Moita Antecedents of Organizational Resilience in Economic Crises An Empirical Study of Swedish Textile and Clothing SMEs

Int. J.
Production Economics 147 (2014) 410428
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Int. J. Production Economics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijpe
Antecedents of organizational resilience in economic crisesan

empirical study of Swedish textile and clothing SMEs
Rudrajeet Pal a,b,n, Hkan Torstensson a,1, Heikki Mattila a,b,2
a
b
The Swedish School of Textiles, University of Bors, Bryggaregatan 17, SE-50190, Bors, Sweden
Department of Material Science, Tampere University of Technology, P.O. Box 589, FIN-33101, Tampere, Finland
art ic l e i nf o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 22 May 2012
Accepted 27 February 2013
Available online 15 March 2013
Economic recessions have created challenges for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and
contributed to disruptions requiring them to be resilient. At times of economic crises, SMEs face major
threats to their nancial performance and ultimately to their survival. The average number of Swedish
textile and clothing (T&C) rms that went bankrupt during the recent crisis (200709) escalated twofold
compared to the average over 200010. Following the 1990s economic crisis nearly 12 per cent of the
T&C companies went bankrupt in 199495. The structural industrial statistics also plummeted in these
crisis years, aggravating many internal problems in SMEs as a ripple effect.
This study concentrates on the constraints faced by Swedish textile-related SMEs, primarily during
the economic crises of the past two decades (199093 and end 200709), and identifying the
antecedents and their different degrees of inuence on economic resilience. It also deepens the
understanding of the underlying patterns in the antecedents, observed in SMEs, favouring or inhibiting
resilience due to their signicance or decit, respectively.
The paper adopts an exploratory research conducted in two phases, rst through a survey and
followed by a series of interviews, responded by eight Swedish T&C SMEs. Annual reports provide a
detailed account of the nancial performances of these rms. A conceptual resilience framework was
developed earlier, based on a review of extant literature.
Findings provide insight on how the responding rms considered resourcefulness, viz. cash ow and
investment nance, relational networks and material assets, along with dynamic competitiveness
through strategic and operational exibility to be key enablers of resilience and nancial performance,
mostly through generation of protability, cash ow/liquidity and sales turnover. Responses also
highlighted the indirect inuence of the soft learning and cultural aspects like attentive leadership
and collectiveness on economic resilience, considered tacit and ingrained in small or medium-sized
family businesses. Additional process initiatives, in particular growth and continuity strategies, were also
emergent patterns to properly utilize and direct the antecedents for resilience development. These are
benecial for rms to understand the key areas, in which to invest for developing resilient business
models.
& 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Resilience
Crisis
Small and medium-sized enterprise
SME
Textile and clothing
Sweden
1. Introduction
The recent economic recessions and global trade conditions
have created challenges for many Western economies and their
embedded industries, particularly to the small and medium-sized
enterprises3 (SMEs). According to Acs et al. (1990), SMEs are
n
Corresponding author at: The Swedish School of Textiles, University of Bors,
Bryggaregatan 17, SE-50190, Bors, Sweden. Tel.: 46 704 294 791;
fax: 46 33 435 40 09.
E-mail addresses: rudrajeet.pal@hb.se (R. Pal),
hakan.torstensson@hb.se (H. Torstensson), heikki.r.mattila@tut. (H. Mattila).
1
Fax: 46 33 435 4009.
2
Fax: 358 3 3115 2955.
3
The European Commission (2011) denition of SMEs is used as enterprises
with headcount lesser than 250 or turnover 50 million or balance sheet total
0925-5273/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2013.02.031
particularly vulnerable to failures in both continuous shifts and

unpredictable events. They are susceptible to nancial uctuations
(i.e. cash ow), legislation, supply network relationships (i.e.
power issues), changing customer requirements and demands
and even collapsing of national nancial systems (as it happened
recently in Greece) (Bhamra and Dani, 2011).
The Scandinavian market, however, has been somewhat stable
with stagnant growth rates though the main export market has
fallen during the recent global credit crunch since 200708 (Keay,
2012). There has not been any particular evidence showing the
effect has been more pronounced in case of the textile-related
(footnote continued)
43 million (http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/facts-gures-analysis/smedenition/index_en.htm, 14.02.2012).
R. Pal et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 147 (2014) 410428
411
Fig. 1. Bankruptcy statistics of Swedish textile and clothing rms (19932010).
sectors, but it is noticeable from Swedish central statistics that the

average number of Swedish textile and clothing (T&C) rms that
went bankrupt during the recent crisis (200709) escalated twofold, compared to the average over 200010 (cf. Fig. 1adapted
from SCB database statistics). The 1990s economic crisis was the
toughest in the Swedish context, with nearly 12 per cent of the
T&C rms going bankrupt in 199495. It was also evident that
most of these rms were small with less than 50 employees.4
The structural industrial statistics also plummeted in these
crisis years. For example, during the global credit crunch (2007
09) the textile and wearing apparel industries made massive losses
(from a prot of 419 mSEK in 2006 to losses of 387, 223 and 155
mSEK, respectively, 2007 onwards) (adapted from SCB database
statistics).5 Other indicators, like the net turnover and total assets,
also reduced by 19.4 per cent and 8 per cent, respectively, though
no substantial dip was observed in other structural indicators.
During the 199093 crisis the repercussion was worse as the total
operating revenues and value addition for the industries declined
by 24 per cent and 20.4 per cent, respectively, though it picked up
again in 1994 but did not reach the level before the crisis until
1997.5
It is thus evident that the Swedish textile-related SMEs faced
major threats to their nancial performance and ultimately to
their survival at times of economic crises, and thus economic
resilience has become a prerequisite to be fostered in such rms in
order to be successful.
In this context, the central objective of the paper is to identify
the nature of problems and constraints faced by Swedish textile
related SMEs, primarily during the economic crises of the past two
decades (mainly 199093 and end 200709) as well as the
antecedents and the differential degree of inuence they exhibit
on economic resilience. The study also deepens the understanding
of the underlying patterns favouring or inhibiting resilience in
such rms.
2. Framework for antecedents of SME resilience

Small- and medium-sized enterprises are highly vulnerable to
times of crisis, then being affected by the cascading and aggravating effects of several related problems and constraints, especially
4
Only 2 rms, with number of employees 450 were bankrupt in 1995 and
2008 and 1 each in 2000 and 2001.
5
Statistiska Centralbyrn (http://www.ssd.scb.se/databaser/makro/start.asp,
27.02.2012).
regarding nancial and human resources (Vargo and Seville, 2011).

As Thun et al. (2011) asserted, SMEs usually face conditions of
weaker cash ow and less equity reserves; they lack resources and
are overloaded with short-termism, thus, lack the necessary skills
to pursue long-term strategies to drive resilience (Ates and Bititci,
2011; Wesson and De Figueiredo, 2001). However, due to their
relative small size, they are exible, and as Salavou et al. (2004)
assert, market- and learning-oriented SMEs tend to be more
innovative and resilient. The relative strength of SMEs is argued
to be characterized by exibility, adaptability and innovation
(Vossen, 1998), instrumental in fostering resilience, although they
have varying resource constraints. Previous research has found
that SMEs generally lack resources and capabilities (Herbane,
2010; Vossen, 1998), hence attempt to build resilience through
strategic and operational readiness or rapidity (Ismail et al., 2006;
Shef, 2007; Sullivan-Taylor and Branicki, 2011), positive adjustments (Weick et al., 1999) or knowledge creation. Resilience of
SMEs requires knowledge retention through exible workforce,
strategic thinking, and top management support (Levy et al.,
2003), although it has been argued there that SMEs lack knowledge retention. However, SMEs need to improve both their access
to nance and their individual competitiveness for optimizing
their most common constraints, hence, balance their soft and hard
assets (Beer and Nohria, 2000; McElroy, 1996) to develop win-win
solutions (Gunasekaran et al., 2011).
The following section highlights three broad assets, in general
required by rms to bolster resilience. They are resourcefulness,
like nances, materials, people (social assets) etc., competitiveness
(exibility, networking, robustness and redundancy) and learning
and cultural aspects (cf. Fig. 2).
2.1. Resourcefulness and resilience
Resource constraint is considered to be a key inhibitor of SME
resilience, while its availability can be a potential enabler as well
(Sullivan-Taylor and Branicki, 2011). From this perspective, a
recent study described that SMEs mainly lack resources like
control, cash and compressed time to respond (Herbane, 2010).
Similarly, Vossen (1998) and Van Gils (2005) described SMEs to be
suffering from resource constraints predominantly material
(related to economies of scale and scope), nancial (cash ow
and investment nance) and technological resources, while
Ghobadian and Gallear (1997) highlighted how this leads to
success or failure of SMEs. Wesson and De Figueiredo (2001)
pointed at a similar lack of long-term resources in SMEs, as they
are overloaded with short-term cash and payment problems,
412
Fig. 2. Theoretical framework.
setting them apart from larger organizations. Another key aspect,

