Organizational resilience and social-economic sustainability: COVID-19 perspective

Abstract

COVID-19 has affected the global economy like no other crisis in the history of mankind. It forced worldwide lockdown and economic shutdown to the point from where the recovery process has been very difficult. It has affected demand, supply, production and consumption in such a way that the entire economic development cycle has gone to its lowest levels. COVID-19 has also affected the social and economic sustainability structure which has led from one crisis to another and the developing countries have been the worst hit. Economic crisis resulted in unemployment leading to labour migrations, inevitable casualties and rising poverty etc. However, at a certain level, a few industries and organizations have shown resilience with better anticipation and survivability which may lead them to a quicker recovery. The current study aims at presenting a holistic view of organizational resilience which leads to the overall sustainable development. The study considers three aspects of organizational resilience as crisis anticipation, organizational robustness and recoverability. It assesses the impact of the aspects of resilience on social sustainability and economic sustainability. The study uses empirical analysis of primary data which is analysed to verify the hypothesized relationships by using a structural equation modelling approach. The study finds out that predicting the crisis and disruptions, building robustness and recoverability have a positive effect on both the social and economic aspects of sustainability. Findings of the study have their practical implications for industry, researchers and society.

Keywords: Crisis anticipation; Economic sustainability; Organizational robustness; Resilience; Social sustainability; Sustainability.

Fig. 1

Sustainability framework for resilience

Fig. 2

Hypothesized framework

Fig. 3

Sustainability—resilience matrix

Fig. 4

Sustainability—resilience framework