# What Covid-19 Taught Us About Doing Business During a Crisis

**Authors:** Jason Miklian, Benedicte Bull, Brian Ganson, John E. Katsos, Sarah Cechvala, Kristian Hoelscher
**Published in:** *Harvard Business Review*, 2021
**Canonical URL:** https://miklian.org/papers/what-covid-19-taught-us-about-doing-business-during-a-crisis

## Abstract

A 2021 survey of seven cities around the world during the Covid-19 pandemic offers clues to how businesses handle crises. Analyzing responses from 78,000 people in Bogota and Medellin, Colombia; Beirut, Lebanon; Cape Town, South Africa; Caracas, Venezuela; San Pedro Sula, Honduras; and San Salvador, El Salvador, the authors find that many of the biggest challenges that firms face under crisis are sociopolitical in nature, not financial. As such, these challenges are complex, systemic, and hard to quantify. They also scare managers operating in these contexts, especially in cities where extortion and business violence are pervasive. In such settings, firms benefit from community embeddedness and a recognition that they are both influenced by and able to shape the systems around them, positively or negatively.

**Keywords:** COVID-19, crisis management, business resilience, pandemic

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## Citation

Jason Miklian, Benedicte Bull, Brian Ganson, John E. Katsos, Sarah Cechvala, Kristian Hoelscher. "What Covid-19 Taught Us About Doing Business During a Crisis." *Harvard Business Review*, 2021.

## About the Author

Jason Miklian is Senior Researcher at the Centre for Development and the Environment (SUM), University of Oslo. ORCID: [0000-0003-1227-0975](https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1227-0975). Google Scholar: [profile](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=RHlevGEAAAAJ&hl=en).