To what extent successive crises bring positive outcomes? A crisis management anatomy study of businesses in Hong Kong SAR

Abstract

This article aims to examine business behavior during consecutive crises in Hong Kong. In doing so, the author employs a phenomenological research approach to build cases by utilizing publicly available data and conducting in-depth interviews with businesses from the city’s four key industries that were affected by at least two morphologically similar consecutive crises. Through exploiting the paradigm of crisis management, this study reviews to what extent businesses applied recently accumulated crisis management experience to diminish the impact of the Covid-19 crisis; considering behavioral antecedents from approaching another pandemic - severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and the recent pro-democracy social movement (PDSM). The study combines and builds on two prominent models in crisis management anatomy by introducing new behavioral evidence based on organizations from the city's four key industries. Likewise, the study demonstrates that organizations make use of learnings and expertise accumulated during previous recent crises to diminish the effects of the ongoing one.