Facing the Profitability-People Dilemma during Crisis: New Perspectives and Practices

Abstract

In times of crisis, organizations face a dilemma. How should organizations balance between making profits and minimizing losses, and acting for the benefit of all stakeholders and society-at-large? The recent reality of COVID-19 highlights the tension of this dilemma in crisis, with roughly four billion people (50 percent of the world’s population) asked to stay at home, classrooms for nearly 90 percent of the world’s students closed at the height of the crisis, millions managing virtual organizations to minimize long-term losses, and millions being newly unemployed. While the traditional approach in the crisis management literature has focused on survivability via profitability and financial metrics, we believe organizations must also prioritize other factors, including responding to the human needs of both their employees and society at large. We thus bring together an internationally recognized group of scholars who have expertise on the subject, to explore this tension from the perspectives of crisis, survivability, and the human needs of all stakeholders and to suggest frameworks and tools that may be used to resolve this dilemma. Building upon a pluralistic approach, this symposium will take a significant step in advancing knowledge and provoking new directions for future research on crisis management.