Strategies for boards of directors to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused escalating levels of business, economic, and societal uncertainty and created extensive disruptions in the global market. The major research question of this study is how boards of directors can manage uncertainty in the post-COVID environment, especially in their duties as gatekeepers for both their own shareholders and all the stakeholders, including employees, customers, creditors, and suppliers. It is critical for boards to develop practices to help their companies manage uncertainty in the COVID and post-COVID times, as shown by the following topics discussed and analyzed in this paper: managing uncertainty with visibility, control, and agility practices; risk strategies for non-executive directors; global risk concerns; disruptive risks and opportunities from emerging technologies; boardroom risk advice; and boardroom risk questions. All these issues and areas of concern are relevant, even critical, to help boards develop sound practices for managing post-COVID uncertainty, to help their companies survive, and to strengthen corporate governance. Future research could use case studies and interviews of company boards to investigate how they have developed risk strategies and procedures to manage uncertainty as lessons learned from the 2020 COVID pandemic, which was a coronavirus “black swan” (a surprise event with major effects).