Sources of Organizational Resilience for Sustainable Communities: An Institutional Collective Action Perspective

Kyujin Jung

doi:10.3390/su9071141

Abstract

Scholars in the field of sustainability have often argued that the purpose of establishing and maintaining interorganizational collaboration is to overcome internal limitations of organizations and to strengthen organizational capacity. To examine structural effects of inter-organizational collaboration regarding the ability of networked organizations to effectively manage disasters, this study uses an institutional collective action framework to design a critical lens to objectively analyze collective action issues in inter-organizational collaboration networks. Results, based on the Heckman selection model with two stages, provide evidence that networked organizations holding a central position between two other actors perceive a higher level of disaster resilience. The finding implies that local organizations with a bridging strategy can enhance their capacity to recover from a catastrophic event by securing access to critical resources and information through comprehensive emergency preparedness such as joint response and recovery planning.

Highlights

Scholars in the field of sustainability often argue that the purpose of establishing and maintaining inter-organizational collaboration is to overcome internal limitations of organizations and to strengthen organizational capacity [1,2]
The finding implies that organizations with a bridging strategy can enhance their capacity to recover from a catastrophic event by securing access to critical resources and information in an effective and timely manner
This study examined the impact of structural effects i.e., bonding and bridging strategy for inter-organizational collaboration on organizational resilience by using a Heckman selection model

Summary

Introduction

Scholars in the field of sustainability often argue that the purpose of establishing and maintaining inter-organizational collaboration is to overcome internal limitations of organizations and to strengthen organizational capacity [1,2]. It is assumed that working together allows organizations to build joint capacity and minimize the impact of unexpected catastrophic events, which increases their ability to recover and return to normalcy [3]. Drabek and McEntire (2002) indicate that because effective and timely resource coordination for response operations is often problematic, multi-organizational collaboration across sectors provides clues to effectively managing organizational capacity [5]. To examine the effect of organizational collaboration on the ability of an organization to effectively manage disasters, this study used the institutional collective action (ICA) framework, which enabled analysis of collective action issues embedded in inter-organizational collaboration [7,8]. It is argued that sources of organizational resilience can be acquired through comprehensive emergency preparedness and hazards mitigation processes such as joint response and recovery planning

Methods

Results

Conclusion