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The Scandinavian countries are often seen as a unity. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic striking differences on how the countries approached the crisis became evident. This quantitative-ethnographic (QE) study aimed to understand political and cultural similarities and differences between the three Scandinavian countries -Denmark, Norway and Sweden - through their crisis communications during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we focused on how the health authorities of the three countries, in their press releases, treated information about COVID-19 and acted in four fields: reorganization of population behavior, containment of viral transmission, preparation of health systems, and management of socioeconomic impacts. As a methodology, the QE tools nCoder and ENA were applied, respectively: to code the press releases and to correlate the treatment of information with the four fields of action.

The approach of this chapter is polemical in nature, reflecting the very fluid situation that lies ahead for orchestras post COVID-19. The chapter has three main academic research objectives. First, to put the current debate in context, it looks at the key challenges that orchestras have faced since the turn of the last century and in what way COVID-19 posed new problems that impacted orchestral music. The second objective is to outline some special short-term measures introduced to mitigate the impact of COVID-19, namely: (i) the income-support measures needed to sustain orchestras; and (ii) the extent to which orchestras could come together and practice, and in fact perform, even if only in front of no or very limited live audiences. The third objective is to discuss what possibly lies ahead for live orchestral music, post-COVID-19, and in a rapidly changing world regarding technological advances in the production and consumption of orchestral music. To inform this discussion, some broad trends in the ‘consumption’ of orchestral music over time, particularly in terms of numbers attending live concerts and revenues from streamed concerts, are examined.

In recent decades, multinational corporations (MNCs) has evolved from highly internalized organizations to orchestrators of global value chains (GVCs) transforming MNCs into global factories. This operating model has enabled MNCs to become leaner and more efficient. However, the heavy reliance on globally dispersed, efficiency-driven GVCs has made the modern MNE fragile to supply shocks and supply chain disruptions. The COVID-19 pandemic had exposed the risks and vulnerabilities of this model of doing business. However, the COVID pandemic is only the latest in a series of discontinuous risks, that is, episodic events that are difficult to anticipate or predict but have substantial impact on a firm and its operating environment if happening. The purpose of this article is to reflect upon the impact of the of pandemic on IB and draw lessons from this experience in terms of how to avoid or manage similar discontinuous risks in the future. We draw upon the growing literature on GVCs and supply chain risk management to offer suggestions that might help MNCs develop better preparedness for future disruptions which affect the operations and stability of MNCs and GVCs.

The Covid-19 pandemic has major negative consequences for health and economy. At the same time, the crisis paves the way for innovation. In the university sector, societal measures implemented to curb the spread of Covid-19 have made all teaching activities 100% digital, in effect creating the online university overnight. In this paper, we present an empirical account of this extreme situation. Based on an explorative case study of how it was possible for the social science faculty at a Danish university to undergo accelerated digital transformation, we identify three salient themes that capture the immediate organizational response: (1) leveraging existing resources, (2) intensified communica-tion and (3) re-organizing core activities. We contribute with preliminary empirical insights into the practicalities of accelerating digital transformation, especially the importance of mobilizing the organization’s existing resources and knowledge as well as the organizational actors’ helpfulness and willingness to share, learn, innovate and self-organize. Theoretically, we propose and substantiate the concept of accelerated digital transformation and present a model that summarizes the identified themes. In this article, we propose the concept of accelerated digital transformation. The Covid-19 pandemic constitutes an appealing case for this endeavor since it has caused organizations to undergo unexpected, fast-paced transformation to cope with the extraordinary situation. While current literature tends to illustrate the digital transformation journey based on high-profile cases such as Netflix and Amazon, we turn to more mundane organizational settings with an empirical focus on higher education. Based on a qualitative case study of how a social science faculty at a Danish university changed from analog to full digital teaching overnight, we identify three salient themes that capture how accelerated digital transformation became possible. We observed how the faculty (1) leveraged existing resources rather than disruptive technologies, (2) intensified informal knowledge sharing in combination with supportive top-down communication, and (3) re-organized core activities through experimentation rather than based on strategic plans. Major changes enabled by digital technologies are typically associated with a long-term change process through certain stages. Our conceptualization focuses on how the initial stage of the digital transformation process can be accelerated.