Abstract/Summary

Combating the COVID-19 global health crisis necessitates rapid response and agile action in the design and implementation of appropriate policy measures and management practices. Collaborative partnerships between public and private sectors play a critical role in developing and deploying innovative practices to overcome the crisis. However, the extant literature has not paid adequate attention to the determinants for managing collaborative partnerships in the emergency context. By juxtaposing the literature on readiness for change and strategic agility, this paper addresses this gap by articulating readiness and agility as the two salient enabling conditions for collaborative partnerships in the COVID-19 context. We conceptualise that readiness consists of three dimensions (national infrastructure, government ability to integrate resources, and citizens’ willingness to cooperate) and that agility has two manifestations (speed and scale). By using the case of digital transformation and ICT deployment in Singapore, this paper illustrates how and why rapid reactions and responses to COVID-19 can be achieved through public-private partnership for collaborative innovation. Our study may provide some revealing insights into the organisational and institutional arrangement and preparations for other countries in the fight against COVID-19 by leveraging collaborative innovation.