Toward an Organizational Theory of Resilience: An Interim Struggle

Sooksan Kantabutra and Nuttasorn Ketprapakorn
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Sooksan Kantabutra: Center for Research on Sustainable Leadership, College of Management, Mahidol University, Bangkok 10400, Thailand
Nuttasorn Ketprapakorn: School of Business, University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, Bangkok 10400, Thailand

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 23, 1-28

Abstract: While organizational resilience is widely considered as critical to sustainability, gaps in both the scholarly and professional literature exist. First, stronger conceptualization of the term is needed. Second, little is known about how organizational resilience can be continuously accomplished via daily practices and processes. Finally, the ongoing organization theory development does not sufficiently address these gaps. Contributing to the literature by filling in these fundamental gaps, the present study integrates the disconnectedly growing literature into an organizational theory of resilience. Based on the General Systems Theory, the resulting theory comprises inputs of human resources, socio-cultural values, institutional settings, and social and environmental issues, enabling organizational structure, value and belief subsystem, resilience mindset, sustainability practices, adaptive and buffering capacities, and sustainability performance as the output. Their dynamic relationships are discussed and expressed via a model and propositions, followed by implications for researchers and practitioners.

Keywords: corporate sustainability; resilience; organizational resilience; theory building; sustainability; general systems theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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