This thesis presents a framework for resiliency planning in state departments of transportation and other transportation agencies. The development of this framework is motivated by the need for more resilient transportation systems, due of the increasing frequency and the effect both natural and man-made catastrophic disasters have on transportation systems. The resiliency framework is based on the urban transportation planning framework and is thus applied in the broader context of general transportation planning. The resiliency framework is then applied in a preliminary review to three statewide transportation plans to show the resiliency deficiencies of those plans and how the framework may be applied to increase resiliency. These plans are selected from three different states with diversity of locations and without any preconceived notions about their incorporation of resiliency in their planning process. This preliminary review reveals a reactive nature towards investments that increase an agency’s resilience. This may be attributed to the problem of limited funding for transportation investments, as well as, limited knowledge by the transportation agencies about the return on such resiliency investments, mostly due to the uncertainty associated with the occurrence of catastrophic disasters, especially the predictability of weather-related events. However, post-disaster transportation system overhauls provide enough evidence for the need for more systemic ways of addressing resiliency in planning processes.

The purpose of this study is to develop the construct of organizational hardiness which is thought to distinguish organizations that thrive under conditions of turbulence and uncertainty from organizations that whither under these same conditions. This new construct is based on individual hardiness which is a constellation of personality dispositions that a large body of empirical work has suggested supports individual performance under conditions of turbulence and uncertainty. Paralleling the individual hardiness dispositions of challenge, commitment, and control, organizational hardiness is posited to consist of the organizational level constructs of sensemaking, organizational identification, and enactment. The development of organizational hardiness is supported by literature reviews of individual hardiness, organizational stress, sensemaking, organizational identification, and enactment. To support the theoretical development of this construct, this study includes a content analysis of the CEO letters to shareholders for the 20 largest commercial banks in the United States during the years 2000-2009. Using generalized least squares estimation techniques, the current study demonstrates a positive relationship between organizational hardiness, sensemaking, organizational identification, and enactment and multiple measures of organizational performance. Furthermore, organizations demonstrating higher levels of organizational hardiness demonstrate higher levels of organizational performance on three out of four measures. The study concludes with a discussion of theoretical and managerial implications concerning the development of this new construct.

Impacts from climate change already pose major challenges for organizations and industrial systems, and vulnerabilities are expected to increase in the future, particularly in vulnerable sectors and locations. Findings by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest that climate change related vulnerabilities of organizations and industries, but also of settlement and society as a whole, are mainly related to changes in the intensity and/or frequency of extreme weather, rather than to gradual climate change impacts. Organization researchers and managers, however, have not yet systematically considered the organizational implications of changes in trends of weather extremes, such as changes to the intensity and/or frequency of storms, floods, and droughts. While companies in the reinsurance industry (e.g., Munich Re, Swiss Re) have begun to undertake research into changes in trends of extremes, most current debates on climate change and corporate response are mainly focused on adaptation – that is, longer-term adjustments that organizations can take in response to policy and legislative changes and the observed gradual warming trend. The question of how organizations can cope with more frequent and/or intense weather extremes has largely remained outside of these debates. The thesis advances the notion that the resilience concept which originated in disciplines such as ecology and engineering may provide insights into dealing with new types of environmental change arising from changes in patterns of weather extremes. It emphasizes that organizational adaptation and resilience potentials are context-specific and related to the characteristics of particular climate change impacts. While organizations may be able to undergo steady adaptations to gradual climate change (such as gradual increases in mean temperatures), they might not be able to handle disruptions that go beyond this gradual trend and are related to changes in extremes. Included in this thesis are five papers that seek to provide a foundation for understanding, assessing and evaluating organizational responses to more frequent and/or intense weather extremes. The first paper serves as an introduction to the thesis, assesses the literatures on organizational adaptation and resilience, and proposes an initial model that draws together the different streams of literature on climate change, adaptation and resilience. The second paper extends on the themes of the first paper and provides a discussion of the concepts of adaptation and resilience, as well as their applicability to different types of climate change impacts. The third paper serves as a method paper and discusses assessment methods and pathway to study organizational resilience. The key difficulties identified in this paper are the uncertainties about future climate change outcomes across temporal and spatial scales and a lack of insight into what leads to organizational resilience, or which variables should be measured in a given study. The fourth paper is an empirical study about the 2009 Victorian Bushfires. While individual extreme events cannot be directly linked to climate change impacts, this study highlights that part of the problem in drawing out the resilience of organizations to an unprecedented and ‘more-severe-than-expected’ extreme event is that a range of contingent variables across organizational and societal and ecological levels are potentially relevant. The last paper discusses the potential inability of organization to adjust to changes in climate and weather, and implications in terms of a necessity of a geographical shift of organizational and industrial activities. The thesis highlights gaps in our understanding of organizational challenges and suggests avenues for future research.

