research title about new normal business

• Frontiers in Psychology
• Organizational Psychology
• Research Topics

How normal is the new normal? Individual and Organizational implications of the Covid 19 Pandemic

Total Downloads

Total Views and Downloads

About this Research Topic

The term “new normal” first appeared during the 2008 financial crisis to refer to the dramatic economic, cultural and social transformations that caused precariousness and social unrest, impacting collective perceptions and individual lifestyles. This term has been used again during the COVID-19 pandemic to ...

Keywords : Covid 19 pandemic, HRM, Change Management, Technostress, Work/Life balance, Career, Meaning of working

Important Note : All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

Topic Editors

Topic coordinators, recent articles, submission deadlines.

Submission closed.

Participating Journals

Total views.

• Demographics

No records found

total views article views downloads topic views

Top countries

Top referring sites, about frontiers research topics.

With their unique mixes of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area! Find out more on how to host your own Frontiers Research Topic or contribute to one as an author.

The next normal arrives: Trends that will define 2021—and beyond

Businesses have spent much of the past nine months scrambling to adapt to extraordinary circumstances. While the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic is not yet won, with a vaccine in sight, there is at least a faint light at the end of the tunnel—along with the hope that another train isn’t heading our way.

2021 will be the year of transition. Barring any unexpected catastrophes, individuals, businesses, and society can start to look forward to shaping their futures rather than just grinding through the present. The next normal is going to be different. It will not mean going back to the conditions that prevailed in 2019. Indeed, just as the terms “prewar” and “postwar” are commonly used to describe the 20th century, generations to come will likely discuss the pre-COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 eras.

2021 will be the year of transition. Barring any unexpected catastrophes, individuals, businesses, and society can start to look forward to shaping their futures rather than just grinding through the present.

In this article, we identify some of the trends that will shape the next normal. Then we discuss how they will affect the direction of the global economy, how business will adjust, and how society could be changed forever as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.

How the COVID-19 crisis and the recovery are shaping the global economy

The return of confidence unleashes a consumer rebound.

There are lines outside stores, but they are often due to physical-distancing requirements. Theaters are dark. Fashions are in closets rather than on display. If the Musée du Louvre were open, the lack of tourists might even create the opportunity for an unobstructed view of the Mona Lisa. In these and other ways, consumers have pulled back.

As consumer confidence returns, so will spending, with “revenge shopping” sweeping through sectors as pent-up demand is unleashed. That has been the experience of all previous economic downturns. One difference, however, is that services have been particularly hard hit this time. The bounce back will therefore likely emphasize those businesses, particularly the ones that have a communal element, such as restaurants and entertainment venues.

That isn’t to say that consumers will act uniformly. McKinsey’s most recent consumer survey, published in late October, found that countries with older demographics, such as France, Italy, and Japan, are less optimistic than are those with younger populations, such as India and Indonesia. China was an exception—it has an older population but is conspicuously optimistic.

But China’s profile proves a larger point. The first country to be hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, it was also the first to emerge from it. China’s consumers are relieved—and spending accordingly. On Singles Day, November 11, the country’s two largest online retailers racked up record sales. That wasn’t just a holiday phenomenon. While manufacturing in China came back first, by September, so had consumer spending. Except for international air travel, Chinese consumers have begun to act and spend largely as they did in precrisis times. Australia also offers hope. With the pandemic largely contained in that country, household spending fueled a faster-than-expected 3.3 percent growth rate in the third quarter of 2020, and spending on goods and services rose 7.9 percent. 1 Jamie Smyth, “Australia’s economy powers out of COVID-19 recession,” Financial Times, December 1, 2020, ft.com.

How fast and deep confidence will recover is an open question. In late September, for example, the US consumers surveyed were more optimistic than before but still cautious, reporting that they planned to buy holiday gifts for fewer people and keep an eye on discretionary spending. 2 “ Survey: US consumer sentiment during the coronavirus crisis ,” December 2020. Only around a third had resumed out-of-home activities, compared with 81 percent of consumers in China, 49 percent in France—and just 18 percent in Mexico. New lockdowns and, critically, the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines have and will affect those numbers. The point is that spending will only recover as fast as the rate at which people feel confident about becoming mobile again—and those attitudes differ markedly by country.

Leisure travel bounces back but business travel lags

People who travel for pleasure will want to get back to doing so. That has been the pattern in China. The CEO of one major travel company told us that, beginning in the third quarter of 2020, business was “pretty much back to normal” when referring to growth. But it was a different normal: domestic travel was surging, but international travel was still depressed given pandemic-related border restrictions and concerns about health and safety. In China as a whole, hotel occupancy and the number of travelers on domestic flights were more than 90 percent of their 2019 levels at the end of August, and over the October Golden Week holiday, more than 600 million Chinese hit the road, around 80 percent of last year’s figure. 3 Anniek Bao, “Travel rebounds over China’s national day holiday,” Caixin Global, October 9, 2020, caixinglobal.com; Monica Buchanan Pitrelli, “More than 600 million people traveled in China during ‘Golden Week’,” CNBC, October 9, 2020, cnbc.com; Guang Chen, Will Enger, Steve Saxon, and Jackey Yu, “ What can other countries learn from China’s travel recovery path? ,” October 2020. Because of confidence in the country’s health and safety measures, domestic travel is almost back to the level seen prior to the pandemic, and high-end domestic travel is actually ahead of it.

By definition, leisure travel is discretionary. Business travel is less so. In 2018, business-travel spending reached $1.4 trillion, which was more than 20 percent of the total spending in the hospitality and travel sector. 4 World Travel & Tourism Council, wttc.org. It also brings in a disproportionate share of profits—70 percent of revenues globally for high-end hotels, for example. During and after the pandemic, though, there is a question about business travel: Exactly when is it necessary? The answer is almost certain to be not as much as before. Video calls and collaboration tools that enable remote working, for example, could replace some onsite meetings and conferences.

The larger context is also informative. History shows that, after a recession, business travel takes longer than leisure travel to bounce back. After the 2008–09 financial crisis, for example, international business travel took five years to recover, compared with two years for international leisure travel.

Regional and domestic business travel will likely rebound first; some companies and sectors will want to resume in-person sales and customer meetings as soon as they safely can. Peer pressure may also play a part: once one company gets back to face-to-face meetings, their competitors may not want to hold back. All told, however, a survey of business-travel managers found that they expect business-travel spending in 2021 will only be half that of 2019. 5 Seth Borko, Wouter Geerts, and Haixia Wang, The travel industry turned upside down: Insights, analysis, and actions for travel executives , September 2020. While business travel will return at scale, and global economic growth will generate new demand, executives in the field think that it may never recover to the 2019 level.

In short, leisure travel is driven by the very human desire to explore and to enjoy, and that has not changed. Indeed, one of the first things people do as they grow more prosperous is to travel—first close to home and then further afield. There is no reason to believe that the rise in global prosperity will reverse itself or that human curiosity will diminish. But the effective use of technology during the pandemic—and the economic constraints that many companies will face for years after it—could augur the beginning of a long-term structural change in business travel.

The crisis sparks a wave of innovation and launches a generation of entrepreneurs

Plato was right: necessity is indeed the mother of invention. During the COVID-19 crisis, one area that has seen tremendous growth is digitization, meaning everything from online customer service to remote working to supply-chain reinvention to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to improve operations. Healthcare, too, has changed substantially, with telehealth and biopharma coming into their own.

Disruption creates space for entrepreneurs—and that’s what is happening in the United States, in particular, but also in other major economies. We admit that we didn’t see this coming. After all, during the 2008–09 financial crisis, small-business formation declined, and it rose only slightly during the recessions of 2001 and 1990–91. This time, though, there is a veritable flood of new small businesses. In the third quarter of 2020 alone, there were more than 1.5 million new-business applications in the United States—almost double the figure for the same period in 2019. 6 “Business and industry: Time series/trend charts,” US Census Bureau, December 15, 2020, census.gov.

Yes, many of those businesses are single-person establishments that could well stay that way—think of the restaurant chef turned caterer or the recent college graduate with a cool new app. So it’s intriguing that the volume of “high-propensity-business applications” (those that are likeliest to turn into businesses with payrolls) has also risen strongly—more than 50 percent compared with 2019. Venture-capital activity dipped only slightly in the first half of 2020.

The European Union has not seen anything like this response, perhaps because its recovery strategy tended to emphasize protecting jobs (not income, as in the United States). That said, France saw 84,000 new business formations in October, the highest ever recorded, 7 Valentina Romei, “Pandemic triggers surge in business start-ups across major countries,” Financial Times, December 30, 2020, ft.com. and 20 percent more than in the same month in 2019. Germany has also seen an increase in new businesses compared with 2019; ditto for Japan. Britain is somewhere in between. A survey published in November 2020 of 1,500 self-employed people found that 20 percent say they are likely to leave self-employment when they can. 8 “Hours and incomes of self-employed workers stayed low over summer,” LSE, November 10, 2020, lse.ac.uk. At the same time, however, the number of new businesses registered in the United Kingdom in the third quarter of 2020 rose 30 percent compared with 2019, showing the largest increase seen since 2012. 9 Andy Bounds and Chris Tighe, “Starting a business in the midst of a pandemic,” Financial Times, November 26, 2020, ft.com.

On the whole, the COVID-19 crisis has been devastating small business. In the United States, for example, there were 25.3 percent fewer of them open in December 2020 than at the beginning of the year (the bottom was in mid-April, when the figure was almost half). 10 Opportunity Insights Economic Tracker, November 30, 2020, tracktherecovery.org. US small-business revenue fell more than 30 percent between January and December 2020. 11 Gwynn Guilford and Charity L. Scott, “Is it insane to start a business during coronavirus? Millions of Americans don’t think so,” Wall Street Journal, September 26, 2020, wsj.com. But we’ll take good news where we can get it, and the positive trend in entrepreneurship could bode well for job growth and economic activity once recovery takes hold.

Digitally enabled productivity gains accelerate the Fourth Industrial Revolution

There’s no going back. The great acceleration in the use of technology, digitization, and new forms of working is going to be sustained. Many executives reported that they moved 20 to 25 times faster than they thought possible on things like building supply-chain redundancies, improving data security, and increasing the use of advanced technologies in operations. 12 “ How COVID-19 has pushed companies over the technology tipping point—and transformed business forever: McKinsey Global Survey results ,” October 2020.

How all that feeds into long-term productivity will not be known until the data for several more quarters are evaluated. But it’s worth noting that US productivity in the third quarter of 2020 rose 4.6 percent, following a 10.6 percent increase in the second quarter, which is the largest six-month improvement since 1965. 13 “Productivity and costs: Third quarter 2020, revised,” US Bureau of Labor Statistics, December 8, 2020, bls.gov. Productivity is only one number, albeit an important one; the startling figure for the United States in the second quarter was based in large part on the biggest declines in output and hours seen since 1947. That isn’t an enviable precedent.

More positively, in the past, it has taken a decade or longer for game-changing technologies to evolve from cool new things to productivity drivers. The COVID-19 crisis has sped up that transition in areas such as AI and digitization by several years, and even faster in Asia. A McKinsey survey published in October 2020 found that companies are three times likelier than they were before the crisis to conduct at least 80 percent of their customer interactions digitally. 14 Laura LaBerge, Clayton O’Toole, Jeremy Schneider, and Kate Smaje “ How COVID-19 has pushed companies over the technology tipping point—and transformed business forever ,” October 2020.

The COVID-19 crisis has created an imperative for companies to reconfigure their operations—and an opportunity to transform them. To the extent that they do so, greater productivity will follow.

That evolution has not always been a seamless or elegant process: businesses had to scramble to install or adapt new technologies under intense pressure. The result has been that some systems are clunky. The near-term challenge, then, is to move from reacting to the crisis to building and institutionalizing what has been done well so far. For consumer industries, and particularly for retail, that could mean improving digital and omnichannel business models. For healthcare, it’s about establishing virtual options as a norm. For insurance, it’s about personalizing the customer experience. And for semiconductors, it’s about identifying and investing in next-generation products. For everyone, there will be new opportunities in M&A and an urgent need to invest in capability building.

How businesses are adjusting to the changes prompted by the COVID-19 crisis

Pandemic-induced changes in shopping behavior forever alter consumer businesses.

In nine of 13 major countries surveyed by McKinsey, at least two-thirds of consumers say they have tried new kinds of shopping. 15 Surveyed countries were Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Spain, United Kingdom, and the United States. The countries where fewer than two-thirds of respondents had tried new shopping behaviors were the United Kingdom (63 percent), France (56 percent), Germany (50 percent), and Japan (30 percent). And in all 13, 65 percent or more say they intend to continue to do so. The implication is that brands that haven’t figured out how to reach consumers in new ways had better catch up, or they will be left behind. We expect that, in developing markets—Brazil and India, for example—the pandemic will accelerate digital shopping, albeit from a low base. Consumers in continental Europe have bought more online but aren’t as enthusiastic as those in Britain and the United States to continue doing so.

Specifically, the shift to online retail is real, and much of it will stick. In the United States, the penetration of e-commerce was forecast in 2019 to reach 24 percent by 2024; by July 2020, it had hit 33 percent of total retail sales. 16 Eric Lamarre and Kate Smaje, “ Accelerating digital capabilities to recover from the COVID-19 crisis ,” July 21, 2020. To put it another way, the first half of 2020 saw an increase in e-commerce equivalent to that of the previous ten years. 17 Arun Arora, Hamza Khan, Sajal Kohli, and Caroline Tufft, “ DTC e-commerce: How consumer brands can get it right ,” November 2020. In Latin America, where the payments and delivery infrastructure isn’t as strong, e-commerce use doubled from 5 to 10 percent. In Europe, overall digital adoption is almost universal (95 percent), compared with 81 percent at the start of the pandemic. In normal times, getting to that level would have taken two to three years. Strikingly, the biggest increases came in countries that had previously been relatively cautious about shopping online. Germany, Romania, and Switzerland, for example, had the three lowest online-penetration rates prior to the COVID-19 crisis; since then, usage increased 28, 25, and 18 percentage points, respectively—more than in any other markets.

Dig a little deeper, though, and there are some cautionary notes, such as the conspicuous lack of brand loyalty among online buyers. Perhaps most telling, in a recent McKinsey survey, only 60 percent of consumer-goods companies say they are even moderately prepared to capture e-commerce-growth opportunities. 18 Arun Arora, Hamza Khan, Sajal Kohli, and Caroline Tufft, “ DTC e-commerce: How consumer brands can get it right ,” November 2020. As one executive told us, “when it comes to selling directly to consumers, we don’t really know where to start.” That concern is certainly valid. Direct-to-consumer selling requires the development of new skills, capabilities, and business and pricing models. But the trend is clear: many consumers are moving online. To reach them, companies have to go there, too.

Supply chains rebalance and shift

Think of it as “just in time plus.” The “plus” stands for “just in case,” meaning more sophisticated risk management. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed vulnerabilities in the long, complicated supply chains of many companies. When a single country or even a single factory went dark, the lack of critical components shut down production. Never again, executives vowed. So the great rebalancing began. As much as a quarter of global goods exports, or $4.5 trillion, could shift by 2025.

Once businesses began to study how their supply chains worked, they realized three things. First, disruptions aren’t unusual. Any given company can expect a shutdown lasting a month or so every 3.7 years. Such shocks, then, are far from shocking: they are predictable features of doing business that need to be managed like any other.

Second, cost differences among developed and many developing countries are narrowing. In manufacturing, companies that adopt Industry 4.0 principles (meaning the application of data, analytics, human–machine interaction, advanced robotics, and 3-D printing) can offset half of the labor-cost differential between China and the United States. The gap narrows further when the cost of rigidity is factored in: end-to-end optimization is more important than the sum of individual transaction costs. That’s one reason why agencies such as the US Department of Defense are diversifying their networks of suppliers for essentials, such as in healthcare manufacturing and microelectronics.

And third, most businesses do not have a good idea of what is going on lower down in their supply chains, where subtiers and sub-subtiers may play small but critical roles. That is also where most disruptions originate, but two-thirds of companies say they can’t confirm the business-continuity arrangements with their non-tier-one suppliers. With the development of AI and data analytics, companies can learn more about, audit, and connect with their entire value chains.

None of those things means that multinationals are going to ship all or most of their production back to their home markets. There are good reasons to take advantage of regional expertise and to be in place to serve fast-growing consumer markets. But questions on security and resiliency mean that those companies are likely to be more thoughtful about the business cases for such decisions.

The future of work arrives ahead of schedule

Before the COVID-19 crisis, the idea of remote working was in the air but not proceeding very far or fast. But the pandemic changed that, with tens of millions of people transitioning to working from home, essentially overnight, in a wide range of industries. For example, according to Michael Fisher, president and CEO of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, there were 2,000 telehealth visits recorded at the organization in all of 2019—and 5,000 a week in July 2020. 19 “ Making a daily ‘to be’ list: How a hospital system CEO is navigating the coronavirus crisis ,” McKinsey Quarterly , July 23, 2020. Fisher thinks telehealth could account for 30 percent of all healthcare visits in the future. In Japan, fewer than 1,000 institutions offered remote care in 2018; by July 2020, more than 16,000 did.

The McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) estimates that more than 20 percent of the global workforce (most of them in high-skilled jobs in sectors such as finance, insurance, and IT) could work the majority of its time away from the office—and be just as effective. Not everyone who can, will; even so, that is a once-in-several-generations change. It’s happening not just because of the COVID-19 crisis but also because advances in automation and digitization made it possible; the use of those technologies has accelerated during the pandemic. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella noted in April 2020 that “we’ve seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months.” 20 Jared Spataro, “2 years of digital transformation in 2 months,” Microsoft, April 30, 2020, microsoft.com.

The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that more than 20 percent of the global workforce could work the majority of its time away from the office—and be just as effective.

There are two important challenges related to the transition to working away from the office. One is to decide the role of the office itself, which is the traditional center for creating culture and a sense of belonging. Companies will have to make decisions on everything from real estate (Do we need this building, office, or floor?) to workplace design (How much space between desks? Are pantries safe?) to training and professional development (Is there such a thing as remote mentorship?). Returning to the office shouldn’t be a matter of simply opening the door. Instead, it needs to be part of a systematic reconsideration of what exactly the office brings to the organization.

The other challenge has to do with adapting the workforce to the requirements of automation, digitization, and other technologies. This isn’t just the case for sectors such as banking and telecom; instead it’s a challenge across the board, even in sectors not associated with remote work. For example, major retailers are increasingly automating checkout. If salesclerks want to keep their jobs, they will need to learn new skills. In 2018, the World Economic Forum estimated that more than half of employees would need significant reskilling or upskilling by 2022.

Evidence shows that the benefits of reskilling current staff, rather than letting them go and then finding new people, typically costs less and brings benefits that outweigh the costs. Investing in employees can also foster loyalty, customer satisfaction, and positive brand perception.

Workforce development was a priority even before the pandemic. In a McKinsey survey conducted in May 2019, almost 90 percent of the executives and managers surveyed said their companies faced skill gaps or expected to in the next five years. 21 “ Beyond hiring: How companies are reskilling to address talent gaps ,” February 12, 2020. But only a third said they were prepared to deal with the issue. Successful reskilling starts with knowing what skills are needed, both right now and in the near future; offering tailored learning opportunities to meet them; and evaluating what does and doesn’t work. Perhaps most important, it requires commitment from the top that inculcates a culture of lifelong learning.

The biopharma revolution takes hold

The announcement of several promising COVID-19 vaccines has been a much-needed shot of good news. There will be challenges to rolling out these vaccines on the scale needed, but that does not lessen the accomplishment.

Unlike previous vaccines, many of which use an inactivated or attenuated form of a virus to create resistance to it, the vaccines created by Moderna and the BioNTech–Pfizer partnership use mRNA. This platform has been under development for years, but these are the first vaccines that have secured regulatory approval. The “m” is for “messenger” because the molecules carry genetic instructions to the cells to create a protein that prompts an immune response. The body breaks down mRNA and its lipid carrier within a matter of hours. (WHO lists 60 candidate COVID-19 vaccines that have advanced to clinical trials; many don’t use mRNA.)

Just as businesses have sped up their operations in response to the COVID-19 crisis, the pandemic could be the launching point for a massive acceleration in the pace of medical innovation, with biology meeting technology in new ways. Not only was the COVID-19 genome sequenced in a matter of weeks, rather than months, but the vaccine rolled out in less than a year—an astonishing accomplishment given that normal vaccine development has often taken a decade. Urgency has created momentum, but the larger story is how a wide and diverse range of capabilities—among them, bioengineering, genetic sequencing, computing, data analytics, automation, machine learning, and AI—have come together.

Regulators have also reacted with speed and creativity, establishing clear guidelines and encouraging thoughtful collaboration. Without relaxing safety and efficacy requirements, they have shown just how quickly they can collect and evaluate data. If those lessons are applied to other diseases, they could play a significant role in setting the foundation for the faster development of treatments.

The development of COVID-19 vaccines is just the most compelling example of the potential of what MGI calls the “Bio Revolution”—biomolecules, biosystems, biomachines, and biocomputing. In a report published in May 2020, MGI estimated that “45 percent of the global disease burden could be addressed with capabilities that are scientifically conceivable today.” 22 “ The Bio Revolution: Innovations transforming economies, societies, and our lives ,” McKinsey Global Institute, May 13, 2020. For example, gene-editing technologies could curb malaria, which kills more than 250,000 people a year. Cellular therapies could repair or even replace damaged cells and tissues. New kinds of vaccines could be applied to noncommunicable diseases, including cancer and heart disease.

The potential of the Bio Revolution goes well beyond health; as much as 60 percent of the physical inputs to the global economy, according to MGI, could theoretically be produced biologically. Examples include agriculture (genetic modification to create heat- or drought-resistant crops or to address conditions such as vitamin-A deficiency), energy (genetically engineered microbes to create biofuels), and materials (artificial spider silk and self-repairing fabrics). Those and other applications feasible through current technology could create trillions of dollars in economic impact over the next decade.

Portfolio restructuring accelerates

The COVID-19 crisis provoked divergent, even dramatic, reactions, with some industries taking off and others suffering badly; the effect was to shake up historic norms. When the economy settles into its next normal, such sectoral differences can be expected to narrow, with industries returning to somewhere around their previous relative positions. What is less obvious is how the dynamics within sectors are likely to change. In previous downturns, the strong came out stronger, and the weak got weaker, went under, or were bought. The defining difference was resilience—the ability not only to absorb shocks but to use them to build competitive advantage. Over the course of a decade, companies can expect losses of 42 percent of a year’s profits from disruptions. 23 “ Risk, resilience, and rebalancing in global value chains ,” McKinsey Global Institute, August 6, 2020.

In October 2020, McKinsey evaluated 1,500 companies by “Z-Score,” which measures the probability of corporate bankruptcy. The higher the score, the stronger the company’s financial position. The research found that the top 20 percent of companies (the “emerging resilients”) that had improved their Z-Scores during the current recession had increased their earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization by 5 percent; the others had lost 19 percent. 24 Cindy Levy, Mihir Mysore, Kevin Sneader, and Bob Sternfels, “ The emerging resilients: Achieving ‘escape velocity’ ,” October 6, 2020. The emerging resilients, the evidence shows, are pulling away from the pack.

The implication is that there is a resiliency premium on recovery. Top performers won’t sit on their strengths; instead, as in previous downturns, they will seek out ways to build them—for example, through M&A. That’s why we expect to see substantial portfolio adjustment as companies with healthy balance sheets seek opportunities in a context of discounted assets and lower valuations. In fact, that may already be happening: deal making began to pick up midyear.

A second factor that tilts the odds in favor of portfolio restructuring is the availability of private capital. Special-purpose acquisition companies, which merge with a company to take it public, are “having a moment” in 2020, as McKinsey recently noted. 25 Kurt Chauviere, Alastair Green, and Tao Tan, “ Earning the premium: A recipe for long-term SPAC success ,” September 23, 2020. Through August 2020, they had accounted for 81 out of 111 US IPOs.

Much more important is private equity (PE). Globally, PE firms are sitting on almost $1.5 trillion of “dry powder”—unallocated capital that’s ready to be invested. The COVID-19 crisis has hurt in some ways, with global deal value down 12 percent compared with the first three quarters of 2019 and deal counts down 30 percent. 26 Alex Lynn, “Asia’s dealmakers spend big during pandemic, get little back,” PEI Media, November 23, 2020, privateequityinternational.com.

On the other hand, global fundraising has stayed strong—$348.5 billion through September 2020, on par with the previous five years—and deal making in Asia has more than doubled. 27 Alex Lynn, “Covid-19 adds fuel to India’s private equity explosion,” PEI Media, November 30, 2020, privateequityinternational.com; Carmela Mendoza, “Flight to familiarity intensifies with fewer funds,” PEI Media, October 19, 2020, privateequityinternational.com. The PE industry has a reputation of zigging when others are zagging, making deals in difficult times. And it has history on its side: returns on PE investments made during global downturns tend to be higher than in the good times. Put it all together, and we don’t think the PE industry is going to keep its powder dry for much longer; there are simply going to be too many new investment opportunities.

Green, with a touch of brown, is the color of recovery

All over the world, the costs of pollution—and the benefits of environmental sustainability—are increasingly recognized. China, some of the Gulf States, and India are investing in green energy on a scale that would have been considered improbable even a decade ago. Europe, including the United Kingdom, is united on addressing climate change. The United States is transitioning away from coal and is innovating in a wide array of green technologies, such as batteries, carbon-capture methods, and electric vehicles.

To cope with the 2008–09 financial crisis, there were substantial government stimulus programs, but few of them incorporated climate or environmental action. This time is different. Many (though by no means all) countries are using their recovery plans to push through existing environmental policy priorities:

• The European Union plans to dedicate around 30 percent of its $880 billion plan for COVID-19-crisis plan to climate-change-related measures, including the issuance of at least $240 billion in “green bonds.”
• In September 2020, China pledged to reduce its net carbon emissions to zero by 2060.
• Japan has pledged to be carbon neutral by 2050.
• South Korea’s Green New Deal, part of its economic-recovery plan, invests in greener infrastructure and technology, with the stated goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.
• While campaigning, US president-elect Joe Biden pledged to invest $2 trillion in clean energy related to transportation, power, and building.
• Canada is linking recovery to climate goals.
• Nigeria plans to phase out fossil-fuel subsidies and to install solar-power systems for an estimated 25 million people.
• Colombia is planting 180 million trees.

