Article Review: “Innovation Catalyst: Covid-19 has supercharged digital innovation as banks, financial services and many other sectors adopt workarounds that are pushing them more rapidly into a virtual future” by Anita Hawser (June 2020)
As the Covid-19 global pandemic continues to ravage the nations of the world, businesses of all sizes and types are scrambling to identify viable alternatives to their conventional working arrangements. Given the proliferation of innovations in telecommunications in recent years, it is not surprising that one such alternative has been the use of digital workplaces. Although these alternatives are not new, they have become the option of choice for many companies due to the lack of other communications strategies. The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical review of a peer-reviewed article that was published after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic to evaluate its credibility and the effectiveness of the arguments that were presented by the author. In addition, an analysis of criticisms or reservations that readers may have about this article, and how these criticisms should be addressed is followed by a discussion concerning whether this article would be useful in class. Finally, the paper presents a summary of the research and important findings concerning the foregoing issues in the conclusion.

Review and Assessment

The author of this article is a staff writer for Global Finance who specializes in technology-related trends that affect the workplace. Moreover, the Global Finance periodical has been published nonstop since its founding in 1987 and this publication has become a trusted source of financial advice which suggests that this information is credible. In addition, the author provides the results of a series of first-hand interviews with recognized telecommunications industry leaders in support of her respective points. In sum, Hawser makes a credible case for her assertions concerning current and future trends in redesigning and rethinking the traditional workplace.

In addition, the author is also effective in the manner in which the information is presented using the same methods that enhanced the article’s credibility. By drawing on first-person interviews with business leaders in the public and private sectors, Hawser makes it clear that the Covid-19 pandemic is compelling organizations of all sizes and types to reevaluate their workplace arrangements in order to minimize threats to employees and the public while simultaneously operating as normal to the maximum extent possible. For instance, according to Hawser, “The novel coronavirus has upended global travel, put governments on a quasi-wartime footing, forced economies and businesses into lockdown and caused global supply chains to screech to a halt. The crisis has impacted a vast range of areas: work, health, finance, education and more” (14). This focus was also regarded as being highly congruent with a growing body of scholarship that is investigating these issues at present due to the exigencies of the ongoing pandemic (Akingbola 2020).

Furthermore, unlike many business management authorities that continue to research, write and publish articles concerning ways to keep employees motivated in a traditional workplace, the niceties of various perquisites versus others, or analyzing the respective pros and cons of a different management fads in a business-as-usual fashion, Hawser’s article is especially timely because it focuses on the problems that are...…in the last two months the equivalent of two years of innovation.”

In sum, this article would be highly useful in this class and similarly focused courses, and the differing views concerning the negative and positive effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on traditional workplaces makes this article a useful source upon which to base an argument analysis. In fact, and not surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of articles that have been published in recent months have highlighted the adverse effects of the pandemic and the unique challenges this once-in-a-generation disaster has created for public and private sector organizations. In addition, by consistently including the credentials of her interviewee sources, the article also provides a useful framework in which to teach credibility assessment.

Conclusion

Given the rapid pace of innovation and change that is taking place today, the bar for gold standard business-related articles is going to be raised out of necessity, and industry best practices are being changed on a daily and even hourly basis. At present, though, tens of millions of American workers nervously await the outcome of the bold new 100-day plan that the president-elect has charted for the country and the Covid-19 virus continues to spread throughout communities in the United States at an uncontrolled rate, Therefore, in the final analysis, it is reasonable to conclude that the findings that emerged from the articles reviewed above will become dated at a far more rapid pace that in the past, and business analysts such as Hawser will have their hands full trying to keep up with innovations in technology that will have an effect on the traditional…