Organizational resilience is one of the key capabilities of an organization to survive in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) market environment and also to maintain their competitive advantage by adopting external environmental factors. Investigating the role of strategic human resource management methods in creating resilient organizational behavior was the purpose of this study. Further, mediating and moderating role of employee resilience and self-efficacy on the relationship between Strategic Human Resource Management and organizational resilience were also investigated. Training, compensation, performance appraisal, staffing and participation are the dimensions which were selected under the independent variable of Strategic Human Resource Management practices after reviewing the literature. The dimensions of robustness, agility and integrity were selected under the dependent variable of organizational resilience. Two conceptual frameworks were tested after deriving five hypotheses and this study wasdesigned based on a deductive approach. Accordingly, data was collected by using quantitative methods and the employees of Public Limited Company banks in Sri Lanka were selected as the populations of the study. A total of 180 questionnaires were obtained from the sample and the data were analyzed using IBM SPSS 23. In summary, the results of this study showed that Strategic Human Resource Management has a positive relationship with organizational and employee resilience and also employee resilience has a positive relationship with organizational resilience. Further, as per the findings, employee resilience mediates the relationship between Strategic Human Resource Management and organizational resilience and however, self-efficacy does not play a moderating role in this relationship. The findings of this study was more related to the previous literature except the moderating role of self-efficacy. Therefore, findings of this study proves that Strategic Human Resource Management practices are essential to develop employee and organizational resilience. This highlights the importance of linking company corporate strategy with Human Resource Management strategy on a continuous basis as this would lead the company to survive and thrive in a turbulent environment and gain competitive advantage by turning uncertain challenges into opportunities.

Motivation In the upcoming decades, traditional firms will transition to becoming a more regenerative version, with a socio-ecological purpose at the core of the firm. In this transition phase, regenerative firms, with a focus on impact maximisation of the socio-ecological purpose and traditional firms, with a focus rather on profit maximisation, need to coexist and be resilient somehow. While in the coming decades the number of regenerative firms will grow, it is important to understand how these regenerative firms can enable organisational resilience. Yet, prior research neglects how especially inter-organisational collaboration could enhance the organisational resilience of regenerative firms. Therefore, the context of this study is within the consumer goods industry in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, focusing on regenerative firms. Purpose This study aims to shed light on how inter-organisational collaboration can strengthen the organisational resilience of regenerative firms. The first part of the research will mostly address the question how regenerative firms can strengthen organisational resilience with a focus on the capabilities needed. In addition, the study will demonstrate how regenerative firms approach and use inter-organisational collaboration. Methodology The study, with a qualitative approach, used a multi-case study design. Various people were interviewed, such as CEOs, founders, quality managers, consultants, impact officers, following a semi-structured interview design. For transcription purposes, the interviews were audio-recorded and the results from the interviews were labelled, following an open coding process. The results, with matching open codes, were then connected back to the theoretical framework. Results The results of this study indicated how inter-organisational collaboration is used to strengthen the organisational resilience of regenerative firms. Contradicting prior research about traditional firms, regenerative firms do not fear competition, yet these firms rather achieve system resilience by being resilient as a collective. Regenerative firms realise this by being transparent, absorbing and sharing knowledge to achieve success for the system they are embedded in. Sharing knowledge in a transparent manner and aiming for reciprocity among inter-organisational collaboration actors contributes positively to their system resilience. Thus, inter-organisational collaboration is a powerful tool for regenerative firms to enhance this system resilience and consequently maximising the impact of their collective socio-ecological purpose.