The imperative for businesses is clear along two fronts. First, businesses need to respond to the sustainability concerns of investors. It’s possible, albeit speculative, that the COVID-19 crisis foreshadows what a climate crisis could look like: systemic, fast moving, wide ranging, and global. There is a case, then, for businesses to take action to limit their climate risks—for example, by making their capital investments more climate resilient or by diversifying their supply chains.

More significantly, the growth opportunities that a green economy portends could be substantial. BlackRock, a global investment company with around $7 trillion in assets under management, noted in its 2021 Global Outlook that, “contrary to past consensus,” it expects that the shift to sustainability will “help enhance returns” and that “the tectonic shift towards sustainable investing is accelerating.” 28 Philipp Hildebrand et al., 2021 Global Outlook , BlackRock, 2020, blackrock.com. Green growth opportunities abound across massive sectors such as energy, mobility, and agriculture. Just as digital-economy companies have powered stock-market returns in the past couple of decades, so green-technology companies could play that role in the coming decades.

How the COVID-19 crisis could change society

Healthcare systems take stock—and make changes.

Healthcare system reform is difficult. While caution is necessary when lives are involved, one consequence is that modernization is often slower than it needs to be. Learning from the experiences associated with COVID-19 can show the way to build stronger postpandemic healthcare systems.

Consider the case of South Korea. When the MERS virus struck in 2015, resulting in the deaths of 38 Koreans, the government was stung by widespread public criticism that it had not responded well. As a result, it took action to improve its pandemic preparedness—and it was ready when COVID-19 hit in January 2020. Large-scale testing, as well as tracing and quarantine measures, began almost immediately. And it worked. While the country began seeing a significant increase in new cases in December, fewer than 1,000 South Koreans died from COVID-19 in all of 2020.

No doubt, governments all over the world will set up task forces, inquiries, and commissions to examine their actions related to the COVID-19 crisis. The key is to go beyond the temptation simply to assign blame (or credit). Instead, the efforts need to be forward thinking, with an emphasis on turning the painful lessons of COVID-19 into effective action.

Being better prepared for the next pandemic, on both national and international levels, has to be a high priority. Too often, investments in prevention and public-health capabilities are undervalued; the experience of COVID-19 demonstrates how costly, in both lives and livelihoods, such thinking can be. An upgrade of public-health infrastructure and the modernization of healthcare systems, including the wider use of telemedicine and virtual health, are two areas to address.

Business will also have a role. Employers should take the opportunity to learn from the pandemic how to redesign workplaces, build healthier work environments, and invest effectively in employee health.

The hangovers begin as governments tackle rising debt

The scale of the fiscal response to the COVID-19 crisis was unprecedented—and three times bigger than seen for the 2008–09 financial crisis. In the G-20 alone, fiscal packages are estimated at more than $10 trillion. Few question the humanitarian and economic cases for strong action. But even in an era of low interest rates, the reckoning could be painful.

In February 2020, Janet Yellen, who is Joe Biden’s choice to become Secretary of the Treasury, said that “the US debt path is completely unsustainable under current tax and spending plans.” 29 “Debt, inequality and the coronavirus: A conversation with former Fed Chair Janet Yellen and the World Bank’s David Malpass,” Marketplace, February 4, 2020, marketplace.org. Since then, the US federal government has allocated trillions in COVID-19-crisis relief. That has put the country into new fiscal territory, with the US public debt projected to be bigger than the economy in fiscal year 2021—the first time that has been the case since shortly after World War II.

Canada is projecting a deficit of 343 billion Canadian dollars—an increase of more than 1,000 percent over the deficit in 2019—pushing national debt above 1 trillion Canadian dollars for the first time. In China, the $500 billion fiscal stimulus will raise the country’s fiscal deficit to a record 3.6 percent of GDP. In the United Kingdom, debt rose to more than £2 trillion, a record and more than 100 percent of GDP. In the eurozone, the combined budget deficits in October were 11.6 percent of GDP, compared with 2.5 percent in the first quarter of 2020; total debt hit a record 95 percent of GDP. That looks comparatively trivial compared with Japan, which has the world’s highest debt-to-GDP ratio, at more than 200 percent. And while debt repayments from 73 poor countries have been frozen, the obligations still exist.

As the pandemic recedes, governments will have to figure out how to address their fiscal difficulties. Although interest rates are generally low, that could mean raising taxes or cutting spending—or both. Doing so could risk slowing the recovery and stimulating political backlash. But high levels of public debt carry their own costs, crowding out private debt and limiting the resources available to governments as they service their debt.

As the pandemic recedes, governments will have to figure out how to address their fiscal difficulties. Although interest rates are generally low, that could mean raising taxes or cutting spending— or both.

While interim measures, such as improving government operations, monetizing assets, and reducing fiscal leakages, can be helpful, the long-term answer is growth and productivity. That’s largely how the United States managed to reduce its national debt from 118 percent of GDP in 1946 to a low of 31 percent in 1981. 30 Kimberly Amadeo, “US national debt by year compared to GDP and major events,” Balance, October 9, 2020, thebalance.com. Promoting growth will require supportive regulation, well-trained workforces, and the continued diffusion of technologies. Most of all, it will require individuals, businesses, and governments to be willing to embrace change.

Paying down debt isn’t exciting to do. But for economic stability—and in fairness to future generations—it needs to be taken seriously, not kicked down the road.

Stakeholder capitalism comes of age

The idea that businesses should seek to serve the interests of consumers, suppliers, workers, and society, as well as shareholders, isn’t new. The American chocolate maker Milton S. Hershey put it this way more than a century ago, “business is a matter of human service.” In 1759, capitalism’s philosopher king Adam Smith noted in The Theory of Moral Sentiments that the individual is “sensible too that his own interest is connected with the prosperity of society, and that the happiness, perhaps the preservation of his existence, depends on its preservation.” 31 Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, London, United Kingdom: A. Millar, 1759. Moreover, the free market itself has been a positive social force, fueling the economic growth that has brought dramatic advances in health, longevity, and general prosperity around the world.

Even so, there is widespread distrust for business as usual, as a number of surveys and elections have shown. That’s where stakeholder capitalism comes in—as a bridge between businesses and the communities of which they are a part. The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the interconnectedness of business and society. “It will be a true inflection point,” says Rajnish Kumar, chairman of the State Bank of India. 32 “ How the State Bank of India is learning from crisis ,” McKinsey Quarterly , July 24, 2020. “And whatever we learn through this process—it must not go to waste.”

The increasing prominence of the idea of stakeholder capitalism is more than just talk (although there is admittedly still a good deal of talk). For example, companies that become certified B Corporations are legally required to consider the interests of all stakeholders in their decision making, including by changing their governance structures to that effect. The first B Corporations were certified in 2007; now, there are more than 3,500 of them.

None of that means that companies should eschew the pursuit of profit. As some of our colleagues recently noted, “There is a term for an enlightened company with the most perfect intentions that does not make money: defunct.” 33 Vivian Hunt, Bruce Simpson, and Yuito Yamada, “ The case for stakeholder capitalism ,” November 12, 2020. Instead, it’s an argument to infuse profit, a readily measured metric, with a sense of purpose—something that humans naturally seek.

We do not believe there is a conflict between the two. In a study that looked at 615 large- and midcap US publicly listed companies from 2001 to 2015, MGI found that those with a long-term view—something that’s a core of stakeholder capitalism—outperformed the rest in earnings, revenue, investment, and job growth. And a McKinsey Global Survey in February 2020 found that a majority of the executives and investment professionals surveyed said they believed that environmental, social, and governance programs already create short- and long-term value and will do so even more five years from now.

Stakeholder capitalism isn’t about being the most woke or about fending off pesky activists. It’s about building the trust—call it the “social capital”—that businesses need to keep doing business. And it’s about recognizing that creating long-term shareholder value requires more than just focusing on shareholders.

In March 2020, some of our McKinsey colleagues argued that the COVID-19 crisis could be the “imperative of our time.” 34 Sven Smit, Martin Hirt, Kevin Buehler, Susan Lund, Ezra Greenberg, and Arvind Govindarajan, “ Safeguarding our lives and livelihoods: The imperative of our time ,” March 23, 2020. A month later, we noted that it could bring a “dramatic restructuring of the economic and social order.” 35 Kevin Sneader and Shubham Singhal, “ Beyond coronavirus: The path to the next normal ,” March 23, 2020; Kevin Sneader and Shubham Singhal, “ The future is not what it used to be: Thoughts on the shape of the next normal ,” April 14, 2020. We stand by those assertions. The COVID-19 pandemic has been an economic and human catastrophe, and it’s far from over. But with vaccines beginning to roll out, it’s possible to be cautiously optimistic that the next normal will emerge this year or next.

And we believe that, in some ways, that normal could be better. With good leadership, from both business and governments, the changes we described—in productivity, green growth, medical innovation, and resiliency—could provide an enduring foundation for the long term.

This article was edited by Cait Murphy, a senior editor in the New York office.

Explore a career with us

Related articles.

‘And now win the peace’: Ten lessons from history for the next normal

The future is not what it used to be: Thoughts on the shape of the next normal

Beyond coronavirus: The path to the next normal

• Search Menu
• Advance articles
• Editor's Choice
• Supplements
• Author Guidelines
• Submission Site
• Open Access
• About Journal of Public Health
• About the Faculty of Public Health of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom
• Editorial Board
• Self-Archiving Policy
• Dispatch Dates
• Advertising and Corporate Services
• Journals Career Network
• Journals on Oxford Academic
• Books on Oxford Academic

Article Contents

• < Previous

Adapting to the culture of ‘new normal’: an emerging response to COVID-19

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data

Jeff Clyde G Corpuz, Adapting to the culture of ‘new normal’: an emerging response to COVID-19, Journal of Public Health , Volume 43, Issue 2, June 2021, Pages e344–e345, https://doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdab057

• Permissions Icon Permissions

A year after COVID-19 pandemic has emerged, we have suddenly been forced to adapt to the ‘new normal’: work-from-home setting, parents home-schooling their children in a new blended learning setting, lockdown and quarantine, and the mandatory wearing of face mask and face shields in public. For many, 2020 has already been earmarked as ‘the worst’ year in the 21st century. Ripples from the current situation have spread into the personal, social, economic and spiritual spheres. Is this new normal really new or is it a reiteration of the old? A recent correspondence published in this journal rightly pointed out the involvement of a ‘supportive’ government, ‘creative’ church and an ‘adaptive’ public in the so-called culture. However, I argue that adapting to the ‘new normal’ can greatly affect the future. I would carefully suggest that we examine the context and the location of culture in which adaptations are needed.

To live in the world is to adapt constantly. A year after COVID-19 pandemic has emerged, we have suddenly been forced to adapt to the ‘new normal’: work-from-home setting, parents home-schooling their children in a new blended learning setting, lockdown and quarantine, and the mandatory wearing of face mask and face shields in public. For many, 2020 has already been earmarked as ‘the worst’ year in the 21st century. 1 Ripples from the current situation have spread into the personal, social, economic and spiritual spheres. Is this new normal really new or is it a reiteration of the old? A recent correspondence published in this journal rightly pointed out the involvement of a ‘supportive’ government, ‘creative’ church and an ‘adaptive’ public in the so-called culture. 2 However, I argue that adapting to the ‘new normal’ can greatly affect the future. I would carefully suggest that we examine the context and the location of culture in which adaptations are needed.

The term ‘new normal’ first appeared during the 2008 financial crisis to refer to the dramatic economic, cultural and social transformations that caused precariousness and social unrest, impacting collective perceptions and individual lifestyles. 3 This term has been used again during the COVID-19 pandemic to point out how it has transformed essential aspects of human life. Cultural theorists argue that there is an interplay between culture and both personal feelings (powerlessness) and information consumption (conspiracy theories) during times of crisis. 4 Nonetheless, it is up to us to adapt to the challenges of current pandemic and similar crises, and whether we respond positively or negatively can greatly affect our personal and social lives. Indeed, there are many lessons we can learn from this crisis that can be used in building a better society. How we open to change will depend our capacity to adapt, to manage resilience in the face of adversity, flexibility and creativity without forcing us to make changes. As long as the world has not found a safe and effective vaccine, we may have to adjust to a new normal as people get back to work, school and a more normal life. As such, ‘we have reached the end of the beginning. New conventions, rituals, images and narratives will no doubt emerge, so there will be more work for cultural sociology before we get to the beginning of the end’. 5

Now, a year after COVID-19, we are starting to see a way to restore health, economies and societies together despite the new coronavirus strain. In the face of global crisis, we need to improvise, adapt and overcome. The new normal is still emerging, so I think that our immediate focus should be to tackle the complex problems that have emerged from the pandemic by highlighting resilience, recovery and restructuring (the new three Rs). The World Health Organization states that ‘recognizing that the virus will be with us for a long time, governments should also use this opportunity to invest in health systems, which can benefit all populations beyond COVID-19, as well as prepare for future public health emergencies’. 6 There may be little to gain from the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is important that the public should keep in mind that no one is being left behind. When the COVID-19 pandemic is over, the best of our new normal will survive to enrich our lives and our work in the future.

No funding was received for this paper.

UNESCO . A year after coronavirus: an inclusive ‘new normal’. https://en.unesco.org/news/year-after-coronavirus-inclusive-new-normal . (12 February 2021, date last accessed) .

Cordero DA . To stop or not to stop ‘culture’: determining the essential behavior of the government, church and public in fighting against COVID-19 . J Public Health (Oxf) 2021 . doi: 10.1093/pubmed/fdab026 .

Google Scholar

El-Erian MA . Navigating the New Normal in Industrial Countries . Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund , 2010 .

Google Preview

Alexander JC , Smith P . COVID-19 and symbolic action: global pandemic as code, narrative, and cultural performance . Am J Cult Sociol 2020 ; 8 : 263 – 9 .

Biddlestone M , Green R , Douglas KM . Cultural orientation, power, belief in conspiracy theories, and intentions to reduce the spread of COVID-19 . Br J Soc Psychol 2020 ; 59 ( 3 ): 663 – 73 .

World Health Organization . From the “new normal” to a “new future”: A sustainable response to COVID-19. 13 October 2020 . https: // www.who.int/westernpacific/news/commentaries/detail-hq/from-the-new-normal-to-a-new-future-a-sustainable-response-to-covid-19 . (12 February 2021, date last accessed) .

Email alerts

Citing articles via.

• Recommend to your Library

Affiliations

• Online ISSN 1741-3850
• Print ISSN 1741-3842
• Copyright © 2024 Faculty of Public Health
• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Africa oil and gas

Ghana banking survey report

Doing business and investing in Ghana

PwC 2023 Mid-Year Budget Digest

Budget highlights 2021

Loading Results

No Match Found

The ‘new normal’ business environment

The corporate and business world has experienced several significant events over the years. Ranging from financial crises to political events and health crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

In taking steps to resolve the health crisis, many have reimagined the new normal in a world that is now more inward-looking than before.

Consequently, contingency planning and incorporation of the uncertainty around future events has become a core consideration in decisions taken by companies.

Productivity and efficiency have also been brought to the fore during this pandemic which presents opportunities for automation and smarter ways of working, which thrive in a virtual society.

It has become evident that the previously ‘established’ way of doing things was impacted and companies thriving in this situation were the ones that were willing and able to re-adapt and remodel to take advantage of their strengths and create new opportunities in this post-crisis world.

This involved a longer-term focus in relation to the decisions taken by businesses, increased use of the internet in online marketing and e-commerce activities.

Other key themes in the response to this pandemic revolved around the ability to harness information processing capabilities to derive insights into the ripple effects of the pandemic on market forces, competition, business reengineering as well as future trends.

It is evident that the world is changing swiftly as uncertainty surrounding trade, economic growth, regulations and geopolitics looms. At the same time, the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), also known as Industry 4.0 can open opportunities for growth even during economic downturns through greater productivity and efficiencies.

Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR)

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), also known as Industry 4.0, is the unfolding age of digitalization—from the digitally connected products and services we consume, to advancements in smart cities and factories and increasingly common automation of tasks and services in our homes and at work, has finally come of age and it’s pervading virtually every aspect of modern life. From consumers to manufacturers to cities, 4IR advancements are more accessible and less costly than just a few years ago but 4IR is more than technology: as it gradually shapes how we live and work (and even play), it also ushers in a revolution of experience.

Imagining Smart Manufacturing – looking beyond COVID-19

Globally, the modern factory is already a highly complex environment.

The promise — if not the full reality — of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) has pushed a few leading organisations to digitise virtually every aspect of manufacturing. In such environments, advanced machines and robots are equipped with a wide array of sensors connected to high-powered analytics engines in the cloud that assess performance, manage production schedules, maintain supplies and orchestrate all the activities on the factory floor.

Most of the technologies on which the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) depends are in place — at least in theory: Advanced robotics and 3D printing, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, sophisticated sensors and the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, advanced data analytics, virtual and augmented reality. Most manufacturing companies understand the value of these technologies whether they are in the supply chain, in production processes or incorporated into the products and services sold to customers, however only a few have made the big bets necessary to implement these technologies throughout their operations.

In Ghana, where the concept of the 4IR is still being processed, imagine that factory transformed by the implementation of 5G networking. The significantly greater speeds of 5G — up to 10 Gbps, far faster than wi-fi — and its near-zero latency should alleviate concerns about the speed and reliability of earlier wireless protocols as observed in environments that have experienced 4IR. By eliminating the need for wired connectivity, 5G will supplement the high-speed manufacturing environment with a far greater degree of flexibility. The sheer richness of the 5G-enabled factory, which will have the capacity to maintain connections among far more sensors than either wired or previous wireless facilities, offers the potential to connect just about anything.

Key Steps to an effective pandemic response

As manufacturers contemplate this ‘factory of the future’, however, the scope of the problems from COVID-19 may seem daunting, especially as the world experiences the third wave, particularly for industrial manufacturers with integrated global supply chains and complex operating environments. But that’s no excuse for inaction. For governments, businesses and institutions, the essential elements of a high-level response are quite similar.

Reconfigure

First, stakeholders need to fix the economic damage of the crisis. Governments must address increased national debt, a reduced tax base, and higher short-term spending. Businesses will need to address vastly weaker balance sheets, steep revenue declines and, in many cases, weakened supply chains and stressed or depleted employee bases, given reduced staff numbers to ensure physical distancing.

Both governments and businesses need to review their response to the pandemic, understand best practices, and prepare for the next inevitable crisis. Companies must rethink their operating model, supply chain and business model. Countries need to consider what is essential to localise for reasons of security, economy and crisis management. More broadly, both nations and organisations need to rethink what success means, identifying new measures of material, social and environmental progress that can guide our efforts.

Organisations must make the systemic rethinking concrete by reconfiguring public and business institutions. This represents a much more fundamental redesign of organisations than the repair process entails. The crisis has put into strong relief the uncomfortable truth that a host of institutions around the world are simply not ready for the 21st century. It’s essential that systems including healthcare, legal, education and taxation be reconfigured to become more efficient, effective and resilient.

In a period of great uncertainty, people will call for more transparent information on a broader range of issues. Investors, regulators and stakeholders will demand more disclosure and information in real time on everything from cash flow to the health of employees.

A host of organisations — in both the public and private sectors — will need to restart in a changed world, because they were either shut down owing to government fiat or forced to for financial reasons. The need to restart can happen at any point in the repair-rethink-reconfigure process. As uncertainty grows around the world, this process becomes the new normal: the next crisis will occur, and organisations that have not learnt the lessons of this experience will be back in repair mode.

Related content

Smart Manufacturing will play an instrumental role within the industrial manufacturing sector.

Paula Adum-Yeboah

Clients and Markets Development, PwC Ghana

Tel: +233 (0) 302 761 500

© 2010 - 2024 PwC. All rights reserved. PwC refers to the PwC network and/or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate legal entity. Please see www.pwc.com/structure for further details.

• About Site Provider
• Cookies info

Linked e-resources

Table of contents, browse subjects.

• COVID-19 Pandemic (2020-)">(2020-)
• COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- Economic aspects">Economic aspects Economic aspects > Congresses.">Congresses.
• Economic development Congresses.">Congresses.
• Electronic books.
• Conference papers and proceedings.

• Please enable javascript in your browser settings and refresh the page to continue.

Unlock Prepare Your Organization to Successfully Embrace the “New Normal”

Get instant access.

Get Instant Access to This Blueprint

• Technology Research
• Infrastructure & Operations
• DR and Business Continuity

Prepare Your Organization to Successfully Embrace the “New Normal”

The covid-19 crisis will pass – but some of the changes it has brought to organizations are here to stay. it must be ready to adapt.

• The COVID-19 pandemic is creating significant challenges across every sector, but even the deepest crisis will eventually pass. However, many of the changes it has brought to how organizations function are here to stay.
• As an IT leader, it can be challenging to envision what this future state will look like and how to position IT as a trusted partner to the business to help steer the ship as the crisis abates.

Critical Insight

• Organizations need to cast their gaze into the “New Normal” and determine an appropriate strategy to stabilize their operations, mitigate ongoing challenges, and seize new opportunities that will be presented in a post-COVID-19 world.
• IT needs to understand the key trends and permanent changes that will exist following the crisis and develop a proactive roadmap for rapidly adapting their technology stack, processes, and resourcing to adjust to the new normal.

Impact and Result

• Info-Tech recommends a three-step approach for adapting to the new normal: begin by surveying crucial changes that will occur as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, assess their relevance to your organization’s unique situation, and create an initiatives roadmap to support the new normal.
• This mini-blueprint will examine five key themes: changing paradigms for remote work, new product delivery models, more self-service options for customers, greater decentralization and agility for organizational decision making, and a renewed emphasis on security architecture.

Prepare Your Organization to Successfully Embrace the “New Normal” Research & Tools

Read the research.

Understand the five key trends that will persist after the pandemic has passed and create a roadmap of initiatives to help your organization adapt to the "New Normal."

Member Testimonials

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.

Testimonial

Sarasota Clerk Of The Circuit Court

Guided Implementation

I enjoyed meeting and working with Ben Dickie on a tailored presentation for the FLGISA SW District. He was very focused and went over all of the ... Read More

I enjoyed meeting and working with Ben Dickie on a tailored presentation for the FLGISA SW District. He was very focused and went over all of the details as well as was flexible. Looking forward to his insight and knowledge for the district meeting. Great planning session! Read Less

M. A. Mortenson Company

City Of Issaquah

Best; good conversation and opportunity to confirm concepts I have been thinking about Worst; not much, really.

State Road and Tollway Authority

I was able to validate the initiatives we are undertaking to adapt to the "new norm" align with trends Ben has seen in other organizations. Very i... Read More

I was able to validate the initiatives we are undertaking to adapt to the "new norm" align with trends Ben has seen in other organizations. Very informational and some great ideas of things we may consider came out of the discussion. Read Less

Bernalillo County

University Of Regina

Stamford Hospital

Mohawk Regional Information Center

New Mexico Department Of Health

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Share on Social

Select Social Platform:

Talk to an Analyst

Our analyst calls are focused on helping our members use the research we produce, and our experts will guide you to successful project completion.

Book an Analyst Call on This Topic

You can start as early as tomorrow morning. Our analysts will explain the process during your first call.

Get Advice From a Subject Matter Expert

Each call will focus on explaining the material and helping you to plan your project, interpret and analyze the results of each project step, and set the direction for your next project step.

Related Content: DR and Business Continuity

Search Code: 92279 Last Revised: April 14, 2020

Book an Appointment

It research & advisory services.

Please confirm the appointment time and click Schedule.

Your call is being booked. A representative will be available to assist you if needed.

Advertisement

A New Normal or Business-as-Usual? Lessons for COVID-19 from Financial Crises in East and Southeast Asia

• Special Issue Article
• Published: 27 October 2020
• Volume 32 , pages 1504–1534, ( 2020 )

Cite this article

• O. Fiona Yap   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1287-3768 1  

11k Accesses

9 Citations

3 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

A Correction to this article was published on 11 November 2020

This article has been updated

Crises and dislocations home in on social, economic, and political weaknesses that are often sidestepped or pushed to the backburner in the interests of master plans of growth or development. Recovery from crises, then, provides the opportunity to address these underlying issues that preceded and, likely, contributed to the crises or dislocation; meanwhile, a return to the previous normalcy following such crises generally means exacerbation of these weaknesses that erode and threaten to fracture social, economic and political foundations. This paper documents social and economic policies across two financial crises, the Asian Financial Crisis and the Global Financial Crisis, for South Korea, the Philippines, and Indonesia, to reveal the problems from growth-centric recovery focus on economic fragilities, social cohesion, and political stability. Further, using evidence from the ground and survey data, we also show how recovery to a new normal with a reprioritization of social policies invigorates the social, political, and economic foundations. We round off the study with an examination of social policy changes under COVID-19 to assess how the efforts track against a recovery to business-as-usual economic normalcy or a new normal that reprioritizes social policies and the economy. The scope of change is high; as we show in the paper, it is also necessary.

Les crises et les bouleversements renvoient à des faiblesses sociales, économiques et politiques qui sont souvent évitées ou mises en sourdine afin de suivre les grands plans de croissance ou de développement. Le fait de se relever après une crise offre donc la possibilité de s'attaquer à ces problèmes sous-jacents qui ont précédé et, vraisemblablement, contribué aux crises ou aux bouleversements; en attendant, suite à de telles crises, un retour à la normalité d’avant signifie généralement une exacerbation de ces faiblesses qui érodent et menacent de fracturer les fondations sociales, économiques et politiques. Cet article documente les politiques sociales et économiques à travers deux crises financières, la crise financière asiatique et la crise financière mondiale, pour la Corée du Sud, les Philippines et l'Indonésie, afin de révéler les problèmes d'une reprise axée sur la croissance et de se concentrer sur les fragilités économiques, la cohésion sociale et la stabilité politique. De plus, en utilisant des preuves sur le terrain et des données d'enquête, nous montrons également comment la relance de l’économie sur la base d’une nouvelle norme, avec une redéfinition des priorités des politiques sociales, revigore les fondements sociaux, politiques et économiques. Nous terminons l'étude par un examen des changements de politique sociale dans le cadre de la COVID-19 pour évaluer de quelle façon les efforts s'opposent à une reprise du statu quo de la normalité économique ou à une nouvelle normalité qui redéfinit les priorités des politiques sociales et de l'économie. L'ampleur du changement est élevée; comme nous le montrons dans cet article, elle est également nécessaire.

