Organizing For Resilience: Leading and Managing Risk in a Disruptive World

Organizing for Resilience provides a fresh and novel insight into research on how leaders can prepare their organizations to face up to shocks and disruptions in a turbulent and unpredictable world. It provides an analysis of the topic of organizational resilience in a comprehensive and integrative way, with fresh theoretical and research implications as well as important implications for leaders.

The first book to synthesize themes from across a spectrum of resilience using the metaphor of a ‘resilience landscape’, chapters in Part I are devoted to five analytical levels: individual level resilience; small firms in which major disruption can threaten survival; large firms with disruptions in one part of the organization; large firms facing enterprise-wide disruption; and disruption to a complete community or economic ecosystem of individuals and organizations. Cases and practice insights are presented to bring the topics to life, allowing reflection and debate at each level. In Part II, the construct of the ‘resilience landscape’ is developed, along with a discussion on leadership for resilience by instilling a resilience mind-set and developing capabilities in relational resilience.

The book is ideally suited to bachelor’s and master’s degree courses on strategy, organizational behaviour and leadership. PhD and DBA researchers in the field of resilience and strategy will also find the book useful, as will practising consultants and business leaders.

Christopher Williams is Professor in the Strategy and Entrepreneurship Department at NEOMA Business School in France. His research interests include international strategy, innovation in international firms and contexts, and organizational resilience. Before entering academia in 2007, Dr Williams spent two decades in industry, mostly in innovative and international environments. His research appears in journals such as Asia Pacific Journal of Management, International Business Review, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of World Business and Research Policy. He has also published a range of teaching cases on strategy and innovative issues in international contexts with Ivey Publishing and is author of Venturing in International Firms: Contexts and Cases in a High-Tech World (Routledge, 2018) and Management Consultancy for Innovation (Routledge, 2019). Jacqueline Jing You is a doctoral graduate from Durham University Business School in the UK. Her research interests include organizational resilience and disruption, inter-organizational relationships and organizational ecosystems. She worked in industry with international companies and as an entrepreneur before her doctoral studies. Jacqueline has published in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism and The Palgrave Handbook of Corporate Sustainability in the Digital Era. She holds degrees from the University of Shanghai Science and Technology and the University of St Andrews.