BACKGROUND: Organizations are not prepared for crisis and are vulnerable to disruptive changes. SMEs, and organizations in general, are key elements of our society and need to learn how to be resilient, in order to be sustainable. A case study was used to explore key organizational resilience factors to overcome a business crisis.OBJECTIVE: Explore through the theoretical lense of organizational resilience, how the studied SME was lead and organized during crisis towards a sustainable business outcome. With the aim to present learnings and recommendations for organizational resilience and sustainability.THE CASE: Business crisis, generated by a fire, consumed 90% of the production plant of an SME (Small and Medium-sized Enterprise) in Colombia. This SME (Susi Bakery) managed to recover completely from the crisis in 7 months. Different perspectives of the stakeholders across the bakery’s network were analyzed to understand the strategy of this SME, to overcome the crisis and be resilient.METHODS: Single case-exploratory case study, with in-depth semi-structured interviews to different stakeholders across the Bakery’s network. A theoretical framework in organizational resilience was built and used to answer the research questions: What are the factors that make the analyzed SME (Susi Bakery) a resilient organization? What moved key stakeholders towards engaging the recovery of the business crisis? The analysis of the collected data is based on phenomenography, since stakeholders present different subjective perceptions.THEORETICAL CONTRIBUTION: Organizational resilience’ theory explored through the case of an SME in Colombia.CONCLUSIONS: Resilience strengthens the capabilities to adapt and see disruptive changes as opportunities. Organizations can learn to be resilient through the development of resilient business models' and their enabling factors. Currently, 11 enabling factors for organizational resilience can be found in resilient business models theory: Adaptability and innovation, Motivation, Diversity, Collective efficacy, Effective communication, Loosening of control, Sustained relationships, Minimize layoffs, Financial slack, Competence and Acceptance. 3 Additional enabling factors were found in this case: Leadership, Reciprocity and Reputation. There is a research gap regarding the relations and causalities of the resilient enabling factors, and the relationship between organizational resilience and business crisis management.

Organizational Resilience is defined as the ability of an organization to anticipate sudden disruptions, effectively respond, and adapt in a changing environment to deliver its objectives, as well as successfully recover. In order to increase resilience at an organizational level, it is important to understand how individuals collectively contribute to resilience capability of an organization. Emergency Departments (EDs) are considered to be particularly well suited to investigating resilience capability due to their highly unpredictable and complex operating environment. Further, the resilience capability of EDs and their staff is suggested to be essential to successful delivery of safe, high-quality, and timely medical care to all patients in cases of mass disruptive events. The purpose of this research is to develop a model of staff resilience to support the improvement of organizational resilience in EDs in the United States. The study was organized into two phases: Initial Model Development based on a Thematic Analysis of existing conceptual models and Preliminary Model Validation via deductive evaluation of published Empirical Case Studies on ED response to mass casualty events. As a result of the first phase, Initial Model was proposed that consists of five dimensions of resilience: Triggers, Factors Affecting Resilience, Resilience Capability, Characteristics of ED Complexity and Outcomes. The results of the second phase determined that the Initial Model was comprehensive and only minor additions were made. Further, recommendations for improving case studies on ED responses were developed. The results of the study provide a model that demonstrates how ED staff supports the organizational resilience capability of the EDs. This research contributes to the general knowledge base of resilience as a critical organizational capability in EDs when dealing with unexpected disruptions as well as provides guidance for EDs in the United States when seeking to become more resilient.

Background and problem: Due to disruptions in the business environment, the importance of organizational resilience has become increasingly important. The availability of resources and the strategic management of these resources are important for maintaining organizational resilience. This study contributes to the literature by addressing the strategic management of organizational resilience in SMEs and how they maintain resilience, since the SMEs’perspective has not been adequately researched in prior literature. The study is also of practical importance given SMEs’ prominent contribution to the economy. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate how SMEs employ strategies to maintain organizational resilience, including how they deploy their resources and capabilities to maintain organizational resilience. To do this, disruptive events faced by SMEs are also explored. Method: The study adopts a qualitative multiple case study method. Primary data has been collected through interviews, with the chief executive officer of seven SMEs operating in Sweden. Conclusion: The empirical findings reveal strategies that SMEs adopt for maintaining organizational resilience. Categorizing these strategies into resource-based strategies and capability-based strategies reveals how SMEs, which are often limited in resources, focus on developing dynamic capabilities to maintain organizational resilience. The finding also shows that the strategies employed can be proactive and emergent, where these either work separately or combined in a process where proactive strategies can support the emergent strategies.

