Performing Managerial Functions During the COVID-19 Crisis: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Managing businesses during COVID-19 was challenging, mainly due to constant changes. Managers' experiences gained from these crises should be shared so that they can be more prepared in case it happens again. The aim of this article is to research current literature to find out what changes in the performance of managerial functions were observed during the COVID-19 crisis. A systematic literature review was performed in the Web of Science (WoS) database to summarise findings on this topic. Eventually, only 18 publications were analysed (which indicated a significant research gap). Most of the identified changes were related to the function of leading (e.g., the need to motivate and communicate more clearly and support employees to adapt to remote working). In organising, managers faced problems regarding the shortage of employees, constant reorganisation, and the issues accompanying remote working. Planning in the COVID era was very challenging, but not many research papers dealt with it, same as with controlling. When writing this article, no publication (on WoS) directly studied the changes in management functions due to the COVID-19 crisis. This article bridges the identified research gap by summarising the changes identified from the existing research and suggests the necessity of the research in this area.