Success in Unusual Settings How Organizations Succeed in Continuously Disrupted Environment

Abstract

This study advances both theories of institutional complexity and organizational resilience through examining an unusual and unexplored setting of environment characterized by continuous disruption caused by civil conflicts, wars and terrorism. Despite disrupted environments, there are many successful local organizations that are striving in these complex settings and they are expanding their businesses to compete with other firms located in more developed and institutional settings. My analysis allows me to develop a theory of a type of organizational capacity; not previously identified, that explains how firms cope in a context of enduring disrupted environment. I propose a new notion of organizational capacity: ‘Plasticity’, it is the ability of the organization to strategically stretch existing organizational and institutional arrangements to cope with disruption, without breaking out organizational growth and development path. Organizational plasticity makes the firm adaptable to continuous disruptio...