Corporate entrepreneurs and collaborative innovation in crisis: The case of the Covid-19 ventilator shortage

Abstract

This teaching case focuses on corporate entrepreneurship and collaborative innovation during an unprecedented crisis – the shortage in mechanical ventilators when the Covid-19 pandemic began. Based on secondary data sources, the case outlines the challenges of designing and manufacturing mechanical ventilators and introduces four initiatives, consisting of organisations with often limited experience in medical device manufacturing that attempted to address the predicted shortage of ventilators. By comparing the approaches used in these initiatives, the case sensitises students to the challenges of pursuing opportunities outside a firm's established domain of expertise and how inter-organisational collaboration affects such attempts. Although the case centres on an unprecedented event, the insights it develops make it suitable for a range of innovation and entrepreneurship-related under- and post-graduates courses.