Weathering the Storm: What Did It Take for Pennsylvania Economic Development Organizations to Overcome the COVID‐19 Pandemic?

Abstract

The COVID‐19 pandemic had profound impacts that significantly rippled through economies, vulnerable communities, and nations globally. In this study, we aim to investigate what combination of network‐level factors, network and organizational social capital, and other organizational factors helped Economic Development Organizations (EDOs) in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania overcome the effects of the COVID‐19 pandemic in their respective jurisdictions. We surveyed 46 EDOs Executive Director‐equivalent officials and conducted a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to answer our empirical questions with a sample of 14 EDOs. Results show that network‐level factors such as the positioning of EDOs within their network of partner organizations, organizational social capital, and organizational diversity in the EDOs' workforce all contributed to positive economic development outcomes measured in terms of the average county GDP per capita from before and after the pandemic. The article concludes by discussing the findings, limitations of the study, and by presenting our conclusions.