Opportunities for organizational learning and innovation: A nonprofit case study during COVID-19 in Hong Kong.

Abstract

COVID-19 has created unprecedented challenges and uncertainty for the nonprofit sector. Drawing from a case study of a community-based service delivery nonprofit organization in Hong Kong, this research note examines the impact of COVID-19 on this organization's daily operations, identifies its organizational coping strategies in response to the challenges it faced, and outlines key organizational learning resulting from its experience of dealing with the pandemic. With reference to the narrative development process framework, this study found that the customary social service delivery model was inadequate in meeting the emergent needs identified in the community. This realization served as a catalyst for the organization to employ socially innovative coping strategies to continue safeguarding the well-being of vulnerable population groups. As a result, a new paradigm of service delivery leveraging on neighborhood support networks and cross-sector collaborations was developed. Factors that would enable nonprofits to enhance their adaptive capacity in the face of future public health crises are discussed, with particular attention drawn to the usefulness of adopting a narrative development process in guiding organizations' collective actions.