Resilience har över tid fått ökad uppmärksamhet då det i dagens samhälle är avgörande attkunna hantera tillfälliga störningar till följd av oväntade världshändelser. Studien syftar till attundersöka hur företag i praktiken definierar resilience samt vilka förutsättningar de har för attskapa resilience i sin verksamhet. Genom att göra en jämförelse av två företag som driverolika verksamheter, ett handelsföretag och ett industriföretag, ämnar studien att ökaförståelsen för hur företagets förutsättningar att hantera störningar skiljer sig åt. För attbesvara studiens frågeställning jämförs H&M:s och Volvos definition och förhållningssätt tillresilience samt hur de förberett sig och hanterat de störningar som haft påverkan på derasverksamheter under 2022. Studiens teoretiska referensram tar avstamp i forskningpresenterad av Buyl et al., (2022), Denyer (2017), Duchek (2019) samt Madani & Parast(2021) som betraktar resilience som en process. Därtill kompletteras den teoretiskareferensramen av forskning om organisatoriska egenskaper som påverkar resilience sompresenteras av Burnard et al. (2018). Det empiriska underlaget har samlats in via en kvalitativmetod (en dokumentstudie) och består av årsredovisningar och kvartalsrapporter somkompletteras av artiklar publicerade i Dagens industri. Studiens slutsats är att det undersöktaindustriföretaget har större utmaningar att skapa organisatorisk resilience än det undersöktahandelsföretaget. Detta då Volvo varit mer begränsat av störningar som inträffat och tvingatsanpassa sin verksamhet därefter medan H&M har kunnat agera med en större handlingsfrihetoch därtill infört åtgärder som på lång sikt kan förväntas bidra till företagets framgång.

Background: Challenging times have affected all economic sectors and every business environment. Hence the importance of developing resilience, particularly in startups that are young organizations characterized by dynamism and often lack resources. Knowledge is described in this paper as a crucial resource that, when accurately managed, can be determinant in the startup survival and constitute a critical differentiator and advantage. However, managing and exploiting internal knowledge might not be enough, thus the importance of institutionalizing organizational learning in exploring and further internalizing external knowledge sources. Fostering and strengthening organizational knowledge capability can positively influence the development of resilience in the organization. Research Problem: Previous research has focused on resilience from the individual perspective and has recently centered on the disruption caused by the Covid19 Pandemic. Further research should address resilience from the organizational perspective acknowledging the operational challenges faced in the particular business context of a startup. Moreover, previous research has established organizational learning as both an input and an output of organizational resilience, exhibiting the link between better resilience capacity and higher learning skills. However, further research is needed to correlate the organizational competencies that enable the company to anticipate future issues and their impact on the amount of resilience deployed. Research Purpose: This study aims at exploring how, through knowledge management practices and routines, knowledge as an essential resource can be internalized and utilized in developing a more resilient organization capable of foreseeing and reacting to future challenges. Research Question: How can knowledge management practices and routines be implemented to actively foster resilience? Research Method: Qualitative, retroductive research; Ontology and epistemology – Critical realism; Methodology – Single case study; Data collection - 9 semi-structured in-depth interviews; Sampling –Purposive and snowball sampling; Data analysis - empirical, retroduction, and corroboration. Conclusion: Deriving from our findings a model was developed addressing how organizational knowledge can be fostered through routines and practices to manage internal and external knowledge in developing knowledge capability and institutionalizing organizational learning. Furthermore, consideration was placed on the ability to foresee and react in a timely manner to current and future challenges that might be faced.

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.

Community resilience to disasters is an affected area’s ability to rebound after a catastrophic event. The mounting frequency and scale of natural disasters, increasing urbanization, a growing reliance on interdependent technologies and infrastructure systems, and inflated expectations of interventions are responsible for greater disaster vulnerability and demonstrate the need to develop more resilient communities. Given the increasing shocks of natural disasters, a more complete understanding of resilience is important for creating safer, more sustainable communities. One factor that is known to impact resilience is social networks. Urban planning research has shown that walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods can encourage the development of social networks and place attachment through an increase in interactions and a higher density of neighborhood amenities, including characteristics of the built environment that influence social networks, such as varied land uses and pedestrian-oriented design. The built environment connects residents to a place and can serve as a benchmark for recovery. Therefore, it is possible that the traditional planning domain of urban design can be harnessed to foster greater resilience by facilitating stronger social networks. In order to determine the legitimacy of this supposition, this research examines how social networks and the built environment create greater resilience to disasters. Given that social networks increase community resilience to all types of disasters, social networks are shown to be influenced by certain types of space, and the built environment is a common intervention for planners, this research explores the potential for creating cities that are more resilient by creating spaces that foster social networks. The Mississippi Gulf Coast was chosen as a case study area in order to explore the above relationships. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the region, resulting in massive wind and storm surge damage to the Mississippi Coast. Communities in the area have recovered at varying rates and levels. Therefore, this region provided an opportunity to contrast higher and lower resilience communities and to test the above research questions. The research was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, a quantitative model was developed in order to address whether there are statistically significant effects on resilience due to the built environment. In the second stage, a qualitative case study analysis of communities was undertaken using interviews with local residents. The results demonstrate that certain aspects of the built environment are associated with greater resilience, including intersection density, net residential density, the density of historic sites, and community amenities where social networks gather. Furthermore, urban design features with the greatest capacity to increase resilience were also useful features for the types of local social networks that were found to be most important for resilience.