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Against the theoretical backdrop of the embeddedness and the resilience literatures, this paper investigates if and how SMEs' planning for adversity affects firms' performance.

The paper develops hypotheses that investigate the link between the risk management of immigrant-led and native-led SMEs and their performance and draw on novel data from a survey on 900 immigrant- and 2,416 native-led SMEs in 5 European cities to test them.

Immigrant-led SMEs are less likely to implement an adversity plan, especially when they are in an enclave sector. However, adversity planning is important to enhance the growth of immigrant-led businesses, even outside a crisis period, and it reduces the performance gap vis-à-vis native-led businesses. Inversely, the positive association between adversity planning and growth in the sample of native entrepreneurs is mainly driven by entrepreneurs who have experienced a severe crisis in the past.

This paper empirically uses planning for adversity as an anticipation stage of organizational resilience and tests it in the context of immigrant and native-led SMEs. Results support the theoretical reasoning that regularly scanning for threats and seeking information beyond the local community equips immigrant-led SMEs with a broader structural network which translates into new organizational capabilities. Furthermore, results contribute to the process-based view of resilience demonstrating that regularly planning for adversity builds a firm's resilience potential, though the effect is contingent on the nationality of the leaders.

Healthcare organizations worldwide were badly hit by the “surprise” of the pandemic. Hospitals in particular are trying hard to manage problems it caused, searching for solutions to protect the health of citizens and reorienting operations. The implementation of resilience solutions in the coping phase and the ability to react promptly and redefine activities is essential. Integrating crisis management and resiliency literature, this paper discusses how health organizations were able to cope with adversity during the crisis.

The research is conducted through a case study of a large Italian hospital, the Gemelli Polyclinic Foundation, which was one of the leading hospitals in the Italian response to the pandemic.

The case reports actions taken in order to continue functioning and to maintain core activities despite severe adversity. The overall response of the Gemelli was the result of the three types of response: behavioral (effective leadership), cognitive (rapid resource reallocation) and the contextual reinforcement (multiagency network response). The authors highlight how an integrative framework of crisis management and resiliency could be applied to healthcare organizations in the coping phase of the pandemic. The experience of the Gemelli can thus be useful for other hospitals and organizations facing external crises and for overall improvement of crisis management and resilience. Responding to crisis brings the opportunity to make innovations introduced during emergencies structural, and embed them moving forward.

The paper focuses only on the coping phase of the response to the pandemic, whereas building long-term resilience requires understanding how organizations accumulate knowledge from crises and adapt to the “new normal.”

The paper responds to the call for empirical studies to advance knowledge of an integrative framework of crisis management and resiliency theories with reference to complex organizations such as healthcare.

NEJE Editors interview Cindi Bigelow: director of activities at Bigelow Tea

This study sought to test two competing sets of hypotheses derived from two different theoretical perspectives regarding (1) the effects of leader–follower similarity and dissimilarity in psychological resilience on the follower's absenteeism in times of organizational crisis and (2) the moderating effect of relational demography (gender and age similarity) in these relationships.

Polynomial regression and response surface analysis were performed using data from 510 followers and 149 supervisors in a financial firm in Canada.

The results overall support the similarity–attraction perspective, but not the resource complementarity perspective. Dissimilarity in resilience was predictive of followers' absenteeism, and similarity in surface-level conditions (gender and age) attenuates the relational burdens triggered by resilience discrepancy.

The findings reiterate the importance of developing employees' resilience, while shedding light on the importance for managers of being aware of their potential misalignment with subordinates resilience.

The results (1) suggest that it is the actual (di)similarity with the leader, rather than leader's degree of resilience, that shapes followers' absenteeism and (2) add nuance to the resilience literature.

To understand how narratives used by entrepreneurial support organizations (ESOs) in Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem shape transitional entrepreneurs' social reality. We offer theoretical and practical insights to elicit critical support, formulate policies and programs and guide ongoing empirical examination of transitional entrepreneurship.

We adopt a multi-case study approach, looking at two ESOs in Detroit: one focused on promoting high-growth entrepreneurship and securing financial capital for technology entrepreneurs, the other focused on promoting everyday entrepreneurship (especially among underserved communities) and amassing a more diverse array of resources. We conduct a thematic analysis of organizational texts and interview data with ESO leaders.

