Organizational resilience: a capability-based ...

1 ORIGINAL RESEARCHO rganizational resilience : a capability -basedconceptualizationStephan ie Duchek1 Received: 29 May 2017 / Accepted: 4 January 2019 / Published online: 14 January 2019 The Author(s) 2019 AbstractIn highly volatile and uncertain times, organizations need to develop aresilience capacity which enables them to cope effectively with unexpected events,bounce back from crises, and even foster future success. Although academic interestin Organizational resilience has steadily grown in recent years, there is little con-sensus about what resilience actually means and how it is composed. Moreknowledge is particularly needed about Organizational capabilities that constituteresilience, as well as conditions for their development. This paper aims to make acontribution to this heterogeneous research field by deepening the understanding ofthe complex and embedded construct of Organizational resilience .

2 We conceptualizeresilience as a meta- capability and decompose the construct into its individual by process- based studies, we suggest three successive resilience stages(anticipation, coping, and adaptation) and give an overview of underlying capa-bilities that together form Organizational resilience . based on this outline, we dis-cuss relationships and interactions of the different resilience stages as well as mainantecedents and drivers. We formulate propositions that can act as a foundation forfuture empirical resilience resilience capacity Resilienceprocess resilience capabilitiesJEL ClassificationM10 L20&Stephanie of Business and Economics, Technische Universita t Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany123 Business Research (2020) 13:215 246 IntroductionIn highly volatile and uncertain times, organizations are frequently confronted withunexpected events such as natural disasters, terrorist attacks or technical the literature, the abstract notion of the unexpected is specified usingdifferent concepts: some authors talk about rare events (Marcus and Nichols1999;Lampel et ; Starbuck2009), while others call it surprises (Lampel andShapira2001; Bechky and Okhuysen2011), catastrophes (Weick and Roberts1993; Majchrzak et ), or crises (Weick1988; Pearson and Clair1998;Rerup2009).

3 The unexpected may arise within or outside of the organization andcan refer to different dimensions or aspects: , the kind of event, time, and placeof its occurrence, frequency, and duration of the event. Furthermore, the importanceand magnitude of its effects on the organization can be survive in uncertain environments and to foster future success, organizationsmust be able to handle all of these manifestations of the unexpected. Firms need todevelop a resilience capacity which enables them to adequately react to unexpectedevents and to capitalize on events that could potentially threaten an organization ssurvival (Lengnick-Hall et ). In this function, resilience differs from relatedconstructs such as flexibility, agility or robustness. Although flexibility as the abilityto rapidly adjust to environmental changes (Golden and Powell2000), and agility asthe ability quickly to recognize opportunities, change direction, and avoidcollisions (McCann2004, p.)

4 47) have some elements in common with resilience ,the specific emphases of the constructs tend to be different. While flexibility andagility are necessary to deal with daily problems and changes, resilience is animportant success factor in dealing with unexpected threats and crises (Lengnick-Hall et ). Furthermore, resilience includes an adaptation aspect (Madni andJackson2009) and allows firms to come out of a crisis stronger than before. Thischaracteristic distinguishes resilience from robustness, which is defined as theability of a system to maintain functions despite disruptions (Kitano2004).Although the academic interest in Organizational resilience has steadily grown inrecent years, the conceptualization of the complex construct is still in its is no consensus about what resilience means and which elements it studies just point to Organizational characteristics, resources, or processes thatseem to be significant for resilience ( , Weick1993; Kendra and Wachtendorf2003; Gittell et ).

5 This means that resilience is simply treated as anoutcome when organizations perform well during crisis or bounce back frominterruptions ( , Horne and Orr1998). But this falls short: it remains unclear whatresilient organizations actually do and how Organizational resilience may beachieved in practice (Boin and van Eeten2013; Duit2016). It is the aim of ourpaper to make a contribution to this promising research conceptualize resilience as a meta- capability and decompose the constructinto its individual parts. Building on process- based resilience research, we define1 This paper focuses on unexpected events with a potential for high consequence (Pearson and Clair1998). This means that the events may hinder or prevent Organizational functioning and, thereby, threatenthe achievement of strategic goals. Crisis serves as an umbrella term for these kinds of unexpected events(Hermann1963; Smart and Vertinsky1984; Herbane2010).