found in research, is the lack of external support and synergy
effects for SMEs, which is essential for increased competitiveness
(Fassoulsa, 2006; Ghobadian and Gallear, 1997). Moreover, SMEs
have started outsourcing and market diversication, which highlights the need to integrate more information technology and
information systems for signicant SME resilience.
Overall, in the present paper ve categories of resources
(material/systems, nance, social, network, and goodwill) are
highlighted, along the lines of Freeman (2004) emphasizing
resources as (i) wealth as cash and other assets, (ii) systems:
internal coordination, processes and technical expertise, (iii)
human resources: people with requisite skills, and (iv) network
connections and relationships with stakeholders; essential contributors to superior organizational performance, hence resilience.
These ve categories and their relationship to resilience development are briey described as follows:
a. Material resources and resilienceMaterial assets, like stock of
raw materials, work in progress or nished goods as inventory,
used strategically can help to overcome immediate problems of
disruption. Building-up such a system with safety stocks needs
organizational planning to attain internal efciency to cushion
every part of an organization (Shef, 2007).
b. Financial resources and resilienceMobility and deposits of the
nancial assets are other important resources to create a
critical asset stock (Gittell et al., 2006). A large capital base
acts as a buffer or shock absorber and prevents the impacts of
crisis, along with immediate access to adequate insurance
coverage.
c. Social resources and resilienceFreeman (2004) emphasized the
essence of human resources, or people with requisite skills, as a
critical contributor to superior organizational performance.
Teamwork and enhanced trust among the employees are
essential to distinguish organizations having the potential to
bounce back from plausible disruptions by their ability to
develop an internal risk management culture and collaborate
and communicate proactively (Shef, 2007).
d. Network
resources
and
resilienceCollaborative
interorganizational relationships (IORs) through mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances or outsourcing help to transfer and
exchange uniquely complementary sets of knowledge

resources and relationships (Leiblein, 2011; Lippman and
Rumelt, 2003), accounting for correct alignment of the organization, both along the value chain and to the environmental
conditions. This is indispensable in order to reduce and spread
risks and manage market turbulences through appropriate
strategies, enterprise culture and relationship (Shef, 2007).
Networked organizational structures offer greater agility and
adaptability by maintaining countless secured relationships
with quality stakeholders (suppliers, customers, nancers
etc.) thus intertwining integrally to organizational success
patterns (Leiblein, 2011; Starr et al., 2003). Such strategic
choices yield fullest utilization of slack resources, sharing of
risks and also provides nancial reserves and bargaining power
to rms for organizational growth (Li et al., 2011).
e. Intangible resources and resilienceBuilding a deep social fabric
of goodwill, inter-personal relationships and brand is also
evident to lay a foundation for developing contextual resilience
(Adler and Kwon, 2002; Lengnick-Hall and Beck, 2005) by
developing deep pockets of intangible resources acting as a
mask to temporarily protect the organization from tightlycoupled situations (Perrow, 1984).
A unifying resource-based view (RBV) framework justies how
an organization's competitive advantage can be achieved through
possession of various assets and resources (nancial, physical,
human, technological, organizational and reputational) (Grant,
1991a,b) for resilience development.
2.2. Dynamic competitiveness and resilience
Effective deployment of heterogeneous slack resources results
in development and reconguration of core competencies in rms
(Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000; Grant, 1991a,b; Prahalad and
Hamel, 1990), like long-term exibility, redundancy and robust
responses (Shef, 2007) fostering competitive advantages, and it is
instrumental in reducing or absorbing market turbulence
(Lengnick-Hall and Beck, 2005). Such dynamic capability development is important for response activation in crises, as proposed by
Burnard and Bhamra (2011) as a key determinant of organizational
exibility (Hatum and Pettigrew, 2006) or adaptive capacity
needed for developing resilience. Rice and Caniato (2003) stressed

the common approach of rms using reactive instruments, like
exibility and redundancy, to build resilient supply chains.
Here four categories are in focus, viz. (a) exibility,
(b) redundancy, (c) robustness, and (d) networking and their
relationship to resilience development, briey as follows:
a. Flexibility and resilienceIn case of SMEs, strategic exibility
appears to be, predominantly in the form of rapid decisionmaking, rapid and effective internal communications, capacity
for fast learning and the ability to quickly adapt routines and
strategies (Vossen, 1998). Such exible and adaptable behavioral characteristics prove to be key enablers of SME resilience.
In a similar study, rapidity in decision-making and interorganizational relationship emerged to be key enablers of
SME potential for timeliness and agility to demonstrate resilience capabilities (Sullivan-Taylor and Branicki, 2011). Such
exible and rapid decision-making criteria were also pointed
out by Vargo and Seville (2011) as a means to yield crisis
strategic readiness. On the other hand, Shef (2007), Shef and
Rice (2005) and Peck (2006) addressed the role of operational
and structural exibility in rms for building resilience, but
mostly in large rms. Resilience can be built in rms through
operational exibility, like by building inter-operable standardized materials and processes, effective lean management,
closeness of operations to demand via postponement, building
efciency through training programs, seamless integration of
processes, concurrent engineering techniques, shortened lead
times etc. (Peck, 2006; Shef, 2007). From the resilience
engineering perspective, exibility and agility emphasize the
ability of the system to respond to unexpected situations and
restructure rapidly by developing adaptive capacity (Hale and
Heijer, 2006; Westrum, 2006; Woods, 2006). However, in a
study by Thun et al. (2011), such preventive instruments (ontime delivery, strategic supplier development, improved tracking etc.) rendering operational exibility were found to be
minimal in case of SMEs, due to resource constraints.
b. Redundancy and resilienceAnother mechanism for achieving
resilience in rms is by building redundancy of resources, such
as unused capacity, multiple sourcing etc. (Shef and Rice,
2005). Shef (2007) and Shef and Rice (2005) have emphasized creation of redundancies for building resiliency, mostly in
case of large rms, though Thun et al. (2011) have shown how
small rms can also thrive on developing redundancy-based
reactive instruments for dealing with crises. However,
Dangayach and Deshmukh (2001) have shown how redundancy building can be an essential precursor for resilience
development in case of non-family rms, but not for small
family-owned ones as they are expected to have the disadvantages of inadequate technological capabilities, lack of nancial
strength and infrastructure. This highlights the trade-off in
balancing the cost of redundancy and generating long-term
economic benets as an antecedent of resilience (Linnenluecke
and Grifths, 2010).
c. Robustness and resilienceOrganizational robustness is another
imperative element to achieve resilience by resisting disruptions and building reliability (Mangan et al., 2008). Christopher
and Rutherford (2004) suggested that robust organizations
have a culture of quality awareness and lean thinking, while
Tang (2006) stated that they are effective in deploying contingency plans and resources when facing disruptions. This
enhances the organization's ability to develop internal quality
control on variability and lean processes, thus, adding a great
degree of resilience through stabilized processes, reduced
supply chain variability and low inventory levels (Christopher
and Rutherford, 2004). Total quality management (TQM)
413
suggests building of robustness through quality managed lean

