Moving Through the Storm: A Longitudinal Study on IT-Based Agile Organizational Crisis Response

• Published in: SAGE open 2024-04, Vol.14 (2)
• Main Authors: Ou, Juanjuan, Wong, IpKin Anthony
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Management of crises
• ISSN: 2158-2440; 2158-2440
• DOI: 10.1177/21582440241239467

This research integrates the theoretical strands of crisis management and organizational agility to improvise a process in which organizations expedite their IT-based solutions to cope with mega disruptions, carried out through two studies. Using corpus linguistics as an analytical approach with data collected from press releases from 10 US retail conglomerates, our findings point to the transition from a business-as-usual business model to the incubation of a work-at-home retail model that is infused by technology innovations. In making such a transition, organizations exercise agility through rapidly responding to a multitude of environmental jolts. The contribution of the present article lies in illuminating the role of IT innovations and digitization efforts that lay the necessary organizational capabilities to stay abreast with market opportunities amid extenuating circumstances. This research provides an empirical articulation of the importance of IT-based crisis responses to help scholars better understand the nature of crisis management and organizational agility. Plain Language Summary The objective of this study was to explore the crisis response mechanism from major retailers in the US. Using data from press releases collected from 2020 to 2022, the present inquiry illuminates how retail firms have handled the pandemic from a business-as-usual approach to harnessing IT to improve organizational agility with solutions tailored to the urgent needs of the consumers and other stakeholders. Using corpus linguistics as an analytical approach, our findings point to the transition from a business-as-usual model to a work-at-home retail model that is infused by technology innovations.