Resilience in Business and Management Research: A Review of Influential Publications and a Research Agenda

• Published date: 01 January 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12076
• Author: Martina K. Linnenluecke
• Date: 01 January 2017

International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 19, 4–30 (2017)

DOI: 10.1111/ijmr.12076

Resilience in Business and Management

Research: A Review of Influential

Publications and a Research Agenda

Martina K. Linnenluecke

UQ Business School, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia

Email: m.linnenluecke@business.uq.edu.au

This paper identifies the development of and gaps in knowledge in business and man-

agement research on resilience, based on a systematic review of influential publications

among 339 papers, books and book chapters published between 1977 and 2014. An-

alyzing these records shows that resilience research has developed into five research

streams, or lines of enquiry,which view resilience as (1) organizational responses to ex-

ternal threats, (2) organizational reliability, (3) employee strengths, (4) the adaptability

of business models or (5) design principles that reduce supply chain vulnerabilities and

disruptions. A reviewof the five streams suggests three key findings: First, resiliencehas

been conceptualized quite differentlyacross studies, meaning that the different research

streams havedeveloped their own definitions, theories and understandings of resilience.

Second, conceptual similarities and differences among these streams havenot yet been

explored, nor have insights been gleaned about any possible generalizable principles

for developing resilience. Third, resilience has been operationalized quite differently,

with few insights into the empirics for detecting resilience to future adversity (or the

absence thereof). This paper outlines emerging researchtrends and pathways for future

research, highlighting opportunities to integrate and expand on existing knowledge,

as well as avenues for further investigation of resilience in business and management

studies.

Introduction

Unexpected events and abrupt changes often sur-

prise organizations. Natural disasters disrupt supply

chains, terrorist attacks shock the public and paralyze

financial markets, and industrial accidents have ma-

jor ecological and economic consequences that ripple

through supply chains, from raw materials to trans-

portation. Case and anecdotal evidence exemplifies

that some organizations are more successful in re-

sponding to (or even surviving) unexpected, abrupt

and/or ‘extreme’ events than others under similar cir-

cumstances (Fiksel et al. 2015; Gittell et al. 2006).

But what makes some organizations more successful

in dealing with, and responding to, the unfamiliar?

The term ‘resilience’ has been used at the organi-

zational level to describe the inherent characteris-

tics of those organizations that are able to respond

more quickly,recover faster or develop more unusual

ways of doing business under duress than others (e.g.

Sutcliffe and Vogus 2003; Vogusand Sutcliffe 2007).

At the employee level,the ter m has been used to refer

to the ability of organizational members to bounce

back, and even succeed, in the face of problems and

adversity (e.g. Luthans et al. 2010; Shin et al. 2012).

Resilience is generally seen as a desirable charac-

teristic for an organization (and for its members) to

possess in order to deal with various types of adver-

sity. ‘Resilience’ sometimes refers to rigidity: for in-

stance, an organization’s inability or unwillingness to

change owing to a deeply entrenched organizational

culture (see Davies and Thomas 2003; Limnios et al.

2014); however, the term more commonly refers to

both organizational and employee strength, persever-

ance and recovery when encountering adversity. Al-

though ‘resilience’ is an increasingly common theme

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Resilience in Business and Management Research 5

in academic research, business practice, public policy

and the popular press, its conceptualization and oper-

ationalization havebeen quite varied across studies. A

number of commentators (Klein et al. 2003; Manyena

2006) have argued that, in order for resilience to be

a useful and valid concept, it is necessary to have a

solid understanding of the origin of the concept and

how it is defined, by which variables it is determined,

and how it can be assessed, maintained and improved

over time.

As a first step in this direction, this paper identifies

the development of knowledgeand gaps in knowledge

in business and management research on resilience.

The bibliographic mapping and visualization soft-

ware HistCiteTM was used for the analysis. The

software produces genealogical maps of publications

within a field of research, which provide insights into

a field’s structure and history (Garfield 2004; van Eck

and Waltman 2014). Using the HistCiteTM-generated

bibliographic map as guidance, this paper identifies

influential publications on resilience in business

and management research, and their interrelations,

and reviews key lines of enquiry, their theoretical

underpinnings and their contributions to understand-

ing resilience. Findings from the review show the

fragmented conceptualization and operationalization

of the concept across five research streams, which

view resilience as (1) organizational responses to

external threats, (2) organizational reliability, (3)

employee strengths, (4) the adaptability of business

models or (5) design principles that reduce supply

chain vulnerabilities and disruptions. The paper

outlines emerging research trends and pathways

for future research, highlighting opportunities to

integrate and expand on existing knowledge as well

as avenues for further investigation of resilience in

business and management studies.

Methodology: mapping resilience

in business and management research

Bibliographic mapping is an established approach for

reviewing a field of research and its influential pub-

lications, and allows for an objective assessment of

the development of thought on a topic (B¨

orner et al.

2003; Janssen 2007; Janssen et al. 2006). A central

part of this technique is the production of a biblio-

graphic map of the topic of interest for visualizing

the intellectual origins of that topic and the struc-

ture of the literature over time. Data collection and

analysis follow the methodological steps outlined by

Janssen et al. (2006) and Janssen (2007). The first

step is the compilation of a comprehensive data set of

relevant publications and their citation records (i.e. a

full record of their cited references). Next, the citation

data need to be cleaned. The data can then be analyzed

and correlated using HistCiteTM to map relationships

between publications, and the results can be visual-

ized by the software for means of communication.

Each of these steps is detailed below.

Data collection and data cleaning

Publications for inclusion in this review were

identified through Boolean searches within the

Social Sciences Citation Index, an online academic

citation database within the Thomson Reuters Web

of ScienceTM platform. Within this database, a

search was conducted for publications with the term

‘resilien*’ in the title, abstracts or keywords. The

asterisk (*) was included as a wildcard symbol to

search for variations of the term resilience (such

as resilient or resiliency). To ensure that the search

was not too broad and focused on business and

management research, it was limited to publications

classified as belonging to the areas of ‘business’ or

‘management’. The comprehensive list of journals

included in these areas can be accessed from the Web

of ScienceTM website. The search found 453 records.

The 453 records were downloaded and imported

into HistCiteTM (version 12.03.17). The records were

manually cleaned by two reviewers, who were asked

to check the title, abstract and keywords of each

record, and, if necessary, refer to the full text of the

publication to determine its suitability for inclusion

in the review. In cases where both reviewers agreed

that a publication should not be part of the analysis,

it was removed. Cases of disagreement were referred

back to both reviewers for re-evaluation. Removed

publications used the term ‘resilience’ in the abstract

or keywords, but did not further elaborate the concept

or relate the concept to organizations or management.

For example, Dongsheng et al. (2002) reported in

their abstract that ‘trends in advertising demonstrated

resilience’, yet this is the only instance the paper

refers to resilience. As a result of the data cleaning,

131 records were removed, leaving 322 records in

thedataset.

Manual additions to the data set

To check whether any records were inadvertently

overlooked, a cited reference search was conducted

C2015 British Academy of Management and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.