processes and continuous improvements (CI) to control and
manage disruptions to a great extent, particularly researched in
case of large organizations (Dean, 2010). Ismail et al. (2011)
asserted that robustness is one of the key necessities to develop
SME operational agility, apart from responsiveness and proactiveness to develop consistent quality in products and processes. In SMEs' customized environment, this calls for implementation of quality management frameworks and models for
continuous improvement (CI), as proposed by Kumar et al.
(2011) and other related researches.
d. Networking and resilienceBuilding networks and knowledge
integration for considerable conceptual slackness in tightlycoupled situations assert the development of long-term resilience (Schulman, 1993). Such organizational networking and
connectivity not only reduce the risks of crises but at the same
time result in creation of deep interpersonal skills and relationships at the social level (Coutu, 2002). As highlighted by
Sullivan-Taylor and Branicki (2011), increased interorganizational relationships enable rapid implementation of
decisions in SMEs, develop supply dependencies and also
trusted relationship with nancial institutions. Similarly,
Demmer et al. (2011) also highlighted the need of executing
renewal in SMEs through incorporation of customers in value
chains, externalizing innovations through M&As, alliances etc.
for engendering resilience, as proposed by Reinmoeller and
Baardwijk (2005) for large rms. At the intra-organizational
level, this also adds to the possibilities of reducing silo
mentalities and complexities, leading to higher visibility and
trust (Ireland et al., 2002), within the organization.
2.3. Learning and culture and resilience

In an organizational setting, resilience merit is hinged to
various softer, less tangible aspects of an organization such as its
culture, leadership and vision (Seville et al., 2006). Resilience is
thus enhanced through development of specialized knowledge of
individuals and also collectively in an organization to respond
effectively to unfamiliar or challenging situations. Barton and
Christianson (2006) underline the need to learn more about these
organizational- and people-oriented soft processes to create resilience, while McElroy (1996) and Beer and Nohria (2000) mention
the role of soft aspects, viz. people, motivation, communication,
building coalition and training etc., to be pivotal in building
resilient rms through a change process. Some previous organizational learning theories, from various perspectives, articulate
common traits or behavioral patterns in organizations promulgating two central themes, viz. (i) collective awareness and learning,
and (ii) change of organizational structure in response to change in
environment (Appelbaum and Gallagher, 2000) (adaptation).
Senge (1990) and (Edmondson and Moingeon, 1998) have popularized this newly-conceived concept of organizations for adaptation to the changing environment. On the other hand, group/team
learning reveals equivalent dynamics for developing organizational motivation, efcacy and skills and degrees of positive
adjustment for mastering new situations (Sutcliffe and Vogus,
2003). This generates a sense of positive adaptation in the
organization (Bunderson and Sutcliffe, 2002; Edmondson, 1999).
Thus learning and cultural aspects, in general, play a pivotal
role in enabling organizational resilience, perhaps to a higher
degree in case of SMEs.
In the present study these aspects have been clustered into
three vital enablers, viz. (a) leadership and top management
decision-making, (b) collectiveness and sense-making, and
(c) employee wellbeing.
414
a. Leadership and top management decision-making and resilience

In a study, Vossen (1998) described small rms having
relative advantages (over large ones) in terms of rapid decision-making, capacity for fast learning and rapid internal
communications making them learning-oriented for enabling
resilience. Decision-making to a large extent in SMEs is
subjected to the role of a powerful and decisive CEO, supported
by a powerful top management team (Bourgeois and
Eisenhardt, 1988). Though crisis times can lead to organizational retrenchment and assertion of an authoritarian management style in SMEs, due to high proprietary rights of managerowners (Jones, 2003; Rainnie, 1989); entrepreneurial leadership through higher qualications and experience can, on the
other hand, instil adoption of more knowledge creation and
innovation in the rm (Jones and Crompton, 2009).In many
cases the effect of large-scale economic crises on SMEs can be
signicantly
diminished
through
resilient
leadership
(McManus et al., 2008; Mitroff et al., 1992; Penrose, 2000). In
several cases, such inspiring, yet realistic leadership, supported
by an able top management team, proves to be crucial in
corporate turnarounds after the crises (Seville et al., 2006).
b. Collectiveness and sense-making and resilienceLeadership during crises is much more than decision-making (Vargo and
Seville, 2011). It includes the assurance of optimism among
employees, setting out a clear sense of vision and also ascribing
sense-making (Weick et al., 1999) yielding collectiveness. Such
relevant mechanisms for promoting cognitive resilience
(Lengnick-Hall and Beck, 2005, 2009) at the organizational
level are argued to be accumulating knowledge, collective
efcacy and shared belief, essential for developing coordinative
and interactive dynamics (Bandura, 1998). Such strong collective identity leads to constructive organizational sense-making
(Weick, 1993, 1995), through positive perception of experiences, emotions, realism (Coutu, 2002) and tolerance, to steer
the organization through crises. Operationally, such learning
capabilities and mindfulness align the organization not only
structurally and strategically but also cognitively towards the
demands of the crises for building resilience (Weick and
Sutcliffe, 2007).
c. Employee wellbeing and resilienceRole of employee accountability and sense of ownership, along with continuous
improvement through knowledge sharing, learning and right
mind-set are essential for organizations to build resilience and,
hence, long-term performance (Keller and Price, 2011). In sum,
working together effectively across the company leads to a
sense of cognitive wellbeing through alignment of the organizational values, corporate culture, shared vision and responsibilities (ideational foundation) for promoting adaptive learning
capabilities (Boisot and Child, 1999; Chakravarthy, 1982).
However, contrary ndings are supported by some notable
researches like Gray (2002), Ates and Bititci (2011) etc., who
highlight that the SMEs are more likely to be owner-centric
(especially the family-owned ones), relying more on informal
routines and focus on day-to-day operations rather than on
long-term growth. This consequently gives evidence that SMEs
fail to embed changes into organizational culture for long-term
sustainability but rather emphasize on short-termism and reghting approaches (Ates and Bititci, 2011).
2.4. Framework diagram
Following the above discussion, based on extant literature on
SME resilience, the key antecedents or enablers of resilience have
been clustered as shown in Fig. 2.
The model has been in accordance to the general way to study

