‘What determines the scope of the firm?’ is one of the four most fundamental questions in strategic management (Peng et al., 2005; Peng and Su, 2014). As COVID-19 raises a series of new concerns about how firms strategically navigate the turbulent waters (Hitt et al., 2021), this article extends the fundamental question by asking: How does COVID-19 impact the scope of the firm? We argue that COVID-19 has expanded the scope of research on the scope of the firm (Peng et al., 2021). Since a majority of the firms in the world focus on a small number of related industries – known as industry-focused firms – research on the scope of the firm needs to embrace their challenges. Specifically, for industry-focused firms, COVID-19 has highlighted two basic dimensions that are rarely considered in previous research: supply and demand. In essence, some firms rely primarily on international suppliers, and some on domestic suppliers. At the same time, some firms rely primarily on international demand, and some on domestic demand. Given widespread economic lockdowns and border closures, how does the scope of industry-focused firms change and adapt? This is an interesting, important, yet, previously underexplored question, which we endeavour to address.

“什么决定了公司的范围？” 是战略管理中四个最基本的问题之一（彭等，2005；彭和苏，2014）。由于 COVID-19 引发了关于公司如何战略性地在动荡的水域中航行的一系列新问题（Hitt 等人，2021 年），本文通过提问扩展了基本问题：COVID-19 如何影响公司的范围？我们认为 COVID-19 扩大了对公司范围的研究范围（Peng et al., 2021）。由于世界上大多数公司都专注于少数相关行业——被称为以行业为中心的公司——对公司范围的研究需要接受他们的挑战。具体而言，专注于行业的公司，COVID-19已经强调，在以往的研究很少考虑两个基本维度：供给和需求。本质上，一些公司主要依赖国际供应商，而一些公司则主要依赖国内供应商。同时，一些企业主要依靠国际需求，而一些企业则主要依靠国内需求。鉴于广泛的经济封锁和边境关闭，以行业为中心的公司的范围如何变化和适应？这是一个有趣的、重要的、但以前未被充分探索的问题，我们正在努力解决这个问题。