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Taking an organizational perspective, this paper aims to understand how organizations respond to such strong and concurrent societal effects, and to answer the question, “How should researchers conceptualize the symbiotic relationship between society and business during a catastrophic societal event?”

The authors highlight through numerous examples, the impact of COVID-19 on society is well-evidenced in the research. They also draw on such evidence of the effects of catastrophic societal events like COVID-19 to support the appropriateness of this conceptualization.

The authors found that organizations that use both short- and long-term activities concurrently are better able to tackle the concurrent short- and long-term effects of catastrophic events like COVID-19.

The authors use ambidexterity theory, supported by evidence derived from organizational responses to COVID-19, to offer a new and more comprehensive conceptualization that frames the concurrent and interrelated short-term and long-term organizational response to a catastrophic societal event. Further, they highlight the importance of studying such organizational responses in the context of the organization’s referent groups.

Social media celebrities are getting popular in promotions, and more people have experienced social media to receive information on diet and health tips. This research presents a study showing how social media can influence young people's diet behavior through collaboration with social media celebrities.

Through recruiting on various social media and online education forums, this research recruited 196 young Hongkongers to participate in an online survey developed based on the AIDA (Action, Interest, Desire, Attention) marketing communication model on how youths access diet information from social media celebrities in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong youths consume diet information from social media celebrities through instant messaging systems, social networking sites and online videos, and, in particular, information on food calories and nutrition. However, sponsorship from vendors would decrease their desire to agree with the messages from social media celebrities. After receiving this information, some participants would follow tips and guides from social media celebrities. However, they seldom share such information. Interestingly, males are more willing to follow these tips and guides.

First, this study fills the gap of prior research, which did not study much on how social media celebrities contribute to diet promotion to youths in Asia. Second, through the AIDA Model, this study shows how social media can affect the awareness and accessibility of diet information by young Hongkongers, followed by initiating their interest in this topic and retrieving more relevant information. Furthermore, the authors further understand their desire to follow and improve their behavior as promoted by social media influencers and how they practice such behavior. Based on these findings, health-related brands could consider using social media influencers helping to promote their products and services, and these brands could further use social media to secure customer engagement.