any complex phenomenon and its effects based on consciously
unraveling the antecedents and processes conceptualizing the
phenomenon; as proposed by Davidsson et al. (2007) in case of
studying small rm growths. In the present study, the antecedents
have been clustered into three broad categories viz. (a) assets and
resourcefulness, (b) dynamic capabilities, and (c) learning and
culture. However, an investigation of the process and pathway
adopted for building resilience is beyond the scope of the paper
and is left open for future research, even though they are in this
paper categorized as other process initiatives.
3. Methodology
3.1. Case selection and data collection
Case selection was via theoretical sampling (Flick, 2009; Glaser
and Strauss, 1967). Earlier in the project, annual reports (mainly
income statements and balance sheets) of 20 Swedish rms
(selected via theoretical sampling) were studied for twenty-one
years (19892010) to make their Z-score transition proles for
characterizing economic resilience in terms of business health
(cf. (Pal et al., 2011) for details). Data collection, in this study, was
done in two phases. In phase 1 a survey was conducted between
November 2011 and January 2012, where eight rms were
respondents among these twenty, qualifying them for next phase
of interview to get more in-depth knowledge on the issue. All the
rms were Swedish textile-related SMEs and family-owned
through most of the time in their history.
The survey questionnaire in phase 1 was based on a deductive
theoretical framework, as shown in Fig. 2. It was categorized into
four sections aimed at nding out the major challenges faced
during crises and to what extent the responding rms regarded
the inuence of the three major resilience antecedents (cf. Fig. 2)
to affect their economic resilience. The predominant nature of the
question was how do you relate the signicance or lack [] to the
economic transition prole []? The questionnaire was translated
from English to Swedish and then mailed to the companies for
higher comprehensibility. All the respondents were ownermanaging director of the rms. The survey was customized in a
way, as each of the companies was provided with a project
description and brief analysis and an explanation of its 20-year
Z-score transition prole. Following the survey, an acknowledgment and research ndings synopsis were e-mailed/mailed to
each of the respondents, and they were asked to participate in a
short face-to-face interview.
Each interview, of phase 2, lasted between 45 and 90 min and
with a combination of both focused and semi-structured form of
questions (Flick, 2009). The aim of the interview was to have a
clear understanding of the survey responses made in phase 1. For
this purpose all the companies were emailed a scanned copy of
their survey responses. Some of the interview questions were
aimed at identifying directly the reasons (emerged out of the
survey results) behind their Z-score transition prole and its
contributing ratios (focussed), while some were more open in
nature (semi-standardized). All the interviews were conducted in
English and at the respondents' premises.
3.2. Data analysis method
The data analysis followed thematic coding, as the procedure
was derived from the research question, and thus a dened
deductive framework (Flick, 2009). First, the survey results were
analyzed using descriptive statistical techniques suited to the
research objective (cf. Table 2). The closed nature of the survey
415
Table 1
Case companiesBusiness description, business health and economic resilience.
Case* Business type
Manufacturer of
safety and
occupational
footwear
Sewer of air-bag
fabrics
Women-wear
brand marketer
Designer and
Business Health in terms of Z-score

Notations: HHealthy, UUnhealthy, CCatastrophic
199093
200709
U
1.432.58 (unhealthy) between 198995, due to low liquidity
ratio, retained earnings and poor EBIT
Mostly H
No
3.033.06 (healthy) between 200708, due to
increasing solvency ratio
2.212.39 (unhealthy) between 200910, mainly due
to declining EBIT
Mostly H
Average 2.98 (healthy most years) between 199095 due
to consistent turnover and other Z-score components
Partly H
Healthy range of 2.983.42, except 2008 (2.08) due
to falling liquidity ratio and poor EBIT
Yes
Partly
Mostly H
Over 3 (healthy) due to increasing solvency ratio
(Most of the Z-score components were good)
No
Yes
manufacturer of
shirts and jackets
Textile

Manufacturer of
leather jackets
Weaver of
upholstery
fabrics
Manufacturer of
women
underwear
sales-turnover and poor protability and leverage ratios

Overall unhealthy (19892010)
1990 2007
93
09
Mostly H
Healthy range since 2003 (2.933.57), due to high No
capital-turnover and solvency, except 2009 (2.65)
due to lowered turnover and protability ratios and
reduced liquidity ratio
Mostly U
1.892.39 (unhealthy) between 200709 due to poor No
protability ratio and negative liquidity ratio
Mostly H
0.871.61(unhealthy/catastrophic) between 200710 No
due to negative EBIT, declining sales-turnover and
leverage ratio (retained earnings)
Fully U
2.142.63 (unhealthy and declining) between 2007 No
liquidity ratio and poor protability (Infact all the Z-score
10 due to poor EBIT, declining net sales (hence
components were poor)
turnover ratio) and declining solvency ratio
Recovery in 1993 (3.17) due to high net sales
0.641.01 (catastrophic) between 199092 due to negative

protability, solvency and leverage ratios

Fast recovery in 199495 owing to high sales (turnover
ratio) and solvency ratio (increase in equity)
1.512.07 (unhealthy) between 199095 due to declining

protability, leverage and solvency ratios and declining

liquidity ratio (declining working capital)
Recovery in 1995 (3.07) due to increasing turnover ratio
1.272.66 (unhealthy) between 199093 due to low

protability and leverage ratios

Gradual recovery since 1995 (2.97 owing to growing
turnover-ratio)
2.132.67 (unhealthy) between 199094 due to poor

upholstery
fabrics
2.162.56 (unhealthy) between 199094 due to poor

machinery
Clothing labels
and transfers
Printing
solutions
Weaver of
Economic
resilience
Mostly H
2.913.55 (healthy) between 200710 due to good
with poor protability and leverage ratios (except '92, '94)
solvency and turnover ratios
Unhealthy Z-scores owing to lower turnover ratio along
No
No
Yes
No
No
No
Yes
All cases are Swedish SMEs and family-owned for substantial time in their long history. All numbers denoted are Z-score values.
questionnaire allowed the respondents to answer either signicantly, moderately or poorly to each question. The scoring
system used in Table 2 along the three categories of resilience
antecedents was obtained by counting the frequency of response
options. The most frequent option is also marked with a (n) while
the last column indicates the frequency of total responses among
all the responding rms (cf. Table 2). This was followed by a short
description of each case in terms of their economic resilience
expressed by Altman's Z-score6 (cf. Table 1; for more details about
6
Altman's Z-score is generally used to predict bankruptcy potential by
categorizing business as safe, unsafe or distress to measure nancial success.
the coding see Pal et al. (2011). A deepening analysis is

provided through interpretation of the interviews having been
digitally recorded and transcribed. The coding paradigm suggested
by Strauss (1987), pp. 2728) was used as follows: rst, a
short description of each case was produced and modied along
the coding process, second, each of the cases was analyzed
individually and nally, a cross-case analysis was made to
(footnote continued)
It includes criteria of economic viability based on protability, solvency, liquidity,
leverage and activity. Thus it considers factors like working capital, total assets,
retained earnings, protability, net worth or shareholder's equity, total liabilities
and total sales.
416
Table 2
Case-based aggregate scoring.
Firms
responses
Case 1
Resourcefulness factors
200709
Signicantly
9*
a 4, b 2, c 2,
Moderately
Case 2
Case 3
Case 4
Case 5
Case 6
Case 7
Case 8
8*
6*
11*
46*
a 3, b 2, c 2,
a 2, b 2, c 1,
a 1, b 1, c 1,
b 2, d 1, e 1
a 3, b 3, c 2, d 2,
a 2, b 1, c 1
2a 2
11*
40
a 5, b 2, c 1, d 2,
b 3, d 2
e1
d1
e1
e1
8*
7*
a 2, c 1, d 2
a 4, b 1, c 1,
a 5, c 2
a 2, d 1
e1
d2
Poorly
199093
Signicantly
e1
a 1, b 1
a 4, b 1, e 1
a 3, b 1
a 2, b 1
a 2, b 1, d 1
a2
7*
b 2, e 1
a 3, c 2
b 2, e 1
a 1, b 2, c 1,
a 1, d 1
a 2, b 1, c 2, d 1,
8*
7*
7*
9*
a 5, c 2, d 1
b1
a 4, c 1, d 2
a 4, c 1, d 2
a 4, b 2, c 2,
8*
a 2, b 1
a 4, b 2, d 1,
a 3, b 1, c 1
a 2, b 1
25
14*
58*
a 4, b 1, d 1
a 7, b 3, c 2, d 1,
a 2, b 3, d 1
9*
a 2, b 1, d 1
a 1, b 1
d1
a 5, c 2, d 1,
e1
e1
Poorly
e1
e1
35
e1
Dynamic competitiveness factors

