The impact of coronavirus on business: developing service research agenda for a post-coronavirus world

Abstract

PurposeThe coronavirus (COVID-19) has had a tremendous impact on companies worldwide. However, researchers have no clear idea of the key issues requiring their attention. This paper aims to close this gap by analysing all business-related posts on a coronavirus subreddit (“r/coronavirus”) and identifying the main research streams that are guiding the research agenda for a post-coronavirus world.Design/methodology/approachWe use data from reddit, particularly the subreddit “r/coronavirus” to identify posts that reveal the impact of coronavirus on business. Our dataset has more than 200,000 posts. We used an artificial intelligence–based algorithm to scrape the data with business-related search terms, clean it and analyse the discussion topics.FindingsWe show the key topics that address the impact of coronavirus on business, combining them into four themes: essential service provision, bricolage service innovation, responsible shopping practices and market shaping amid crisis. We discuss these themes and use them to develop a service research agenda. The results are reported against the backdrop of service research priorities.Originality/valueThe study identifies four key themes that have emerged from the impact of coronavirus on business and that require scholarly attention. Our findings can guide service research with unique insights provided immediately after the coronavirus outbreak to conduct research that matters to business and helps people in vulnerable positions in a post-coronavirus world.

Learning from Pandemics Past and Present for Service Theory and Practice

“…The four manuscripts published in this issue consider pandemics as transformational periods and combine to describe both the unique challenges of a pandemic as well as offering unique opportunities for both businesses and individuals to rethink how they operate. The manuscripts in this SI focus on service businesses (Mele et al, 2021), lean service implementation (Tortorella et al, 2021), health care services (Brodie et al, 2021) and service to marginalized groups of people (Finsterwalder et al, 2021).…”

“…The first article, by Mele et al (2021), entitled "The impact of coronavirus on business: Developing service research agenda for the post-corona world," represents a good starting point for the special issue, because the authors set a goal of identifying all business-related topics relevant to the pandemic discussed within an interested population in social media. In order to accomplish this, the authors scraped all posts related to "business" in a subdivision of the "reddit" social media site that was created specifically to discuss the impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus on businesses.…”

“…The first of the identified themes redefines "essential" services and describes the culture and technology needed to provide them. For instance, Mele et al (2021) note that governmental policy decisions affect service providers because their industries must be labeled "essential" in order to continue to operate. The second theme suggests the importance of innovating to better utilize (scarce) resources through changes to processes and outcomes.…”

La adaptación de las empresas a la realidad COVID: una revisión sistemática

“…La crisis ha puesto encima de la mesa temas de investigación tan dispares como su impacto en sectores específicos como el turístico (Sigala, 2020); la identificación de diferentes tipos de incertidumbre, sus antecedentes y resultados, y las estrategias utilizadas para mitigar su impacto (Sharma et al, 2020); el liderazgo eficaz en entornos de trabajo virtuales (Bartsch et al, 2021); las consecuencias a largo plazo de la pandemia en el diseño de las organizaciones (Foss, 2020); la prestación de servicios esenciales, las prácticas de compra responsable, el comportamiento del mercado en medio de la crisis (Mele et al, 2020); o las necesidades que generarán eventuales modelos híbridos, presenciales y remotos, de trabajo (Shankar, 2020).…”

Bridging employee curiosity and service creativity: a new lens

“…To date, service innovation has been predominantly considered a crucial means adopted by a service firm to pursue growth or performance (Moreira et al , 2020; Singh e t al., 2020). The importance of innovation in the service sector is particularly advocated given the serious impingement caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic (Mele et al , 2020; Tortorella et al , 2020; Voorhees et al , 2020). Given that “all innovation begins creative ideas” (Amabile et al , 1996, p. 1154) and employees often “are the service” in service contexts (Choi and Lawry, 2020), managing the production of innovative ideas from employees becomes imperative for firms to successfully implement service innovation (Akesson et al , 2016).…”