Soohyung Lee: The COVID-19 pandemic has made immense impacts on human society. Not only has the virus claimed over 7 million lives globally (WHO 2023), it has also disrupted economic activities, reducing economic growth and household income (IMF 2021; World Bank 2022). Business operations have been impacted as well, and the effects of this have spread to other firms across the world through international trade and value chains (Harapko 2023). To facilitate recovery and build resilience to external shocks, a wide range of strategies have been proposed to and adopted by firms. Examples include restructuring organizational structures and rebuilding supply chains (Foss 2021; Sharma et al. 2020).
Coincidentally, academic researchers have been reporting empirical analyses assessing the impact of COVID-19 and policy measures on various outcomes, including consumer spending and productivity (Zhao et al. 2023; Bloom et al. 2023). The current paper...