200709
Signicantly
7*
8*
f 3, g 1, h 1,
32
a 7, c 2, d 1, e 1
e1
Moderately
11*
8*
f 3, h 1, i 4
f 2, i 1
f3
f3
f 5, i 3
f 2, h 1, i 3
38
33
i2
Moderately
6*
8*
f 2, g 2, i 2
f1
f 2, g 1, i 2
f 1, g 1, h 1,
h 1, i 3
g1 i1
f 3, g 3, i 2
h1
6*
7*
13*
i2
f 1, g 3, h 0,
f 1, g 2, h 1,
f 1, g 2, i 2
f 2, g 3, i 2
g 2, h 1, i 1
i1
i2
1f 1
6
3f 3
6*
4f 3,
3
8*f 5,
2
f 2, g 1, i 3
f 1, g 1, h 1,
h 1, i 2
i3
Poorly
199093
Signicantly
Moderately
0
11*
7*f 2,
2
f 4, g 3, i 4
f2
h 1, i 4
i1
i3
41*
f 5, g 3, i 5
0
14*
0
6
23
50*
g 1, i 1
f 5, g 3, h 1, i 5
f 5, h 1
8*
i3
Poorly
7*
7*
f 1, h 1, i 1
f 1, g 3, i 1
f 2, g 2, h 1,
f 1, g 2, i 2
f 2, g 3, i 2
g 2, h 1, i 1
39
g 3, i 5
i2
Learning and cultural factors

200709
Signicantly
6*
j 3, k 1.5, l 1.5
Moderately
Poorly
199093
Signicantly
Moderately
Poorly
7*
9*
6*
8*
6*
j 2, k 3, l 2
j 5, k 3, l 1
j 3, k 2, l 1
k 1, l 1
j 4, k 2, l 2
j 3, k 2, l 1
4*
j 2, k 2
j3
l1
j 2, k 1, l 1
j 2, k 1, l 1
j 1, k 1
j 1, k 1, l 1
7*
6*
j 3, k 1, l 1
j 2, k 3, l 2
k 2, l 1
j 3, k 2, l 1
5*
6*
j 3, k 1, l 1
j2
j 4, k , l 1
j 2, k 1
j1
j1
*j 3, k 1
44*
0
0
j1
21
8*
6*
k1
j 4, k 2, l 2
j 3, k 2, l 1
5*
j 2, k 1, l 1
j 2, k 1, l 2
j 1, k 1
j 1, k 1, l 1
j1
4
j 3, k 1
10
*j 5, k 3, l 2
15
33*
28
*
j1
j 4, k 3, l 2
19
a Material/systems assets, b Financial assets, c Social assets, d Network assets, e Intangible assets, f Flexibility, g Redundancy, h Robustness, i Networking,
j collectiveness and sense-making, k employee wellbeing, l leadership and top-management decision-making.
n
Most frequent response.
identify and describe the emergent pattern in the antecedents and

how their inhibition or facilitation inuences economic resilience.
The validity and reliability of the present study is secured as
follows: (a) construct validityis demonstrated by the derivation of
a deductive resilience framework from extant literature review of
conceptual underpinnings, by the use of multiple sources of
evidence (surveys and interviews) for data triangulation and also
by reviewing the interview drafts along the thematic coding
procedure (Yin, 2009); (b) internal validityis also justied considering the pattern matching of general ndings from the survey
and the interviews according to the model to synthesize an
emergent pattern and also support rival explanations highlighting

the inuence of process initiatives and exogenous factors (Yin,
2009); (c) external validityis also expected to be consistent
considering the generalizability of the resilience framework for
application in case of any environmental turbulence and in any
time-spatiality (Yin, 2009) for most Swedish textile-related SMEs,
though this is beyond the scope of the present research; and
nally (d) reliabilityis moderate as by using the same framework
protocol authors reached at conicting revelations about the
inuence of learning and cultural aspects on SME resilience,
though the rest of the results were commensurable.
4. Case companiesbusiness type and economic resilience

Fig. 3 below shows the Z-score transition proles of all the
case companies over the studied period (19892010). The Z-score
transition prole of each case company is obtained by plotting its
Z-score values over the years 1989 to 2010, and classifying them as
either healthy, unhealthy or catastrophic.
Further interpretation of the Z-score transition proles in terms
of business health over the crisis periods, and hence their
economic resilience, has been enlisted in Table 1, along with the
business description of each case rm. For further details about
the methodology, see Pal et al. (2011).
417
were also considered to be moderately important in inuencing

economic performance during the crises.
Inter-rm differences in responses were noticeably observed as
rms 1, 2 and 6 mostly considered resources to be signicantly
important to inuence their economic resilience, particularly in
the recent crisis, while case company 8 was the only rm to reect
on poor correlation between resourcefulness and economic
resilience. The rest of the responding rms mostly revealed
moderate to strong relational evidence between the asset/resource
factors and their economic resilience. However in the 1990s crisis,
only case 6 revealed a strong inuence of resources on resilience
development (cf. Table 2).
5.2. Dynamic competitiveness factors and economic resilience
5. Findings
The results of survey questions, how the rms considered the
signicance or lack of resourcefulness, dynamic competitiveness
and learning and culture to be important in inuencing their
economic performances during crises are described below.
5.1. Resourcefulness factors and economic resilience
The responding rms considered reliable information support
along with innovative operations and technologies to be the most
essential factors among material/systems resources, affecting their
economic resilience prole during the recent credit crunch. Back
in 1990s crisis, innovation was considered to be an essential
precursor for yielding better economic performance, hence, resilience. The other material assets had moderate inuence in
effecting performance during the crises. However, nancial
resources, mainly in the form of cash ow and liquidity, along
with proper budgetary control and strong nancial reserves were
considered to be the most signicant factors to keep rms buoyant
amidst the recent global crisis, while proving to be moderately
inuential in the 1990s crisis. Brand reputation and goodwill with
the customers, suppliers and bankers were also considered inevitable factors inuencing sound business health in such periods.
Social resources (as employees) and relational networks and
partnerships with suppliers and other members in the value chain
The second antecedent of resilience is dynamic competitiveness categorized into long-term exibility (operational and strategic), redundancy, robust responses and networks along the value
chain. The responding rms considered these dynamic competitiveness aspects to be less inuential in affecting their economic
resilience during the two crises periods, except operational and
strategic exibilities, deemed to bear high degree of correlation for
bolstering resilience.
Flexible internal processes, and in particular exible decisionmaking and customer-centricity were adjudged to be strong
enablers of positive economic performance, hence, resilience in
the recent credit crunch. During the 1990s crisis, the responding
rms still considered market intelligence and customer centricity
to be strong enablers of resilient performances. However, redundancy in terms of parallel processes, multi-channel distributions
and alternate suppliers and strategies were deemed to be poorly
inuencing rms to combat economic disruptions (in both the
crises) and so were value chain networking and investments into
other supply chain members. Intra-organizational collaboration in
decision-making was, however, deemed to be moderately important in handling performance measures.
Inter-rm responses showed that most of the companies
exhibited poor to moderate relationships for redundancy and
robustness to foster economic resilience. Particularly case companies 3-5 and 8 considered dynamic competitiveness to be poor in
inuencing their economic resilience in both crises. However,
Fig. 3. Z-score transition proles (19892010).
418
companies 1, 2 and 6 rated it to be strongly to moderately

inuential in effecting their economic performances. It was
evident that the rms considered organizational exibility (both
operational and strategic) to be the only inuencing competitiveness factor enabling resilient performances in both crises, however, except rm 8 (cf. Table 2).
5.3. Learning and cultural factors and economic resilience

