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This paper aims to model organizational resilience structure. Based on the central insights of the scientific literature, organizational resilience is modelled as the result of an organizational capacity to bounce-back and bounce-forward.

The paper is based on a quantitative empirical study to support the structural perspective of organizational resilience and investigate the relationships among the dimensions to test the above hypothesis by applying confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM) methods.

The results confirmed three models that could be adopted to assess organizational resilience. The first model endorsed endogenous positive interrelationship among all three dimensions. The second model indicated that bounce-back dimensions, i.e. network and leadership and culture, have endogenous effects. Only the leadership and culture dimension is positively associated with a bounce-forward, i.e. change-ready and learning dimension. And the third model demonstrated that the network dimension is linked to leadership and culture, which is linked to the change ready and learning dimension.

This study attempts to provide empirical evidence identifying the links between the bounce-back and bounce-forward stages of organizational resilience. These results contribute to the development of organizational resilience theory, confirming the conceptual statements that resilience is the ability to return to the routine and to adapt to the changing environment by overcoming dynamic events, stressing the idea of the importance of enhanced learning capacity, which allows for growth by constantly learning from oneself by gaining unique experiences.

The purpose of this paper is to define the main dimensions/aspects of resilient organizations and propose a benchmarking model to assess an organization's resilience in the context of uncertainty.

The systematic literature review method was applied to collect and synthesize relevant scientific literature from 2001 to 2022 to construct and validate a methodological approach.

This paper proposes a conceptualization of organizational resilience as the capacity of an organization to first remain stable; then prepare, absorb and recover after a crisis; adapt to the new environment; and, finally, use the developed experience to enhance the capacity for transformation, playing an essential role for coping with uncertainty.

Resilience is recognized as organizations’ ability to adapt to the new conditions, influenced by the crises. Moreover, it supports the recognition of the learning phase that allows for growth by constantly learning from emerging situations and gaining unique experiences. These observations allow us to suggest the twofold approach. The first distinguishes the resilience as organizations’ ability to adapt to the changing environment, that is, bounce back, while the second highlights the importance of learning capacity, that is, bounce forward.

The authors suggest to adopt the conceptual framework of the bounce forward phenomenon using the Resilient Organizations’ Resilience Benchmark Tool to assess organizational resilience. This would determine the overall resilience by identifying the links between bouncing back (preparing, absorbing, recovering and adapting) and bouncing forward (enhancing learning capacity).

Having reviewed the methodologies in the extant literature to evaluate organizational resilience and explored the similarities and differences between them, the authors concluded that the Resilient Organizations Resilience Benchmark Tool (2017) is the most appropriate three-dimensional tool because of its universality and comprehensive scope. These three dimensions consist of: leadership and culture; networks; and change readiness. This methodology assesses organizations' perspectives regarding resilience based on their ability to respond to and manage crises and their ability to bounce forward successfully.

The purpose of this paper is to examine competing assumptions about the nature of resilience and selects those most appropriate for an entrepreneurial context. Assumptions are integrated into a theoretical framework highlighting how different threats require different resilience responses. Overall organizational resilience results from a portfolio of resilience capabilities.

Akin to theoretical sampling, the authors identify various theoretical insights about resilience across three disciplines of psychology, ecology and engineering. The authors use these insights to distill competing assumptions about what resilience is and evaluate those most appropriate for entrepreneurial contexts. Existing resilience literature in organization science is critiqued in terms of underlying assumptions and an alternative theoretical framework proposed based on more robust assumptions.

Other disciplines point to resilience being a process that differs for different threats and as either bouncing back, absorbing shocks or bouncing forward. When imported into entrepreneurship these characteristics lead to a conceptualization of resilience as being enacted through a capability portfolio. A routine-based capability response is preferred when threats are familiar, simple, not severe and frequent, following minimal disorganization and where resource slack is available. In contrast, heuristics-based capabilities are preferred when threats are unfamiliar, complex, severe and infrequent, following serious disorganization and where resource slack is unavailable. An absorption threshold point identifies when organizations need to switch from routine-based to heuristics-based resilience capabilities.

Building resilience across a range of adverse situations requires firms to develop a portfolio of resilience capabilities. Firms must learn to match the capability required for the specific threat profile faced. This includes a mix of routinized responses for returning to stability but also more flexible, heuristics-based responses for strategic reconfiguration.

