Agenda

Management Lectures is a series of seminars given by top scholars from international universities and institutions, who are invited to present their research, related results and impact on societal issues. These Lectures are a part of our PhD programme.

Exploring the Role of the Purpose and Configuration of Resources Amid Grand Health Crisis by Prof. Prem Sagar Menghwar - LUISS Business School

June 28, 2023 | h. 2 - 3.30 pm
San Giobbe Economic Campus - Room Saraceno

Abstract
The Covid-19 crisis has created multiple organizational challenges and severely affected healthcare institutions. The extant literature on crises and management is fragmented, primarily based on historical data, and disconnected from mainstream literature. Therefore, it is unclear how an organization configures resources to deal with a crisis that has caused panic and chaos. To understand this, we conducted a longitudinal case study in real-time at a health institution that dealt with the Covid-19 crisis. Our findings show that communicating and clarifying the purpose is critical in configuring resources when a crisis is looming. As a result, from an in-depth case study of a healthcare organization, including 47 interviews and a review of archival documents, we propose two mechanisms of resource configurations, i.e., a decentralized organizational structure and diversifying crisis experience. First, a decentralized structure facilitates discussion and debate, hence valuable for pragmatic decision-making. Second, diversifying crisis teams, combining knowledge from multiple experiences, leads to better crisis management. We further highlight the challenges and positive sides of re-configuring resources and then explain its impact on reverting a crisis (reducing the negative effects of a crisis). We organize these findings in an integrative model and explain the successful process of managing through a crisis. Keywords: Purpose, Configuration of Resources, Decentralised Structure, Diversifying Experience, Crisis Management.