Pharmaceutical supply chains are susceptible to disruptions which impact on the operational and financial performance of firms as well as patient safety. This study aimed to explore why the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain (PSC) in the UK is susceptible to the impact of dynamic disruptions and examine how resilience strategies have were employed to reduce the effects of these disruptions. The Complex Adaptive System (CAS) theory was used as a framework in an exploratory research design using mixed-methods. The qualitative data were gathered through 23 semi-structured interviews with key supply chain actors across the PSC in the UK to explore their experiences. The findings from these semi-structured interviews were used to develop a survey which was distributed to a broader spectrum of supply chain actors where the final sample from the survey was (n=106). The data were triangulated to discuss the research findings. The initial results revealed power, conflict and complexities as drivers of vulnerabilities in the PSC. Antecedents for building resilience strategies included visibility, flexibility and joint decision making as recovery strategies and resource sharing as the resistance strategy. CAS provided a systemic approach to understanding PSC resilience rather than in parts. In doing so, it took into consideration the various elements that make up the entire system. Thus, vulnerabilities and resilience strategies were outcomes of the interactions between supply chain actors. The findings demonstrated that CAS, as a theory, provided a framework that was beneficial in exploring and gaining insights into PSC resilience. Also, by combining the two datasets (interviews and survey), an original output was proposed -the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Resilience Framework (PSCRF)- which was used to recommend resilience strategies suitable for mitigating disruptions in the PSC.

No description available.

The Covid-10 pandemic has seen the world crumble as various countries declared themselves under the state of emergence and closed their borders. Thus, harsh restriction measures were introduced in the middle to end the Covid-19 pandemic. Aim: This study analyses hospitality managers' experience with the socio-economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. Methodology: The researcher used qualitative techniques in conjecture with pragmatism as a philosophical position to understand the manager's experience during the Covid-19 pandemic. Semi-structured interviews were employed to acquire data from 10 hospitality managers in Cape Town )South Africa). The implication of the study: The study will add a gap to the existing body of literature and provide hospitality managers with vital information on how to handle situations when they are in a crisis and on how they can be able to remain resilient.

No / Supply chain resilience has been suggested to curb the impact of disruptions on supply chains. While this proposition seems coherent in theory, empirical evidence supporting this is limited, as existing literature has centred on exploring the impact of supply chain resilience on disruptions which are based on set time frames, non-supply chain specific as well as examining non-dynamic disruptive events. This study contends that resilience strategies are dynamic and as such their applications within supply chains differ. Therefore examining the impact of resilience will be appropriate on a dynamic disruption within a specific supply chain. In view of this, the paper examines through existing literature the applicability of agility within the pharmaceutical supply chain when dynamic disruptions like drug shortages occur. The study finds alertness, accessibility, connectivity and visibility as dimensions of supply chain agility that are capable of reducing the impact of drug shortages.

This dissertation consists of three papers related to firms' resiliency to supply chain disruptions. The first paper seeks to evaluate the effects of supply chain disruptions on firms' performance by using a recent dataset of supply chain disruptions. To this end, we analyzed operating and stock market performances of over 300 firms that experienced a supply chain disruption during 2005 to the end of 2014. The results show that supply chain disruptions are still associated with a significant decrease in operating income, return on sales, return on assets, sales, and a negative performance in total assets. Supply chain disruptions are also associated with a significant negative abnormal stock return on the day of the supply chain disruption announcements. These results are in line with previous findings in the literature. In the second paper, in order to provide a more detailed characterization of negative impacts of disruptions on firms' performance, we develop three complementary measures of system loss: the initial loss due to the disruption, the maximum loss, and the total loss over time. Then, we utilize the contingent resource-based view to evaluate the moderating effects of operational slack and operational scope on the relationship between the severity of supply chain disruptions and the three complementary measures of system loss. We find that maintaining certain aspects of operational slack and broadening business scope can affect these different measures of loss in different ways, although these effects are contingent on the disruptions' severity. The third paper examines relationships between the origin of supply chain disruptions, firms' past experience, and the negative impacts of supply chain disruptions on firms' performance. This third study shows that the impact of external and internal supply chain disruptions on firms' performance can be different when firms do and do not have past experience with similar events. For example, the results show that past experience significantly decreases initial loss, recovery time, and total loss over time experienced by firms after internal disruptions, although past experience may not decrease initial loss, recovery time, and total loss over time in the case of external disruptions. / Ph. D. / Supply chain disruptions occur frequently in today’s complex and interdependent business environment. The Kumamoto earthquakes, Hanjin Shipping’s bankruptcy, and Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, are just a few events that led to major supply chain disruptions in the U.S. and other parts of the world in 2016 and 2017 alone. In this dissertation, we first use a recent dataset of supply chain disruptions to evaluate the effects of supply chain disruptions on firms' performance. The results show that supply chain disruptions are still associated with significant negative impacts on firms’ performance as they have been shown to be in previous studies of earlier datasets. Next, we provide a broader assessment of supply chain disruptions’ impacts on firms’ performance. To accomplish this, we specifically consider the negative impacts with respect to three complementary metrics borrowed from the systems resilience literature: the initial loss, the maximum loss, and the total loss over time. The initial loss and maximum loss metrics evaluate different characteristics of the magnitude of a disruption’s impact on a firm’s performance, whereas total loss over time gives a broader measure of the overall effect of that disruption on that firm, over time. By adopting a more comprehensive view of firms’ performance through the use of such systems resilience concepts, we develop new and expanded inferences about how and when maintaining operational slack and broadening operational scope can benefit firms by helping to reduce the negative impacts of disruptions. Finally, we study the relationships between the negative impacts of supply chain disruptions on firms’ performance, the origin of supply chain disruptions, and firms’ prior experience. The results show that the impact of internal and external supply chain disruptions on firms’ performance can be different when firms do and do not have past experience with similar events. In particular, the results show that past experience significantly decreases initial loss, recovery time, and total loss over time experienced by firms after internal disruptions. However, past experience may not decrease initial loss, recovery time, and total loss over time in the case of external disruptions.

