The COVID-19 emergency has urged companies to operate in new ways to
face supply chain interruptions, shifts in customer demand, and risks to
workforce health. The organizational ability to respond to critical
contingencies is crucial for business leaders in the perspective of
continuing business. In our research, we investigate the actions
undertaken by 50 world-leading corporations to respond to the pandemic
outbreak. Applying content analysis to web pages and social network
posts, we extract 77 actions related to 13 sub-areas and integrate these
into a five-level framework encompassing operations, customer,
workforce, leadership, and community-related responses. We also describe
six illustrative company examples of how the emergency can generate
opportunities for creating new value. The study advances the scholarly
discussion on the impact of emergencies on business continuity and
provides managers with a comprehensive view and some insights to define
response strategies and actions in the current challenging scenario.