Exogenous shocks, Covid 19 and firms' ability to learn, adapt and evolve

In the context of the exponential growth of data, the Covid 19 pandemic and the need for quick adaptation faced by companies, as well as by society at large, the concept of organisational learning is flourishing and becoming an even more critical component of organisational survival and growth. This study applies a socio-technical lens to shed light on the organisational learning processes taking place in 40 various sizes and kinds of UK businesses during the critical, volatile, and unprecedented period - February-May 2021. Our study identifies organisational learning antecedents and key organisational context enabling and/or impeding learning processes and follow up evolution within companies. The findings suggest that even if employees have capability, not all are able to capture and transform intelligence into learning and apply it at a strategic level, reconfiguring purposefully future operational capabilities to respond to environmental changes, as they are not empowered and supported by the organisational management.