Development of Emergent Knowledge Strategies and New Dynamic Capabilities for Business Education in a Time of Crisis

Abstract

The current pandemic is, above all, a crisis of knowledge—Humanity had to find a vaccine, and now we are not sure how to behave socially to minimize the pandemic bad effects. For organizations, this situation requires an update in the reflection regarding both the strategy and the actions that should be performed. Therefore, the current crisis requires new ways of applying knowledge strategies and dealing with dynamic capabilities. We first analyze the two questions (knowledge strategies and dynamic capabilities) in abstract and general terms, and then we specifically focus on business education during the COVID-19 crisis. We conclude that COVID-19 creates a need for all knowledge strategies in terms of business education. Data, information, knowledge, and wisdom will be needed; above all, it requires the Unknown-Knowns, which is the basis for Knowledge Sharing, and the Unknown-Unknowns that base Knowledge Exploration because both Knowledge Exploitation and Knowledge Acquisition are strategies business schools use to perform in times of crisis. They are more difficult to implement because both the Known-Knowns and the Known-Unknowns are less valuable to solve a crisis like this one: all this will result in “agile universities”, which will be (and already are) those that will use the right strategies and the right dynamic capabilities and will have better results. The paper is original because we link Knowledge Management and Human Resources Development Concepts to generate a broader and more comprehensive understanding of the organizational behavior about a very specific problem—business education—in a very specific time of the COVID-19 crisis. The limits of the paper relate to the evolution of society itself; we do not know when the crisis will end, and we are not sure how much of the “new normal” will remain in the “post-COVID-19” situation. The topic and analysis are of interest for practitioners because daily, they experience how their reality changed and their need to adapt, yet they do not know how. This topic and analysis are also of interest to scholars because science is based on questions, explaining and providing ways to improve one’s reality. COVID-19 has shown us, dramatically and uniquely, the need for new solutions in times of peace.