ESO narratives shape Detroit's transitional entrepreneurs by constructing entrepreneurs' social identity, orienting them to the ecosystem and envisioning a collective future in which transitional entrepreneurs are key.

This study offers insight into the definition of transitional entrepreneurs by extending existing conceptions by highlighting the role of institutional actors, like ESOs, and the narratives they adopt in shaping opportunities and challenges for transitional entrepreneurs. Moreover, we push the boundaries of transitional entrepreneurship, including technology start-up entrepreneurs in the definition and call attention to the role of transitional entrepreneurs in post-industrial cities by showcasing their role in community and urban development.

To deepen the understanding of the process of growth and development of career resilience, this study aims to investigate the impact of career history and openness to change as antecedents of career resilience and the effect of career resilience on career self-management and career outcomes (salary and career satisfaction) over time using the Career Construction Theory.

The authors applied structural equation modeling with cross-lagged associations between career characteristics (number of employees, job seniority and missed promotions), openness to change, career resilience, individual career management (ICM) and career success (salary and career satisfaction) using three-wave data of 872 employees.

Openness to change had cross-lagged positive relationships with career resilience. The number of (previous) employers and missed promotions had a positive effect on career resilience, whereas job seniority was related negatively to career resilience. Furthermore, career resilience had a positive effect on individual career self-management in terms of networking, practical things and drawing attention over time. No effect was found on the individual career self-management dimension of mobility-oriented behavior over time. Finally, ICM had a positive effect on salary and career satisfaction over time.

Altogether these results suggest that career resilience is not only a way to stay active as an employee and cope with career changes, but it also enhances employees’ chances to achieve objective and subjective career success.

Disruptive shocks significantly compromise service contexts, challenging multidimensional value (co)creation. Recent focus has been on consumers experiencing vulnerability in service contexts. However, the susceptibility of service firms, employees and other actors to the impacts of disruptive shocks has received little attention. Since resource scarcity from disruptive shocks heightens tensions around balancing different needs in the service system, this paper aims to propose a framework of balanced centricity and service system resilience for service sustainability.

Adopting a conceptual model process, the paper integrates resilience and balanced centricity (method theories) with customer/consumer vulnerability (domain theory) resulting in a definition of multiactor vulnerability and related theoretical propositions.

Depleted, unavailable, or competed over resources among multiple actors constrain resource integration. Disruptive shocks nevertheless have upside potential. The interdependencies of actors in the service system call for deeper examination of multiple parties’ susceptibility to disruptive resource scarcity. The conceptual framework integrates multiactor vulnerability (when multiactor susceptibility to resource scarcity challenges value exchange) with processes of service system resilience, developing three research propositions. Emerging research questions and strategies for balanced centricity provide a research agenda.

A multiactor, balanced centricity perspective extends understanding of value cocreation, service resilience and service sustainability. Strategies for anticipating, coping with and adapting to disruptions in service systems are suggested by using the balanced centricity perspective, offering the potential to maintain (or enhance) the six types of value.

This research defines multiactor vulnerability, extending work on experienced vulnerabilities; describes the multilevel and multiactor perspective on experienced vulnerability in service relationships; and conceptualizes how balanced centricity can decrease multiactor vulnerability and increase service system resilience when mega disruptions occur.

This study aims at developing an understanding of action pathways when adverse events force micro-enterprises to change their operations.

This qualitative study draws upon empirical data collected from entrepreneurs facing the same adverse event—the COVID-19 pandemic—to build theory on different types of actions that micro-enterprises take and what leads up to these actions.

The findings suggest three types of action pathways. The first pathway is set off by losses stretched out over time and generates open-ended actions. The second pathway is set off by immediate losses and generates survival-oriented actions. The third pathway is set off by potential long-term losses and generates developmental-oriented actions.

This study offers novel insights into action pathways in response to adverse events, heterogeneity of such actions and processes that precede the choice of actions. It also expands the existing literature by showcasing actual actions instead of desired actions, which have already been extensively studied.