The third antecedent of resilience highlighted in the research
framework is broadly classied as learning and cultural factors
categorized into (i) collectiveness and sense-making, (ii) employee
wellbeing, and (iii) leadership and role of top management.
The responding rms considered valuable and attentive leadership, along with employee wellbeing through higher accountability and respect, to be the core of learning and culture, inuencing
healthy economic performances through resilience amidst crises.
Overall, collectiveness and organizational sense-making were
considered to have strong to moderate inuence on economic
resilience in the recent times, particularly group/team learning
and sense of purpose and trust (among employees). However,
these factors were not considered very inuential in supporting
resilience during the 1990s crisis, except trustworthiness of the
employees.
Inter-rm cases showed similar relationship between learning
and cultural factors and economic performances for most of the
companies. Particularly, case companies 2, 3 and 6 considered the
inuence of this aspect on economic resilience to be very high
during the recent crisis, while rms 1, 4 and 7 adjudged it to be
moderately inuencing the rms resilience development. Similarly, during the 1990s economic crisis companies 2, 4, 6 and
7 considered learning and cultural factors to be strongly to
moderately inuential in dealing with the crisis. On the other
hand, rm 8 consistently reported insignicance of this aspect as
an essential antecedent for fostering better economic performances, hence resilience in crisis times (cf. Table 2).
Cross-case analysis of the survey ndings (cf. Table 2) can be
assimilated as follows:
Resourcefulness was asserted to have a strong degree of
correlation with the Z-score transition prole inuencing economic resilience in the recent credit crunch, while having
moderate correlation in the 1990s crisis. Dynamic competitiveness of rms exhibited a moderate to poor correlation with the
Z-score transition prole, thus proving to offer a lesser degree of
causation in bolstering economic resilience. Learning and cultural
factors exhibited a signicantly strong correlation with the Zscore transition prole of the studied rms amid the economic
crisis of 200709 but a moderate degree of correlation in the
1990s crisis.
Table 3 is an outcome of the analyses of Table 2, asserting the
differential degree of inuence by the antecedents the rms
considered in bolstering their economic resilience, and Table 1,
identifying the business health of the rms in terms of their
Z-score transition proles during the crises.
For example, case rm 1 considered all its antecedents to have
signicant correlation in affecting its poor economic resilience
amidst the recent crisis (200709), thus, suggesting lack of these
antecedents. While in the 1990s crisis, the rm's lack of economic
resilience could be attributed moderately to the lack of these
antecedents, signifying the effect of other factors as well. While for
case rm 6, its poor economic resilience amidst both the crises
was signicantly correlated to all the antecedents, thus signifying
considerable lack of these factors. The case-wise relationship that
emerged out in the study was as follows:
To have a deepened understanding of these antecedents
favouring or inhibiting resilience development in Swedish
textile-related SMEs, rst a case-wise and then a cross-case
analysis was made of the interviews. Results of the interviews
are reported in appendices 1 and 2 and favor understanding of the
antecedents, the signicance or lack of which subsequently
bolstered or inhibited economic resilience.
5.4. Interview ndings and Z-score transition prole analysis

Along the process of nding out the emergent pattern among
the antecedents facilitating or inhibiting economic resilience
development, authors have related the interview ndings (cf.
Appendices 1 and 2) to rms' Z-score transition performance.
Firm 1's lack of resilience arose out of cash ow problems and
loss of investments along with effects of currency devaluation
resulting in lower liquidity, leverage and protability ratios,
amidst 1990s crisis. Firm 3's lack of resilience was an outcome of
Table 3
Identifying the degree of relation between economic resilience and its enablers.
Resourcefulness (R)
Case 1
Case 2
Case 3
Case 4
Case 5
Case 6
Case 7
Case 8
Learning and Culture (LC)
Dynamic Competitiveness (DC)
200709
199093
200709
199093
200709
199093
()
R-Res
()
R-~Res
()
R- Res
(-)
R- Res
(-)
R-Res
()
R-Res
(-)
R-Res
()
R- Res
(-)
R-Res
(-)
R- Res
(-)
R-Res
(-)
R-Res
(-)
R-Res
()
R-Res
(-)
R-Res
()
R-Res
()
LC-Res
()
LC-~Res
()
LC- Res
()
LC- Res
(-)
LC-Res
()
LC-Res
()
LC-Res
()
LC- Res
(-)
LC-Res
()
LC- Res
(-)
LC-Res
()
LC-Res
(-)
LC-Res
()
LC-Res
()
LC-Res
()
LC-Res
()
DC-Res
()
DC-~Res
()
DC- Res
(-)
DC- Res
()
DC-Res
()
DC-Res
()
DC-Res
()
DC- Res
(-)
DC-Res
()
DC- Res
()
DC-Res
()
DC-Res
()
DC-Res
()
DC-Res
(-)
DC-Res
()
DC-Res
Symbols in parentheses () represent degree of correlation.

: Signicant/High correlation, -: Moderate correlation, : Low/Poor correlation.
Symbol in front of Res represent resilience of the rm in terms of Z-score transition prole analysis, cf. (Pal et al., 2011).
: Signicant/High, ~: Moderate, : Low/Poor.
lack of nance and cash ow along with lower manufacturing and

decision-making exibilities resulting primarily in volume and
margin ramp down, forcing a dip in the protability and leverage
ratios as well. Lack of proper market penetration and marketing
strategies further aggravated the sales decrease. For rm 4,
however, the lack of economic resilience was considerably due
to lowering of most of the Z-score components owing to cash ow
and investment problems in the 1990s. Firm 5 showed constrained
cash liquidity and lack of proper networking followed by lack of
proper growth strategies which led to lower protability, solvency
and leverage ratios while for rm 6 the declining turnover,
protability and leverage ratios could mostly be attributed to
problems in setting up good relational networks with suppliers,
banks and customers. Lack of operational exibility and structural
changes inherent to the leather goods industry were also critical
reasons behind rm 6's poor Z-score components. On the other
hand, factors critical to lack of resilience in rm 7 was losing of
orders due to price competition, incorrect product positioning and
production knowledge, hence, driving down most of the Z-score
components while for rm 8 the poor protability and leverage
ratios were considerably due to increase in costs of production,
lack of production exibility and other strategic initiatives like lack
of market development and penetration. The only rm (rm 2)
which showed economic resilience in the 1990s crisis maintained
a stable nancial situation and exible production and decisionmaking to redene its business model, resulting in a secured and
healthy Z-score.
Amidst the recent global credit crunch, rm 1 showed poor
protability ratio due to poor sales and lack of nance and asset
management along with lack of exibility in operations resulting in
high nished goods stock. However, rms 24 and 8 mainly showed
high solvency ratio and capital-turnover due to good nancial
reserves, good relational networks with suppliers, customer base
and banks along with optimum exibility to keep on making prots
amidst recessionary trends. These rms also followed right market
and product related growth initiatives for optimum diversication
and consolidation. However, rms 57s' poor Z-score components
(mainly poor protability and sales-turnover ratios) were considerably because of similar reasons as prominent in the 1990s viz. lack
of nance and cash ow, lack of relational networks and lack of
exibility at all levels. Lack of fast decision-making for adjusting to
the recessionary trends along with the ability to reduce stocks
resulted in huge losses during the crisis. These rms also lacked a
proper product portfolio development and growth strategy
initiatives.
6. Discussion: explanation of evident patterns

Several key patterns are emergent through the data analysis
following the survey and detailed interviews. Within the organizational resilience framework prescribed here, the key enablers or
antecedents have been identied that were considered essential
by the owner-managers of the SMEs in bolstering resilience in
crises. Table 4, herein, simplies these patterns, observed and
analyzed through the matching of the theoretical frame and the
interview empirics, in generating proper explanation to the
correlation outcome of the survey.
6.1. Financial resources: cash ow and investment nance
Cash ow in rms emerged to be of signicant inuence, as
purported by the owner-managers, along with investment nance,
in facilitating or inhibiting resilience at crises in some way or the
other, as also highlighted by Vossen (1998) and Van Gils (2005).
Cash ow constraint arising out of too much borrowing of
foreign currency during the 1990s, followed by the sudden
Swedish currency devaluation in 1992, affected the liquidity ratios
(in rms 1 and 5), while rising costs of production and overheads
also affected cash reserves in many ways (in rm 8). A decrease in
sales turnover due to volume and margin ramp-down and a
decrease in customer base and low price competition in the
1990s also inhibited rms' cash ow affecting the leverage ratios
(in rms 3, 6 and 7). Cash ow problems due to a sudden shift
Table 4
Pattern recognition from case study observations.
Resilience
Firms
Inference/Reasons*
Resourcefulness (R)
200709
,
199093
,
24
1, 6
8
5, 7
17 except 2
8
2
Considerable cash ow, investment nance, relational networks and asset management
Lack of cash ow and investment nance, workforce lay-off
Insignicant contribution (except good bank relationships)
Moderate inuence of lack of relational networks with suppliers and nancing
Lack of cash ow and investment nance
Insignicant contribution (except lack of nancial reserve)
Other predominant antecedents
Learning and Culture (LC)