The paper undertakes a first of its kind cross-disciplinary conceptual analysis at the level of identifying competing assumptions about the nature of resilience. These assumptions are found to be somewhat unconscious among organization researchers, limiting the conceptual development of resilience in entrepreneurship. The authors contribute a theoretical framework based on explicit and robust assumptions, enabling the field to advance conceptually.

The study aims to develop theoretical understanding about how family-run businesses navigate unexpected and highly disruptive events by examining how family-based resilience capacity is variously transformed into an organizational capability.

The study relies on a qualitative comparative case study design to explore how Croatian family-run businesses navigated market and operational disruptions brought on by the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and organizational data, this study compares how family-run businesses operating in different industries experienced and coped with disruptions. Using inductive qualitative coding methods, patterns across codes were identified and aggregated into dimensions that describe two broad approaches for leveraging family social capital in the enactment of organizational resilience.

The analysis shows that family-run businesses may employ family social capital in retrospective and prospective ways. A retrospective approach involves targeted and conservative uses of family social capital, wherein the aim is to maintain organizational functioning and return to “business as usual”. In contrast, a prospective approach employs these resources in a more strategic and flexible way to adapt to a “new” future. While both approaches can enable firms to successfully navigate crises, these approaches differ in terms of their temporal orientation and implications for marketing flexibility.

The study contributes to a better understanding of how family social capital can be differentially leveraged in times of crises, and how these differences may stem from having temporal orientations that focus on either preserving the past or adapting to new conditions. The study advances theorizing at the intersection of organizational resilience and family business by deepening understanding of the heterogeneity of ways in which family businesses manage change for long-term business continuity. For owners and managers of family-run business, the study provides insights into how unexpected disruptions can be managed and how businesses might respond to fast-changing market conditions.

Being resilient is often equated with the capability to return to a state of normalcy after individuals and organisations face unprecedented challenges. This chapter questions the notion of ‘normalcy’ in complex and ongoing turbulence as experienced variously in diverse cultural and sectoral contexts. In theorising organisational resilience and associated transformation, it draws on insights provided by a microfinance institution (MFI) operating in the Philippines. The chapter details its efforts to transform business in light of experience gained in frequent and overlapping emergency conditions (including COVID-19) to create a new level of resilience in its clients and itself. For clients, the goal is often to self-manage loss associated with socio-economic development and for the organisation, to stabilise and cordon the investment needed to support clients survive and move on from the relatively constant adverse impacts of disasters. Published accounts of such experience and insights provided by board members and the President illustrate the nature of transformational resiliency strategies planned, including changes to the business model around provision of micro-insurance services and strategic adaptation of digital services aligned with the organisation's mission. A model of ‘practical resiliency in emergency conditions’ details the culture of resiliency adopted, demonstrating how stakeholders gain confidence and opportunity to practice resilient behaviours in emergency contexts. It highlights the significance of cultural consistency across purpose, values and capability to create an adequate level of trust and certainty across stakeholders to support transformational resiliency behaviours in shifting and dynamic ecosystems.

The purpose of this study is to examine what makes some firms, but not others, see a crisis as an opportunity to become entrepreneurial. Specifically, it examines how two key capabilities for durability—(unabsorbed) slack resources and external market networks—influence small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)’ “opportunity confidence”, a term recently coined to denote the subjective assessment of the extent to which a crisis is a good (bad) basis for entrepreneurial activities, such as the introduction of new products/services and new market entry.

Analysis of hand-collected survey data from 138 SMEs in Greece — a country hit hard by the 2008 economic crisis.

The findings reveal that an SME's number of network contacts has a positive effect on opportunity confidence, whereas firm slack resources lack a direct effect. It is, in fact, at low levels of firm slack resources that network returns are higher, especially for older firms. An extension to the main analysis also shows that opportunity confidence is linked to firm sales growth.

Understanding what makes some firms, but not others, see a crisis as an opportunity will help build an extensive and solid knowledge base and get ready for the next big (or small) crisis, which is inevitable to occur. Besides the grants and subsidies that policymakers often provide to SMEs in times of crisis, they may also need to consider organizing actions that support the extraversion and networking of SMEs—that can be done in a variety of ways due to the rise of teleworking and online collaboration platforms since the onset of the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper draws linkages between the “external enabler perspective” and the burgeoning resilience literature and illustrates empirically what makes some SMEs, but not others, view an economic crisis as a good basis for entrepreneurial activities—that is a manifestation of early-stage entrepreneurial behavior and a necessary condition before taking entrepreneurial action in times of crisis. By so doing, this study extends research on resilience that has explained the role of “capabilities for durability” as a means of surviving through a crisis by revealing that these capabilities do not necessarily translate into capabilities for renewal that will help firms to bounce forward in response to the crisis. It also points to the “dark side” of capabilities for durability and, by implication, of resilience.

