Agile Management to Agile Collaboration in the Nonprofit Sector: Cases During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Cases During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The concept of agility refers to the rapidity with which nonprofit and public organizations respond to social problems. Using a case-study approach, we find several cases wherein nonprofit organizations exhibited agility in their response to the pandemic by quickly transitioning their services and adapting to collective action. However, this study also finds that nonprofit organizations still face inflexibility and limitations from government procedures that hinder their agility. Based on these findings, we propose three categories of agile management and collaboration based on South Korea’s experience during the first large-scale wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The three categories are: 1) entrepreneurial service provision and flexible implementation, 2) procedural simplicity, and 3) adaptive structure in collective actions.