Abstract

This paper explores two Multinationals Companies, Ericsson, and Volvo Buses and how a crisis can induce organizational change, and how the attention allocation changes due to the crisis. In this paper, the COVID-19 pandemic is the crisis that is examined through the lens of prior, during, and post periods. These periods were examined using organizational change theory and the attention-based view of the firm both of which had lacked research done on crisis-induced change in terms of the organization and attention allocation. Two interviews were conducted with executive representatives, one from each company. These were semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions tied to the relevant theories and complemented with follow-up questions to provide clarity and depth. The findings of this paper are clear that COVID-19 did facilitate organizational change for both firms, Ericsson much less so than Volvo Buses apart from both firms quickly transitioning into a remote working environment. It was also observed that both firms did reallocate attention, but as with organizational change, Volvo did more than Ericsson. It was determined that Ericsson made fewer changes and retained a lot of its previous allocation in attention due to its readiness for different types of crises and disasters. This was attributed to the nature of Ericsson’s business and Volvo Buses not being as ready in comparison and made much more extensive changes and narrowed their priorities to a higher degree.

Keywords: Organizational change, Attention based view, COVID-19, Disruptive forces, Change, Crisis, Crisis-induced change, Ericsson, Volvo Buses