Facing the Global Economic Crisis: the Case of Swedish Heavy Vehicle Subcontractors

In this paper, we investigate organisational responses to an economic crisis within a group of seven subcontractors in the Swedish heavy vehicle industry. Although the participating firms had similar exposures to an abrupt and severe shift in demand, their performances during the crisis varied extensively. One year after the crisis began, some firms were still encountering financial problems threatening their survival, yet others had orchestrated a recovery that was generating healthy cash flows. Evaluation of in-depth interviews with key organisational members and standardised financial indicators suggests that the subcontractors' performances in the crisis were determined by their ability to attain and evaluate 'deep knowledge' from stakeholders and 'wide knowledge' from other external actors. Hence, our findings not only demonstrate an opportunity to extend existing research on crisis management but also indicate that the subcontractors' performances in the economic crisis were related to the implementation of dynamic capabilities