucino, 2021). Campbell (2007, p. 992) discusses institutionalized dialogues with stakeholders in an institutional context, but the current study suggests that during a crisis, stakeholders’ urgent needs must be internalized ad hoc (Mintzberg and McHugh, 1985) towards resource recognition and capability assembly to obtain socially desired innovative outcomes.…”