Guest editorial

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/CG-09-2021-555
• Published date: 18 January 2021
• Date: 18 January 2021
• Pages: 961-968
• Subject Matter: Strategy,Corporate governance
• Author: Gabriel Eweje,Alfonsina Iona,Maggie Foley,Michail Nerantzidis

Guest editorial

Gabriel Eweje, Alfonsina Iona, Maggie Foley and Michail Nerantzidis

The responses and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education, social

responsibility, sustainability, f‌irm performance and corporate governance

Introduction

What we do know is that the world has changed. Like other global events with planet-wide

impact, COVID-19 could potentially change how we see the world, the ways in which we think,

and how we conduct our lives. Notwithstanding the human tragedy of lost lives, broken families,

and scarred communities, the economic and social changes caused by a pandemic-driven

lockdown will constitute a cultural legacy which will live long in our memories and those of future

generations.

He and Harris (2020, p. 176)

The COVID-19 outbreakwas declared a global pandemic on 11 March 2020, andsince then,

there have been uncertaintiesin all spheres of life including business and personal lives. The

articles in this Special Issue were written while the world is still experiencing the COVID-19

pandemic without knowinghow and when the pandemic will end. At this stage, no one knows

what the f‌inal impact on countries, economies, health and social and environmental

sustainability will be. The on-going the COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted and

created devastating problems in every corner of the world with a catastrophic effect on

health, economies, education, individuals and most importantly on tourism, international

travel and well-beingof citizens.

The world has in the past 100years experienced four big pandemics: the “Spanish Flu” in

1918, the “Asian Flu” in 1957, the “Hong Kong Flu”in 1968 and the swine f‌lu in 2009 (Moorthy

et al., 2014). Added to these is the current and seemingly never-ending the COVID-19

pandemic which has been called the largest global health, economic and social crisis

(Casale, 2020). The virus has spread around the world and across borders causing the

global economy a number of unbearable costs:costs of testing and contact tracing, costs of

hospitalization and intensive medical care and costs of research and development of new

therapies and vaccines. Moreover, it has imposed large costs in productivity loss, which in

turn, has caused a huge problem in supply chains (due to the closure of businesses) and

demand shock across many countries (due to decreased personal consumption, tourism,

transport and other unnecessaryexpenditures) (Espitia et al.,2021). According to McKinsey

& Company (2021), one of the health challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic is the

huge impact on global mental health. To this end, it was suggested that CEOs and senior

management have to make a concerted commitment to corporate behavioural health

programmes and “focus on reducing the stigma of mental illness and on cultivating a

corporate culture conduciveto mental health wellness”. At the same time, it could be argued

that due to economic lockdown, global pollution has considerably decreased during the

COVID-19 pandemic. There have been pressures on governments to reopen the economy

due to increasing economic costswhile businesses have been told to endure the restrictions

until the coronavirusis at least contained.

Gabriel Eweje is Professor

at School of Management,

Massey Business School,

Massey University,

Palmerston North, New

Zealand. Alfonsina Iona is

Associate Professor at

School of Economics and

Finance, Queen Mary

University of London,

London, UK. Maggie Foley

is Associate Professor at

Davis College of Business,

Jacksonville University,

Jacksonville, Florida, USA.

Michail Nerantzidis is

Assistant Professor at

Accounting and Finance,

University of Thessaly,

Larisa, Greece and Hellenic

Open University, Patra,

Greece.

DOI 10.1108/CG-09-2021-555 VOL. 21 NO. 6 2021, pp. 961-968, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1472-0701 jCORPORATE GOVERNANCE jPAGE 961