Att lära av pandemin

Interkrislärande, intrakrislärande och reformer i krisens efterspel

Abstract

Learning and the pandemic: Intercrisis learning, intracrisis learning and reform in the aftermath of the crisis

Crisis management research is a young academic field, and organisational crisisinduced learning has been relatively neglected in the literature. Based on previous research and Moynihan’s conceptualization of inter- and intracrisis learning, this essay aims to discuss which factors affect public sector organisations’ ability to learn from crises in general, and the Swedish government’s lesson drawing from the COVID-19 pandemic in particular. Internal disagreements regarding the objectives of the response strategy and polarisation on how to handle the crisis has limited Swedish public sector organisations’ ability to learn from past experiences (intercrisis learning). Although instances of organisational learning during the crisis (intracrisis learning) have been observed, interorganisational cooperation difficulties and politicisation of the crisis management initiative as a whole seem to be affecting the learning process. There is a risk that both inter- and intracrisis learning processes in the wake of COVID-19 are impacted negatively due to the national and international politicisation of Sweden’s management of the pandemic.