Purpose While universities are using more digital tools such as learning management systems (canvas, blackboard, etc). or massive open online courses (MOOCS) such as MIT, OpenCourseWare, edX, Coursera, digitalization has also influenced university libraries. Digital services of academic libraries need exploration on how they provide digital services and how they respond to COVID-19. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore and map digital services of academic libraries and their response to COVID-19 in Sweden. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative research approach is used in this study. Through a Web search, data was gathered from all 39 universities in Sweden through two means: visiting university and their respective library websites; examination of other documents provided by the university such as press releases, announcements. Evaluation of the content and digital services and libraries response to COVID-19 is conducted by thematic coding. Findings In response to the ongoing COVID-19 spread, a general trend seen among all is limited working hours, shutting down physical libraries for general public, unmanning operations. All 39 number of universities in Sweden have moved their offerings toward using online tools. The main themes that have been identified from our study are as follows: Availability of Information, Accessibility of resources, Collaboration with other actors, Increased use of existing services, motivation and support to practice social distancing. Research limitations/implications Owing to the limitations of COVID-19 conditions, time and other aspects, there was not any opportunity to visit the university libraries or book time to interview librarians or students, which led to limited level and imperfect research. There are many other activities that university libraries are offering to their employees and using their internal newsletters and email groups to reach their audience; as a result, some of digital services that are offered during COVID-19 might have not been noticed. Practical implications These findings can provide base to other universities on how to react to COVID-19 and bring more discussion. Social implications COVID-19 has big social impact on people. The findings present that libraries can go beyond their responsibilities and provide emotional and psychological support the community towards social distancing such as videos, social online meetings, live video workshops. Originality/value The findings from this study call for a review digital services of academic libraries and their response to COVID-19 in Sweden, so that best reactions and services could be understood.

This paper explores HacktheCrisis, the Swedish hackathon that was a response to the COVID-19 pandemic to address the challenges that it brought up. The main aims of the research were to explore the feasibility of the digital only COVID-19 hackathon as an open innovation method and to uncover the major issues that emerged during the HacktheCrisis hackathon in Sweden. The process and outcomes were assessed, leading to the lessons and development of recommendations for future health hackathons as an innovation in health care. We have found that conducting the virtual hackathon for COVID-19 resulted in significant growth in the digital health community in Sweden. Governments should be as fast as the private actors and citizens to address these challenges and to undertake organizational adaptations. Not only the hackathons, but the projects and processes after the hackathons should also be planned. Matchmaking between individuals and private and public actors should be facilitated throughout the year. Technology companies should provide platforms that facilitate flow of process with nice structures and user-friendly tools. Organizations were not ready to utilize the outcomes of these hackathons. Compared to public organizations, private organizations were faster to join hackathons.

Big data and analytics played an important role in open innovation during the pandemic. Sharing data and transferring knowledge between governments, laboratories and research centres helped us to understand the unpredictable spread of COVID-19. This article firstly explores corporate and public responses to the pandemic, presents different cases and discusses how open innovation, worldwide collaboration and data shaped this response. Having data practises in focus, this article raises concerns and underlines issues related to the applications during responses to COVID-19 at collaborative open innovation projects.

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Purpose Earlier research confirms the positive effect of innovation in shaping growth ambitions of entrepreneurs. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether the effect of innovation on growth ambitions of entrepreneurs is contingent on the role of institutions, namely, culture and economic freedom. In other words, the authors’ objective is to provide an institutionally contingent understanding of the role of innovation in shaping growth ambitions of early-stage entrepreneurs. Design/methodology/approach The authors applied hierarchical linear modeling technique on the data of 100,566 early-stage entrepreneurs in 109 countries that participated in annual surveys of Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Findings The authors find that the effect of innovation on shaping growth ambitions of early stage entrepreneurs is contingent on the role of culture such that, in secular cultures, innovation benefits growth ambitions more than traditional cultures. Further, the authors found that the effect of innovation on growth expectations is dependent on the level of economic freedom in the country in which the firms operate so that in the countries with higher level of economic freedom, early-stage entrepreneurs expect more growth out of their innovation as compared to their counterparts in the depressed economies. Originality/value The results contribute to our understanding of entrepreneurial growth aspirations as a result of the interplay of entrepreneur–firm–environment nexus.