Abstract:

This study investigates how firms construct organizational resilience amid prolonged environmental turbulence. While prior research often conceptualizes resilience as either a recovery outcome or a stable organizational attribute, less attention has been paid to how resilience is enacted through patterned strategic action over time. Addressing this gap, we examine how dynamic capabilities—sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring—are configured to sustain performance during sustained disruption. Drawing on a qualitative multi-case study of Taiwanese tourism and food service firms during the COVID-19 pandemic (2019–2021), we analyze strategic actions documented in annual reports and link them to financial performance trajectories. The findings show that resilience does not stem from isolated responses or singular capabilities. Instead, it emerges from coherent configurations of dynamic capability enactment. Firms demonstrating early issue recognition and prioritized stakeholder alignment—particularly with government actors—were better positioned to mobilize resources. Those that combined capability investment, operational renewal, and network recombination were more likely to stabilize performance under structural uncertainty. Importantly, the study identifies a reciprocal relationship between dynamic capabilities and resilience: sustained adaptive action strengthens resilience, which in turn enhances future capability development. Resilience, therefore, appears not as a static outcome but as an iterative and co-evolving process embedded in organizational routines. By specifying how dynamic capabilities materialize through action configurations in prolonged turbulence, this research contributes to resilience theory and advances understanding of strategic adaptation beyond episodic crisis response. The findings also offer practical insights for firms navigating systemic disruption, highlighting the importance of coordinated sensing, committed investment in resources, and structural reconfiguration.

Please choose your submission type: Full Paper

Primary Track: Strategy

Keywords: strategy;organizational strategy;resources and capabilities;dynamic capabilities;strategic partnerships and alliances

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Ms. Chia-Chi Chao