Similar content being viewed by others

2008: Spain in the Eye of the Perfect Storm

Crisis, Social Class, and the ‘Fixing’ of Capitalism in Mexico

‘Pushing against an open door’: Reinforcing the neo-liberal policy paradigm in Ireland and the impact of EU intrusion

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

The catastrophic one-two punch from COVID-19 upended political, social, and economic life globally and left governments scrambling to respond on multiple fronts. As countries ease tentatively and uneasily to recover to life before the pandemic, a key question consistently raised is this: recovery to what? Should the outpouring of resources, efforts, funds, and time be aimed at a business-as-usual economic recovery? Or should they be targeted at recovery to a new normal beyond growth-centric revival? Winston Churchill’s famous quip, “Never let a good crisis go to waste,” is a reminder that crises and dislocations home in on social, economic, and political weaknesses all too often sidestepped or pushed to the backburner as a result of single-minded pursuits of master plans of growth or development. Recovery from crises to a new normal, then, typically means seizing the opportunity to reprioritize society, politics and the economy; for many countries, this entails expanding medium- and long-term social policies that address underlying social, political, or economic weaknesses that preceded and, likely, exacerbated the crises or dislocation. Meanwhile, a return to previous normalcy following such crises generally refers to a focus on growth-centric policies aimed primarily at an economic rebound. In practice, return to business-as-usual, then, fixates on economic normalcy; social policies, where adopted, are stop-gap measures that do not substantively address underlying shortcomings. Such a course leaves way for weaknesses to amplify and further corrode or even fracture their foundations. Despite the promises of a recovery to a new normal and the corresponding perils associated with business-as-usual economic normalcy, reprioritization with a new normal remains largely unrealized, even as a growing body of literature shows such a revamp improves economic fundamentals, political support and social relations for growth, particularly in the medium- and long-term (Stiglitz 2000 ; Bernanke 2009 ).

This paper joins this growing literature: it documents the economic, political, and social downsides of a business-as-usual growth-centric rebound and provides corresponding evidence that a new normal that incorporates medium- and long-term social policies—such as environmental and social protection—promote political support and social cohesion for countries in East and Southeast Asia; further, we relate the findings to social policy changes under COVID-19 to assess how recovery efforts in the three countries track against the pursuit of growth-centric versus a new normal recovery. Specifically, we examine the experiences of three countries in East and Southeast Asia—South Korea, the Philippines, and Indonesia—across two financial crises, the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC), 1997–1998, and the subsequent Global Financial Crisis (GFC), 2007–2008, to show that the three countries primarily targeted recovery to economic normalcy following the AFC and the subsequent GFC, with social policies, where adopted, mostly temporary and ad hoc measures to facilitate economic recovery. These experiences largely mirror those of other countries in East and Southeast Asia. We provide qualitative evidence that show how the growth-centric recoveries increased economic vulnerabilities and social insecurity. Further, we provide quantitative evidence from systematic analyses of surveys to show the political and social benefits of medium- and long-term social policies. Specifically, we show respondents are impelled to protest to assert their preferences for social policies over economic performance; in addition, social trust is based on social policies rather than a growth-centric economic normalcy. And, we bring the discussion up-to-date by relating the relevance of the findings to social policy changes under COVID-19.

The East and Southeast Asia region is interesting for study: countries in the region are generally considered to be strong economic performers, so that the populace in East and Southeast Asian countries may be inclined to welcome a growth-centric, business-as-usual recovery, more so than peoples in other regions. In particular, these countries have earned accolades for their economic success, as the Asian tigers of South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, and the next Asian tigers of Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Indeed, a key pillar of the East Asian Development Model (EADM)—a growth model ascribed to countries in the region—is that economic achievements underpin citizens’ acceptance of less-than-democratic regime rules and processes to enable the government-led economic success in these countries, often pursued with the aid of illiberal rules, processes, or practices (Shrestha 2013 ; Cha and Yap 2020 ). Meanwhile, in stark contrast, social policies—such as social protection—are underdeveloped: social policies have historically been described as “productivism” or “developmentalism”: i.e., they were left primarily to families and communities on the basis of mutual support while economic and industrial development objectives were prioritized by the state (Ratigan 2017 ). These depictions of East and Southeast Asia underline that citizens in the region may be inclined to embrace a return to business-as-usual economic normalcy. It stands to reason that if the examination reveals otherwise—that citizens in the region prefer and support a recovery to a new normal that incorporates medium- and long-term social policies—then the results are likely to be broadly generalizable.

To enhance generalizability, the three dissimilar countries of South Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines are chosen for examination from the population of East and Southeast Asian countries, i.e., we adopt the most different cases comparative method to augment external validity of the findings. Briefly, the most different cases or systems comparative method draws findings based on selection of cases from a defined population that vary across most of the relevant independent variables; as a result of such case selections, similar outcomes on the dependent may be mapped to the independent variables that are alike, i.e., they may be attributed to the remaining areas of similarities (Przeworski and Teune 1970 ; Collier 1993 ; Levy 2008 ; Mill 1875 ). Footnote 1 By the most different cases comparative method, then, consistent outcomes across the cases undergird generalizability or external validity of the findings. And, to be sure, the three countries vary widely across culture, society, economic and political development. Thus, culturally and socially, the countries are diverse: South Korea is generally considered a Confucius society, the Philippines is primarily Spanish-Catholic, while Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population, at 87% of the country’s total population (Statistics Indonesia 2010). The countries also vary in terms of economic development: South Korea is a developed country that joined the ranks of the OECD in 2000 while Indonesia and the Philippines are generally characterized as emergent economies. Politically, the countries also differ: the Philippines was among the first non-democracies in East and Southeast Asia to democratize in 1986, followed closely by South Korea in 1987, while Indonesia’s democratization occurred a decade later. Of the three, South Korea’s political progress has been the steadiest, with Indonesia facing down an alleged coup in 2016 while the Philippines has witnessed attempted, plotted, and alleged coups in 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990 and, after a lull, in 2001, 2003, 2006, 2007 (Yap 2020 ).

What are similarities across the countries, then? Briefly, we show that the three countries pursued growth-centric return to economic normalcy that eroded economic fundamentals; we also draw on survey data for evidence that social policies and their prioritization enhance social cohesion and political stability to support a purposeful recovery to a new normal comprising expanded medium- and long-term social policies.

Thus, on the one hand, the almost single-minded focus on economic recovery—where governments doubled down on efforts to strengthen economic growth captured nominally by Gross Domestic Production (GDP) and its variants—meant that most countries in the region appeared to withstand the crises well. As an indication, for the AFC, most countries in the region reported positive growths by 1999, with South Korea, a country hard-hit during the crisis, leading the pack with double-digit growth of 11.3% (World Bank Databank 2020 ); in contrast, Japan, a creditor during the AFC, reported negative growths in 1998 and 1999. As another indication, for the GFC, most countries in the region averted negative growths altogether; indeed, their recovery from the GFC well before counterparts in other regions led to renewed interest and enthusiasm in their economic success, yet again (Pempel 2015 ; Das 2012 ).

On the other hand, even as these economies returned to pre-crisis macro-level economic achievements, data from OECD, ILO, and the World Bank show large and widening gaps between the haves and have-nots, especially in the labour market. As a result, even as growths returned to normal for the East and Southeast Asian countries, they also experienced high incidence of low paid work and short average job tenure among the vulnerable population, including women, youths, the elderly, migrant workers, and those in the informal economy, i.e., the recovery to economic normalcy impaired core constituents of the labour market. Critically, studies note that such disparities and inequities undermine economic, political, and social foundations and leave countries susceptible to future shocks (OECD 2017 ; Stiglitz 2000 ; Basso et al. 2012 ; Birdsall 2011 ). Anecdotally, fissures are evident in the growing social divides and political discords in East and Southeast Asia, a region where the populace is traditionally seen as compliant and deferential. Witness, for instance, the Sunflower movement in Taiwan in 2014, the million-strong Candlelight protests in South Korea, 2016–2017, and the year-long protests in Hong Kong, 2019–2020. Meanwhile, the election of controversial and polarizing candidates—such as President Duterte in the Philippines, who campaigned on an anti-crime platform of shoot-to-kill, or Vice-President Ma’ruf Amin, the inactive chair of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) and Rais Aam  (supreme leader) of the Islamic mass organization Nahdlatul Ulama in Indonesia, whose orthodox views include advocacy of the criminalization of gay sex—threaten to permanently cleave politics and society (Yap 2019 ).

This paper makes three contributions: first, it reveals clear and growing economic vulnerabilities that follow growth-centric rebounds. In particular, we show increasing non-standard or high levels of informalization of employment in the three countries to corroborate the economic costs and resultant fragilities of growth-centric recovery on growth, particularly in the medium- and long-term. Second, it highlights how a new normal that incorporates medium- and long-term social policies—such as environmental or social protection policies—invigorate social and political foundations; countries in the region, then, benefit from policies that go beyond growth-centric business-as-usual recovery. Thus, using survey data, we show popular support for social policies over economic growth, and respondents are motivated to protest for social policies; further, we show that respondents’ social trust rests on social policies rather than economic growth. Medium- and long-term social policies, then, enhance political stability and social relations which undergird economic achievements in these countries; meanwhile, the temporary spikes in social policies that follow crisis do not bring the medium- and long-term policy benefits because the focus on getting back to business-as-usual means social policies adopted are not well formulated and often scuttled following the crises. Third, we examine social policies adopted under COVID-19 to assess the content of recovery for the three countries, given the clear lesson for COVID-19 recovery from this study: recovery needs to target a new normal that addresses social, political, or economic weakness through the expansion of medium- and long-term social policies. Our assessment reveals that, of the three countries in this study, only South Korea may be pursuing a reprioritization of society, politics, and the economy through social policies that are not just crisis-specific stop-gap measures. This highlights that most governments are pursuing growth-centric recovery, yet again, notwithstanding previous learning.

In the following, we give brief backgrounds to the country cases in this study before describing the crises and recoveries to show the growth-centric focus. We go on to provide evidence and systematic analyses of the problems of growth-centric economic recovery and the promises of a new normal that prioritizes medium- and long-term social policies. This is followed with a discussion of social policies adopted since COVID-19, and how they track against recovery to a new normal. We conclude with implications of the findings.

Pre-Crisis Politics, Economies, and Social Policies

This section provides brief backgrounds to politics, economy, and social policies in South Korea, Indonesia, and the Philippines prior to and following democratization. Using democratization as a demarcation follows theoretical and empirical findings that social policies expand post-democratization, i.e., democratization generally marks the turning point for expanding social policies (Yap 2006 ; Brown and Hunter 1999 ; Reich 1999 ). The three countries hew closely to this: social policies were significantly limited prior to democratization and expanded in the respective countries following democratization. Still, even with the expansions post-democratization, social policies remained limited and inadequate in the three countries. As an indication, social expenditure as a percent of GDP in 1995 was 3.1% in South Korea, 0.7% in the Philippines, and 1.6% in Indonesia, respectively (ILO 2020a , b , c ). In comparison, social spending for the OECD countries averaged 18% that year, while Turkey and Mexico—generally considered as about on par with the Philippines and Indonesia—spent 3.4% and 3.7% respectively (OECD 2020 ). Thus, even countries on the low end of social spending—such as Turkey and Mexico—significantly outspent their counterparts of Indonesia and the Philippines.

The limited offerings of social policies were particularly stark in light of the economic achievements of the countries. To be sure, even though much of focus on economic performance for countries in the region was during pre-democratization periods, the countries continued to achieve high economic growths post-democratization. This bears noting since it suggests the centrality of the economy and growth for governments in these countries.

Table 1 chronicles the social policies in South Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines against economic performance in pre- and post-democratization periods. It shows that social safety nets and social policies were largely limited to government employees and other sectors favoured by the governments in pre-democratization periods. Theory explains that governments in pre-democratized countries, such as authoritarian or military-backed governments, generally follow in the heels of military coups and stop-gap military governments and these latter lack broad-based support. To co-opt opposition, the pre-democratization governments may pursue a number of strategies, including: delivering policy performance, such as economic performance; holding popular, if limited, elections; or institutionalizing politics and society to co-opt opposition (Geddes et al 2014 ; Gandhi 2008 ). Unsurprisingly, the expense of expansive social policies meant they were limited in pre-democratization periods.

Column 4 in Table 1 shows an expansion of social policies in South Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines following democratization. This is consistent with theoretical studies that show democratization leads to increased spending as governments use social spending to build and broaden electoral support (Yap 2006 ; Brown and Hunter 1999 ; Reich 1999 ). In particular, governments in new democracies are incentivized to increase expenditures, particularly since the emerging institutions and rules may foster immediate accommodations to constituencies and discourage long-term planning. Still, notwithstanding the increases in social policies, they remained considerably less extensive and generous in East and Southeast Asia than western welfare regimes (Ratigan 2017 ).

Not surprisingly, crises such as economic or financial crashes provide shocks that bring to light inadequacies in social policy coverage in countries. Problematically, as will be made clear in the next section, growth-centric recovery from such crises generally papers over gaps in social policies; this compromises growth in the medium- and long-term because of added economic vulnerabilities, and also undermines political stability and social relations. We turn next to the AFC and GFC and the growth-centric recoveries in South Korea, the Philippines, and Indonesia.

Crises, Growth-Centric Recoveries, and Social Policies

Economic achievements across decades in East and Southeast Asia in general, and the three countries in this study in particular, likely dulled critical assessments of the economies or the inadequacies of social safety nets in the countries. It is fair to say that the AFC blindsided the international community; notwithstanding, analysts made up for lost time and the misstep with unremitting analyses of how governments in the region, who could do no wrong before the crisis, were unable to get anything right since (Cha and Yap 2019 ). Generally, these advocated for free market reforms to further open the economies.

In this section, we show that free market reforms in the context of the growth-centric recovery strategy in the region accelerated the casualization of the labour market to the detriment of economic fundamentals (Bernanke 2009 ; Stiglitz 2000 ; Reinhart and Rogoff 2004 ). At the same time, the AFC and subsequent GFC illuminated the extent to which social policies were underdeveloped: large segments of the populations in the respective countries remain without benefits or protection, despite the social policies in place.

In brief, in the face of the pressing demands of economic recovery and social policymaking, governments in the three countries stuck with the modus operandi of prioritizing the economy rather than reprioritizing social policies with economic recovery. The growth-centric focus on recovery to economic normalcy in these countries means that social policies adopted under crises were piecemeal responses aimed at averting further immediate fallout from the crises and, thus, mostly weak, inadequate, ineffective, and, easily scuttled following the crises. These become apparent with the subsequent crises: thus, the AFC shed light on the inadequacies of social policymaking, the GFC illuminated ongoing ineffectual social policy responses, and Covid19 revealed the perilous conditions that remains across countries for vulnerable labour and the poor, particularly women, youths, the elderly, migrant workers, and those in the informal economy. These persistent social, political, and economic weaknesses have contributed to the deterioration of social relations and political stability across the three countries.

Economic Policies and Consequences

Table 2 summarizes the AFC and GFC policies adopted and the economic consequences from the policies. It is useful to point out that the growth-centric economic recovery for the AFC was due in no small part to the demands associated with the IMF bailout of countries from the AFC: in particular, stringent conditions of the IMF bailout pegged funding to the recipient country’s economic performance. Under these circumstances, the governments in the three crises-countries, all of which received IMF bailouts, may have little choice but to double-down on economic revival.

Thus, among the remedies adopted to deal with the crisis was the establishment of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a lender of last resort for the crisis-countries. This turned out to be a double-edged sword. Specifically, the IMF financial rescue package tied aid to the countries’ commitments to high interest rates, severe cuts in government spending, accumulating foreign exchange reserves, and also non-financial structural changes such as market reforms and labour market deregulation for the domestic economy, among other conditions; further, continuation of aid from the bailout was pegged to recoveries in the countries as measured by economic output, debt repayment and budget surplus (Radelet and Sachs 1998 ; Stiglitz 2000 ; Cooke and Jiang 2017 ).

In the years since the AFC, there is also increasing agreement, including from the IMF, that a number of the IMF measures which focused on growth-rebound deepened the crisis: for instance, the high interest rates and constricted domestic spending are widely considered to have worsened conditions. And, the IMF’s stipulation of the quick shut-down of unviable financial institutions contributed to panic runs on the bank, to which foreign lenders responded by rejecting further discounts of loans, which squeezed the capital market even tighter (Radelet and Sachs 1998 ; Stiglitz 2000 ; Fischer 2000 ).

It is no small irony that the uncompromising conditions of the IMF bailout of countries during the AFC led to the under-development of the financial markets in the region that effectively isolated countries in East and Southeast Asia from the machinations that preceded the GFC (James et al 2008 ; Bernanke 2009 ). Largely following from the IMF conditions, then, the Asian economies missed out on the risky subprime and derivatives market that underpinned the GFC, due in part to stricter policies and the constricted foreign lending as a result of the AFC and in part to the underdevelopment of financial markets in Asia as a result of the uncompromising bailout (Pempel 2015 ; James et al 2008 ; Bernanke 2009 ). Table 2 lists some of the economic reverberations: thus, for instance, while growth figures may suggest that the countries recovered from the AFC, deeper examination of non-performing loans or unemployment rates shows the economies struggled longer and harder to stay afloat as a result of the growth-centric focus (Stiglitz 2000 ; Haggard 2005 ; Radelet and Sachs 1998 ).

In consequence, Asia’s exposure to the GFC was limited: the subprime loss in Asia excluding Japan was US$10.8 billion—Japan itself, which was not subject to the conditions of the IMF’s bailout, carried US $ 8.7 billion—while the total “reported write-down and credit losses of the world’s 100 biggest banks and securities amounted to US $ 379 billion” (James et al 2008 , p. 25). In relative terms, Asia’s exposure excluding Japan was “less than 3% of the global losses”; including Japan, it constituted only 5% of global losses (James et al 2008 , p. 25). The limited exposure of East and Southeast Asia to the financial GFC meant that economic downturn for countries in the region followed from the global trade slowdown rather than the financial crisis itself. Figure  1 depicts GDP growth in South Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines from 2000 to 2019; it shows that the economies largely averted negative growths and, further, growths in the high single digits were recorded across the countries a year after the downturn in 2009.

Source: World Bank Databank ( 2020 )

GDP Growth (constant) in South Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines, 1996–2000.

The economic travails from the growth-centric recovery for the AFC, then, left countries in East and Southeast Asia, including South Korea, the Philippines, and Indonesia, relatively unscathed by the GFC (Bernanke 2009 ; Dutt 2013 ). And, the IMF condition—to rebuild foreign exchange reserves—also meant the economies became largely independent from the international capital market; instead, their large foreign reserves allowed the economies to fend off external shocks (Bernanke 2009 ; Dutt 2013 ).

However, it also clear that the course of recoveries for East and Southeast Asian economies rested on an export-economy focus. While that provided current account surplus to the surmount the GFC hump, it also undermined their respective domestic economies. Specifically, the growth strategy in post-AFC and -GFC East and Southeast Asia is one that relies on external demand through the export-economic focus that built large foreign reserves but also contributed to the “global imbalances” in trade and capital, with the easy capital inflows into debtor nations pinpointed as a precipitant of the GFC (James et al 2008 ; Bernanke 2009 ). Domestically, this growth strategy failed to channel the high domestic savings into domestic industries; instead, with capital–labour ratio declining, it fuelled a “race-to-the-bottom” wages with increasing casualization and non-standard employment for workers (Cooke and Jiang 2017 ; ADB 2005 ). Consequently, standards of living and welfare in the region continue to fall short of popular needs (Bernanke 2009 ; James et al 2008 ). We turn next to social policies and their development under the crises.

Social Policies Under Growth-Centric Recoveries

The growth-centric economic rebounds from the AFC and the GFC, rather than a new normal that reprioritizes medium- and long-term social policies, means that social policies fell easily to the wayside (Bernanke 2009 ; de Haan 2014 ). To be clear, social policies were adopted during the crises; nonetheless, their scope fell short of needs and the schemes suffered from coverage, adequacy, impact, and implementation problems.

Thus, social policies adopted under growth-centric recoveries in South Korea suffer from the general problems of coverage, adequacy, impact, and implementation, so that even as policies expanded, they failed to provide needed social support to large segments of the population. For example, unemployment insurance in South Korea supplemented labour flexibility and international ownership that led to high informal unemployment; further Kwon and Holliday ( 2006 ) point out that part-time and temporary workers were excluded so that, as a result, in practice, only 52% of salaried workers were covered (246). As another example, the National Basic Livelihood Security was implemented in 2000 as a public aid program to maintain basic living standards following the AFC; however, eligibility was strict, which severely limited coverage (Lee 2015 ). This became apparent with the GFC: while the scheme extended benefits to 3% of the total population, or 1.5 million, studies estimated in 2013 that an additional 1.2 million who should receive benefits were deemed ineligible (Lee 2015 ; Kwon and Holliday 2006 ). In 2015—eight years following the GFC—the program was overhauled to improve coverage and benefits.

Similarly, in Indonesia, social policies such as the JPS that were enacted in the heels democratization and the AFC was found lacking across coverage, adequacy, impact, and implementation: for instance, separate assessments by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) found a large number remained outside of the JPS scheme, with many of the eligible poor not receiving benefits even as many non-poor collected them (Sumarto 2006 ; ADB 2012 ; Suryahadi et al. 2015). As a result, and with the onset of the GFC, a community health insurance initiative, Jamkesmas, fully subsidized by the government that allowed local governments to design programs for their locality had to be adopted. In addition, political will behind the social policies was weak: thus, the JPS, adopted in 1998, remained in incubation until 2004; meanwhile, a consolidated National Social Security system, debated since 2004, was finally enacted only in November 2011, following the Law on Health Social Security Providers (No. 24/2011) which created the Badan Penyelenggara Jaminan Sosial - Kesehatan (BJPS, the Social Security Administration), with targets for universal health insurance coverage and work injury, old age and death insurance (Harimurti et al 2013 ; Pisani et al 2017 ).

In the Philippines, successive presidents since democratization have adopted pro-poor platforms in election campaigns but few successfully translated these into practice. Consider President Estrada, elected on a populist platform in the heels of the AFC: he spectacularly failed to deliver on his program of subsidised health care for the poor (Lingap Para sa Mahihirap, or Looking after the Poor), due mostly to corruption (Kim and Yoo 2015 ); in 2001, the President was ousted from office for corruption by the People Power 2 protests. President Arroyo, who stepped into the office following Estrada between 2002 and 2010, did not fare better for much her tenure, even as the country held to a strong 6% average economic growth prior to the GFC and despite her poverty reduction programs. Instead, the growth failed to translate into significant job-creation: indeed, Coronel ( 2007 ) cites an ADB 2006 report that found the country’s performance on malnutrition, education access, and water availability on par with the poorest countries in the world, including Myanmar and Papua New Guinea (182).

Importantly, there were also high notes for social policies during these recoveries that give reason for optimism regarding the former’s effects. Thus, in Indonesia, local autonomy Laws No. 22 and 25 in 1999 which devolved administration of government sectors excepting security and defense, foreign policy, monetary and fiscal matters, justice, and religious affair, to district and municipal governments effective 2001, and the institutionalized elections for local executives, saw local governments step up to develop popular social policies, particularly health coverage, in order to win local support for office (Choi 2005; Nasution 2016 ). One such standout was Gede Winasa in the Balinese district of Jembrana, which, importantly, is one of the poorest areas in the country. Winasa initiated a health program for outpatient services for all residents, and hospitalization for the poor, and the significant improvement in health services and mortality rates led to Winasa’s election as district head with 90% of the votes (Pisani et al. 20,187). It also drew widespread attention to health schemes, and motivated the nationally-run Askesin health scheme in 2005, which in turn became Jamkesmas in 2008 (Pisani et al 2017 ).

Likewise, in the Philippines, with the GFC and further motivated to build constituency base to offset the attempted impeachments in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008, President Arroyo got behind the 4Ps (Patawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program), a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program piloted in 2007 and formally implemented in 2008 (Coronel 2007 ; Kim and Yoo 2015 ). President Aquino III, 2010–2016, significantly expanded the program, and took the original 320,000 households or 1.2 million in population terms, to the 4.4 million households in 2015 or approximately 18 million in population of 103 million total population (Acosta and Velarde 2015 ). It has become the most successful social safety net in the country and touted by the World Bank as “one of the most comprehensive poverty targeting programs” in the world, targeting education and health through grants provided in exchange for keeping children in schools, maintaining basic healthcare for children as well as expectant mothers (World Bank 2020a , b ; Acosta and Velarde 2015 ). With an estimated 5.2 million households at poverty level, or about 21.6% of the population, the program covered most of its target in 2015 (Orbeta and Paqueo 2016 ).

In sum, the secondary standing of social policies under growth-centric recoveries largely saw problems of coverage, adequacy, impact, and implementation. Nevertheless, high notes during these recoveries gave reason for optimism. Next, we discuss the effects of growth-centric recoveries on the economy, politics, and society in subsequent decades.

Growth-Centric Recoveries on Economy, 10 Years on

Governments that prioritize the economy often characterize such efforts as beneficial to all: growth trickles or filters down across all sectors, and does so more efficiently than deliberate state intervention (Headey et al 2000 ; Stiglitz 2016 ). However, studies show otherwise. For instance, Headey et al ( 2000 )’s study of the US, Netherlands, and Germany between 1984 and 1999 show that growth did not trickle down better or more efficiently in the US than either Netherlands and Germany; in fact the US did worse than either country in improving living standards across the population. Further, economic growth in the US did no better than either other country, to reveal no upsides to chasing economic growth over welfare goals. Recent studies across developed and emergent economies continue to corroborate the absence of efficient trickle-down growths (Stiglitz 2016 ). And, the Human Development Report ( 1999 ) points out that “real wages take an average of three years to pick up again, and that employment growth does not regain pre-crisis levels for several years after that” (4). In this section, we provide evidence that growth-centric recoveries negatively impacts the East and Southeast Asian economies in at least three ways: increased dualization of the labour markets that does not improve with growth levels; poor earning quality; and vulnerable groups including women, youths, elderly, and the disadvantaged disproportionately and heavily comprising casualized and temporary labour.

Specifically, extant studies show that financial crises contribute to the further dualization of labour markets (Reinhart and Rogoff 2004 ; Eichhorst et al. 2017 ; Steindel 2009 ; Basso et al. 2011 ). Thus, even as financial crises lead to large redundancies across sectors, recovery is generally uneven across market sectors as well as socio-economic groups. Instead, policies targeted at hastening recovery broadly are often less effective at redressing conditions for targeted groups: women, youths, the elderly, and the disadvantaged are particularly vulnerable. Disparities in the labour market, then, widen; this increases duality in the labour market, which continued economic growth is unlikely improve.