200709
,
, 199093
,
24
8
1, 57
17 except 2
2
8
Good leadership, employee collectiveness (except in 2)

Insignicant contribution
Lack of sufcient evidence (except lack of formal leadership observed in 5 and 7)
Lack of sufcient evidence (except lack of leadership and employee collectiveness in 3, 5, 7)
Lack of evidence
2, 4
1, 67
3, 8
5
1, 67
35, 8
2
Signicant strategic and operational exibilities

Lack of strategic and operational exibilities
Insignicant contribution (except operational exibility in 8)
Mainly lack of strategic and operational exibilities
Insignicant contribution (except lack of strategic exibility)
Considerable strategic and operational exibilities
Relation
Dynamic Competitiveness (DC)

200709
-,
,
199093
,
Relations: : Signicant/High correlation, -: Moderate correlation, : Low/Poor correlation.

Resilience: : Signicant/High, -: Moderate, : Low/Poor.
n
cf. Appendix 1 and 2 for details.
419
420
from supplier's credit to cash payment scheme (in rm 6) or

sudden postponement of installation orders from customers (in
rm 4) were among other reasons.
Along with this, mostly an investment nance constraint is
evident in rms, due to wrong business ventures, bankruptcies of
group subsidiaries or newly made investments in acquisitions and
new product development (NPD), thus limiting their nancial
reserve during quick crisis recovery (evident in rms 1 and 4 as
they suffered from considerable losses in the 1990s crisis, thus
showing decrease in leverage ratios as the crisis recovery process
was nanced by utilizing retained earnings). Such investment
nance problems are aggravated by lack of proper credit support
from banks as highlighted by Sullivan-Taylor and Branicki (2011)
(evident in rms 5 and 6), while good bank support may lead to
better liquidity and leverage ratios (evident in rms 2, 3, 4 and 8).
6.2. Relational networks
Freeman (2004) analyzed how close relationships in working
with the suppliers, customers and marketing partners to get more
order volumes were essential antecedents of resilience development. Such a pattern was observable amidst the recent credit
crunch as key antecedents of resilience development (in rms
3 and 4), contributing to the development of capital-turnover ratio.
On the other hand, lack of external support seems a potential
resilience inhibitor, particularly for SMEs (Fassoulsa, 2006). This
considerably increases the supply chain vulnerability during crisis
(as observed in rms 3, 5 and 6 during the 1990s crisis, as they faced
a lot of problems owing to their diminishing supplier and customer
base). The analysis emphasized several factors contributing to the
shrinking supply and customer relational networks of SMEs, as
highlighted by the owner-managers, like consolidation of suppliers
into few large ones, lack of alternate high-quality suppliers,
restricted customer base due to low-price competition etc.
6.3. Material assets
Current asset problems, aggravated by price hikes along with
huge stock lots, due to a sudden decrease in orders, are common
during crisis. Such constraints were evident during the recent
credit crunch (in rms 1, 5, 6 and 7), in terms of excess raw
material stocks or sometimes shortage of supply or huge storage of
nished goods. They were considered to be potential inhibitors of
resilience development, as it compelled the rms to depreciate
their stock values and think of consolidated internal restructuring
for higher efciency planning. This considerably affects the protability, sales-turnover and leverage ratios.
6.4. Strategic exibility
Strategic exibility in terms of decision-making is a critical
aspect in small rms (Vargo and Seville, 2011). Such exible
strategic planning lay in devising rolling long-term plans to
maintain necessary readiness even during crises and supported
by oligarchic decision-making, unlike most family rms run
through monocratic leadership (Gunasekaran et al., 2011) (evident
in rm 4). Such strategic exibilities are also essential to devise
changes in organizational design/business model by delocalizing
production completely or shifting product core from fashion
clothing to industrial products etc. (as was evident in rm 2 soon
after the 1990s crisis). Vargo and Seville (2011) also highlighted
how the lack of a proper crisis strategic planning, mainly due to
slack resource constraints, was also deemed to be a key inhibitor
to resilient functioning in small rms (evident in rms 5, 6 and 8).
Overall, strategic exibility can be critical for growth aspects in
rms related to capital-turnover increase.
6.5. Operational exibility

Even though Shef (2007) and other authors have emphasized
the role of operational and structural exibility only in case of
large rms for building resilience, it seemed to be quite an
emergent resilience building theme in SMEs as well. The recent
study highlighted the role of structural exibility in determining
the make-buy decisions in case of small manufacturing rms
(evident in rms 2, 4 and 8) for contributing considerably towards
resilience development by increasing protability and cash ow.
Such control over one's own manufacturing pipeline results in
lower lead-time and inventory management advantages as well.
However, lower exibility in inventory management by handling
raw materials or nished goods inventory (evident in rms 1 and
6), lower exibility in manufacturing or make-buy decisions
(evident in rms 3 and 8 in the 1990s crisis) also resulted in a
lack of resilience by affecting protability and liquidity, in line with
Thun et al. (2011) highlighting the lack of preventive instruments
in SMEs in tackling supply chain risks.
6.6. Continuous improvements
Quality issues maintained through continuous improvement
were a key antecedent to resilience (in rm 2) to cater to the
requirements of its large automotive sector customers. The
responding rm applied efcient small batch manufacturing to
improve the production efciency, reduce lead times and be
sufciently lean, thus enhance operational agility, also highlighted
by Ismail et al. (2011) and Kumar et al. (2011) as a necessity to
maintain quality criteria for resilience development in case
of SMEs.
6.7. Learning and cultural aspects
The survey emphasized a strong degree of correlation for this
soft antecedent in bolstering resilience, as also shown by Vargo
and Seville (2011). Even though a majority of the owner-managers,
when questioned for this study, accepted such strong relationships, they could not justify how it could inhibit or facilitate
resilience in economic crises. This vacuum and non-specicity in
justifying the strong inuence to empirically support the extant
research can be attributed to some reasons. Firstly, the ownermanagers considered employee collectiveness, know-how and
well-being to be very much ingrained or obvious in case of small
rms, as also found by Acquaah et al. (2011). So whether in crisis
periods or not, these soft values are considerably high in small
rms and do not directly facilitate economic resilience development, unlike in large organizations. A complementary consideration is the degree of informality existing in small rms' visions and
knowledge, which tends to make these learning and cultural
aspects very tacit (Ates and Bititci, 2011). Secondly, such soft
aspects do not facilitate economic resilience directly. Moreover,
authors perceive such learning or cultural aspects to be long-term
in augmenting rm performance and not crisis dependent, where
small rms mostly rely on short-termism. However, some of the
respondent rms (3, 5 and 7) considered lack of cross-functional
training for developing working teams, silo organizational structure, and lack of formal education to be inhibiting resilience
development during the crisis of the 90s. The role of leadership
and management decision-making were inuential factors in
facilitating resilience during the recent crunch (evident in rms
3 and 4), in line with ndings by McManus et al. (2008) and Seville
et al. (2006) Firms like those could break-away from the command and control culture (Ates and Bititci, 2011) generally
prevalent in small family rms, and became more entrepreneurial
and open, and showed better economic resilience.
6.8. Additional factors engendering resilience

