‘Resilience Activation’: Exploring Relational Mechanisms in Strategy and Practice

‘Rebuilding resilience’ has received extensive attention from practitioners, policy-makers and scholars alike since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and the issue presents a fundamental challenge to our society, economy and ways of living. The aim of this symposium is to bring together scholars working on resilience, inter/intra-organizational relationships, strategy and entrepreuership (RISE) to delve deeper into the discussion of how conventional theories inform our understanding of the ‘fluid’ pheneomnon and how the role of RISE can help to address the pressing and complex issues faced by business and society in achiving sustainable development goals. More specifically, our symposium features four empirical studies conducted in various adverse situations, including a remote island, China, Nigeria and professional communities, with a particular focus on relational mechanisms. The first two presentations focus on external relationships organizations form and maintain. In the first paper, authors draw on the Instrumental Stakeholder Theory (IST) to investigate how close relationship capabilities with stakeholders affect small business resilience on the remote tourist destination of St Helena. The second presentation draws on the perspective of inter-organizational relationships (IORs) to examine how various attributes of IORs shape organizational resilience in a Chinese context. The third presentation investigates how SMEs in Nigeria utilize the emerging technologies (e.g., social media, communication-based digital technologies) to cope with supply chain disruptions prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The fourth presentation uses qualitative methods to examine how the multiple voices and emotional reactions of different professional communities involved in digitally-mediated open strategy influenced the development of a new, resilient strategy for a professional association. This symposium makes several important contributions to different divisions. First, the issues addressed at the symposium lie at the OMT division’s mission, aiming to explore emerging or understudied research questions and encourage engagement with relevant but underexplored phenomena around organizations and organizing. The existing literature has recognized that relational connections are essential for organizational resilience because they provide the conditions under which other resilience-related resources are activated in the face of adversity. We know little about the nature of these relational mechanisms and how they affect resilience in oroganizations. The emprical papers presented at this symposium explore and illustrate how these relational mechanisms discovered in different adverse contexts affect resilience in organizations, which, in turn, provides scholars with a commond ground to discuss and develop a more unified theory of relational resilience. Second, our symposium is in line with the mission of the Entrepreneurship division by providing the audience with insight into how enterprises survive in such a way as to thrive in the face of adversity generated through either sudden-onset or slow-onset events. The symposium explores this phenomonen in various contexts (e.g., remote island, Nigeria, China, professional communities) and covers various research constructs ranging from economic-oriented theory to behavioural-oriented theory, which are widely examined in the field of strategy and organization. These are all of interest to entrepreneurship scholars. Additionally, presentations in this symposium demonstrate how ecological modelling (Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping) can be used as a tool in business and management studies. It offers new ways of seeing the phenomenon, which may stimulate new theoreitical insight and generate debate amongst entrepreneurship scholars and practitioners. Third, this symposium is relevant to the STR division, which aims to develop and disseminate knowledge relevant to general managers and those who study, shape, or influence the strategy of organizations, as well as to the effective teaching of these issues. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, over 70 percent of firms experienced disruptions at least once per year, of which 9 percent suffered in excess of $1 million losses (BSI, 2016). Crises news stories have exceeded 1.7 millions, since the outbreak of Covid-19. The ability of firms to anticipate and manage these challenges, therefore, will be a determing factor in how well they maintain their continued existence and sustainability. This is the other side of coin in addressing the question of when and why some firms perform better than others over times. Resilience, as a critical resouce for individuals and organizations, particularly when facing the unfamilar adversity, would be of interest to strategy scholars and practitioners, while exploring how firms bank resilience-related resources in such a way as to improve their performance. Additionally, in the STR division, there is a research stream which is dedicated to investigating the relationship between various forms of inter-organizational relationships (e.g., alliances, networks) and decision-making in order to gain a competitive advantage. Our symposium, which will focus on relational mechanisms, expands this line of inquiry from the relatively stable environment to the disruptive environment. As such, the symposium will stimulate a conversation with scholars and practitioners on the role of relational mechanisms. Finally, the symposium will contribute to the Communication, Digital Technology, and Organization division, by highlighting the role of emerging technologies that can help organizations to function better, in coping with supply chain disruption. Supply chains, as economic systems, constitute a wide of variety of individuals, groups, and organizations, which are highly interconnected. The Covid-19 pandemic has exemplified how the use of digital technology can facilitate communication and collaboration amongst actors in supply chains for information sharing and resource deployment. Due to the size and heterogeneity of enterprises, however, the difference between large- and small-medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in terms of adopting different technologies is revealed. Compared to the wealthy studies of how large enterprises adopt digital technology in responding to adverse situations, our symposium features how SMEs, in a weak institutional context, manage adversity through the adoption of emerging technology presented at the symposium. With these efforts, our symposium will benefit to scholars and practitioners in the CTO division, and stimulate debate on the emerging paradigm aimed at addressing values such as sustainability, justice, dignity and integrity in order to generate an ethical, positive, and meaningful contribution to organizational change. Small-business resilience : exploring close relationship capability on the island of St Helena Presenter: Christopher Williams; U. of York Presenter: Jacqueline Jing You; Durham U. Business School Determinants of Organizational Resilience: An Inter-organizational Perspective Presenter: Jacqueline Jing You; Durham U. Business School The Use of Emerging Technologies in Supply Chain Disruption During Covid-19 Pandemic Presenter: Folajimi Yesir Ashiru; Coventry Business School Presenter: Franklin Nakpodia; Durham U. Business School Polyphony and Inclusion as a Substratum of Resilience: Exploring the Role of Voice and Emotion Presenter: Christopher Golding; Alliance Manchester Business School, U. of Manchester Presenter: Josh Morton; U. of Leeds Presenter: Aljona Zorina; Leeds U. Business School