Evidence from the three economies corroborates this. Thus, the countries in this study saw recovery success at the macro-economic level: for instance, Korea’s per capita income stands at US$31,380 in 2018, compared against the OECD member-average of US $40,427. However, alongside these positive numbers are dismal ones: as an example, South Korea’s earnings quality, measured in constant prices with purchasing price parity (PPP) was US$10.39 for the most recent data available in 2014 (OECD Stat 2020 ). This fell in the lower half among OECD members, and was higher than Greece, which reported US$9.70 but less that Slovenia, which was US$14.49 (OECD Stat 2020 ). Likewise, per capita GDP in 2018 for Indonesia and the Philippines at US$3,893 and US$3,103 respectively, which represented their best performance to that date, and placed both countries above the performance of lower middle-income countries (US $2217); however, measured in constant prices with PPP, both countries fell below the performance of lower-middle income countries (World Bank Databank 2020 ).

Further examples of economic vulnerabilities is seen in the increased dualization of the labour market in South Korea following the consecutive financial crises. In 1998, average tenure for jobs was 6.1 years in the country; this fell to 5.9 years in 2016, with 30.9% in employment for less than 1 year. In contrast, the OECD average was 9.3 years in 2016, which increased from 9.0 in 2005, while 17.6% of jobs across the OECD were for less than 1 year (OECD 2018a ). Tellingly, job tenure in South Korea remains the lowest across OECD members.

Another area of grave concern for South Korea is youth employment, i.e., the 15–24 youth group, given findings of unemployment and underemployment scarring that affects long-term production and the country’s aging population (Arulampalam et al 2001 ; Brandt and Hank 2014 ; Mavromaras et al 2015 ). Unemployment and underemployment scarring refers to the loss in human capital through work experience and general skills as a result of unemployment spells that affect future earnings, so that future earnings would be lower than if such unemployment or underemployment had not occurred (Arulampalam et al 2001 , p. F577). In South Korea, unemployment rate for the 15–24 age group was 3.85, 7.3% and 15.5% in 1996, 1997 and 1999 respectively; in 2019, it was 11% (Global Economy 2020 ). Employment for that age cohort, then, never recovered to pre-crisis levels. Meanwhile, the employment to population ratio of the 15–24 age group is 27% in 2019; the same ratio is 41.3% among OECD-members (World Bank Databank 2020 ). These indicators point to poor long-run economic outlook for the country.

For emerging economies such as Indonesia and the Philippines, the size of the informal economy, particularly employment in the informal economy, represents a significant economic vulnerability for medium- and long-term growth, to the extent that the International Labour Office (ILO) has adopted the formalization of the informal labour market as a key development goal for the 2030 agenda (OECD 2018a , b ; ILO 2020a , b , c ). The informal labour market is characterized by job insecurity, with lower wages, rights, benefits, working conditions, training, and protection than the formal labour market (Cooke and Jiang 2017 ; OECD 2018a , b ). In Indonesia, 76.5% of the workers were employed in the informal market in 2018 (World Bank Databank 2020 ). As reported by the OECD for 2016, this Indonesia’s informal employment rate is the second highest compared to its peers of nine countries in Latin America and Africa; further, the number of youths (15–24 years) and elderly (over 55 years) in informal employment exceed even this high rate (World Bank Databank 2020 ). Similarly, in the Philippines, the last survey completed in 2008 with UN funding pegged 70% of the workers in the informal market; more recent Labor Force Surveys by the Philippines Statistics Authority (PSA) estimates informal workers as comprising 62.8% of the workforce, which is not far off the estimates of 70% by the ILO (Bersales and Ilarina 2018).

To summarize, evidence from South Korea, the Philippines, and Indonesia show that economic fragilities persist even as the countries may have achieved economic normalcy in terms of growth. Next, we show the effects of growth-centric focus on society and politics.

Quantitative Evidence: Growth, Society and Politics

Economic vulnerabilities are not the only consequence of the growth-centric recoveries; in this section, we systematically analyse surveys to show that political and social instability increases with a focus on economic normalcy. Specifically, we examine protest activities and social trust to consider the extent to which the increased social and political instability may reflect changes in popular demand for social policies over economic performance.

Our focus on protest takes into account the rise in protests globally, particularly following the severe economic dislocation of the GFC. Further, and notably, protests have packed a punch in the countries in this study, toppling one regime and one government in the Philippines, and one regime each in South Korea and Indonesia. Protests refer to unconventional participation outside of institutionalized processes to influence political or policy outcomes. Previous work on protest activities have focused on how the economic performance—whether personal finance or the national economy—may motivate individuals to protest. However, recent studies show that preferences that lead to protest activities may not be about the economy per se but, rather, over redistributive policies, social programs or against austerity measures that dilute social- or public-goods. At a minimum, then, severe economic crisis may call attention to the lack of social benefits or their vulnerability to reduction with government efforts to redress economic dislocation (Justino and Martorano, 2019 ; Beissinger and Sasse 2013).

Meanwhile, our consideration of social trust is driven by in part by Putnam’s ( 1993 ) work on social capital that spurred studies on social trust and its effects. Specifically, social capital—comprising social or generalized trust, social norms, and associational activities—is seen to facilitate social connections and coordination, and promote social cohesion (Putnam 1993 ; Cook 2005 ). Social trust generally captures trust in others to be upstanding in a social exchange. Studies on social trust show that at the individual level, social trust leads to more socially active, positive, and tolerant participants; at the social level, social trust engenders stronger support for democratic institutions and stronger social solidarity with “people who are different from ourselves” (Rothstein and Uslaner 2005 , p. 45). Social trust, then, is a win–win proposition that enriches individuals and the society that they comprise.

To make the quantitative assessment, we use survey responses over time to study the individual’s preference for economic programs over social policies on their willingness to protest; we also evaluate whether economic growth builds social trust. We rely on the World Values Survey (WVS) for the survey data: WVS has been documenting public opinion since 1981, and is currently conducting the seventh wave of surveys across the globe (World Values Survey 2020 ). The expansiveness of the WVS over time means that data are available for before- and after-crises analyses.

We adopt variables based on their relevance as depicted in the literature and also their availability across countries and time for the three countries in this study. In particular, we examine the effects of four independent variables of interest—government responsibility for providing for everyone; environmental protection versus economic growth; economic growth as primary aim of the country, and satisfaction with household finance—on two dependent variables—social trust and protest participation—controlling for demographics and other relevant controls. Briefly, the first three the independent variables capture popular preferences for social versus economic priorities; the fourth—satisfaction with household finance—represents subjective, egotropic pocketbook interests, which may indicate the effects of economic vulnerabilities on social trust and protest activity. Descriptive statistics for the variables used are tabled in Appendix 1.

The effects of these independent variables are evaluated against two dependent variables: social trust, and protests. Social trust is generally captured in surveys as trust in others to be upstanding in a social exchange; it is reflected in the WVS through responses to the question, “Most people can be trusted,” measured on a 2-point scale (1 = yes; 2 = cannot be too careful). Protests are documented in the WVS by a 2-point (1 = yes; 2 = no) question on political action: have you attended peaceful demonstrations? Both variables are recoded on a 0–1 scale and inverted from the original for analyses and ease of interpretation.

Control variables include the standard demographic controls of education, age, and gender (Yap 2019 ; Gomez and Wilson 2006 ). Other control variables include interest in politics and institutional confidence. Interest in politics captures in part respondent’s facility to follow politics and developments in the country, while institutional confidence—captured with two variables, confidence in the government, and confidence in parliament—takes into account satisfaction with government performance, measured on a 4-point scale, ranging from none at all to a great deal.

What do we expect to find? If economic growth promotes social trust and political stability, then some of the variables capturing economic prioritization, including economic growth as top priority or prioritization of economy over environment will be statistically significant and positive. However, if social policies are important, then some of the variables capturing social needs will be statistically significant; these include other priorities over the economy, prioritization of environment over economy, government responsibility, and household finance. We note here that responses to the question on environmental protection fall across three possibilities of prioritization of economy or the environment; given the structure of the question, the categorical responses to the question are recoded into three dichotomous variables, with prioritization of the environment over the economy as one of the dichotomies, pursuing economic growth as a priority as another, and neither environment or economy overriding as a third dichotomy.

Table 3 reports the results of the pooled logit analyses of protests and social trust for the three countries. Columns 1 and 2 report the results for protests for pre- and post-crises periods respectively, and columns 3 and 4 report the results for social trust for pre- and post-crises surveys, respectively. In general, the results support the ascendance of social policies over economic growth to explain protests and social trust, i.e., responses report the importance of social policies in motivating protest mobilization and social cohesion. Also noteworthy are the statistical significance of the control variables, such as gender, education, confidence in the government and interest in politics: the significant variables are consistent with the literature and in the direction expected. Together with the explanatory value of the models as reported by the Wald-chi statistic and the low collinearity variance inflation factor, they lend confidence of the robustness of the model and generalizability of the results.

Thus, columns 1 and 2 show that those who value environmental protection over growth is statistically significant in pre- and post-crises periods for explaining protest, while those who consider neither environmental growth nor growth to be overriding is also significant in pre-crisis periods. Importantly, satisfaction with household finance and economic growth as a priority are statistically significant and negative for protest participation. Put another way, those dissatisfied with household finance are more likely to protest; in the post-crisis situation of economic vulnerabilities, this variable highlights problems that may ensue from economic normalcy recoveries that fail to address social, political, and economic weaknesses. Likewise, those who consider other priorities, rather than economic growth, as important for the country are more likely to protest. Protestors, then, are not driven by the prioritization of economic growth; it follows that prioritization of growth does not enhance political stability.

For social trust, the results for pre-crisis period shows only one of the variables of interest is statistically important in explaining social trust: satisfaction with household finance is statistically significant; that changed following crises and the results report that additional variables of interest to be significant in explaining social trust and in the direction expected. In particular, government responsibility for providing is statistically significant and in the direction expected; also, the variable measuring neither environmental protection nor growth as overriding is statistically significant and positive. In conjunction, the post-crises results suggest reprioritization of society, economy, and politics to be important for social trust.

In sum, evidence from the ground as well as systematic analyses reveal the consequences of social and political instability from a recovery to economic-normalcy where social policies play secondary roles. In particular, evidence from the ground show the failure to reprioritize society, economy, and politics have led to fractures in the form of widening cleavages in politics and society that have also contributed to protests and demonstrations, and fuelled regime changes or government turnover. Systematic analyses of survey data corroborate these conclusions: they show that economic growth fails to promote social trust or political support. Instead, results show that, post-crises, social trust and protests are explained by pocketbook finance concerns as well as broad social policy issues over economic growth. The clear lesson based on the experiences of AFC and GFC recovery for the three East and Southeast Asian countries in this study is this: a new normal that reprioritizes social building, economic growth, and politics with social policies.

Social Policies Under COVID-19

In general, governments have responded to COVID-19 with a slew of social policies for their respective countries, and the ones for the countries in this study are not different. However, as we have shown in the foregoing, what critically matters is not whether social policies are adopted, but whether the social policies constitute a reprioritization to new normal, or if the social policies are secondary to a growth-centric economic normalcy recovery. How well do the social policies that have been adopted with COVID-19 track against recovery to a new normal?

Gentilini, Almenfi and Orton’s The Global Review of Social Protection Responses to COVID-19 site contains a “living-paper” updated to track social policies, specifically social protection policies, adopted across countries since the pandemic hit in early 2020. Footnote 2 Social protection generally comprises social assistance, social insurance, and labor market regulations (Hickey et al. 2018; Handayani 2016 ). The authors show that South Korea, the Philippines, and Indonesia to be among the first documented to battle the economic and social dislocation from the pandemic (March 27, 2020).

Thus, the Philippines implemented five new cash programs alongside its 4Ps scheme specifically as COVID-19 response, to low-income families, those in the informal sector, and the country’s most vulnerable for two months. Other measures include P1.2 billion has been set aside to cover unemployment benefits for a projected 30,000 to 60,000 workers expected to be laid off due to the economic dislocation (Gentilini et al. March 27, June 12, 2020).

Indonesia also adopted a cash transfer program for low-income households, for a period of three months starting in April; in addition, extra funding for a national food subsidy program was adopted to expand subsidies and coverage to nine months. Utility and mortgage waivers have been adopted, and US$200 million set aside to finance health insurance for 30 million workers in the informal labour market (Gentilini et al. March 27, June 12, 2020).

Of the three countries, South Korea may be the most comprehensive, offering programs across social assistance, social insurance, and labour market support. These include childcare program to support homecare in low-income families as children shifted out of daycare, cash transfers for unemployed in low-income households; job seekers’ cash transfer allowance of up to three months for low-income households and a 3-month wage subsidy for employers to retain employees (Gentilini et al. March 27, June 12, 2020).

How well do these policies track against a recovery to a new normal? In general, the social policies are targeted at COVID-19 relief; this is particularly true in the case of cash transfers, which are generally one-off or temporary. Further, while the crop of COVID-19 policies adopted in the three countries are extensive and cover large segments of the poor and the vulnerable, including women, old, youths, migrant workers and the homeless, over a longer period than previous policies, the expansiveness likely speaks more to the extent of the dislocation from the pandemic than to a reprioritization of society, politics, and economy.

As indication that the governments’ quick and expansive policy responses may not represent fundamentally changed priorities, consider that, in the Philippines, business groups are urging the government to spend more to help workers and the vulnerable: by the latter’s estimates, P280 billion is needed, which is more than 10 times the P27.1 billion COVID-19 relief announced by the government in March (Department of Finance March 16, 2020). Consider, too, that the Indonesian government announced on June 3, 2020, a stimulus package of US$ 47.6 billion (Rp 677.2 trillion) to battle COVID-19. Of this, 30% goes to strengthen social safety nets while 42.6% goes to micro, small, and medium businesses, labour-intensive businesses, and tax incentives; meanwhile, Bank of Indonesia has injected US$ 40 billion (Rp 583.5 trillion) into the economy since the beginning of the year to stabilize the financial market, among other operations (Jakarta Post June 4, 2020).

South Korea’s efforts may reflect a reprioritization: the government announced another stimulus package of US $28.8 billion (35.3 trillion won) on June 3, 2020, bringing the total stimulus package to date of US$ 225 billion. Such a reprioritization may align with President Moon Jae-in’s plan for an income-led growth model, which had come under fire from businesses, corporations, the conservative opposition in the legislature. Moon’s income-led growth has received a new lease in life with COVID-19: the President’s handling of the virus has won his Democratic Party and its satellite party a legislative majority of 180 seats, while Moon’s approval rating hit 71% in May (Korea Times May 8, 2020). These circumstances facilitate Moon’s pursuit of his income growth model, with a concomitant restructuring of society, politics, and the economy.

Economic, financial, or even pandemic crises are shocks to countries that illuminate political, social, and economic weaknesses. As governments expend tax dollars, resources, time, and political capital on recovery from the COVID-19 crisis, a key question for the recovery efforts is: should recovery focus on economic growth or a new normal? Recovery to a business-as-usual economic normalcy generally means focusing on an economic rebound that carries with it the burdens of unaddressed fissures, while recovery to a new normal entails reprioritizing society, politics, and economy, usually through committed development of medium- and long-term social policies that gets at weaknesses that were brought to light.

In this paper, we provide evidence of the drawbacks of growth-centric recoveries, and the promises of recovery to a new normal. Specifically, we document the recovery efforts and experiences of three East and Southeast Asian countries—South Korea, Indonesia, and the Philippines—through two crises, the AFC and the GFC, to show that growth-centric focus on recovery to economic normalcy in these countries have contributed to economic fragilities, political instability, and social insecurity. This is an important, given—as we document across the three countries—that it may be tempting to pose economic recovery as a priority that brings widely shared benefits. Our examination challenges this assumption and, instead, joins other findings in the literature that show reliance on broad-based growth policies has not only failed to redress the plight of the economically vulnerable, but also impaired the fundamentals of medium- and long-term growth.

We also find that crises may lead to temporary spikes in social policies with extensions of social policy benefits to the informal market and the vulnerable; however, the focus on getting back to business-as-usual means social policies adopted were not well formulated and, therefore, often scuttled following the crises. As a result, even with the expansion of social policies in the countries in this study, levels of cover remain lower than their peers, especially in light of the per capita GDP levels in the nations. As an indication, public expenditure on social policies in South Korea averaged about 10.4% of GDP in 2015, compared to the OECD average of 20.5%; it is 2.2% in the Philippines and 1.1% in Indonesia for the same period, and this contrasts against 12% in the lower middle income countries and 8.4% in lower income countries (OECD 2019; World Databank 2020).

The importance of social policies cannot be overstated: the systematic analyses of survey data show popular preference for social policies over economic growth. This finding is particularly significant for countries in East and Southeast Asia, where economic growth was touted as a predominant priority. In particular, the evidence shows popular preference for social policies drives social trust and cohesion; further, respondents prioritize social policies over economic growth and will protest in support of such priorities.

Our examination reveals a clear lesson for Covid-19 recovery: it needs to target a new normal. Unfortunately, policies to date suggest that, of the three countries in the study, only South Korea appears to be on track for a new normal that reprioritizes society, politics, and economy with social policies that go beyond a stop-gap for the immediate crises, while both Indonesia and the Philippines have adopted policies that are mostly transient. The scope for change, then, remains high.

Change history

11 november 2020.

Due to unfortunate oversight during the Copy Editing process, the funding note has been omitted. It should be read: Research funding in part by the Research Foundation of Korea, NRF-2018S1A3A2075531, Ministry of Education, the Republic of Korea, is gratefully acknowledged.

We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting the need to flesh out the most different comparative case design.

We thank Keetie Roelen for suggesting the resources on the site, https://www.ugogentilini.net/

Arulampalam, Wiji, Paul Gregg and Mary Gregory. 2001. Unemployment Scarring. The Economic Journal November 2001: F577-F584

Acosta, Pablo and Rashiel Velarde. 2015. An Update of the Philippine conditional cash transfer’s implementation performance. Social Protection Policy note 8 . Washington D.C.: World Bank Group

Asian Development Bank (ADB). 2005. Labor Markets in Asia. Manila: ADB

Google Scholar  

Asian Development Bank (ADB). 2012. Special evaluation Study: Social Protection Strategy 2001 . Manila: ADB.

Basso, Gaetano, Mathias Dolls, Werner Eichhorst, Thomas Leoni, and Andreas Peichl, T. 2011. The Effects of the Recent Economic Crisis on Social Protection and Labour Market Arrangements Across Socio-Economic Groups. IZA Discussion Paper No. 6080 .

Basso, Gaetano, Mathias Dolls, Werner Eichhorst, Thomas Leoni and Andreas Peichl, T. 2012. The Effects of the Recent Economic Crisis on Social Protection and Labour Market Arrangements Across Socio-Economic Groups. IZA Discussion Paper No. 6080 .

Bernanke, Ben. 2009. Welcome Address: Asia and the Global Financial Crisis. Asia Economic Policy Conference , Federal Reserve bank of San Francisco

Bersales, Lisa and Vivian Ilarina. 2019. Measuring the contribution of the informal sector to the Philipine Economy: Current Practices and Challenges. Paper presented at the 7th IMF Statistical Forum: Measuring the Informal Economy.

Birdsall, Nancy. 2011. The Global Financial Crisis: The Beginning of the End of the ‘Development’ Agenda? In New Ideas on Development After the Financial Crisis , ed. Nancy Birdsall and Francis Fukuyama. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press

Brandt, Martina, and Karsten Hank. 2014. Scars that will not Disappear: Long-term Associations Between Early and Later life Unemployment under Different Welfare Regimes. Journal of Social Policy 43: 727–743.

Brown, David S., and Wendy Hunter. 1999. Democracy and Social Spending in Latin America, 1980–92. American Political Science Review 93 (4): 779–790.

Choi, Nankyung. 2004. Local Elections and Party Politics in Post- Reformasi Indonesia: A View from Yogyakarta. Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs 26: 280–301.

CNBC. South Korea announces $29 billion third stimulus budget to fight coronavirus crisis. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/03/south-korea-announces-29-billion-third-stimulus-budget-to-fight-virus.html . Accessed 18 June 2020.

Collier, David. 1993. The Comparative Method. In Political Science: The State of the Discipline II , ed. Ada Finiter. Washington D.C.: American Political Science Association.

Cook, Karen S. 2005. Networks, Norms, and Trust: The Social Psychology of Social Capital∗ 2004 Cooley Mead Award Address. Social Psychology Quarterly 68 (1): 4–14.

Cooke, Fang, and Yumei Jiang. 2017. The Growth of Non-standard Employment in Japan and South Korea: The Role of Institutional Actors and Impact on Workers and the Labour Market. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources 55: 155–176.

Coronel, Sheila S. 2007. The Philippines in 2006: Democracy and Its Discontents. Asian Survey 47 (1): 175–182.

Das, Dilip. 2012. How did the Asian Economy Cope with the Global Financial Crisis and Recession? A Revaluation and Review. Asia Pacific Business Review 18: 7–25.

de Haan, Arjan. 2014. The Rise of Social Protection in Development: Progress, Pitfalls and Politics. European Journal of Development Research 26: 311–321.

Dutt, Amitava. 2013. The Global Financial Crisis: Views from Asia. Development and Change 44: 175–187.

Eichhorst, Werner, Paul Marx, and Caroline Wehner. 2017. Labor Market Reforms in Europe: Towards More Flexicure Labor Markets? Journal for Labour Market Research 51 (1): 3.

Fischer, Stanley. 2001. Asia and the IMF—Remarks by Stanley Fischer. Institute of Policy Studies, Singapore https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/28/04/53/sp060101 . Accessed 12 June 2020.

Gandhi, Jennifer. 2008. Dictatorial Institutions and their Impact on Economic Growth. European Journal of Sociology 49 (1): 27.

Geddes, Barbara, Erica Frantz, and Joseph Wright. 2014. Military Rule. Annual Review of Political Science 17: 147–162.

Gentilini, Ugo, Mohamed Almenfi and Ian Orton. 2020. Social Protection and Jobs Responses to COVID-19: A Real-Time Review of Country Measures. A living paper, version June 12, 2020. World bank open knowledge repository, https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/33635 . Accessed 20 June 2020.

Gentilini, Ugo, Mohamed Almenfi and Ian Orton. 2020. Social Protection and Jobs Responses to COVID-19: A Real-Time Review of Country Measures. A living paper, version March 27, 2020. World bank open knowledge repository. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/33635 . Accessed 20 June 2020

Global Economy. 2020. Business and Economic Data . https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/ . Accessed 2 May 2020

Gomez, Brad T., and J. Matthew Wilson. 2006. Cognitive Heterogeneity and Economic Voting: A Comparative Analysis of Four Democratic Electorates. American Journal of Political Science 50 (1): 127–145.

Haggard, Stephan, and Robert Kaufman. 2008. Democracy, Development and Welfare States: Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe . Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Haggard, Stephan. 2005. Globalization, Democracy, and the Evolution of Social Contracts in East Asia. Taiwan Journal of Democracy 1: 21–48.

Handayani, Sri Wening. 2016. Overview. In Social Protection for Informal Workers in Asia , ed. Sri Wening Handayani. Manila, The Asian Development Bank : 425.

Harimurti, Pandu, Eko Pambudi, Anna Pigazzini, and Ajay Tandon. 2013. The Nuts & Bolts of Jamkesmas, Indonesia’s Government-Financed Health Coverage Program for the Poor and Near-Poor . UNICO Studies Series No. 8. Washington DC: World Bank

Headey, Bruce, Robert Goodin, Rudd Muffels, and Henk-Jan. Dirven. 2000. Is There a Trade-Off Between Economic Efficiency and a Generous Welfare State? A Comparison of Best Cases of `The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Social Indicators Research 50: 115–157.

Human Development Report . 1999. New York: Oxford University Press, for the United Nations Development Programme

Human Development Report, Philippines . 2005. UN Development Programme

International Labour Organization (ILO). 2020a. ILO Stat database. Geneva: ILO https://ilostat.ilo.org/data/ . Accessed 20 June 2020

International Labour Organization. 2020b. World Social Protection Report 2017–2019 . Geneva: ILO.

International Labour Organization. 2020c. 2030 Development agenda: ILO Focus targ ets. Geneva: ILO. https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/sdg-2030/targets/lang--en/index.htm . Accessed 15 May 2020.

James, William, Donghyun Park, Shikha Jha, Juthathip Jongwanich, Akiko Terada-Hagiwara, and Lea Sumulong. 2008. The US Financial Crisis, Global Financial Turmoil, and Developing Asia: Is the Era of High Growth at an End? Asian Development Bank (ADB) Economics Working Papers . Manila: ADB

Jakarta Post. Indonesia unveils bigger stimulus worth $47.6 billion to fight coronavirus impacts. June 4, 2020. https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/06/04/indonesia-unveils-bigger-stimulus-worth-47-6-billion-to-fight-coronavirus-impacts.html . Accessed 15 June 2020.

Justino, Patricia, and Bruno Martorano. 2019. Redistributive Preferences and Protests in Latin America. Journal of Conflict Resolution 62: 2128–2154.

Kim, Eunju, and Jayoung Yoo. 2015. Conditional Cast Transfer in the Philippines. Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies 2: 75–89.

Korea Times. Moon’s approval rating exceeds 70% https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2020/05/356_289208.html . Accessed 2 June 2020.

Kwon, Huck-ju. 2005. Transforming the Developmental Welfare State in East Asia. Development and Change 36: 477–497.

Kwon, Jene and Jung Mo Kang. 2011. The East Asian Model of Economic Development. Asian-Pacific Economic Literature : 116–130.

Kwak, YoonKyung. 2011. South Korea’s experience in Social Protection. International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth, https://www.slideshare.net/ipcig/south-koreas-experience-in-social-protection . Accessed 20 May 2020.

Kwon, Soonman, and Ian Holliday. 2007. The Korean Welfare State: A Paradox of Expansion in an Era of Globalisation and Economic Crisis. International Journal of Social Welfare 16: 242–248.

Landler, Mark. October 23, 1999. In Indonesia, All Eyes on Economy. The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/23/world/in-indonesia-all-eyes-on-economy.html

Lamberte, Mario. 1986. Social Adequacy and Economic Effects of Social Security: The Philippine Case. ASEAN Economic Bulletin 3: 92–123.

Lee, Sunju. 2015. Social Security System of South Korea. InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) Technical Note IDB-TN-872 . Washington D.C.: IDB

Levy, Jack S. 2008. Case Studies: Types, Designs, and Logics of Inference. Conflict Management and Peace Science 25 (1): 1–18.

