Resilience: the concept, a literature review and future directions

Abstract

In an ever-more interconnected world (social, technological and environmental), no organisation can retain a competitive position and survive disruptions as an independent entity. This article provides a review of resilience literature in its widest context and later its application at an organisational level context. The origins of the concept are reported and consequently, the various fields of research are analysed. The concept is shown to remain essentially constant regardless of its field of enquiry and has much to inform the fields of organisation theory, strategy and operations management. This article identifies a number of areas for advancing resilience research, in particular: the relationship between human and organisational resilience; understanding interfaces between organisational and infrastructural resilience.

Keywords:

• resilience
• literature review
• risk
• uncertainty
• disaster preparedness
• business continuity