This is a qualitative study that researches the definition and meaning of resilience in intimate relationships. A constructivist perspective guides the theoretical framework of this study and a systemic approach to intimate relationships provides a theoretical foundation. Apart from an extensive literature survey, three different sources of information were included in this study on relational resilience. Three family therapists were interviewed to gain some understanding of their experiences with couples in distress. Three participant couples examined visual stimuli (excerpts of couple interactions from five films) and discussed their responses and personal experiences in semi-structured interviews. The participants’ themes were analysed through thematic network analysis in order to explore their definitions of resilience in light of their own experiences. It was found that resilience in intimate relationships can be defined as the ability of the couple to endure adversity. It involves the relational capacity to adapt, grow, and recover from adversities and it includes relational processes that allow the couple as a system to rebound from shared difficulties and become more resourceful. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology))

This is a qualitative study that researches the definition and meaning of resilience in intimate relationships. A constructivist perspective guides the theoretical framework of this study and a systemic approach to intimate relationships provides a theoretical foundation. Apart from an extensive literature survey, three different sources of information were included in this study on relational resilience. Three family therapists were interviewed to gain some understanding of their experiences with couples in distress. Three participant couples examined visual stimuli (excerpts of couple interactions from five films) and discussed their responses and personal experiences in semi-structured interviews. The participants’ themes were analysed through thematic network analysis in order to explore their definitions of resilience in light of their own experiences. It was found that resilience in intimate relationships can be defined as the ability of the couple to endure adversity. It involves the relational capacity to adapt, grow, and recover from adversities and it includes relational processes that allow the couple as a system to rebound from shared difficulties and become more resourceful. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology))

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic shook the global economy to its core, enforcing wide-ranging working from home (WFH) movements in addition to traditional working from office (WFO) structures. As the debates continue over how to permanently embed WFH into the work reality, to do so successfully, the components of changing work venues must be evaluated. Hence, there is a growing urgency to adapt to the new ways of working through focused organizational and managerial intervention. Utilizing the grounded theory, the analysis of qualitative interview data from Germany and Sweden formed the foundation of the paper’s research on changing work venues concerning individual and organizational resilience. Here, young professionals shared experiences of WFH during the pandemic in conjunction with their time WFO before and after COVID-19 restrictions. Through the theoretical framework of resilience as practice, this paper establishes three processes that have a major impact on the quality of home office in relation to resilience: (1) adapting to WFH, (2) acknowledging the advantages and disadvantages of WFO and WFH, and (3) emphasizing individual preferences and differences. The study suggests that the more structured and faster the company adapted to WFH during the transitional period, the less pronounced the employee’s possible negative experiences were. Concerning the benefits of different work venues and individual preferences, this paper concludes that WFH is a substantial supplement to traditional work on-site with the potential to increase individual and organizational resilience.