Liddle, William. 2001. Indonesia in 2000: A Shaky Start for Democracy. Asian Survey 41: 208–220.

Malley, Michael. 2002. Indonesia in 2001: Restoring Stability in Jakarta. Asian Survey 42: 124–132.

Mavromaras, Kostas, Peter Sloane, and Zhang Wei. 2015. The scarring effects of unemployment, low pay and skills under-utilization in Australia compared. Journal of Applied Economics 47

Mill, J.S. 1875. System of Logic . New York: Harper & Brothers.

Nasution, Anwar. 2016. Government Decentralization Program in Indonesia. Asian Development Bank Institute Working Paper Series No. 601

OECD. 2000. Pushing Ahead with Reform in Korea: Labour market and social safety-net policies . Paris: OECD.

OECD. 2017. A Decade of Social Protection Development in Selected Asian Countries . Paris: OECD.

OECD. 2018a. Towards Better Social and Employment Security in Korea . Connecting People with Jobs. Paris: OECD

OECD. 2018b. OECD Economic Surveys: Indonesia, 2018 . Paris: OECD.

OECD. 2020. OECD Statistics. https://stats.oecd.org/ <last accessed June 1, 2020>

Orbeta, Aniceto and Vicente Paqueo. 2016. Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program: Boon or Bane?. Philippine Institute for Development Studies Discussion Paper Series No. 2016-56

Pempel, T.J. 2015. Two crises, two outcomes. In Two Crises, Different Outcomes: East Asia and Global Finance . Pempel, T.J., & Keiichi Tsunekawa, eds. Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press

Philippines Department of Finance. 16 March 2020. Gov’t economic team rolls out P27.1 B package vs COVID-19 pandemic. https://www.dof.gov.ph/govt-economic-team-rolls-out-p27-1-b-package-vs-covid-19-pandemic/ . 4 May 2020.

Philippines News Agency. House to review SAP implementation. June 15, 2020. Accessed 25 June 2020.

Philippines Official Gazette. June 18, 1954. Republic Act No. 1161: The Social Security Act of 1954. https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1954/06/18/republic-act-no-1161/

Philippines Official Gazette. September 27, 1994. Statement: President Fidel V. Ramos at the Social Reform Summit. https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1994/09/27/statement-president-fidel-v-ramos-at-the-social-reform-summit/

Philippines Official Gazette. February 15, 1988. Message of the President Corazon Aquino on the Community Employment and Development Plan. https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1988/02/15/message-of-president-corazon-aquino-on-the-community-employment-and-development-program/

Pisani, E., Olivier Kok, and K. Nugroho. 2017. Indonesia’s Road to Universal Health Coverage: A Political Journey. Health Policy and Planning 32: 267–276.

Przeworski, Adam, and Henry Teune. 1970. The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry . New York: John WIley and Sons.

Putnam, Robert D. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy . New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Radelet, Steven and Jeffrey Sachs. 1998. The Onset of the East Asian Financial Crisis. NBER Working Paper No. 6680 . August 1998

Ratigan, Kerry. 2017. Disaggregating the Developing Welfare State: Provincial Social Policy Regimes in China. World Development 98: 467–484.

Reich, Gary M. 1999. Coordinating Restraint: Democratization, Fiscal Policy and Money Creation in Latin America. Political Research Quarterly 52 (4):729–751.

Reinhart, Carmen M., and Kenneth S. Rogoff. 2004. The Modern History of Exchange Rate Arrangements: A Reinterpretation. Quarterly Journal of economics 119 (1): 1–48.

Romero, Segundo. 1998. The Philippines in 1997: Weathering Political and Economic Turmoil. Asian Survey 38: 196–202.

Rothstein, Bo., and Eric M. Uslaner. 2005. All for All: Equality, Corruption, and Social Trust. World Politics 58 (1): 41–72.

Sam, Hickey, Tom Lavers, Miguel Niño-Zarazúa, and Jeremy Seekings. 2018. The negotiated politics of social protection in sub-Saharan Africa . Finland, UNU-WIDER: Helsinki.

Shrestha, Prakash Kumar. 2013. Economic Development In South And East Asia: Empirical Examination Of East Asian Development Model. Asia-Pacific Development Journal 20 (2): 1–28.

Statistics Indonesia. 2020. Statistical Yearbook of Indonesia (Statistik Indonesia). Jakarta: BPS-Statistics Indonesia. https://www.bps.go.id . Accessed 3 June 2020.

Statistics-Indonesia. 2010. Indonesia Population Census, 2010 . Jakarta: BPS-Statistics Indonesia.

Steindel, Charles. 2009. Implications of the Financial Crisis for Potential Growth: Past, Present, and Future. Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Report No. 408 .

Stiglitz, Joseph. 2016. Inequality and Economic Growth. The Political Quarterly 86: 134–155.

Stiglitz, Joseph. 2000. What I learned at the World Economic Crisis. New Republic April 17, 2020

Sumarto, Sudarno. 2006. Policy Brief 5: Social Safety Nets, Indonesia. Overseas Development Institute.

Sumarto, Mulyadi. 2017. Welfare Regime Change in Developing Countries: Evidence from Indonesia. Social Policy and Administration 51: 940–959.

Suryahadi, Asep, Vita Febriany and Athia Yumna. 2014. Expanding Social Security in Indonesia: The processes and challenges. United Nations Research Institute for Social Development Working Paper 2014–14.

World Bank. 1993. The making of the East Asia Miracle . Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group.

World Bank. 2020. World Bank Databank . Washington D.C.: World Bank. Accessed 20 May 2020

World Bank. 2020. The Philippines: New Project to help provide Individual Land titles to 750,000 Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries. World Bank Press Release June 26, 2020 https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2020/06/26/philippines-new-project-to-help-provide-individual-land-titles-to-750000-agrarian-reform-beneficiaries . Accessed 22 Sept 2020.

World Values Survey 1981–2014 Longitudinal Aggregate V.20150418. World Values Survey Association. Aggregate File Producer: JDSystems, Madrid SPAIN. https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org

Yap, O. Fiona. 2006. Agenda Control, Intraparty Conflict, and Government Spending in Asia: Evidence from South Korea and Taiwan. Journal of East Asian Studies 6 (1): 35.

Yap, O. Fiona. 2019. How Political Trust Matters in Emergent Democracies: Evidence from East and Southeast Asia. Journal of Public Policy 39 (2): 295–328.

Yap, O. Fiona. 2020, forthcoming. What’s Game-theory got to do with it? A Democratization Model of East and Southeast Asia. Asian Survey

Download references

Research funding in part by the Research Foundation of Korea, NRF-2018S1A3A2075531, Ministry of Education, the Republic of Korea, is gratefully acknowledged.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia

O. Fiona Yap

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to O. Fiona Yap .

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest.

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Yap, O.F. A New Normal or Business-as-Usual? Lessons for COVID-19 from Financial Crises in East and Southeast Asia. Eur J Dev Res 32 , 1504–1534 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-020-00327-3

Download citation

Accepted : 16 October 2020

Published : 27 October 2020

Issue Date : December 2020

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-020-00327-3

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Business-as-usual
• Economic recovery
• Social policies
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

• Link to Follow us on Twitter
• Link to Like us on Facebook
• Link to Connect with us on LinkedIn

Ivey Business Journal

The business of recovery.

• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on googlePlus
• Share on facebook
• Share on twitter
• Share by email

The COVID-19 outbreak offered businesses around the world a simple choice: adapt or die. Some organizations responded by engaging in digital transformation, while others focused on performing a social role by embracing charity, philanthropy, and other community-based activities. Results have understandably been mixed, and not just because of the unprecedented nature of the disruption created by the pandemic.

Simply put, the traditional tools of crisis management are not enough to maximize a firm’s chances of survival in today’s chaotic environment, which calls for a more holistic strategy. Indeed, in order to overcome the significant challenges introduced by COVID-19 and light up opportunities hidden in the outbreak’s dark tunnel, firms need to embark on a born-again journey of self-discovery and healing similar to the mental health recovery process. This involves accepting the need to engage in a grieving process that shapes a new raison d’être for the firm after rejecting traditional thinking and redefining business practices across the organization.

The conceptualization of deploying a business recovery process to develop a new, sustainable, and profitable business model in response to a crisis follows Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory of human agency, which states that people are agents of their experience and not merely passive respondents to a deterministic environment or automatons driven by neurocognitive processes. Following this logic, firms should engage in a recovery process to proactively face any form of major disruption (digital, environmental, organizational, social, or viral). But deploying a recovery strategy in the corporate world, especially during a pandemic, requires clarity regarding its definition, not to mention how corporate managers should implement the process.

Based on my research and consulting work with clients across numerous industries, this article outlines the logic and stages of the Business Recovery Strategy Framework (see below, and explains how it can help managers organize their thinking and plan innovation while enabling them to adapt their organizations to the emerging behaviours and trends that represent the “new normal.”

Exhibit 1: Business Recovery Strategy Applied to Pandemic Disruption

Battling Inertia and Nostalgia 

One of the most commonly accepted realities of business is also one of the most ironic: successful firms with established business practices fail to adapt to unexpected changes in the market. As a result, these companies can experience a tough or easy recovery process depending on their ability to disengage from established organizational and business practices. Disengaging from a firm’s so-called best practices, of course, isn’t easy, since managers associate them with positive outcomes. But this association is based upon previous experiences, and when conditions change, previous best practices may no longer be a suitable driver of success. In fact, when facing a disruption, making decisions based on established best practices can be extremely costly.

Why do managers stick with established modes of thinking when dealing with the unexpected? Blame a combination of corporate inertia and nostalgia.

When facing a fluid external environment, these two factors lead many firms to consider internal change an additional threat. This, in turn, blocks the development of new modes of thinking or actions that can open the door to innovations and dramatically improve competitiveness in a new environment.

In business circles, being blinded by inertia and nostalgia when a disruptive force exposes an opportunity is often described as having a “Kodak moment.” Managers of Eastman Kodak—which filed for bankruptcy in 2012—infamously failed to disengage from established modes of thinking as they oversaw the invention of a technology that led to the company’s demise as an industry leader. As a result, instead of revolutionizing the sector after developing the first digital camera, the company tried using the new technology as a prop to support its existing business model.

As Forbes contributor Chunka Mui noted in a 2012 article on the legendary corporate blunder, the choice “to use digital as a prop for the film business culminated in the 1996 introduction of the Advantix Preview film and camera system, which Kodak spent more than $500M to develop and launch. One of the key features of the Advantix system was that it allowed users to preview their shots and indicate how many prints they wanted. The Advantix Preview could do that because it was a digital camera. Yet it still used film and emphasized print because Kodak was in the photo film, chemical and paper business.”

“Simply put, Kodak managers couldn’t read the writing on the wall because they put products over customers in their thinking. And unfortunately, glorifying established practices is common when businesses face the need to change.”

With management thinking stuck in the past, the photography pioneer simply assumed consumers would want a digital camera that still required them to buy film and pay for prints. And as the company kept investing in its film division, competitors focused on the opportunities created by the industry’s disruption. In 2013, Kodak entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, emerging with a new focus on commercial printing.

Simply put, Kodak managers couldn’t read the writing on the wall because they put products over customers in their thinking. And unfortunately, glorifying established practices is common when businesses face the need to change. This is particularly true among CEOs of large B2B companies, where a mix of melancholy affection and convictions related to previous success prevent established companies from seeing a new context as a suitable period to undo their current business practices and modes of thinking, which are limiting their ability to strategically respond to disruptive forces. But it is a real problem for consumer-focused ventures as well.

Ultimately, corporate inertia and nostalgia will always lead to a loss of competitive advantage. Take, for example, the experience of small furniture businesses that have faced a perfect storm thanks to cheaper Chinese furniture, the advent of giant low-cost competitors such as IKEA, and 3D printing. This is an “adapt or die” situation. But many of these companies ironically, and firmly, believe that their previous path to success is part of their DNA even when that path is no longer profitable.

Whenever our normal is altered by a major disruption such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, fear and resistance are inevitable as we are hit with a flood of unanswered questions: Will the economy tank? Should our firm fire people? Should we cancel business and innovation projects? Can we develop better business practices than our pre-crisis practices? Is survival even possible?

This is a natural response. However, based on fear and resistance, this way of thinking tends to idealize pre-crisis situations. And as my academic research and years of consultancy work with small and large companies in multiple different sectors has shown, the “it-was-better-before mindset” doesn’t provide the foundation required for forming a relevant adaptation strategy that generates new business opportunities during a crisis. Instead, it leads to putting innovation on hold, which prevents the activation of a creative and proactive process that can expose new opportunities generated by changes in the market and competitive landscape.

Deploying a Business Recovery Strategy

Defining and implementing a business recovery strategy counters the natural inclination to idealize established business practices and modes of thinking when facing any major disruption, including a pandemic. But effectively deploying the framework to overcome inertia and nostalgia and emerge as an industry leader requires understanding that the process is a three-stage journey of self-discovery, reinvention, and goal setting that takes place in the context of a “new normal.”

STAGE ONE —Undergoing the disabling power of disruption: When first impacted by an event like the COVID-19 pandemic, firms are thrust into a state of unawareness, where they are suddenly dependent on others for context and ideas about how to react. At this stage, decision-making is driven by either hope or a feeling of powerlessness, while management strives to engage in actions that reduce employee stress and maintain stakeholder confidence. Measures taken often include policy changes affecting the entire organization or targeted departments such as human resources, sales, communications, and finance. A firm, for example, might move to enable employees to express their fears along with how the sudden disruption has affected their personal life and workplace productivity.

STAGE TWO —Change possible, but time limited: As a disrupted firm develops situational awareness, it becomes less dependent on external forces for context and ideas. In this stage of developing self-responsibility, management’s focus shifts toward exploring possibilities in the disruptive environment. During this “let’s-try-something” stage, interaction with employees can move beyond making sure everyone is coping as individuals by bringing employees from different departments together to creatively reflect on how to best move forward and manage three main priorities—clients, suppliers, and employees—in the new context. And by empowering employees to participate in the firm’s business recovery, management opens the door to creating a new sense of purpose across the entire organization.

STAGE THREE —Commit and act for change: Once aware of its situation and self-dependent, a firm can move to make logical changes that positively address—and even take advantage of—disruptions in both the workplace and market. After accepting the need to change and proactively engaging employees in the process, management exposes the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel by focusing on helping departments identify their new strengths and needs while redefining best practices for the new normal. During this stage, leadership generally knows what needs to happen and can express these needs to employees and external collaborators as they move to reinvent operations to thrive in the “new normal.”

Redefining Business Practices for a “New Normal”

The business world as we knew it just a few months ago will not survive the pandemic. But as tough as the coronavirus outbreak has been to manage, there is no question that the chaos created has presented businesses with an excellent opportunity to step back and reinvent themselves in ways that simply would not have been considered voluntarily under non-crisis conditions.

Indeed, thanks to COVID-19, it has never been easier to justify attacking deeply rooted convictions and established business practices.

But successfully navigating the business recovery process requires all concerned to like “the new me.” To help stakeholders appreciate the reinvented firm, managers should take the following actions to align key business practices with the new normal:

BUSINESS STRATEGY: When facing a “new normal,” a firm’s strategic review process should be demystified. Instead of being exclusively led by top managers, strategy development in times of major crisis should take a holistic and multidisciplinary approach.

ORGANIZATION: In a “new normal” context, firms should set up a committee charged with anticipating possible future disruption in order to maintain a readiness to quickly adapt to unexpected and dramatic changes in the competitive landscape or market conditions.

FINANCE: In a “new normal” situation, firms should engage in relevant cost reduction strategies while creatively sourcing the funding necessary to avoid cutting key employees and budgets.

HUMAN RESOURCES: When social distancing needs subside and reduce the need for remote working, employers should consider a hybrid path forward instead of a return to previous workplace practices. This path forward should be based on both the productivity results achieved during the pandemic period as well as the needs and feelings of employees.

CUSTOMER: In the post-pandemic era, companies should ensure they understand exactly how customers coped with the crisis along with the related new customer needs and behaviours that the crisis created. This requires shifting from traditional market research tools (e.g., surveys and big data) to more immersive and ethnographic methods to collect richer insights and data.

MARKETING. In the “new normal,” companies should implement a more bottom-up marketing strategy. Thinking needs to shift from a product-centric to a more customer-centric logic as well as from traditional marketing—based on the 4Ps or 7Ps of Kotler (Kotler, 2003; Kotler et al., 2001)—to the new experiential marketing and its 7Es (Batat, 2019).

COMMUNICATION AND BRANDING: Moving forward, companies should focus more on value and consider empathic communication and branding strategies. Consumers need to know that brands care and are active as social actors.

DIGITAL: This pandemic crisis has highlighted both the positive and negative sides of digital transformation, presenting an opportunity for a rethink. Companies should consider strategies that are more of a combination of the physical and digital, or “phygital” (Batat, 2019). This can help companies better connect their physical spaces to their digital spaces, offering more positive and productive experiences to employees and customers.

Cutting budgets, firing people, freezing projects, or canceling events is not the only way to respond when challenged by the unexpected. Whether the crisis at hand is technological, social, economic, political, or viral, the holistic recovery process outlined above can help firms move beyond comfort zones and emerge from any disruption as a faster and stronger competitor by developing new modes of thinking and acting.

But a successful recovery will always depend on how well business leaders understand what exactly enables the process to work. In other words, failing to disengage from established practices and ways of thinking will never help management regain control of a disrupted firm’s fate—it will only ensure the business remains a passive victim of the unexpected.

REFERENCES:

Atkinson and M. Hammersley, “Ethnography and Participant Observation,” in N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research (London, UK: Sage, 1994), 248–261.

Bandura, “Social Cognitive Theory: An Agentic Perspective,” Annual Review of Psychology 52 , no. 1 (2001): 1–26.

Batat, Experiential Marketing: Consumer Behavior, Customer Experience, and The 7Es (London, UK: Routledge, 2019).

P. Bate, “Whatever Happened to Organizational Anthropology? A Review of the Field of Organizational Ethnography and Anthropological Studies,” Human Relations 50 , no. 9 (1997): 1147–1175.

Collins and S. Crowe, “Research, Recovery and Mental Health: Challenges and Opportunities,” Mental Health and Social Inclusion 20 , no. 3 (2016): 174–179.

Easterby-Smith and D. Malina, “Cross-Cultural Collaborative Research: Toward Reflexivity,” The Academy of Management Journal 42 (1999): 76–86

Kotler, Marketing Management , 11th Ed. (Prentice Hall International Editions, 2003).

Kotler, G. Armstrong, J. Saunders, and V. Wong, Principles of Marketing , 3rd European Ed. (Prentice Hall, Pearson Education Limited, 2001).

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Please submit respectful comments only, including full name, professional title, and contact information (only name and title will be posted). Required fields are marked *

Name/Professional Title *

Phone Number *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

© Copyright 2022 Ivey Business School Foundation. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy .

KPMG Personalization

• Home ›
• Insights ›

The “New Normal” of Increased Online Business

The “new normal” of increased online business transactions, and revisiting revenue memorandum circular no. 55-2013.

by: Renz Homer S. Arreola

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a significant toll on economies and people of all nations and of all ages, from all walks of life, across the globe.

Social media and virtual meetings, domestically and across the globe, have become the “new normal” as people strive to keep normalcy in their lives amid pandemic restrictions. Here in the Philippines, Digital 2020 April Statshot report by Hootsuite and We Are Social revealed that 64% of Filipino internet users are spending more time on social media, with 23% indicating an increased activity in their online shopping activity.

With consumers resorting more to online shopping amid pandemic restrictions, entrepreneurs have embraced the digital phenomenon for online shopping even more. E-commerce websites such as Lazada and Shopee are at the forefront of these online shopping platforms with expected surges in sales revenues in millions of pesos. Technology has already transformed online business transactions into an infinite marketplace where conducting business has become more convenient and efficient for both vendors and vendees. The COVID-19 pandemic has made this marketplace a more obvious necessity.

With this surge in online sales and business activity, the government looks to remind online sellers of their tax obligations, with the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s (BIR) issuance of Revenue Memorandum Circular (RMC) No. 60-2020 entitled “Obligations of Persons Conducting Business Transactions Through any Forms of Electronic Media and Notice to Unregistered Businesses.”  The Circular basically mandates all business owners who are engaged in an online business platform in any form, whether digital or electronic, to register their businesses with the BIR and pay taxes on their sales.

Under this RMC, online business entities and constituents are encouraged to register their businesses no later than July 31, 2020 to avoid penalties for late registration. In addition, they are encouraged to voluntarily declare their past transactions, and pay the taxes due thereon, without corresponding penalties if the declaration is done no later than July 31, 2020.

The above Circular is explicit that it covers not only partner sellers, but also other stakeholders, such as the payment gateways, delivery channels, internet service providers, and other facilitators. Do note that if online sellers are already registered with the BIR, but were not previously doing business online, these online sellers should revise their certificates of registration (with the BIR), to include “online selling”.

The Department of Finance (DOF) and the BIR were quick to explain that this RMC is a reminder to register, and pay the appropriate taxes due, referring to RMC No. 55-2013, dated 05 August 2013. Given this reference, it would be best to review RMC No. 55-2013.

Revisiting RMC No. 55-2013 reveals that online sellers and other facilitators of online trading have different functions and responsibilities. Individuals who have obligations relative to online business transactions are not limited to those who are e-commerce business owners that possess websites and sell their goods and services online, but it includes those “online intermediaries” who are third parties that offer intermediation services between the online sellers and buyers. The intermediaries receive commissions as they act as channels for goods or services offered by a supplier to a consumer. The relationship between the intermediaries and the online sellers is akin to that of principal-agent relationship. All considered, their obligations and duties to different types of online transactions are entirely different. And what are online transactions? RMC No. 55-2013 refers to the following as the more common online transactions: (A) online shopping or retailing, involving consumers directly buying goods or services from a seller over the internet without an intermediary service; (B) online intermediary service, involving an intermediary/third party offering intermediation services between two trading parties (as discussed above); (C) online advertisement/classified ads, involving a form of promotion that uses the internet to deliver marketing messages to attract customers, and (D) online auctions, which are auctions conducted through the internet via an online service provider that specifically hosts such auctions.

RMC No. 55-2013 likewise provides for more detailed instructions on the obligations of the parties to online transactions with regard the issuances of ORs, depending on the manner of payment to the online seller, whether it be through cash on delivery, through bank deposits, or through credit cards. These instructions likewise consider the details of the abovementioned online transactions.

Finally, RMC No. 55-2013 details the BIR administrative obligations of parties to online transactions as: (1) registration with the BIR; (2) securing the required Authority to Print (ATP) invoices/receipts and register books of accounts for use in business; (3) issue the required invoices or ORs, manually or electronically; (4) withhold the applicable taxes and remit the same to the BIR; (5) file applicable tax returns on or before the due dates, pay correct internal revenue taxes, and submit information returns and other tax compliance reports; and (6) keep books of accounts and other business/accounting records within the time prescribed by law. These obligations are generally restated in RMC No. 60-2020.

Given the lack of details in RMC No. 60-2020, and the public outcry the RMC has generated, maybe the BIR can consider the following to clarify this reminder: (a) issue an extension of the deadline for registration; (b) provide specific details on income tax and value-added tax exemptions, and the qualifications for exemptions, whether it be in the Tax Code or in special laws, like the Barangay Micro Business Enterprises (BMBEs) Act of 2002; (c) reiterate the specific obligations with regard the issuance of invoices/ORs, so that all parties to online transactions will be informed, and (d) the specific requirements for filing of the various returns. Surely, the just enforcement of tax laws merits the detailed clarification of the laws, rules and regulations imposed on taxpayers.

Renz Homer S. Arreola is a Supervisor from the Tax Group of KPMG R.G. Manabat & Co. (KPMG RGM&Co.), the Philippine member firm of KPMG International. KPMG RGM&Co. has been recognized as a Tier 1 tax practice and Tier 1 transfer pricing practice by the International Tax Review.

This article is for general information purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice to a specific issue or entity.

The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of KPMG International or KPMG RGM&Co. For comments or inquiries, please email [email protected] or [email protected] .

© 2024 R.G. Manabat & Co., a Philippine partnership and a member firm of the KPMG global organization of independent member firms affiliated with KPMG International Limited, a private English company limited by guarantee. All rights reserved.

For more detail about the structure of the KPMG global organization please visit https://kpmg.com/governance .

Connect with us

• Find office locations kpmg.findOfficeLocations
• Email us kpmg.emailUs
• Social media @ KPMG kpmg.socialMedia

To read this content please select one of the options below:

Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, promoting tourism business through digital marketing in the new normal era: a sustainable approach.

European Journal of Innovation Management

ISSN : 1460-1060

Article publication date: 27 September 2022

Issue publication date: 26 March 2024

This paper aims to measure the intention to use digital marketing strategies to enhance the performance of tourism business as well as the extent of digital renovation applications in tourism for sustainable business in a new normal era.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper is an insight from the existing relevant literature on the tourism business from time immemorial. The conceptual framework of this study is designed based on previous studies of digital marketing practices for tourism businesses. Furthermore, data were collected from 270 respondents, of which the valid response rate is 72.97%. Partial least square (PLS)-structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to validate the conceptual framework and hypotheses testing.

Among the nine hypotheses path, seven were supported. This study result shows that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, social media marketing and tourism business performance are critical factors for adopting digital marketing in tourism. Thus, tourism service providers' intention has a positive impact to meet the expectation of tourists and adoption of digital marketing.

Research limitations/implications

The study's results will assist tourism researchers and service providers in understanding an authentic relationship between digital practices of tourism business and tourist satisfaction. In addition, the legacy of tourism business through digital marketing empowers the owner and community.

Originality/value

The study is the first to explore the relationship between tourism business performance and digital marketing during the new normal era for the empowerment of local community and expanded business in tourism sector.

• Digital marketing strategies
• Digital renovation
• Social media adoption
• Mobile technologies
• Tourism business performance
• Structural equation modeling (SEM)

Deb, S.K. , Nafi, S.M. and Valeri, M. (2024), "Promoting tourism business through digital marketing in the new normal era: a sustainable approach", European Journal of Innovation Management , Vol. 27 No. 3, pp. 775-799. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJIM-04-2022-0218

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited

Related articles

We’re listening — tell us what you think, something didn’t work….

Report bugs here

All feedback is valuable

Please share your general feedback

Join us on our journey

Platform update page.

