Chapter 9: Pandering to Pandemics: Framing Choices for Success— Insights for CEOs

This chapter explores how cognitive structures or schema (how we make sense of things around us) are used in organizations to perceive, interpret, and act on environmental cues that managers must examine as part of maintaining the firm’s performance metrics, especially during times of a pandemic.

Normally, businesses get surprised with the disruptive innovations (the first iPhone) or disruptive technologies (the calculator over the slide rule; the digital camera over using film), but the pandemic has created an even more fundamental challenge: a disruptive environment that many organizations are finding it difficult to compete in. Some firms have been nimble or agile enough to respond strategically, such as ConAgra, which has marketed and modernized some of its recipes and packaging across the Marie Callender’s and Healthy Choice brands, betting that consumers will continue cooking and lunching at home for the near future.