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Innovation and metamorphosis towards strategic resilience

Marta Morais-Storz (Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway) (School of Business, University College of Southeast Norway, Bø i Telemark, Norway)
Rikke Stoud Platou (Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway)
Kine Berild Norheim (Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management and Department of Ocean Operations and Civil Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim and Ålesund, Norway)

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research

ISSN: 1355-2554

Article publication date: 3 April 2018

Issue publication date: 5 November 2018

1862

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine what it means to be resilient in the context of environmental turbulence, complexity, and uncertainty, and to suggest how organizations might develop strategic resilience.

Design/methodology/approach

Sampling from the theoretical and empirical contributions to the understanding of resilience within the management and organizational literatures, this conceptual paper presents a model of strategic resilience and theoretical propositions are developed that suggest directions for future research.

Findings

It is proposed that strategic resilience is an emergent and dynamic characteristic of organizations whereby organizational legacy is a defining antecedent, top management team future orientation is a fundamental belief system, and problem formulation is a key deliberate process.

Research limitations/implications

Although the conceptual inquiry of strategic resilience offers clarity on a complex phenomenon, empirical evidence is needed to provide a test of the concepts and their relations.

Practical implications

By asserting that the environment is turbulent, complex, and uncertain, this paper opens up new possibilities for the understanding and study of strategic resilience, whereby metamorphosis and innovation are requisites, and entrepreneurship is part and parcel of strategy. As such it highlights the importance of managerial beliefs and behaviors that facilitate proactively and deliberately challenging of the status quo.

Originality/value

The proposed conceptualization of strategic resilience in this paper connotes action rather than just reaction, and in so doing highlights the importance of the synergy between strategic management and entrepreneurship. As such, it proposes factors that may help organizations persist and create value within a context and future that they themselves also shape.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Nhien Nguyen for her help with the formulation of questions that formed the basis of one of the interviews highlighted in this paper, as well as for her encouraging feedback. The authors would also like to thank Professor Alf Steinar Sætre and Professor Hans Petter Hildre for their helpful comments to an earlier draft of this paper. Finally, the authors would like to thank Lars Stenerud for sharing his insights with us.

Citation

Morais-Storz, M., Stoud Platou, R. and Berild Norheim, K. (2018), "Innovation and metamorphosis towards strategic resilience", International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, Vol. 24 No. 7, pp. 1181-1199. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-11-2016-0369

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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