Visit emeraldpublishing.com/platformupdate to discover the latest news and updates

Questions & More Information

Answers to the most commonly asked questions here

417 Business Topics & Research Titles about Business

The corporate world is the world of the future – there’s no doubt about that. And education in ABM will help you conquer it!

Our specialists will write a custom essay specially for you!

What is ABM strand, exactly?

ABM stands for Accountancy, Business, and Management. Future leaders and entrepreneurs pursue education in this field to learn the skills essential for their careers. They study how to run a business. How to talk to clients. And, of course, how to come up with strategies to earn money.

Looking for exciting business topics to write about in a paper or dissertation? Here you’ll find a list of research titles about business, as well as ABM qualitative and quantitative research ideas collected by Custom-writing.org experts. We hope that these business and management research topics will inspire you for your own project or for a heated discussion.

❣️ Choosing an ABM Qualitative or Quantitative Research Topic

👔 business topics to write about, 💸 business topics on marketing, 📈 accounting research titles about business, 💫 business management research topics, 👷 business topics on hr, 🤔 abm strand research faq, 🔍 references.

The key part of acquiring any education is writing a research paper . Why do it? First, it’s a test of a student’s analytical, writing, and research skills. Second, being able to conduct business research is paramount to its success.

• It helps you communicate with customers.
• It helps you scan the marketplace for threats and opportunities.
• It helps you understand how to minimize risks.
• It helps you plan your investments effectively.
• It helps you keep your hand on the pulse of the current trends in the market.

The obtained skills will guide you through the entirety of your professional career. It’s an experience that can’t be skipped. We’ve hand-picked 417 research topics related to the ABM strand, just for you. Here, you will find the best ideas for your future ABM research paper masterpiece.

Just in 1 hour! We will write you a plagiarism-free paper in hardly more than 1 hour

The first step in writing an ABM research paper is choosing a topic. With the abundance of ABM research topics ideas on the Internet, it’s not an easy task. Simply picking one won’t do the trick. You will need to juggle relevance, applicability, and your own personal interest in the subject.

There are two main types of AMB research methods: qualitative and quantitative.

• Qualitative research answers the why and the how questions. It tests customers’ reaction to new products and studies consumer behaviors. Case studies, interviews, and focus groups are the common methods of collecting such data.
• Quantitative research collects numerical data and analyzes stats. The common methods include various surveys in target groups.

What ABM fields to explore are out there?

• Financial accounting (aka accountancy) is creating financial statements to be distributed within and outside of a company.
• Management accounting is creating operational reports to be distributed only within a company.
• Banking and finance are all about financial services provided to customers, and the laws of investment.
• Business administration is supervising and overseeing various business operations.
• Marketing is all about the promotion of buying and selling services and products.
• Entrepreneurship is all about the process of coming up with, starting and managing a new business.
• Human resource development management is all about reaching the top potential of the employees.
• Hospitality management is overseeing and supervising various administrative tasks of a resort or hotel.
• Tourism is all about attracting, housing, and entertaining tourists, and organizing tours for them.

Getting lost in this embarrassment of riches? Let’s single out the five of the trendiest areas of ABM research. They are: business, marketing, accounting, project management, and human resources. Want to see more examples of research titles about ABM strand? More on them down below!

Decided to go with a business-related topic for your ABM research paper?

Receive a plagiarism-free paper tailored to your instructions. Cut 15% off your first order!

We have you covered!

Here are some of the freshest ideas for a relevant business research paper. Enjoy our selection of business research topics and research titles for ABM students. Choose one and prove that your finger is on the pulse of the modern market world!

• Is poverty a concern of a corporation? How can corporations contribute to social development? Should they concern themselves with it in the first place, and to what degree? How can corporate social responsibility result in the betterment of the market? How can a corporation’s perceived awareness produce a positive image for the customers?
• Labor relations : the latest tendencies and the predictions for the future. Analyze the contemporary trends in the labor-corporate relationship. What issues are likely to emerge in 2025-2030? Back up your conclusion with real-life examples.
• Diversity as a contemporary working reality. Due to globalization, people of various backgrounds tend to work together, more and more so. Does it influence the working process at all? Does the difference between genders, ages, and ethnicities hinder or facilitate business? Should the companies ensure that there’s diversity among their employees, and why? How should the work environments be organized to maximize efficiency? 
• Personal networking : labor-corporate communication tool. How does the number of people you know correlate with the chances of finding the best partners, workers, and customers? Is it an exponential or a sine curve? Produce real-life examples.
• E-business: the world-wide globalization process. Some of the most successful modern businesses operate almost exclusively online. What are the examples? Assess the role of integration in their workflow. What are the overall perspectives of SCM (supply-chain management) in the realities of e-business?
• Leadership and business in the modern world. Is there a significant difference in the styles and strategies implemented by the leaders in the 21 century as compared to the earlier eras? How do modern leaders adjust to contemporary business realia? What are the challenges and opportunities? What are the global trends? Produce real-life examples.
• Copyright law: is it on the side of the artist or the company representing them? How has copyright law evolved through the times? What drove it so? To what extent does it protect modern artists? How can a copyright corporation exploit it, and to what degree? Produce real-life examples. Are there any court precedents? 
• Advertisement and consumer behavior . What types of advertisements prove to be the most effective? Back up your data with research results. What are the latest trends in the world of advertisement? What are the advantages and disadvantages of online and offline advertising? What mistakes can be made by a brand that is trying to produce a positive image through advertisement?
• Apple : how to turn your brand into a religion. What are the factors behind the success of the Apple corporation? Is it just clever advertising, or is there something more to that? How does Apple build a following of brand loyalists? Does Apple face any difficulties in the realities of the modern harsh brand competition? What are your predictions for the nearest future of Apple corporation?
• Word of mouth: a fossil or a gem? Who usually relies on this form of advertisement the most? How can an already well-established corporation benefit from it? How does word of mouth differ from other types of advertisement? What are the advantages and disadvantages? Produce real-life examples of a brand’s or organization’s success due to word of mouth.
• Facebook and business . How can Facebook be used as a modern platform for conducting business? Does it have any advantages as compared to other online platforms? What are the disadvantages? What successful companies use Facebook as a business platform?

• Pay for performance: a source of loyalty or displeasure ? What’s the best strategy for an employer to link pay and performance? Should pay increases be dependent on just the performance of an employee, or should other factors also be considered? Back up your reasoning with research results.
• Local customization vs. global standardization. What are the pros and cons of each of the approaches? What companies are known to implement both strategies successfully? Give examples.
• External recruiting vs. Internal promotions . What are the pros and cons of each of the approaches? How can a company implement both strategies successfully? Which is a more cost-effective approach? Why is it impossible to stick to just one of the strategies?
• Does a multinational corporation have a motherland? Is it obligatory for a multinational corporation to have a strong presence in its home country? What are the economic benefits or downsides of it? Produce real-life examples.
• Management by walking around (MBWA). What is the reasoning behind it, and how is it implemented? Is it a boost for productivity or a stress for employees? Who needs it more – the employees or the manager? Is it effective? Illustrate your point with research results.
• The AIDA formula in advertising. What exactly is the AIDA formula? Why is it popular nowadays, and how does it compare to the other formulas for creating advertisements? Is it the key to a successful message broadcasting or a hindrance to creativity?
• Free market: an achievable goal or a utopia? What exactly is the concept of a free market? What are the advantages of such a system? What are the disadvantages? Are there any real-life examples, and what can be learned from them? 
• Family business : pros and cons. Are there any modern examples of a successful family business? What might be the downsides of such a business model? What are the advantages? What can be learned from the examples of exercising interpersonal relations in business?
• Franchises vs. “from scratch” businesses. Why having a franchise is a go-to option for a lot of corporations? What benefits does it produce? Are there any downsides? Which business model is easier to maintain? Which business model is more cost-effective? 
• Marijuana business in the US: state law vs. federal law. What is the current stand of federal law on the issue? What about state law? What is your prediction for the marijuana-based businesses for the nearest future?
• Governments vs. private businesses. How does the government manage private businesses in your country? What is the best strategy for a government-private business relationship? How does this relationship reflect on the economy of the country?
• The Internet and consumer behavior . How does the Internet shape consumer behavior in modern days? Are there any drastic changes in consumer behavior as compared to ten years ago? Is the Internet just a new platform for advertising, or is there more to that? Produce real-life examples.
• The culture of consumerism. What exactly is this phenomenon? Is it really a thing or just a popular penny dreadful? Is it a natural occurrence or an artificial design created by the major companies for increasing profit? What proofs of the latter can be produced? 
• The best countries to invest into in 2020. How can a country be invested into? Why would some corporations choose to do it? What are the criteria? Is it cost-effective? What are the real-life examples? 

Here are some more business research topics to explore:

• Outsourcing: its advantages and disadvantages for a business. Is it ethical?
• Authors and copyright: which works better, legal names or nom de plumes?
• Negotiation tactics : understanding authority.
• Oil prices impacts on consumer behavior in Turkey .
• Corruption cases: do state officials have a higher chance of succeeding with a request for dismissal? 
• Juicy Fruit: business strategies and product promotion .
• Insider trading : how the nature of the offence and the punishment for it has changed through the decades.
• American Airlines: the secret of success .
• Alcohol: the advantages of the sale and consumption laws for the society’s well-being.
• Organizational change capacity concept . 
• Death penalty: should it apply for the most severe corporate crimes? 
• The correlation between wages and employee productivity.
• The correlation between strategic management and employee productivity .
• The impact of staff motivation on employee productivity.
• Managing employee retention .
• Low-cost economy: companies benefits and drawbacks .
• Sales letter vs. waste bin: how to avoid spam folder?
• Startups: how to.
• L’Oreal and Procter & Gamble: financial analysis .
• Teenagers vs. business: the phenomenon of teenage business.
• Logistical system: private and public warehouses combining .
• Small business : the basis of economics.
• Coca-Cola and PepsiCo: Comparative Analysis .
• Third-world countries: how is business done there?
• Taxes: types and uses. 
• The role of corporate lobbyists in American future .
• Business ethics: is there a difference from general ethics? What are the laws?
• What are the cultural differences of doing business in different countries?
• Roadrunner Sport: social and digital media strategies .
• The target audience: how to define it and how to attract it? 
• Crisis management in business.
• Call centers outside the US: pros & cons .
• Risks: how to calculate them in your business endeavor.
• Monopolies : how do they impact the market?
• Business dynasties: how does family business operate?
• Copyright law : how does it operate?
• A gaming lounge: business plan .
• Services: what are the most and least popular in the market?
• Dell Company: global strategies .
• Charity: is it a good advertisement strategy for a business?
• How to balance ecology and increasing production.
• SunTrust: business strategies in banking industry .
• Corporate culture : what company rituals are common in business?
• Negotiation and diplomacy in business.
• TransGlobal Airlines as a monopoly .
• A healthy working environment and its importance in business
• Google’s success: a case study .
• Brands: what’s their place in the modern market?
• American Airlines’ and US Airways merger .
• Military crisis: a hindrance or a boost for business?
• Small enterprises: what are the challenges?
• British Petroleum: the corruption case .
• Internet advertisement: is it overtaking the world of advertising?

• The psychology behind people’s decision to buy a more expensive product or a higher quantity of it.
• Feminism: how does it influence the way women consume?
• Hilton’s investments into the Italian tourism sector: causes and effects .
• Teenagers and brands: what brands are the most popular among modern teenagers?
• Mandatory recycling: how would it affect the prices? Would it be cost-effective in the long term?
• Advertising in schools: is it acceptable?
• Social media: what marketing strategies are used there? Does it influence offline advertisement?
• Tariffs on car imports in Ukraine. 
• Employee stress : does every company need to offer services of a psychologist?
• Sports and art: do corporate extracurricular classes enhance employees’ creativity and result in a healthy work environment?
• Walmart company: environmental sustainability .
• Eco-friendliness: how can more eco-friendly policies be encouraged in companies and businesses?
• The concept of perfect competition .
• Personal guns: does the successful handgun production industry depend on their free distribution?
• BMW group sustainability plan .
• Minimum wage: should it be canceled? Why? 
• Starbucks, Toyota and Google: missions comparison .
• Commerce and retail: what is the future? Will shopping activity move completely to the Internet?
• Toyota and Plexus: pricing strategies .
• Internet advertising: is it more effective than other types of advertisement?
• Tobacco production: should higher taxes apply to the tobacco companies? Should they be obliged to donate to cancer treatment centers?
• Alcohol production: should higher taxes apply to alcohol companies? Should they be obliged to donate to alcohol treatment centers?
• Xerox: company profile and overview .
• Business ethics: how does it influence important decisions made by a company?
• Ethics and morality in a business-oriented world.
• The rise and fall of Eastman Kodak .
• A museum exhibition: how can it be made marketable?
• The business guide to sustainability. 
• Mobile phones: what has facilitated their high sales rates in recent years?
• Under Armour: company analysis and strategic alternatives .
• International human resources : what are the major challenges and pitfalls?
• Corporate rituals: what are the oldest and most rigid ones that are still practiced in companies?
• Brainstorming: how effective is it in producing ideas and business solutions?
• Healthy work environment: what does it look like, and how can it be created?
• Financial crisis: how does it affect business in the US and worldwide?
• Famous brands: what are the associated advantages of owning a product of a recognizable and respectable brand? Why are consumers often willing to pay for it more than for a less well-known alternative?
• Image: how does it affect the modern business culture and consumer behavior?
• Gender: does it influence the ability to manage small and large teams?
• Hiring youth: why certain niche companies prefer to employ young people? What are the examples?
• Differences in ethnic cultures: how do they influence team-building?
• Differences in ages: do they create difficulties in departmental cross-functional cooperation?
• Gender: why certain companies prefer to employ more women than men and vice versa? Are efficiency stereotypes empirically and numerically confirmed?
• Fitness franchises: why are they more and more popular? 
• Franchise models: what types are out there? Which would you choose for a coffee house? Other examples are welcome.
• Franchise promotion: is it the responsibility of the franchisee or of the franchise holder?
• Franchise agreement: which items should be included to save from excessive spending with no reward?
• What factors must be considered when choosing the market for business expansion?
• Globalization and consumer behavior: how does one affect the other?
• Chinese market: how does it benefit from globalization?
• Globalization: will it continue to spread, or will it cease to decrease?
• Business clusters: how do they move globalization?
• Bank mergers : a wise strategy or a result of failure? When should a bank consider this move?
• Bankruptcy : what are the most common reasons for it? Does it necessarily spell the end for a business?
• Big-box stores : how to ensure the success of a big-box retailer?
• Brand awareness: how to make people remember and recognize your brand?
• Competitive intelligence: what are the best ways to gather and analyze information about the business environment? 
• Consumer loyalty: how to make a consumer develop a behavioral tendency of favoring one brand’s products over the other?
• Consumer risk management: what are the best ways to minimize the potential risk of a product not meeting quality standards entering the marketplace? How to make it cost-effective?
• Copycat products: why do they enter the market so easily, and what are the ways for a brand to fight for its copyright?
• Corporate crime : how is it best for a company to redeem its reputation after being compromised?
• Corporate social responsibility : how does this business model help make a company be socially accountable?
• People Water: corporate social responsibility .
• Customer competencies: how to enable your customers to learn and engage in an active dialogue?
• Data security : how to protect data from unauthorized access and data corruption?
• Downtown revitalization: how can it be beneficial for a business?
• Ruth’s Chris restaurants: SWOT analysis .
• Employee coaching: how is it different from managing? How is it best to organize employee coaching in a big/small company? 
• The “Do no harm” ethical principle in business.
• Green products: are they good for a business? How can a company use less packaging, and reduce the amount of disposed toxics? 
• Industry disruptor: what is a disruptive innovation in business?
• Intellectual capital: what are the components and what is the best way to unlock their potential?
• Job sculpting: what is the best way to match a person to a job that unlocks their potential to the fullest degree?
• Marketing ethics : what are the moral principles behind the regulation and operation of marketing in your country?
• Mergers : what are the types, and why do businesses do it?
• Organigraphs: how to graphically represent a company’s structure and processes? How are organigraphs different from a traditional organizational chart?
• Philanthropy: what are the competitive advantages of corporate philanthropy?
• Quality circles: how does it influence business positively?
• Regional planning: how to place infrastructure across a large area of land efficiently?
• Customer service initiatives: how to learn what your customers dislike, tolerate, and actively appreciate?
• Bagel Store vs. Subway: comparative analysis .
• Shared services model: why are they cost-efficient?
• Short-term financing: in what types of businesses does it apply best?
• Starbucks Effect: how does a Starbucks store affect home and property values?
• Groupon: daily deal or lasting success ?
• Strategic planning : how to establish the direction of a small business?
• IBM Corporation: business strategies .
• Labour strikes: what causes them? What are the consequences for a business in particular and for the economy in general?
• Companies’ ethics: concepts and cases. 
• Subliminal advertising: how do they work?
• Telemarketing: a thing from the past or a relevant method of advertising?
• Underage workers: how does employment of minors work?
• Underwriting: who provides underwriting services and who receives them?
• Undocumented workers: do they have rights, and what are the risks?
• Unions: what is their stand in your country?
• Whistle blowing: is it regarded ethical in modern business practice? 
• Work ethic: what kind of belief system is that? Does it have any downsides? 
• Work-life balance : what are the ways of encouraging and maintaining it?
• Business leadership: is it a skill that can be learned?
• Stakeholders : what is their impact on the success of a business?
• Global unemployment: why is it a worldwide phenomenon? What are the solutions to the problem?
• International investment : why is it important to educate the public on its benefits?
• International competition: what are the strategic measures of survival for local companies?
• Job creation : how can big and small businesses create jobs?
• Businesses and oceans: why is it crucial to institute and implement environmentally-friendly approaches?
• Ethical conflicts: how to avoid cultural, religious, and political arguments at work?
• Organizational environmental pollution: how does it affect consumer trust levels?
• Business negotiation: what are the styles of intercultural dialogue?
• Excessive work: what are the consequences of overworking ?

Marketing is one of the most prominent entities that govern our world. It’s the cornerstone of business, serving to identify and satisfy customers’ wants and needs. Without marketing, there is no business!

Here are some of the most relevant marketing research paper topics and ideas. Choose one, and you are bound to impress your professor!

Get an originally-written paper according to your instructions!

• Coronavirus: a case study. How has COVID-19 affected consumer behavior worldwide ? What about your own country? Are there any glaring examples of inadequate consumer behavior? What are the reasons behind them? How do different businesses deal with the consequences of quarantine? Produce examples of marketing centered around Coronavirus.
• Zoom: a case study. How did Zoom manage to become a go-to platform during the Coronavirus outbreak ? Was it the brand’s clever marketing, or did something else influence the consumer choice? How did Zoom manage to outperform the dozens of rival video conferencing services? What are the numbers? Make your predictions on whether the company will be able to sustain its success after quarantine is over.
• Gillette #MeToo commercial: a case study. How did the brand express its political stand on a pressing social subject? Did the campaign ultimately succeed in its goal? Did the backlash harm Gillette’s reputation, or was it a sign of successful branding? How did it ultimately reflect on sales? What can be learned from the data?
• Xbox Series X: a case study. The Xbox Series X is the successor of the popular Xbox One home video game console. It is scheduled for release in late 2020. How is it advertised? How does its marketing campaign impact user behavior? Is it a fast process? Analyze the concept and the marketing campaign of the product.
• Colin Kaepernick in a Nike commercial: a case study. How did the brand use an existing political situation to its advantage? Did the campaign ultimately succeed in its goal, or did it merely taint Nike’s reputation? Was it marketing genius or brand failure? What do the numbers say? What can be learned from the data?
• Brexit and consumer behavior. How has Brexit affected consumer buying behavior in the UK? What about the EU? How did it impact currency exchange rate? What businesses benefited from it? What can be learned from the data?
• Same product, different branding: a comparison. Two companies are selling the same product – only branding and packaging are different. What influences customers’ choice? Is the price relevant in this equation? What can be learned from the data?
• Addictive consumer behavior. What brands are known to inspire addictive consumer behavior? What marketing tools do they employ? Are there any downsides for a business? Should companies be held liable for maniacal consumer behavior?
• Corporate social responsibility as a brand marketing tool. How effective is it? Produce examples of brands whose sales increased after a charity or awareness campaign. What can be learned from the data? What are the pitfalls of the CPR approach?
• The ROI in athletics. What exactly is return on investment? How is it calculated? Why is there close public attention to the ROI factor in athletics? How can ROI be used as a marketing tool? Produce real-life examples.

• Slack: a case study. How popular is Slack as compared to rival platforms offering similar services? How much of its success can be attributed to marketing? Is its success currently on the rise or on the decline?
• Uber : a case study. How has Uber become the leading company in its field? Analyze its history. What role did marketing play in its success? Analyze the company’s exit from the Chinese, Russian, and South Asian markets. Why did the company choose to do it? What benefits did it gain by doing so? What’s the current stand of the company?
• Facebook: a case study. Facebook has faced a lot of backlash in recent years. How did the company manage it? What are the examples of Facebook’s different takes on marketing influenced by the company’s negative publicity? 
• Marketing in recession: a case study. The 2008 global financial crisis took a great toll on the markets worldwide. Nevertheless, there are stories of success for new products introduced to the market at the time. What companies managed to successfully roll out a product in the time following the 2008 global financial crisis? Give a case study of such a company. 
• Microsoft : a case study. How does Microsoft advertise its products? How are traditional storefronts doing market-wise as compared to the recent advertising trend, mobile phone marketing? What choices does the IT giant make concerning mobile ad targeting? Is it successful?
• Black Friday : what’s the secret behind the phenomenon? Does it offer real value for money or is it simply a psychological trick of clever marketing?
• Digital transformation: how to create an effective digital marketing budget?
• Production expenditure: how does marketing affect it?
• Jeep company’s marketing .
• The Internet of things : what exactly is IoT? What are the examples? How can marketing be incorporated into it?
• Volkswagen company’s information technology .
• Volkswagen in America: managing IT priorities .
• Relationship banking: how has it been influenced by digital promotion and mobile money accessibility? How is mobile banking redefining the customer-bank relationship?
• Apple Computer Inc.: maintaining the music business .
• Credit card responsibility: how to limit compulsive buying behaviors for credit card holders?
• Corporate social responsibility: how do organizations use CSR to reinforce brand equity?
• Servus Credit Union Ltd: marketing strategies. 
• Marketing manipulation tactics: what do brands do to get more customers?
• Herfy’s marketing strategy in India .
• Social media marketing as an image builder: different ways of communicating your brand image on the YouTube, Tik Tok, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram platforms.
• Consumer motivation on the BevCo example. 
• Influencers: how can Internet-famous people impact the buying choices of consumers ?

• A Coffee shop marketing strategy .
• Direct marketing strategies: are consumers equipped enough to shield themselves from it?
• The “Do no harm” ethical principle in business .
• Maternity: what is the best way to market baby products?
• Family orientation: how does it affect marketing in general?
• Online shopping : what do buyers look for when shopping online? What attributes do they compare when choosing the product?
• Harley Davidson, Naked Juice, and Tropicana Juice: brand perception analysis .
• Global marketing: how does it incorporate standardization?
• Social class differentiation: how do financial institutions market their products and services differently on the basis of social class?
• Snapple Juice: marketing strategies .
• Internet marketing: what trends can be expected to dominate the online world in the future?
• Marketing and culture : how do advertising strategies vary across different cultures?
• The Green Motor Car Company: marketing strategy .
• Political campaigns: how can they impact advertising? Produce real-life examples. 
• Impulsive buying : how does it occur, and how do brands exploit it?
• American Marketing Association: promotion strategy .
• Loyalty cards: do they boost sales and encourage customer loyalty?
• Brand trust: is it possible for well-marketed brands to get away with selling products of substandard quality?
• Trust as the way to develop proper company-clients relationships. 
• Globalization: what is its impact on consumer behavior? 
• Customer loyalty : what brand attributes result in it?
• Market monopoly: what are some of the successful marketing approaches that can help break through it?
• Cause marketing : how does it impact a brand’s affinity with its target audience?
• Brand equity : what is the effect of discount offerings and consumer promotions on it?
• The outcomes of advertising in a recession
• Top-of-mind awareness: how is it best achieved in modern times? Produce real-life data.
• Event sponsorships and customer perceptions: how to?
• Mobile ad targeting: pros and cons of mobile ad targeting based on users’ browser and app history.
• Mortgage marketing: how to make customers be able to differentiate between various mortgage options offered by competing banks?
• Drones production company marketing plan .
• Click baiting: a promising novelty in sponsored posts promotion or a brand-compromising nuisance, best to be avoided for fear of bad associations with the brand?
• Who are the consumers of Nivea?
• Celebrity endorsement : what’s its impact on ROI for CPG brands?
• Roadrunner Sport: social and digital media strategies. 
• Comparison advertising: is it effective in building brand equity?
• Do consumers prefer purchasing routine grocery products online?
• Is earned media perceived to be as important as it appears to be?
• Word of mouth: what makes people want to forward content to their friends?
• Viral content: how to?
• Evolving family structures: what has changed and how to address it with marketing?
• Augmented reality : how is it enhancing marketing experiences?
• Artificial intelligence: what role does it play in modern marketing?
• Advertising to children : how to? What are the pitfalls?
• Brand salience: how to?
• Humour in advertising: what’s the impact, and what’s the customer response?

As you are very well aware, accounting is all about numbers and measurements. It’s even been called the language of business! That’s why writing a research paper on one of the accounting research paper topics is such a good idea. You are going to master it in no time!

What are the main fields of accounting?

• Financial Accounting
• Management Accounting
• Accounting Information Systems
• Tax Accounting

There are carefully selected topics down below that explore each of those fields. Just go there and choose one – it’s that easy!

• Taxes and politics. How do organizations fight for the reduction of the taxes they have to pay? How can politicians influence the tax rate in different spheres? Are there any real-life examples of that? How can this situation be curbed?
• Financial markets. What are commodities and stocks? What is the role of financial markets in the global economy? Why are there few people who understand financial markets? What issues does it raise? What can be done about it?
• Accounting information systems . What are the most popular accounting systems used by businesses nowadays? What are the most modern ones? How rapid is the flow of information today? How does it influence modern accounting? What can be done to advance it even further?
• Managing and accounting. How can managerial accounting help a company make better decisions? How does it work? What are the possible examples of successful and unsuccessful decisions made in a company based on the managerial accounting reports?
• Personal finances. Why should individuals hire personal accountants? How can this practice be systematized? What are the alternatives? Produce examples of modern mobile accounting applications and free online services. What are the pitfalls to be aware of? 
• Debt management. Why does such a serious issue exist in the modern world? Produce the current numbers of people for whom debt is a life-governing factor. What is the reason behind the prevalence of this problem? Who may benefit from this situation? How can this be fixed?
• Auditing collusion. What is employee / auditing collusion? How can it result in an unfair marketing advantage? Why is it illegal? Produce real-life examples of auditing collusion disrupting marketing equilibrium. What can be done to anticipate and prevent such occurrences in companies?