6 216 Business Research (2020) 13:215 246123three successive resilience stages (anticipation, coping, and adaptation) and assignimportant Organizational capabilities to each of these stages. To provide deeperinsight into the functioning of those capabilities, we merge findings from differentresearch areas ( , business continuity management, crisis management, innova-tion management). Beyond that, we highlight important relationships and interac-tions of the different resilience stages as well as main antecedents and drivers. Theresult of this process is an explicit, informed, conceptual framework (Lynham2002, p. 232) of Organizational resilience that fosters a comprehensive understand-ing of the resilience phenomenon as well as underlying dynamics (see Meredith1993; Jabareen2009; Burnard and Bhamra2011). This framework can be seen as afirst step towards a resilience theory. It introduces key concepts, organizes theheterogeneous research field, and explains theoretical relationships.

7 Furthermore,the framework can serve as a basis for the operationalization of the complexresilience construct and for future empirical paper is structured as follows: in section two, we provide an overview ofprevious research on Organizational resilience and identify promising approachesfor a contemporary and future-oriented conceptualization. In section three, wedevelop our conceptual framework of Organizational resilience and structure theresilience literature as well as the literature of related areas according to theframework. We discuss relationships and interactions of resilience capabilities,highlight main antecedents and drivers, and formulate propositions that can be usedas a starting point for future empirical studies. Finally, in section four, wesummarize our findings and give general implications for further Previous research on Organizational resilienceWhile the resilience concept has a long tradition in some disciplines (especially inpsychology), it is relatively new in business and management research.

8 Linnen-luecke s (2017) review shows that research in this field is fragmented across severalresearch streams ( Organizational responses to external threats, organizationalreliability, employee strengths, the adaptability of business models, and designprinciples that reduce supply chain vulnerabilities). All these research streams havedeveloped their own definitions, conceptualizations, and measures of resilience . Thefocus of this paper is directed towards resilience as an Organizational construct andincludes findings from different research streams to create a coherent andcomprehensive picture of the complex Definitions of Organizational resilienceSince the beginning of the 21st century, research on Organizational resilience hasdeveloped tremendously (a Google Scholar search shows 98 results for 1985 2000and 3270 results for 2001 2015). However, there is no consistent understanding ofthe construct.

9 Organizational resilience comprises numerous and divergent can be seen as an umbrella construct a broad concept or idea used loosely toencompass and account for a set of diverse phenomena (Hirsch and Levin1999,Business Research (2020) 13:215 246217123p. 200). Researchers often use their own label for the concept ( , organizationalresilience, resilience capacity, resilience potential, and resilient organization), andthere are numerous independent, ambiguous, and partly inconsistent definitions ofthe construct. Table1gives an overview of important resilience definitions in theorganizational context from 1998 to 2015 and displays their main , three main perspectives on Organizational resilience can be distin-guished. The first group of scholars understands resilience as an organization sTable 1 Organizational resilience : perspectives and example definitionsResilience (s)Year ResilienceconceptDefinitionResistanceand recoveryHorne and Orr 1998 Organizationalresilience resilience is a fundamental quality (.)

10 Torespond productively to significant changethat disrupts the expected pattern of eventwithout engaging in an extended period ofregressive behavior (p. 31)Linnenlueckeet OrganizationalresilienceResilience is the Organizational capacity toabsorb the impact and recover from theactual occurrence of an extreme weatherevent (p. 18)Boin andEeten2013 RecoveryresilienceRecovery resilience means bouncing back toa state of normalcy (p. 431)Adaptation Reinmoellerand vanBaardwijk2005 ResilientcompaniesResilience is the capability to self-renewover time through innovation (p. 61)Vogus andSutcliffe2007 OrganizationalresilienceResilience is the maintenance of positiveadjustment under challenging conditionssuch that the organization emerges fromthose conditions strengthened and moreresourceful (p. 3418)Lengnick-Hall et OrganizationalresiliencecapacityResilien ce is a firm s ability to effectivelyabsorb, develop situation-specific responsesto, and ultimately engage in transformativeactivities to capitalize on disruptivesurprises that potentially threatenorganization survival (p.)