Titel: Att lära i motgång - En fallstudie av företag i Covid-19 krisen. Bakgrund: Företag behöver vara ständigt förberedda i den föränderliga värld de verkar inom, där osäkerhet är ständigt närvarande. Kriser har blivit ett allt vanligare fenomen, där organisationskriser sammanfattas som ett oväntat fenomen som ställer företag inför en utmaning. Kriser kan antingen kan ses som något negativt och katastrofalt, eller som en process som företag kan ta lärdom av och se som en möjlighet till att utveckla den egna verksamheten. Då krisen till följd av Covid-19 drabbat världen, finns ett antagande om att tillverkande företag kan komma att ta flertalet lärdomar med sig ut ur krisen. Syfte och Problemformulering: Syftet med denna studie är att erhålla en fördjupad förståelse kring lärprocesser och lärdomar hos tillverkande företag och dess medarbetare i samband med krisen kring Covid-19. Och kommer att besvaras med problemformuleringen: Vilka likheter och skillnader finns det mellan olika tillverkande företags lärprocesser och lärdomar kring Covid-19-krisen? Metod: I denna studie har den kvalitativa forskningsmetoden tillämpats där en abduktiv strategi har använts. Det empiriska materialet har samlats in genom intervjuer med anställda på de tillfrågade företagen. Det empiriska materialet har kompletterats med en teoretisk referensram för att syfte och problemformuleringar ska kunna besvaras. Teori: Den teoretiska referensramen berör Organisatoriskt lärande, Organisation, individ & lärande, Lärandeprocess i organisationer, Lärande, kommunikation & information samt Single vs. double loop learning. Empiri: Empirin består av åtta intervjuer. Nästintill samtliga respondenter vittnar om att företagen och respondenterna själva har kunnat dra flertalet lärdomar utifrån den rådande krisen och är i en lärande process just nu. Analys: I analysen diskuteras företagens och medarbetarnas lärprocesser samt lärdomar kopplat till teori. De olika temana är: Lärande, rutiner & erfarenheter, Medarbetare & organisation, Information, kunskap & kommunikation samt Anpassning av arbetssätt. Slutsats: Slutsatserna som dras är att verksamheterna kommer ta med sig lärdomarna som erfarenheter inför framtida arbete i verksamheten och för framtida kriser. Lärdomar som företagen drar omvandlas till rutiner i verksamheterna. Samtliga verksamheter är i en lärprocess nu i att gå över mer till det digitala.

A societal crisis is an emergency that affects many people and large parts of society, threatening life, health, safety and basic values. In a societal crisis, there is a need for coordination between various bodies in the society. Coordination in societal crises has previously been studied mainly from a management perspective. Learning perspectives have been studied to a lesser extent. The main purpose of this thesis is to increase knowledge about the conditions for developing consensus and establish a common understanding of synergy-effects, a surplus value, for knowledge meetings between individuals from different organizations when they cooperate in the emergency management system. The study seeks to understand to the following questions: 1) What images and ideas do participants bring into the coordination group about societal crisis, how have they developed and changed? 2) How do the participants act when they have different pictures and meet? 3) Can the basic ideas of the research circle be used for knowledge building at knowledge meetings in the emergency management-system? 4) Can the basic ideas of the research circle be used to develop consensus and establish a common understanding of synergy-effects before societal crises happen? The main study consists of three case studies in three different-sized municipalities. It is based on 36 semi-structured interviews with participants in local crisis management coordination groups, observations during exercises and meetings, document studies and an experiment with the so-called knowledge meeting. The results are compared with complementary studies from two knowledge meetings and two coordination exercises based on observation, questionnaires and evaluations. The individuals, organizations, and structures have been identified as frame factors for coordination groups. The results show that the participants have different images of societal crisis and that coordination is a time-consuming approach requiring cross-perspective learning, interaction, as well as dialogue and reflection skills. The participants eventually develop their crisis learning, i.e. conflict-filled adaptation. A system's opened nature is important for individual learning.

The world is facing an increase in natural disasters due to climate change, and Sweden is no exception. In the past 10 years Sweden has endured two large forest fires which devastated both land and property and which had huge financial impacts on society. Learning from such disasters is an important task for the crisis management system since learning is vital to be able to both prevent, prepare for, and manage new disasters. By conducting a qualitative in-depth analysis of the post-crisis learning process after the forest fire in 2014, this study aims to examine how actors learn from disasters as well as provide insight into the post-crisis organisational learning process in general. The actions of the Swedish Government and Parliament is evaluated by linking organisational learning to policy change, in such that for learning in the post-crisis management to have happened, the actor needs to have both identified lessons from the disaster, as well as implemented these into policy. In this study a text analysis is conducted on the two inquiries ordered by the Government after the fire to determine the “lessons identified”, and a plethora of government documents is analysed to ascertain whether the lessons identified have been acted upon and implemented into policy. It was found that the inquiries identified many valuable lessons, and that the authorities in most cases had implemented, or tried to implement, the lessons into policy. However, the protracted process of implementation, which led to some measures not being fully implemented until 2021, allowed new fires to occur before the issues were remedied. It is therefore argued that the efficiency of the Swedish Government’s post-crisis learning process should perhaps be questioned.