Below are some other accounting research topics to explore:

• Accounting decisions: what are the criteria for making them correctly?
• General principles of accounting .

• Forensic accounting : how does the investigation process go? What are the role and essential skills of forensic accountants?
• Accounting theory: how is it influenced by culture?
• Tax assessment: how to correctly assess the tax on organizational earnings?
• The 2008 global financial crisis : what factors were the primary cause?
• What are the steps on the way to becoming a certified accountant? 
• Accounting ethics: what are the modern dilemmas?
• Accounting history : what are the historical prospects for the best accounting practices?
• Accounting systems: what are the risks in the process of developing their design?
• Earnings management: what are the perspectives?
• Tax reduction: what are the most effective ways of doing it for organizations? 
• Managerial accounting: what are the effects of financial markets on management accounting?
• Financial fraud: what are the ways to escape it? 
• Accounting theories: what is their meaning for business?
• Nortel Networks Corporation Accounting Theory .
• Normative theories: what are the issues with normative theorizing in accounting?
• Theoretical concepts: how to implement them in practical accounting?
• Earnings management: how to best organize it in a company?
• Cash flow: what is the effect of external factors on cash flow in an organization?
• Online accounting: can accountancy be effectively based on the Internet?
• Offshore accounting: how does it work? What are the pros and cons?
• Accounting systems: which are the most effective for accountants?
• Tax code: how to?
• Islamic banking: how is it different from the European approach? 
• Financial markets: what are the known commodities?
• Financial markets: what is their role in the global economy?
• Financial transparency: what are the strategies to make organizational finances transparent?
• Cloud computing : what is its role in data management for accounting information systems?
• Personal investment: important factors. 
• The ideal framework for AIS: what does an ideal framework for an accounting information system in multinational cooperatives look like?
• Food production company: a financial plan .
• Decision-making process: what is the role of AIS in the decision making process for medium / large economic enterprises?
• Accounting frauds: analyze three major accounting frauds of the last decade in detail. Why is ethical judgment needed in accounting at all times?
• Intellectual capital: how do two major business companies (of your choice) build a relationship between their financial statements and their intellectual capital?
• Education for senior executives: how can business education for senior executives influence hedging behavior?
• Non-profit accounting: what are its financial reporting requirements?

Project management is the cornerstone of doing business. After all, how can you do anything without organizing it first? You may think, “Oh, but that’s easy… I just do it!” But that’s not how it works in modern business.

In big corporations, the way you organize a project is often synonymous with its eventual success or failure. Project managers need all of their knowledge, skills, and techniques to make projects meet the requirements. Want to look deeper into the processes and secrets behind project management? The idea for your perfect project management research paper is waiting for you down below!

• Project management software. Which project management tools dominate the market today? Are they cost-effective? What do they primarily focus on (e.g., cost, scheduling time, etc.)? Analyze different project management software and find out whether they really lead to project success and increase productivity or not. 
• Humanitarian logistics. How do system dynamics and project management principles affect logistics operations? The need for humanitarian logistics has increased around the world due to the rise in environmental disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis, etc.). How can the sustained damages be reduced? Analyze the collaboration between system dynamics and humanitarian logistics. How does it impact flows in the supply chain, stakeholders, and responses? What are the best adaptations of project management theories?
• Project delay causes. Identify the leading symptoms and causes of project delays. How does it impact the project life cycle? How do global construction companies cope with it? What strategies have they devised to deal with the issue?
• Factors of project selection. What are the primary factors that affect selecting a project? Analyze the shift of project benefits approach towards customer-centricity. What is the reason for it? What is the difference between the two approaches? Which is more effective in modern business?
• IT industry and agile project management . What is the impact of agile project management on productivity in IT companies? Analyze it using quantitative research techniques. Measure improvement of productivity, customer satisfaction, and employee satisfaction. Analyze and report the outputs of the data using empirical hypothesis testing methods.
• Implementation of project management practices . What is the impact of an organization on how project management practices are implemented? Analyze the more informal and people-focused project management practices that are used in small and medium-sized enterprises. Use mixed methods research techniques such as interviews and surveys. Choose companies from a specific sphere to collect data. Examine the size of the company and how it impacts project management practices.
• Communication and quality. How significant is communication in maintaining timely delivery and quality of project activities? Analyze the importance of communication between the organization of a project and its stakeholders (external and internal). How does efficient communication help an organization meet the expectations?
• Team conflict dynamics model: what conflict types and team conflict profiles are there? How can they produce resolutions that can lead a project to success?
• Culture and conflict management: how different cultures of project managers may influence the methods of conflict resolution they implement? How does a project manager’s background affect the way they identify misdeeds and the way they try to deal with conflicts that arise in their project? 
• Project misalignment with business objectives: how does it affect the overall project performance?
• Project management soft skills : how important are they in the context of project success rates? What is the cost of training, and what are the benefits? How do they help the project achieve the desired outcome?
• Psychosocial stressors: how do they impact project manager performance? What types of psychosocial stressors are there? Does organizational culture have any mediating effect? Use real-life data.

• Project management research trends: how do they influence project success? What is the relationship between project management research trends and social-economic trends?
• Project management maturity factors: how do they influence project success in large enterprises? How come the role of projects has increased worldwide, but the overall number of successful projects hasn’t changed? What is the relationship between project performance factors and organizational project management maturity?
• Agile-scrum beyond IT: how can it bring managerial benefits to other sectors? Analyze its potential for the healthcare industry. Illustrate how it may be applied to develop frameworks for quality and timeliness improvement. How can it help deliver healthcare in a large-scale patient setting?
• Project completion rate: how do organizational characteristics influence it in the construction industry? Analyze data on project performance using key performance indicators (KPIs). Use social network analysis tools to document organizational characteristics.
• Leadership style as a mediator: how to connect collaboration satisfaction and emotional intelligence? What leadership styles are there? What are their roles as mediators between emotional intelligence and collaboration satisfaction?
• Effective project scheduling system: what are the effects of the application of this planning and scheduling style in construction projects? Use the critical path method (CPM) in the analysis of drafting and subsequent implementation of an effective project scheduling system for manufacturing renewable energy plants.
• Effective project manager appointment guidelines: how to design and implement them for construction companies in XYZ? How do two types of leadership styles, person-centered and team-centered, differ when used by project managers? How can one balance them? What does Archer say on the topic in her Realist social theory? Use the data from your analysis for designing effective project manager appointment guidelines to be implemented in XYZ construction companies.
• Controlling costs in project management: a systems approach. Analyze the work of the research and development departments for a US-based consumer goods manufacturer.
• Management: power, authority, and influence .
• Culture, project performance, and IT industry: what might be the causes of delay and failure due to cultural factors?
• CISCO Systems Inc: strategies and management .
• Initiation stage of a project: a review. Analyze the work of the US medicine sector.
• Similar but different: review the similarities and differences in how people practice project management across the world.
• Effective teamwork role for organizations performance .
• Competitive advantage: does a company gain a competitive advantage by implementing expert management in a project? 
• Canbide Corporation: operations management tools .
• Critical path analysis: how do project managers plan for it and assess it?
• Diversity: management practices and principles .
• The uncertainty: how valid is it in lengthy and difficult projects in the US construction industry?
• Transformational and transactional leadership models. 
• The history: investigate and analyze the development and evolution of project management across the past 20 years.
• The qualities of an efficient leader. 
• Understanding the intricacies: how important is the grasp of the project’s intricate nature for its effective management?
• McDonalds: management effectiveness .
• Benchmarking project management maturity: analyze the benchmark standard of measuring maturity in project management.
• Shangri-La Hotels: company management .
• Agile project management: how does academic literature help develop its understanding?
• The organization of international business .
• The PMBOK guidelines: do they prepare managers for handling project risks successfully?
• Information management system: practical solutions .
• Project management methodologies: how do various prevailing project management methodologies correspond with efficacy? Review the US market.
• Subway in the US: management strategies in food industry .
• Software development methodologies: how do organizations justify their choices?
• Teamwork on project management: how important is it in the US healthcare system?
• The concept of change in management .
• Software tools: how do different project management software tools correspond with efficacy in the developed world?
• Establishment of Ruth’s Chris Steak House in London: how to make a restaurant chain international?
• Attitude towards risk: how does project management handle possible risks in the US oil and gas sector? 

• Package role in design and planning process .
• Public procurement: what are the associated challenges for project management in the US IT sector?
• Humility and its impact in leadership .
• The stakeholder approach: how does a global perspective picture its overall success in adoption and completion of projects?
• Management: Holistic Response to Client Issues .
• Captiva Conglomerate: management strategies. 
• Best project management practices: what does the European financial sector tell us about them?
• Hewlett-Packard: global supply chain management .
• Leadership qualities: does successful project management need them?

Human resource management is one of the most interesting spheres of business. After all, it’s all about people!

There are three major areas of a human resource manager’s responsibilities. They are: staffing, allocating compensation and benefits for employees, and administrating work.

There’s so much you can do as an HR specialist. It’s as people-oriented as a profession can get. It’s always a continuous process, too. You’ll never get bored!

There are a number of questions an HR specialist needs to know the answer to. How to select the best recruits? How to encourage team spirit and teamwork among the employees? How to motivate people? How to appraise and how to punish? All of those questions and more are raised in our selection of human resources research topics!

• Training of employees as a performance enhancer. How does training of employees correspond with their performance? Produce real-life data. Use a questionnaire to identify and determine the workforce needs in an organization. Analyze the data by calculating a simple percentage analysis. How much did employee training influence their performance? Was it cost-effective?
• Performance evaluation and its impact on productivity. How does performance evaluation impact employee productivity? What is its purpose? What is the difference between formal and informal evaluations? How should a performance evaluation be carried out? Describe each of the steps. What is the influence of a poor evaluation on an employee’s morale and their absenteeism rate? Produce real-life data.
• Motivation and its impact on morale. What motivation theories are there? Which are the most popular to utilize in organizations today? What does the process of staff motivation look like? Does it influence employee performance? Produce real-life data. Analyze the data by calculating a simple percentage analysis. 
• Performance appraisal and its impact on productivity. What is performance appraisal, and how is it different from performance evaluation / employee motivation? Why is it considered to be crucial for the growth and survival of an organization? What is the role of performance appraisal as a strategic factor? Describe what performance appraisal techniques are used in an organization. How does it impact employee productivity? Produce real-life data.
• Human resource and its relevance in modern business. Why are the effective acquisition, utilization, and maintenance of human resources considered to be central to the growth of an organization? How can executive initiative utilize human resources profitably for an organization? What are the techniques of sustaining and developing human resources in an organization? How to achieve maximum cooperation between staff and management?
• Stress and its impact on the employee performance. What is the effect of stress on workers’ performance? Produce real-life data. Collect data using questionnaires and descriptive survey research design. Present the collected data in tables. Analyze it using simple percentages and frequencies. 
• Staff training in business organizations. How to identify the training needs of an organization? What is the role of management in staff training and development? What types of training methods are there? What are the effects of training on employee performance? Produce real-life data.

Here are some of the simpler human resources topics to explore:

• Employee loyalty: what are the main factors that can increase it?
• The cost of prejudice and discrimination on the wprkplace .
• Conflicts in the workplace : how to resolve them? What are the most typical ones?
• Cultural differences: how can human resource managers work around cultural differences in an international company?

• Recruiting students: what are the pros and cons?
• Compensation and benefits are the parts of employment relationship .
• Employees’ education: should a company pay for it? 
• Harmful outsourcing of United States jobs .
• Outsourcing and freelance workers: what are the pros and cons?
• Recruitment : what are the opportunities and risks of recruiting new team members?
• How to motivate employees effectively? 
• HR managers: how to select, recruit, hire, and educate human resource managers?
• Legal aspects of human resource management .
• Overqualified employees: how should an HR manager deal with an overqualified employee?
• Google company: workforce diversity policy .
• Talent hunting and management: what’s the human resource manager’s role in this process?
• Character types: what character types are there, and how do they affect the team-building process in a company?
• Workplace harassment and bullying: how should a human resource manager deal with such challenges? What strategies of prevention are to be employed? 
• Diversity : how can a company encourage it? What is its impact on the dynamics in the workplace?
• Communication: how to make it effective? How does it affect a company’s success?
• Wages : do they affect employee productivity? How to increase employees’ motivation and make it cost-effective?
• Assessing employee performance : what are the best ways to do it? What tools and criteria are there?
• The role of diversity in the workplace .
• Labor laws : what are the most critical issues to be resolved?
• Company data: how to protect it in the age of technology? 
• Equal pay: are staff members paid equally, and how can HR managers address this issue? 
• Leadership styles. 
• Health problems: how can they affect employees’ productivity, and how can HR managers address this issue?
• Riordan Manufacturing: HR marketing services. 
• Workplace motivation: what motivates people to work more?
• Mergers and acquisitions: what is the role of an HR specialist in these processes? 
• Managing a diverse workforce. 
• Employee loyalty: how can HR specialists encourage employee loyalty through developing the job satisfaction factor?
• Organizational burnout of employees .
• Employee retention: which factors contribute to it?
• Salary bonuses: what are their additional benefits? How can an HR specialist identify who is eligible for getting them?
• Strategic human resources : is there global competitiveness on it, and why?
• Human resources market: describe its demand and supply circle.
• Daily childcare: how can it enhance the performance of employees in the company?
• Compensation packages : what are they and what is their function? How can an HR specialist identify who is eligible for getting them?
• Career planning : should it be more people-oriented, or is it to be centered around companies?
• Professional qualities vs. fitting personality: which is more important?
• Performance tests: how are they to be conducted?
• Do remote interviews match in their effectiveness with personal ones?

The Accountancy , Business , and Management (ABM) research focuses on the basic concepts of financial, marketing, and business management. ABM research explores various strategies employed in the business, marketing, and accounting spheres. It helps specialists in the sphere discern which business theories work best when put to practice.

Qualitative research gathers non-numerical data used to uncover customers’ opinions, thoughts, and trends. ABM qualitative studies use focus groups, observations, and interviews. The importance of the qualitative method have been increasingly recognized in the ABM field as a rich in detail and insightful way of analyzing the current market situation.

The nature of business research is the collection, study, and analysis of various business-related data to acquire detailed information and use it to maximize sales and profit of a business. The employed research methods include qualitative and quantitative types. The importance and benefits of business research can’t be overrated.

A marketing research topic is an issue that a researcher is investigating in their marketing research paper. The topic needs to be specific and well-defined to ensure the success of a research project on market and marketing. Selecting a topic is a challenging part of the marketing research.

Learn more on this topic:

• 280 Good Nursing Research Topics & Questions
• 256 Research Topics on Criminal Justice & Criminology
• 224 Research Topics on Technology & Computer Science
• 178 Best Research Titles about Cookery & Food
• 507 Interesting History Topics to Research
• 193 Best Education Research Topics & Ideas
• 120+ Micro- & Macroeconomics Research Topics
• 201 Research Topics on Psychology & Communication
• 512 Research Topics on HumSS
• 301 Best Health & Medical Research Topics
• 521 Research Questions & Titles about Science
• A List of Research Topics for Students. Unique and Interesting
• Good Research Topics, Titles and Ideas for Your Paper
• Gale Databases: Gale
• Writing a Research Paper: Purdue OWL
• What are the Topics used in Research Starters – Business? EBSCO Connect
• What should be a good topic for research related to Accountancy, Business, and Management? Quora
• The difference between quantitative vs. qualitative research: SurveyMonkey
• Understanding Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research: Medium.com
• PhDs in Business & Management: Five Hot Research Topics (TopUniversities)
• All Topics: Harvard Business Review
• Research topics and projects: QUIT Business School
• Browse All Topics: Harvard Business School
• Market Research: Entrepreneur
• Management Accounting Research: Elsevier
• Accounting Research Tutorial: UF Libraries
• What Is Management Research Actually Good For? Harvard Business Review
• What is Management Research? University of Toronto
• The value of management research to managers: The Conversation
• Human Resources: Harvard Business School
• Research & Surveys: SHRM
• Human Resources in Research: UOttawa
• BA (Hons) Business Studies: University of Stirling
• BA Research: University of Newcastle
• Education Studies BA: UCL Institute of Education
• Areas of Research: PhD in Management, Michigan State University
• Research focus areas in business and government: Victoria University of Wellington
• PhD Subject Groups: Business School, University of Edinburgh
• Research areas: The University of Sydney Business School
• Research topics: Leeds University Business School
• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to LinkedIn
• Share to email

Do you have to write a research proposal and can’t choose one from the professor’s list? This article may be exactly what you need. We will provide you with the most up-to-date undergraduate and postgraduate topic ideas. Moreover, we will share the secrets of the winning research proposal writing. Here,...

A history class can become a jumble of years, dates, odd moments, and names of people who have been dead for centuries. Despite this, you’ll still need to find history topics to write about. You may have no choice! But once in a while, your instructor may let you pick...

Argumentative research paper topics are a lot easier to find than to come up with. We always try to make your life easier. That’s why you should feel free to check out this list of the hottest and most controversial argumentative essay topics for 2024. In the article prepared by...

One of the greatest problems of the scholarly world is the lack of funny topics. So why not jazz it up? How about creating one of those humorous speeches the public is always so delighted to listen to? Making a couple of funny informative speech topics or coming up with...

After the recent heartbreaking mass shootings, the gun control debate has reached its boiling point. Do we need stricter gun control laws? Should everyone get a weapon to oppose crime? Or should guns be banned overall? You have the opportunity to air your opinion in a gun control argumentative essay....

Many people believe that childhood is the happiest period in a person’s life. It’s not hard to see why. Kids have nothing to care or worry about, have almost no duties or problems, and can hang out with their friends all day long. An essay about childhood gives an opportunity...

Just when you think you’re way past the question “How to write an essay?” another one comes. That’s the thing students desperately Google: “What is an informative speech?” And our custom writing experts are here to help you sort this out. Informative speaking is a speech on a completely new issue....

Literature courses are about two things: reading and writing about what you’ve read. For most students, it’s hard enough to understand great pieces of literature, never mind analyzing them. And with so many books and stories out there, choosing one to write about can be a chore. But you’re in...

The success of any college essay depends on the topic choice. If you want to impress your instructors, your essay needs to be interesting and unique. Don’t know what to write about? We are here to help you! In this article by our Custom-Writing.org team, you will find 335 interesting...

Social studies is an integrated research field. It includes a range of topics on social science and humanities, such as history, culture, geography, sociology, education, etc. A social studies essay might be assigned to any middle school, high school, or college student. It might seem like a daunting task, but...

If you are about to go into the world of graduate school, then one of the first things you need to do is choose from all the possible dissertation topics available to you. This is no small task. You are likely to spend many years researching your Master’s or Ph.D....

Looking for a good argumentative essay topic? In need of a persuasive idea for a research paper? You’ve found the right page! Academic writing is never easy, whether it is for middle school or college. That’s why there are numerous educational materials on composing an argumentative and persuasive essay, for...

RESEARCH TITLE ABOUT BUSINESS

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Elsevier - PMC COVID-19 Collection

Effects of COVID-19 on business and research

The COVID-19 outbreak is a sharp reminder that pandemics, like other rarely occurring catastrophes, have happened in the past and will continue to happen in the future. Even if we cannot prevent dangerous viruses from emerging, we should prepare to dampen their effects on society. The current outbreak has had severe economic consequences across the globe, and it does not look like any country will be unaffected. This not only has consequences for the economy; all of society is affected, which has led to dramatic changes in how businesses act and consumers behave. This special issue is a global effort to address some of the pandemic-related issues affecting society. In total, there are 13 papers that cover different industry sectors (e.g., tourism, retail, higher education), changes in consumer behavior and businesses, ethical issues, and aspects related to employees and leadership.

1. Introduction

There has been a long history of fear of pandemic outbreaks. The discussion has not focused on whether there will be an outbreak, but when new outbreaks will happen ( Stöhr & Esveld, 2004 ). The events leading to influenza pandemics are recurring biological phenomena and cannot realistically be prevented. Pandemics seem to occur at 10–50-year intervals as a result of the emergence of new virus subtypes from virus re-assortment ( Potter, 2001 ). As the global population increases and we need to live closer to animals, it is likely that the transfer of new viruses to the human population will occur even more frequently. All our society can do is take preventive measures so that we are able to act quickly once we suspect an outbreak. We should also make an effort to learn from the consequences of pandemic outbreaks to prepare our societies for if—and, more likely, when—this happens again.

As we are in the middle of a pandemic outbreak, it is very difficult to estimate its long-term effects. Although society has been hit by several pandemics in the past, it is difficult to estimate the long-term economic, behavioral, or societal consequences as these aspects have not been studied to a great extent in the past. The limited studies that do exist indicate that the major historical pandemics of the last millennium have typically been associated with subsequent low returns on assets ( Jorda, Singh, & Taylor, 2020 ). For a period after a pandemic, we tend to become less interested in investing and more interested in saving our capital, resulting in reduced economic growth. Given the current situation, in which saving capital means negative returns, it is not at all certain that we will be as conservative as we have been in the past. Behavioral changes related to pandemic outbreaks seem to be connected with personal protection ( Funk, Gilad, Watkins, & Jansen, 2009 ), such as the use of face masks, rather than general behavior changes. Our lives, as humans in a modern society, seem to be more centered around convenience than around worrying about what might happen in the future.

On a societal level, we seem to be completely unprepared for large-scale of outbreaks. Our societies are more open than ever; we rely on the importing of important products, such as food, energy, and medical equipment, rather than sourcing them from close to where they are needed; and there are limited efforts to prepare for pandemic outbreaks. The guiding principle of our society seems to be efficiency and economic gain rather than safety. This may change after the current outbreak. It is also important to point out that the principles (eg. openness and global trade) on which society is based have lifted a large number of countries around the globe out of poverty and produced well-developed economies. It is not unlikely that our societies will back-off some of them leading to more poverty in the world.

The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has forced many businesses to close, leading to an unprecedented disruption of commerce in most industry sectors. Retailers and brands face many short-term challenges, such as those related to health and safety, the supply chain, the workforce, cash flow, consumer demand, sales, and marketing. However, successfully navigating these challenges will not guarantee a promising future, or any future at all. This is because once we get through this pandemic, we will emerge in a very different world compared to the one before the outbreak. Many markets, especially in the fields of tourism and hospitality, no longer exist. All organizational functions are intended to prioritize and optimize spending or postpone tasks that will not bring value in the current environment. Companies, especially start-ups, have implemented an indefinite hiring freeze. At the same time, online communication, online entertainment, and online shopping are seeing unprecedented growth.

2. Interesting research themes

As research indicates that pandemics are reoccurring events, it is very likely that we will see another outbreak in our lifetime. It is apparent to anyone that the current pandemic has had enormous—but hopefully short-term—effects on all our lives. Countries have closed their borders, limited the movement of their citizens, and even confined citizens in quarantine within their homes for weeks. This is a rather unique occurrence, as we are used to freedom of movement, but in the midst of the pandemic outbreak, people have been fined just for being outside. Although our societies seem to be very accepting of these limitations and condemn people that do not follow the rules, but we need to ask ourselves how this will affect the views of our society (e.g., views regarding freedom, healthcare, government intervention). We should also be aware that infrastructure and routines to monitor citizens in order to limit the spread of the virus have been rolled out, and so we should ask ourselves how accepting we will be of monitoring in the future. We must realize that once these systems are in place, it is highly unlikely that they will be rolled back. Furthermore, in some countries, the ruling politicians have taken advantage of this situation and increased their control over the state, suppressing opposing opinions and thus jeopardizing democratic systems. Some of the worst examples are Turkmenistan, which has banned the use of the word “corona,” and Hungary, which is letting Viktor Orbán rule by decree indefinitely.

As previously mentioned, people have been confined to their homes. There has also been a constant stream of news on this invisible external threat from which we cannot protect ourselves. We have been occupied trying to figure out how best to protect ourselves and our loved ones. On top of that, many feel pressure due to losing their jobs or due to working in close proximity to potentially infected people, as society depends on them fulfilling their duty. The consequences of the pandemic outbreak have hit various sectors of society in different ways. People that are working in sectors connected to healthcare must endure endless tasks and very long working days. Additionally, people are losing their jobs at rates we have not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The sectors that have seen the largest increases in unemployment are those that are hedonic in nature and require the physical presence of the customer (e.g., hospitality, tourism, and entertainment), as demand for these services has ceased to exist. The employees in these sectors tend to be younger and female. Past experience also indicates that once someone is outside the job market, it is very difficult to get back in as they will face more competition that may be more competent.

All countries that can are trying to stimulate their economies to keep as much as possible of their necessary infrastructure intact and to keep citizens productive or ready to become productive once the pandemic has been overcome. In order to keep society from deteriorating, people not only need jobs or a way to support themselves but also need access to what they view as necessary products and services. If this infrastructure does not exist, people start to behave in what is considered uncivil behavior (e.g., hording or looting). Countries around the globe have adopted very different approaches to handle the current stress on the job markets and infrastructure. Some countries have chosen to support businesses in order to help them keep the workforce intact, but others with less financial strength cannot do the same. Countries also have directly supported their citizens in various ways. There is an enormous body of rich information that researchers can collect to determine the best approaches for when when and if a major disaster happens in the future.

3. Consumer behavior during COVID-19

Around the globe, societies are in lockdown, and citizens are asked to respect social distance and stay at home. As we are social beings, isolation may be harmful for us ( Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009 ). Feelings of loneliness have, among other things, been connected to poorer cognitive performance, negativity, depression, and sensitivity to social threats. There are indications that this is happening during the current pandemic, as there has been an increase in domestic violence, quarrels among neighbors, and an increase in the sales of firearms ( Campbell, 2020 ). However, we have also seen an increase in other, more positive types of behavior caused by social distancing that have not been researched. People have started to nest, develop new skills, and take better care of where they live. For instance, they may learn how to bake, try to get fit, do a puzzle, or read more. There has also been an increase in purchases of cleaning products, and more trash is being recycled. At the same time, we are eating more junk food and cleaning ourselves less. People are also stockpiling essentials, panic buying, and escaping to rural areas. This is an indication that what is happening to us and our behaviors is complex, and it would be interesting to study this phenomenon further.

