Turning Danger into Safety: The Origin, Research Context and Theoretical Framework of Organizational Resilience

Ruijun Chen,Fei Zhou,Yingqi Liu

doi:10.1109/access.2021.3069301

Ruijun Chen, Fei Zhou + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2021.3069301

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Abstract

The importance of organizational resilience as an effective means to cope with crises and achieve sustainable growth in crisis situations is gradually gaining attention from both theoretical and practical circles. Based on the review of existing research on organizational resilience, this study uses the scientific knowledge mapping method from the macro perspective and the literature analysis method from the micro level to review the development of organizational resilience research during 1984-2021, and analyzes 108 representative papers on organizational resilience. Finally, this study proposes future research directions based on the existing studies, such as enriching the influence factors of organizational resilience, strengthening the study of the mechanism of organizational resilience and strengthening the study of the effect of organizational resilience. This paper not only provides a reference for domestic scholars to construct an overall framework for organizational resilience research, but also provides theoretical and practical guidelines for enterprises to achieve rebound survival and then sustainable growth in the face of adversity.

Highlights

With the advancement of globalization and internationalization of business activities, the business environment of enterprises has gradually become increasingly complex and volatile [1], and corporate crises seem to have become a probable event in the development of organizations [2], posing a challenge to their survival and development [3]
Through sorting and summarizing the literature, we found that organizational resilience is a multidimensional and cross-level concept [6], and the connotation of organizational resilience can be interpreted mainly from the capability perspective, functional perspective, process perspective, and outcome perspective
This phase further continues and develops the research of scholars in the budding stage on the factors influencing organizational resilience, and academics begin to focus on the assessment of organizational resilience and the study of the impact on organizational performance, which lays the foundation for subsequent research

Summary

INTRODUCTION

With the advancement of globalization and internationalization of business activities, the business environment of enterprises has gradually become increasingly complex and volatile [1], and corporate crises seem to have become a probable event in the development of organizations [2], posing a challenge to their survival and development [3]. Empirical and theoretical research suggests that resilient organizations remain flexible, adaptive, and creative enough to survive in a highly competitive and chaotic business environment [6]. Resilience was developed in the fields of ecology [8], psychology [9], and strategic management [10], and it was only in the late 1990s that the concept of resilience was introduced into the organizational field [11] The reason for this stems mainly from the differences in disciplinary. R. Chen et al.: Turning Danger into Safety: The Origin, Research Context and Theoretical Framework classifications, and scholars have not been able to assimilate organizational resilience well into the field of management. This study provides theoretical and practical guidelines for organizations in deep crisis, and provides useful references to promote more enterprises and organizations to survive the crisis

ORIGIN AND CONNOTATION OF ORGANIZATIONAL RESILIENCE

Findings

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF ORGANIZATIONAL RESILIENCE RESEARCH