Adaptive organizational network response in a crisis: The case of five European airports during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Abstract The COVID‐19 pandemic posed unprecedented challenges to the joint organizational response of private and public and here especially public health organizations. This is particularly true for airports as central connectors of global travel and trade. For five European airports, we analyzed the interorganizational response based on input from 66 of the 87 different airport partners, using two fictitious scenarios derived from public health practice. We applied organizational design theory and quantitative (network) analysis to show how the four fundamental problems of organizing have been tackled at airports, i.e., task distribution, task allocation, rewards, and information provision. This article shows how the response to COVID‐19 in the airport setting needs to be solved within broad and flexible public administrative networks. The thorough understanding of organizational network responses in emergency management following from this article supports future preparedness efforts to deal with complex known and unknown public health threats.