This study adopts a resilience perspective to explain how companies managed to contribute innovative solutions to fight the COVID-19 crisis. We studied how five companies operating in different industries (three in automotive, one in printing, and one in rubber and plastic products manufacturing) managed to reorganize activities and employ their R&D and innovation capabilities to enhance their resilience. Simultaneously, they increased the health system’s capacity to cope with the outbreak. Through a qualitative inductive study, based on interviews with company managers, we found that the firms mobilized their resources and capabilities to expand their ability to adapt and cope with adversity at the organizational level. In addition, moved by the sensitivity to the extreme context and a perceived sense of urgency, the firms deployed the same endowments to strengthen the community’s response to a crisis. Our study shows that an organization can directly and positively foster the broader social system’s resilience. This study contributes to the innovation literature by identifying innovation capabilities as fundamental antecedents of resilience building for organizational response, paving the way for strengthening the link between resilience and innovation.

中文翻译：

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对社会具有韧性：来自利用其资源和能力应对 COVID-19 危机的公司的证据

本研究采用弹性视角来解释公司如何设法提供创新解决方案来应对 COVID-19 危机。我们研究了 5 家不同行业的公司（3 家汽车行业、1 家印刷公司和 1 家橡胶和塑料制品制造公司）如何设法重组活动并利用他们的研发和创新能力来增强他们的应变能力。同时，他们提高了卫生系统应对疫情的能力。通过对公司经理的采访，通过定性归纳研究，我们发现公司调动了他们的资源和能力，以扩大他们在组织层面适应和应对逆境的能力。此外，由于对极端环境的敏感性和紧迫感，这些公司部署了相同的捐赠基金来加强社区对危机的反应。我们的研究表明，一个组织可以直接和积极地促进更广泛的社会系统的复原力。本研究通过将创新能力确定为组织响应韧性建设的基本前提，为加强韧性与创新之间的联系铺平了道路，从而为创新文献做出了贡献。