Another consequence of the lockdowns is the extreme increase in the usage of Internet and social media. Previous research has indicated that humans who feel lonely tend to use social media more and, in some cases, even prefer social media over physical interaction ( Nowland, Necka, & Cacioppo, 2018 ). Social media also may bring out the worst in us through trolling or sharing of fake news. This is, to some degree, not as damaging as the “real life” is lived in the physical world and the Internet is an “add on” with, in most cases, limited impact on the physical world. By this, we are able to compartmentalize and distinguish what matters and what does not matter. However, the current situation has made social media the main mode of contacting or socializing with others. In many cases, the Internet is at present also the main way to get essential supplies and receive essential services, like seeing a doctor. The question, then, is what happens to us when the “real life” is lived online and becomes a way to escape the physical world?

As humans, we rely to a large degree on our senses; we are built to use them in all situations of life. Thus, we rely on them heavily when making decisions. However, the current isolation is depriving us of our senses, as we are not exposed to as many stimuli as normal situation. Thus, we are, in a sense, being deprived of stimulation. We are also being told by authorities not to use our senses; we should not touch anything, wear a mask, or get close to other humans. Thus, what happens once our societies open up? How long will this fear of using our senses linger, and will we be over-cautious for a while or may we try to compensate as we have to some degree been deprived of using them? These are just some aspects of consumer behavior; many more are covered by this special issue.

4. Markets during COVID-19

The COVID-19 outbreak is likely to cause bankruptcy for many well-known brands in many industries as consumers stay at home and economies are shut down ( Tucker, 2020 ). In the US, famous companies such as Sears, JCPenney, Neiman Marcus, Hertz, and J. Crew are under enormous financial pressure. The travel industry is deeply affected; 80% of hotel rooms are empty ( Asmelash & Cooper, 2020 ), airlines cut their workforce by 90%, and tourism destinations are likely to see no profits in 2020. Furthermore, expos, conferences, sporting events, and other large gatherings as well as cultural establishments such as galleries and museums have been abruptly called off. Consulting in general and personal services, like hairdressers, gyms, and taxis, have also come to a standstill due to lockdowns. Finally, important industries like the car, truck, and electronics industries have abruptly closed (although they started to open up two months after their closure). There are an endless number of questions we could ask ourselves in connection to this rather abrupt close-down. For instance, how do we take care of employees in such situations? Why are companies not better prepared to handle such situations (e.g., putting aside earnings or thinking of alternative sources of income)? How are the companies and even countries using the current situation to enhance their competitive situation? One of the countries that seem to be using the situation is China that is buying European based infrastructure and technology ( Rapoza, 2020 ).

While some businesses are struggling, some businesses are thriving. This is true for a number of Internet-based businesses, such as those related to online entertainment, food delivery, online shopping, online education, and solutions for remote work. People have also changed their consumption patterns, increasing the demand for takeout, snacks, and alcohol as well as cleaning products as we spend more time in our homes. Other industries that are doing well are those related to healthcare and medication as well as herbs and vitamins. Typically, when studying markets, it is assumed that they are static, a natural conclusion since they tend to change slowly. However, if there is one thing the COVID-19 outbreak has shown us, it is that markets are dynamic ( Jaworski, Kohli, & Sahay, 2000 ) and can move rapidly. Furthermore, a market is not just a firm; it is a network of actors (i.e., firms, customers, public organizations) acting in accordance with a set of norms. These systems are sometimes referred to as dynamic ecosystems that exist to generate value ( Vargo & Lusch, 2011 ). The COVID-19 outbreak poses a unique opportunity to study how markets are created and how they disappear within a very limited time span. It would also be interesting to explore whether the disappearance of one solution for a market may be replaced by another (e.g., combustion engines for electric or physical teaching for online teaching).

5. Predicted lasting effects

Based on past experiences, we have become more conservative and protective after a pandemic outbreak. We save resources in order to be prepared if the unthinkable happens again. Countries are starting to stockpile things like food, equipment, and medicine or prepare to produce them locally. It is also essential for larger global firms to have reliable supply chains that do not break. Consequently, it is very likely that this pandemic will make these firms rethink their supply chains and, probably, move supply chains closer to where they are needed in order to avoid stopping production in the future. Furthermore, authorities have implied that other humans from other countries are dangerous as they may carry the virus. A closed border implies that the threat is from the outside. In addition, international flights are not likely to be an option for many in the coming years. Together, these circumstances mean that countries may become more nationalistic and less globalized. This may be a dangerous development, as long-term protection from the consequences of a pandemic outbreak is likely to require global effort and sharing of resources. Such cooperation is also key to tackle other global challenges that we may face in the future.

6. This special issue

In this special issue, we have invited scholars from different areas of business and management to write brief papers on various aspects of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In total, there are 12 articles in the special issue, which are summarized below.

The first contribution, by Jagdish Sheth, is titled “Impact of COVID-19 on Consumer Behavior: Will the Old Habits Return or Die?” It explores how the current pandemic has affected several aspects of consumers’ lives, ranging from personal mobility to retail shopping, attendance at major life events like marriage ceremonies, having children, and relocation. The author investigates four contexts of construed consumer behavior, namely social context, technology, coworking spaces, and natural disasters. Additionally, the author foresees eight immediate effects of the pandemic on consumer behavior and consumption. Hoarding—the mad scramble observed at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak—applies not only to consumers but also to unauthorized middlemen who buy products in excess to sell at increased prices.

Consumers learn to adapt quickly and take an improvised approach to overcome constraints that have been imposed by governments. Pent-up demand may lead to a significant rebound in sales of durable products, like automobiles, houses, and large appliances, and some of the realities of COVID-19 will put consumers in a buying mood soon.

Embracement of digital technology, either through online services or information-sharing platforms like Zoom, has kept people connected around the world. Digital savviness will become a necessity, rather than an alternative, for schools, businesses, and healthcare providers. With the onset of lockdowns in many countries, online shopping, including grocery shopping, has become more prevalent.

The desire to do everything in-home has impacted consumers’ impulse buying habits. Slowly but surely, work–life boundaries will be blurred when both tasks are carried out from home. There should be efforts to compartmentalize the two tasks to make this a more efficient way of life.

Reunions with friends and family are now restricted to digital interactions, especially for people who work and live away from their families. We can expect a dramatic change in consumers’ behavior because of sophisticated technology. In addition, consumers may discover new talents as they spend less time on the road and more at home. They may experiment with cooking, learn new skills, and, soon, become producers with commercial possibilities. In the end, most consumer’s habits will return to normal, while some habits may die due to adaptation to the new norm.

The second contribution, “Interventions as Experiments: Connecting the Dots in Forecasting and Overcoming Pandemics, Global Warming, Corruption, Civil Rights Violations, Misogyny, Income Inequality, and Guns,” written by Arch G. Woodside, discusses whether there is an association between public health interventions, national and state/provincial governments interventions, and improved control of the COVID-19 outbreak in certain countries. The paper suggests “ultimate broadening of the concept of marketing” in order to design and implement interventions in public laws and policy, national and local regulations, and the everyday lives of individuals. It also lays out effective mitigating strategies by examining designs, implementations, and outcomes of COVID-19 interventions by examining deaths as a natural experiment.

While COVID-19 eradication intervention tests are being run for promising vaccines, these are considered true experiments, and analyzing the data from these interventions may involve examination of the success of each vaccine for different demographic subgroups in treatment and placebo groups in randomized control trials. Comparing the designs and impact of the current COVID-19 mitigation interventions across nations and states within the U.S. provides useful information for improving these interventions, even though they are not “true experiments.”

The third contribution, “Employee Adjustment and Well-Being in the Era of COVID-19: Implications for Human Resource Management” is written by Joel B. Carnevale and Isabella Hatak. They claim that COVID-19 is becoming the accelerator for one of the most drastic workplace transformations in recent years. How we work, socialize, shop, learn, communicate, and, of course, where we work will be changed forever. Person–environment (P-E) fit theories highlight that employee–environment value congruence is important because values influence outcomes through motivation. However, given the current environment, in which the fulfillment of needs and desires like greater satisfaction, higher engagement, and overall well-being is drastically altered, there is an increased likelihood of misfits working in organizations.

In response to this, organizations need to use virtual forms of recruitment, training, and socialization in lieu of face-to-face interactions. Increasing job autonomy will alleviate the family-related challenges that may arise within remote work environments by providing employees with the right resources to manage conflicting work and family demands. Human resource leaders within the organization must enhance relationship-oriented human resources systems in order to combat the risk of unforeseen and prolonged isolation among single, independent employees and to better prepare them for situations like the current crisis. The field of entrepreneurship can offer insights that can be adapted by organizations coping with the pandemic. Entrepreneurs’ struggles are largely caused by the lack of work-related social support in comparison to salaried employees. Nevertheless, some entrepreneurs are known to overcome these limitations by leveraging alternative, domain-specific sources of social support, such as positive feedback from customers, which ultimately enhances their well-being. Recycling such approaches to identify overlooked or untapped sources of social support is likely to be beneficial for employees given the current work environment dynamic.

The fourth contribution, written by Hongwei He and Lloyd C. Harris, is titled “The Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on Corporate Social Responsibility and Marketing Philosophy.” The worldwide demand for hand sanitizers, gloves, and other hygiene products has risen because of the COVID-19 pandemic. And, in some countries, there has been a surge in complaints about profiteering and opportunism. As doctors combat the virus, prosecutors are pursuing the opportunistic profiteers who prey on the fearful. Many large corporations have a social purpose and set of values that indicate how much they appreciate their customers, employees, and stakeholders. This is the time for these corporations to make good on that commitment. Some organizations strive to set great examples. For example, Jack Ma, the co-founder of Alibaba, donated coronavirus test kits and other medical supplies to many countries around the world through the Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation. Large corporations have often written off the costs of product failures, restructuring, or acquisitions. When writing off losses due to the coronavirus pandemic, it is understandable to pursue the bond established between the brand and consumer. This gesture can turn out to be more meaningful and lasting than when implemented during “normal” times.

On the bright side, the COVID-19 pandemic offers great opportunities for companies to actively engage with their corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies and agenda. The post-COVID-19 marketplace is going to be irrecoverably different. Organizations will need to re-evaluate their visions, missions, and objectives to account for changes to their customers and competitors, amongst other shifts. A key facet of this is the exponential increase in digital communications and change.

Professors T. Y. Leung, Piyush Sharma, Pattarin Adithipyangkul, and Peter Hosie wrote “Gender Diversity and Public Health Outcomes: The COVID-19 Experience.” Public health is an interdisciplinary subject that involves the social sciences, public policy, public education, economics, and management. Failure to implement a proper public health policy may not only lead to a huge loss of human lives but also shatter the economy; expose the incompetence of public bodies, including governments and political leaders; and weaken the confidence of the general public. We are used to hearing that women are more other-directed and emotionally intelligent, but it has been proven that women are just as good, if not better, in terms of what we think of as male qualities, like being decisive and making tough calls, during a crisis. Prevalent issues like under-representation of women in leadership positions, mismanagement of public health systems, and inaccurate or inconsistent reporting of public health outcomes in the context of the recent pandemic need to be addressed by involving women at all stages of public health management, including planning, decision-making, and emergency response systems. This is important not only for a quick economic recovery in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis but also to prevent and manage such disasters in future.

The sixth paper in the special issue, “Managing Uncertainty during a Global Pandemic: An International Business Perspective,” was written by Piyush Sharma, T. Y. Leung, Russel P. J. Kingshott, Nebojsa S. Davcik, and Silvio Cardinali. Pandemics like that caused by COVID-19 are not just passing tragedies of sickness and death. The ubiquity of such a threat, and the uncertainty and fear that accompany it, lead to new consumer trends and norms. People become both more suspicious and less susceptible. The crisis also shines a light on the importance of international business research, which has been overlooked in the years leading up to this crisis. Social and informational uncertainty are likely to have economic repercussions.

As pointed out by the author, successful outcomes of social distancing and other restrictions are highly dependent upon societal acceptance and following through with restrictions. Social uncertainty and unrest among consumers due to being under lockdown for months could lead to a huge stifled demand for the products they missed. In this context, Samsung, a South Korean giant in consumer electronics and home appliances, may be a great case study during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. Samsung established a huge manufacturing network over the years, with factories in multiple locations. This was done due to foresight of the risk of single sourcing, the need to fulfill large production demand, and the desire to reduce its dependence on China. This strategy has helped Samsung shift its production from one location to another during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, thereby facing just a slowdown and not a complete shutdown of production. Similarly, to compensate for the closure of retail stores, Samsung has leveraged its contracts with mobile phone retailers and Benow (a payment and EMI technology firm) to create an e-commerce platform so that its retail business can continue to sell and deliver products directly to customers.

The seventh contribution, “Competing During a Pandemic? Retailers Ups and Downs During the COVID-19 Outbreak,” was written by Eleonora Pantano, Gabriele Pizzi, Daniele Scarpi, and Charles Dennis. The authors note that retailers who were not quick to adapt and factor COVID-19 into their operations are currently facing an existential crisis. The authors also highlight that retailers can minimize current and future business impacts by addressing four major emergencies.

First, retailers can identify and execute controllable activities. They must identify, optimize, and re-access existing technologies and business models. Specifically, they must understand how their stakeholders operate and interact to reduce response time and optimize communication channels. Second, all retailers, but especially grocery stores, are revisiting their business continuity plans to reassure customers that their needs will be met and manage the inevitable supply chain constraints and highs and lows caused by volatile demand. These retailers are prioritizing critical business activities and creating contingency plans for disruption. Third, retailers need to have an understanding of their financial needs as well as the essential role they play in their communities. For some regular customers, an open and well-stocked supermarket will reassure them that they are being cared for. Fourth, messages that retailers spread online during emergencies need to include information about products’ availability on the shelves and at digital outlets; control panic buying by restricting the quantity that customers can purchase; devise and implement protection plans for consumers and employees; contribute to overall public health; and use surveillance measures to limit the spread of the virus. To these ends, retailers need to improve their customer relationship management systems and promote safe interactions with customers (e.g., through online chats with employees) to provide real-time customer assistance.

In Fabian Eggers’ contribution, “Masters of Disasters? Challenges and Opportunities for SMEs in Times of Crisis,” he identifies small- to medium-sized businesses with low or unstable cashflow as particularly vulnerable during crises, as they are currently struggling for profitability. Studies reveal the interconnectedness between finance and strategy, particularly entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation in strategies. The paper highlights that a combination of entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation can lead to lean and flexible marketing efforts, which are particularly valuable in times of crisis. In addition, entrepreneurial orientation and market orientation can be combined into an entrepreneurial marketing post-disaster business recovery framework that highlights that seeking opportunities, organizing resources, creating customer value, and accepting risk are markedly different in a post-disaster context.

Sandeep Krishnamurthy contributed with “The Future of Business Education: A Commentary in the Shadow of the Covid-19 Pandemic.” The paper highlights that social distancing is prompting educational institutions to rethink how they are connecting with their student bodies. Spatial interaction is becoming the new norm, and the blurring of physical and virtual communication is likely to continue until the pandemic is overcome. Globally, the higher education system will undergo a decade of radical technology-led transformation, according to the author. The author identified five trends that will revolutionize how we educate after COVID-19:

• 1. The Algorithm as Professor – Rather than taking a traditional route and learning from a human professor in classrooms, students will learn remotely from an algorithm. The AI-enabled algorithm will provide customized personal learning experiences. Students will be able to quickly master rudimentary and routinized tasks. Then, the algorithm will prepare them for an in-person experience, where a “warm body” will engage them in Socratic dialogue.
• 2. The University as a Service – Traditionally, we have followed a linear formulation of society. Students go through K-12 education, some get an undergraduate degree, and some go on to further studies. However, the current and future environment is too volatile to sustain this educational structure. Students will need to learn what they need when they need it. Personalized, continuing education will become the norm.
• 3. The University as Assessment Powerhouse – In a world characterized by AI and automation, learning can come from many sources. Students will learn from each other, algorithmic systems, and public information. However, universities will continue to have a powerful place as assessors of learning. Students will come to universities to gain objective credentials based on powerful assessments of learning.
• 4. Learning Personalization to Support Diversity – Students of the future will have access to multiple pathways to learn the same content. For example, a course may be available through algorithmic engagement, animation/video/augmented reality, face-to-face instruction, or any mixture thereof. Using assessment data, the university of the future will be able to pinpoint the learning needs of each student and provide a personalized experience.
• 5. Problem Solving Through Ethical Inquiry - As the influence of artificial intelligence and automation grow exponentially in our lives, there will be a great need for students to become problem solvers through ethical inquiry. Clearly, the future will not simply be about what the answers are; it will be about which problems we wish to solve, given what we know. Students will need to become more comfortable with the need to evaluate AI algorithms based on their efficacy and their ethical foundation.

Contribution number ten, “Consumer Reacting, Coping and Adapting Behaviors in the COVID-19 Pandemic,” is written by Colleen P. Kirk and Laura S. Rifkin. In it, the authors explore numerous consumer insights during a major pandemic outbreak. Mainly, they examine consumer behaviors across three phases: reacting (e.g., hoarding and rejecting), coping (e.g., maintaining social connectedness, do-it-yourself behaviors, and changing views of brands), and longer-term adapting (e.g., potentially transformative changes in consumption and individual and social identity). The authors also identify a number of negative aspects of the pandemic that will likely impact consumer behavior. As they state, given the mandatory close quarters people must keep due to stay-at-home requirements, domestic abuse may be on the rise. In addition, throughout history, pandemics provide an excuse for increased racial and anti-immigrant biases.

In “How Firms in China Innovate in COVID-19 Crisis? An Exploratory Study of Marketing Innovation Strategies,” written by Yonggui Wang, Aoran Hong, Xia Li, and Jia Gao, the authors explore how firms in China worked to make their marketing strategies a success. They do so by identifying the typology of firms’ marketing innovations based on two dimensions: the motivation for innovations and the level of collaboration in innovations.

The authors outline four innovative strategies to combat crises for businesses. The responsive strategy works predominantly for firms that involve physical contact, but it can easily be transferred from offline marketing channels to online channels. A collective strategy can be implemented by firms that are highly affected by the crisis, which need to develop new business by collaborating with other firms during the crisis. A proactive strategy is for firms that are less affected by the COVID-19 crisis (mostly online businesses) to develop new businesses to meet the special demands of existing customers during the COVID-19 crisis. Firms that are less affected during the COVID-19 crisis can take an alternative approach: a partnership strategy. Firms should usually develop new offerings through collaboration with other firms.

Professors Amalesh Sharma, Anirban Adhikary, and Sourav Bikash Borah contributed with “Covid-19 Impact on Supply Chain Decisions: Strategic Insights for NASDAQ 100 Firms using Twitter Data.” During black swan events like the COVID-19 pandemic, which may have severe long-term consequences, a deep understanding of business risks can help organizations establish the right plan. In this article, the authors identified supply chain challenges faced by companies using their Twitter data. To develop insights from the findings, the authors constructed unigrams, bigrams, and trigrams that revealed the supply-chain-related aspects that gain attention on Twitter.

A topic analysis was performed to identify keywords used in discussions about COVID-19. The obtained insights show that the greatest challenge for the organizations was accessing realistic customer demands. A pandemic may increase or decrease demand for specific products, making estimation of realistic final customer demand more difficult and more urgent to address. Some user accounts suggested that organizations are still lacking in terms of technological readiness and that companies are looking to gain visibility across value chains. There are growing discussions about building supply chain resilience by identifying risks. Many organizations are not only focusing on social sustainability but also turning their attention toward environmental sustainability. To deal with the challenges brought on by unprecedented times, the leaders of organizations must reimagine and redesign the supply chain; rely on technology such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and blockchain in their supply chain designs; and focus on sustainable supply chain.

Finally, Marianna Sigala wrote “Tourism and COVID-19: Impacts and Implications for Advancing and Resetting Industry and Research.” Tourism is experiencing a rapid and steep drop in demand during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the tourism industry’s proven resilience in other unprecedented times, the impact of the current pandemic will likely last longer for international tourism than for other affected industries. However, the tourism industry should not only recover but also reimagine and reform the next normal economic order. Currently, there is a lack of research on how crises can alter the industry, how the industry adapts to changes with innovative techniques, and how research that can establish the next norms can be conducted. To study the needs and gaps in research work, the author reviews past and emerging literature to capture its impacts and impart some ideas from different research fields that will allow tourism to grow and evolve.

Biographies

Naveen Donthu is a Distinguished University Professor at Georgia State University. He holds the title of Vanchel Pennebaker Eminent Scholar Chair and is the Kenneth Bernhardt Distinguished Department Chair of the Marketing Department. His research has appeared in journals such as Marketing Science , Management Science , Journal of Marketing , Journal of Marketing Research , and Journal of Consumer Research. He is the current editor-in-chief for the Journal of Business Research .

Anders Gustafsson is a Professor of Marketing at the Norwegian Business School. Dr Gustafsson is also a Distinguished Professorial Fellow at the University of Manchester’s Alliance Manchester Business School, and he is part of Center for Services Leadership Global Faculty at the W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University. Dr. Gustafsson has published articles in journals such as the Journal of Marketing , Journal of Marketing Research , Journal of Consumer Research , Journal of Service Research , and Journal of Product Innovation Management . He is the current editor-in-chief for the Journal of Business Research and an area editor for the Journal of Service Research . Recently, he received the Christopher Lovelock Career Contributions to the Services Discipline Award. He is the current president of AMA’s Academic Council (2019/2020).

• Asmelash L., Cooper A. CNN; 2020. Nearly 80% of hotel rooms in the US are empty, according to new data. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/08/us/hotel-rooms-industry-coronavirus-trnd/index.htm [ Google Scholar ]
• Cacioppo J.T., Hawkley L.C. Perceived social isolation and cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2009; 13 (10):447–454. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Campbell A.M. An increasing risk of family violence during the Covid-19 pandemic: Strengthening community collaborations to save lives. Forensic Science International: Reports. 2020:100089. [ Google Scholar ]
• Funk S., Gilad E., Watkins C., Jansen V.A. The spread of awareness and its impact on epidemic outbreaks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2009; 106 (16):6872–6877. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Jaworski B., Kohli A.K., Sahay A. Market-driven versus driving markets. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. 2000; 28 (1):45–54. [ Google Scholar ]
• Jorda O., Singh S.R., Taylor A.M. National Bureau of Economic Research; 2020. Longer-run economic consequences of pandemics. (Report no. w26934) [ Google Scholar ]
• Nowland R., Necka E.A., Cacioppo J.T. Loneliness and social internet use: Pathways to reconnection in a digital world? Perspectives on Psychological Science. 2018; 13 (1):70–87. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Potter C.W. A history of influenza. Journal of Applied Microbiology. 2001; 91 (4):572–579. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rapoza K. Forbes; 2020. Watch out for china buying spree, NATO warns. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/04/18/watch-out-for-china-buying-spree-nato-warns/#623eada31758 [ Google Scholar ]
• Stöhr K., Esveld M. Will vaccines be available for the next influenza pandemic? Science. 2004; 306 :2195–2196. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Tucker H. Forbes; 2020. Coronavirus bankruptcy tracker: These major companies are failing amid the shutdown. https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2020/05/03/coronavirus-bankruptcy-tracker-these-major-companies-are-failing-amid-the-shutdown/#5649f95d3425 [ Google Scholar ]
• Vargo S.L.…Lusch R.F. It’s all B2B… and beyond: Toward a systems perspective of the market. Industrial Marketing Management. 2011; 40 (2):181–187. [ Google Scholar ]

Take the Quiz: Find the Best State for You »

What's the best state for you ».

King Charles Hands Military Title to Son William in Rare Joint Appearance

Britain's King Charles III officially hands over the role of Colonel-in-Chief of the Army Air Corps to Prince William, Prince of Wales, in front of a helicopter at the Army Aviation Centre in Middle Wallop, Britain May 13, 2024. Kin Cheung/Pool via REUTERS

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's King Charles handed over a senior military role to his son Prince William at a ceremony on Monday, marking a rare joint appearance for the pair as the king steps up his return to public duties after his cancer diagnosis.

Charles presented William with the title of Colonel-in-Chief of the Army Air Corps, a position the 75-year-old monarch held for 32 years, in front of an Apache helicopter, and watched by service personnel at the Army Flying Museum in southern England.

"He's a very good pilot indeed," Charles said of his son, a former helicopter search and rescue pilot for Britain's Royal Air Force.

The visit was Charles' latest engagement since he returned to work at the end of April, almost three months after Buckingham Palace announced he was being treated for an unspecified type of cancer.

William, 41, had also taken a break from official duties for several weeks in March and April this year, choosing to spend time with and care for his wife after she revealed she was undergoing preventative chemotherapy for cancer.

He said on Friday she was "doing well".

At the handover ceremony, Charles said he was saying goodbye with "sadness" but the Army Air Corps would go from "strength to strength" under his son.

"Look after yourselves and I can't tell you how proud it has made me to have been involved with you all this time," Charles said.

The title transfer was announced last August after Charles' accession to the throne. William spent time with the Corps, viewing training, equipment and hearing from soldiers later on Monday.

(Reporting by Sarah Young; Editing by Alison Williams)

Copyright 2024 Thomson Reuters .

Photos You Should See - May 2024

Join the Conversation

Tags: United Kingdom , celebrities , Europe

America 2024

Health News Bulletin

Stay informed on the latest news on health and COVID-19 from the editors at U.S. News & World Report.

Sign in to manage your newsletters »

Sign up to receive the latest updates from U.S News & World Report and our trusted partners and sponsors. By clicking submit, you are agreeing to our Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policy .

You May Also Like

The 10 worst presidents.

U.S. News Staff Feb. 23, 2024

Cartoons on President Donald Trump

Feb. 1, 2017, at 1:24 p.m.

Photos: Obama Behind the Scenes

April 8, 2022

Photos: Who Supports Joe Biden?

March 11, 2020

Kim Tees Up Shift in New Jersey Politics

Louis Jacobson May 16, 2024

New Home Construction Holds Steady

Tim Smart May 16, 2024

Who Is Prime Minister Robert Fico?

Laura Mannweiler May 15, 2024

Biden and Trump Agree to Debate

Lauren Camera May 15, 2024

Biden Muddies Message on Israel

Aneeta Mathur-Ashton May 15, 2024

Consumers Get a Break From Inflation

Tim Smart May 15, 2024