"Leaning into the Wind: Hardship, Stakeholder Relationships, and Organizational Resilience"

Abstract

In this article we theoretically derive a typology that explicates the psychological, operational, and stakeholder antecedent influences on organizational resilience. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, we then test our theoretical framework utilizing data we gathered from 140 small and medium sized companies across a range of industries experiencing a variety of hardships. Consistent with past theory, our findings demonstrate that organizational resilience results, in part, from psychological and operational factors that enable coping. Crucially, our findings also demonstrate that an organization’s relationships with its stakeholders play a significant role in creating organizational resilience. Specifically, engagement with the community as a stakeholder group in response to hardship was positively related with firm growth over a five year period that included the economic recession. We discuss the implications of our findings to theory and practice, highlighting how our research changes the current understanding of how firms can survive and thrive under adverse conditions.