THE TRANSFORMATION OF BUSINESS EDUCATION WITH THE IRRUPTION OF COVID-19: THE CASE OF DE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF CÓRDOBA

The “Black Swan” that occurred in March 2020 was an impossible situation to foresee towards the end of 2019 when the first case of Corona virus appeared in China. The global demand shock that began in January with the worldwide spread of the virus, impacted the entire world without distinction of country, size and location. The Covid-19 pandemic takes us back to the situation of a war economy of an unknown crisis (ECLAC, 2020). The First and Second World Wars not only involved a limited number of countries, but there was also a sector that powered the rest of the economy (the arms industry). In this case, there is no country in the world that is exempt from the possibility of contagion and there is no sector capable of promoting the rest of the activity. The global economy went into recession: China represents 16% of world GDP, is the second largest economy on the planet and is a protagonist in value chains. The industrial blackout had an impact on intermediate goods, affecting many global industries (Ramonet, 2020). Also, being a supplier of final products, some began to become scarce, affecting the trade in services, mainly tourism and transport. Its GDP plummeted by 6.8% in the first quarter of 2020. This situation worsened when the disease spread to Central Asia, affecting Europe very aggressively. Then followed the United States and later Latin America. The World Bank estimated a contraction of the planetary economy of 4.6% while the ILO considered that in the worst case, that the pandemic could destroy 25 million jobs. “It is no longer just a global health crisis, but also a major economic and labor market crisis that is having a huge impact on people.” (Guy Ryder, ILO, 2020). In a context where the second wave hits countries, the vaccination process advances more slowly in emerging countries than in development countries and confinement once again challenges organizations. Today the transformation in Business Education is urgent to face the most painful effects of the pandemic: increased unemployment, labor informality, greater poverty and inability to access certain jobs due to the increase of the digital gap. In this article, we will see the case of the Catholic University of Córdoba. It will start from an explanatory or causal investigation taking into account a phenomenon with seismic impacts in the different economic, social, cultural and educational aspects, among others. The intention is to provide aspects and lines of action that detail the transition of the Catholic University of Córdoba in the field of Business Education in order to conclude the main learning and challenges that are appearing in the near future.