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Crisis as opportunity? Emergent groups, crisis relief, and social innovation in response to Covid-19
The Covid-19 pandemic brought the world to a halt in early 2020. In South Africa, as in many places around the world, the government instituted a strict national lockdown beginning at the end of March 2020 which catalyzed interconnected social and economic crises. However, the lockdown also catalyze...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Graduate School of Business (GSB)
2023
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| _version_ | 1867613236068614144 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Soderbergh, Jenny |
| author2 | Hamann, Ralph |
| author_browse | Hamann, Ralph Soderbergh, Jenny |
| author_facet | Hamann, Ralph Soderbergh, Jenny |
| author_sort | Soderbergh, Jenny |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | The Covid-19 pandemic brought the world to a halt in early 2020. In South Africa, as in many places around the world, the government instituted a strict national lockdown beginning at the end of March 2020 which catalyzed interconnected social and economic crises. However, the lockdown also catalyzed a proliferation of emergent crisis response groups and initiatives aimed at alleviating suffering. This qualitative case study follows the emergence and progression of eight such emergent response groups located in the Western Cape to explore the relationship between crisis response and social innovation. Over the course of one year, crisis responses are detailed across three temporal brackets: Emergence (initial crisis response), Plateau (sustained crisis response), and Evolution (differing response paths). These temporal brackets contain key themes within them, as well as enablers and barriers for transitioning between short-term crisis response and longer-term systemic change ambitions. The findings show that emergent response groups do persist in efforts well past the initial onset of a crisis and that they make intentional decisions around how to transition from crisis response towards longer-term change ambitions. Taking an institutional work lens to social innovation, this study shows that emergent response groups engage with and challenge multiple performative institutional dimensions in their work and that they have the ability, and often the desire, to affect more systemic change over time. This work aims to bring the academic conversations of crisis response and social innovation closer together, with a focus on individual and informal group agency, while also providing practical implications for supporting emergent response groups and social innovation in the face of future disruptions and crises. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/37312 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:32:56.154Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| publishDateRange | 2023 |
| publishDateSort | 2023 |
| publisher | Graduate School of Business (GSB) |
| publisherStr | Graduate School of Business (GSB) |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/37312 Crisis as opportunity? Emergent groups, crisis relief, and social innovation in response to Covid-19 Soderbergh, Jenny Hamann, Ralph Nilsson, Warren Inclusive Innovation Covid-19 crisis response emergent response groups social innovation The Covid-19 pandemic brought the world to a halt in early 2020. In South Africa, as in many places around the world, the government instituted a strict national lockdown beginning at the end of March 2020 which catalyzed interconnected social and economic crises. However, the lockdown also catalyzed a proliferation of emergent crisis response groups and initiatives aimed at alleviating suffering. This qualitative case study follows the emergence and progression of eight such emergent response groups located in the Western Cape to explore the relationship between crisis response and social innovation. Over the course of one year, crisis responses are detailed across three temporal brackets: Emergence (initial crisis response), Plateau (sustained crisis response), and Evolution (differing response paths). These temporal brackets contain key themes within them, as well as enablers and barriers for transitioning between short-term crisis response and longer-term systemic change ambitions. The findings show that emergent response groups do persist in efforts well past the initial onset of a crisis and that they make intentional decisions around how to transition from crisis response towards longer-term change ambitions. Taking an institutional work lens to social innovation, this study shows that emergent response groups engage with and challenge multiple performative institutional dimensions in their work and that they have the ability, and often the desire, to affect more systemic change over time. This work aims to bring the academic conversations of crisis response and social innovation closer together, with a focus on individual and informal group agency, while also providing practical implications for supporting emergent response groups and social innovation in the face of future disruptions and crises. 2023-03-07T11:07:58Z 2023-03-07T11:07:58Z 2022 2023-02-20T13:07:43Z Master Thesis Masters MPhil http://hdl.handle.net/11427/37312 eng application/pdf Graduate School of Business (GSB) Faculty of Commerce |
| spellingShingle | Inclusive Innovation Covid-19 crisis response emergent response groups social innovation Soderbergh, Jenny Crisis as opportunity? Emergent groups, crisis relief, and social innovation in response to Covid-19 |
| thesis_degree_str | Master's |
| title | Crisis as opportunity? Emergent groups, crisis relief, and social innovation in response to Covid-19 |
| title_full | Crisis as opportunity? Emergent groups, crisis relief, and social innovation in response to Covid-19 |
| title_fullStr | Crisis as opportunity? Emergent groups, crisis relief, and social innovation in response to Covid-19 |
| title_full_unstemmed | Crisis as opportunity? Emergent groups, crisis relief, and social innovation in response to Covid-19 |
| title_short | Crisis as opportunity? Emergent groups, crisis relief, and social innovation in response to Covid-19 |
| title_sort | crisis as opportunity emergent groups crisis relief and social innovation in response to covid 19 |
| topic | Inclusive Innovation Covid-19 crisis response emergent response groups social innovation |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/37312 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT soderberghjenny crisisasopportunityemergentgroupscrisisreliefandsocialinnovationinresponsetocovid19 |