Enhancing organisational resilience: application of viable system model and MCDA in a small Hong Kong company

Abstract

The aim of this article is to combine the use of the viable system model (VSM) and a multi-criteria decision aid (MCDA) based on Superiority and Inferiority Ranking methodology for enhancing organisational resilience. VSM is applied to capture the cybernetic strengths and weaknesses of an organisation. The structural arrangements and cybernetic criteria, related to organisational resilience, are identified. In order to evaluate the structural arrangements, MCDA is adopted as a systematic approach for determining the most preferred option. A sample study of a small enterprise in Hong Kong is illustrated, in which the computation of the system-in-focus in the context of viability is based on a set of criteria related to corporate credibility and autonomy-control dilemma. The development of integrated approach using VSM and MCDA could, in the future, serve as a supporting decision-aid tool, which would be used to guide management in their choice of organisational resilience solution. The preliminary result shows that the proposed approach provides management with an objective and systematic means to make organisational resilience decisions by evaluating various structural arrangements of an organisation for achieving adaptation in a changing business environment. Besides, the MCDA approach can be used to enhance the value of VSM.

Keywords:

• organisational resilience
• viable system model
• multi-criteria decision analysis