While various supply chain (SC) sustainability investigations exist, their connection to supply chain resilience (SCRes) remains largely unexplored. To fill this gap, the authors answer the question: “How do firms' sustainability actions affect their SCs' resilience and sustainability trajectories in turbulent environments?" by exploring the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors conducted 10 case studies in five industries located in six European countries. A total of 19 semi-structured interviews and relevant secondary data were collected and analyzed in reference to SC sustainability learning and the literature on SCRes approaches (i.e. engineering, ecological and social-ecological).

31 SC actions referring to different sustainability dimensions were identified to map SCRes learning through a temporal, spatial and functional scale analysis. While five cases are related to an engineering approach focused on “bouncing back” to pre-pandemic goals, three cases were focused on “bouncing forward” as part of an ecological approach. Moreover, the authors identified the existence of two social-ecological resilience cases which developed long-term actions, updating functional set-ups transcending the SC level. The results furthermore illustrate an influence of the SCRes approaches on SC sustainability learning, generating three different paths: flat, flat ascending and ascending SC sustainability trajectories.

The study develops an overview of the adoption of SCRes approaches due to temporal, spatial and functional scales, and their effect on SC sustainability trajectories through exploitation and exploration capabilities. Future research should elaborate on potential moderators in the proposed relationships.

A better understanding of the link between SC sustainability actions and SCRes will help practitioners to make better informed decisions in turbulent environments.

Unlike previous research, this paper provides empirical evidence on engineering, ecological and social-ecological SCRes approaches, as well as SC sustainability trajectories.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue on links between entrepreneurship and resilience.

The authors discuss some key themes in this emerging area of research and reflect on how the papers in the issue contribute to debates in the literature on resilience.

While the papers in the special issue make important contributions, there is still scope for more research.

This is one of the first issues of a journal devoted to investigating this topic.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a holistic understanding for the shaping of resilient service ecosystems that considers tactics that act as stabilizing forces, and tactics that promote diversity and change and act as destabilizing forces – both central for service ecosystems to bounce forward in times of crises and beyond.

This conceptual paper draws on theory on complex adaptive service ecosystems and work on organizational resilience and resilient systems. With a focus on Australia and New Zealand, stalwarts of the top three economies in Bloomberg’s COVID Resilience Ranking before the arrival of the Delta variant, this study illustrates how resilient service ecosystems can be shaped.

This study explicates complexity related to navigating service ecosystems toward a new order in response to the pressures of major crises. It points to the importance of understanding both, how service ecosystems stabilize and change over time. It documents a portfolio of tactics that service organizations can use to influence resilience in the service ecosystems of which they are part. It further reflects on the potential downside of resilient service ecosystems, as they tilt toward rigid structures, failure to learn and an inability to transform or alternatively chaos.

Service research has made progress in explicating how a service ecosystems perspective can inform crises management. This paper extends this work and explains how service ecosystems can be shaped to bounce not only back from the imposed pressures of a disruptive event but also forward toward a new order.

Natural disasters represent an increasing threat to businesses, putting at risk their continuity in light of sustainable performance conditions. The present chapter explores the role of organizational resilience and of human capital in manufacturing companies hit by a natural disaster, an earthquake in the current study, by considering performance in the long run. In doing so, a survey has been performed on a sample of 131 manufacturing companies hit by the Emilia earthquake (Italy) in 2012, considering both perceptual data and balance sheet data. This represents a key contribution of this chapter, as extant literature on the impact of resilience on business performance has mainly used perceptual data; conversely, our study, considering balance sheet data, enables a more comprehensive and realistic view of the phenomenon. The sample was selected from the AIDA database, as it includes revenue data that we could add to the perceptual measures obtained by administering a structured questionnaire. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was then employed. The results show the importance of developing adaptive processes that leverage on the organization’s human capital and resilience to respond to adverse exogenous events. More specifically, it has been found that human capital and organizational resilience are profitable to post-disaster economic performance in the long run, supporting the economic sustainability of affected businesses. The implications are related to reinforcing new business solutions and adaptive strategies, looking at both organizational resilience and human capital investment to reach a stable economic business performance in the long-run after a detrimental event.