The research also surfaced out a set of factors not considered
in the initial survey as antecedent to resilience development. In
fact these factors cannot be clustered as contents enabling
resilience but as the process of deploying these contents/antecedents for developing a constant growth/business continuity
initiative in the rms. These factors or processes (growth process)
are indicated to be strategic and operational initiatives (Ismail
et al., 2011) of a rm in effectively deploying their antecedents, as
also prescribed by Penrose (1959) and Davidsson et al. (2007).
This answers more towards how resilience is developed
(through strategic and operational process initiatives) rather
than what is essential for it (antecedents). This conforms to the
requirement of developing rm initiatives for organic growth
(along the Ansoff matrix: market penetration, market development, extending process capability, or market diversication
(Ansoff, 1957)) or inorganic growth (through merger and acquisitions (M&A) or take-overs) or simply survival in crises (business
continuity planning).
In reality the responding rms did not consider having
contingency planning in their rms, as it deviates the rm's
limited resources and assets. Lack of a proper product portfolio
structuring seemed to be a common problem in small rms,
aggravated in the crises when sales-turnover and customer base
decrease, resulting in improper market penetration or product/
capability development strategies (evident in rms 1, 3, 6, 7 and
8 during the 1990s and in rms 5 and 6 during the recent credit
crunch). Most of the owner-managers responded saying, lack of
proper positioning along the product pyramid and low-price
competitions to be the key reasons for this. Firms (2, 3 and 4)
able to diversify into new product segments/labels and achieve
cost effectiveness through right make-buy trade-off dealt with
the crisis better.
Market development and diversication strategies through
innovative product launches and additional sales channels to enter
new markets or customer base (evident in rms 2, 3 and 4 in the
recent crisis) are also critical contributors towards economic
resilience.
M&As were indicated by Penrose (1959) to be less observable in
case of small rms owing to their resource constraint, though
volume growth for high-growth rms does lead to such growth
modes as well. Such trends were noticeable in most of the studied
manufacturing rms (1, 2, 3, 4 and 8) through delocalization of
production to be more cost-effective, though rm 1 could not
capitalize on its venture due to some exogenous reasons.
Finally, exogenous factors like foreign exchange uctuation
and low-price competition also emerged as predominant macroinhibitors of resilience development in the recent credit crunch,
while SEK devaluation and change in basic textile industry
structure from make-to-buy were more deliberating factors in
the 1990s crisis.
7. Conclusion: implications and further research

A major conclusion that emanates from this research is how
rms can develop their resilience potential by tuning their
strategic assets and capabilities (available antecedents of resilience). For the Swedish SMEs the key among them are: (a)
investment nance and cash ow, (b) material assets and networking, (c) strategic and operational exibility, and (d) attentive
leadership.
These evident patterns are revealed through the discussion
above. Financial reserves and their mobility enhanced investment opportunities for the resilient responding rms through
421
sufcient growth perspectives (along product and market

developments), while rms that showed nancial constraints
succumbed to the crises effects, showing bad nancial performance. This is supported by close relationships in the value
chain for the resilient responding rms to continue getting
considerable order bookings from the customers and for price
negotiations with suppliers. Such protable inter-organizational
relationships (IOR) also ensured easy access to raw material
assets at competitive price, as discussed above. Next, exibility
in strategic decision-making was evident in resilient rms for
proper crisis strategic planning, complemented by exibility in
manufacturing and distribution to get cost and lead time
advantages over competitors. For the manufacturing rms,
economic resilience through production effectiveness also
demanded proper execution of lean management and continuous improvement (CI) approaches. Overall, the resilient
respondents were able to efciently utilize their slack nancial
and material assets through better relational networking,
higher exibility and continuous improvement (CI) to develop
resilient economic performance in crises, steered attentively
through realistic leadership and decision-making.
Practical implications of the research ndings to the business
practitioners are manifold. First, Swedish textile SMEs can have an
understanding of the underlying factors/antecedents and their
differential effects, bolstering resilience for successful performance
amidst crises. Particularly this unfolds great possibility for rms to
devise resilient solutions based on their nancial and material
asset availability, enhanced by higher exibility, continuous
improvement in efciency and networking by developing IORs,
for dealing with future economic crises, like the double-dip
recession or Euro-zone crisis.
Second, rms can have a clearer understanding of where and
how to invest to develop their unique response repertoire in crisis
periods, essential for building strategic readiness, and utilize the
slack resources for resilience building (Ismail et al., 2011). This can
eventually have a strong impact on a rm's resilience by addressing a range of crisis-related problems.
From the academic perspective, rst, there is little empirical
research investigating the different effects of various organizational capabilities, unifying resource-based view, dynamic capabilities and organizational learning to explore their relationship
in crisis situations to support resilience development. This paper
conceptualizes such a framework for validation. Furthermore, it
investigates empirically, in the context of global economic crises,
how resilience development is favoured or inhibited by the
signicance or lack of antecedents, respectively.
However, considering the diversity and inherent complexity in
the topic of resilience for success/survival of rms there are some
limitations of the present study mainly related to: (a) its narrow
economic crisis context for Swedish textile SMEs i.e. lesser
possibility of generalizability over diverse environmental turbulences, as the study was conned to a homogeneous environmental context (two economic crises) for a particular sector
(textile and related) and location (Sweden), (b) that the study
mainly highlights the effects of the internal building blocks of
resilience of a rm, while the external inhibitors or facilitators like
globalization or industrial changes and policies are not detailed
separately in the survey part, (c) that the study does not capture
the interactive (or moderated) effects of each antecedent on
economic resilience of the rms, in orchestration with other
antecedents as control variables; (d) that the study only highlights
the contents of building resilience rather than the strategic
process of growth or continuity to achieve it. However, the
theoretical framework of the paper is universal for testing and
application in case of any type of environmental turbulence and in
any time-spatiality.
422
Table A1
Emergent pattern in the key antecedents during 1990s crisis.
Antecedents
Case 1
Lacked economic
resilience
Case 2
Showed some economic
resilience through
W-shaped recovery
Other process initiatives
Inhibitors
Resource and asset problems
Escalation of foreign currency loan
amount incurred for infrastructural
and capacity development due to
SEK devaluationa
Heavy loss incurred in the potential
recovery years following crisis (due
to investments in a sister concern)c
Lack of ability to hold back declining capacity of
Facilitators
Resource and asset
Stable nancial situation of the
family owing to considerable
retained earningsa
Competitiveness
Flexible production and logistics
with near-by manufacturing in
Sweden, Finland and Portugalg
Flexible decision-making related to
the need to change the business
model and organizational designf
Knowledge of their core assets and strengths in
Exogenous factors
SEK devaluationo
volume and market share due to higher price

pressure due to delocalization of production and
entry of foreign competitors
Lack of dened growth strategies and
adjustments in product pyramidl(i, ii)
production to redene business model and

organizational design by delocalizing production
and shifting product core from fashion clothing to
industrial product
Declining customer base and low-price
SEK devaluationo (in September 1992)
competition requiring more stringent market

penetration strategiesl(i)
Case 3
Lacked economic
resilience
Inhibitors
Reduced nancial leverage due to
volume and margin ramp-downb
Reduced number of suppliersd
Learning and culture problems
Lack of cross-functional structure,
hence exible manufacturingg,j,k
Lack of long-term shared vision of
the employees instigating more
self-centred silo structure and
mentalityk
Competitiveness problems
Challenging strategic decisionmaking owing to both volume and
margin related problemsf
Case 4
Lacked economic
resilience
Inhibitors
Heavy investment incurred in
developing new product (in 199192) reducing cash owc
Bankruptcy of the packaging
division of one of the group's
subsidiaryc
Fairly new acquisition of business
subsidiaries increasing liabilities
without reaping prots initiallyc
Case 5
Lacked economic
resilience
Inhibitors
Constrained cash liquidity due to
too much borrowing of foreign
exchangea
Diminishing number of yarn
suppliers in the European marketd
Lack of bank supportd
Lack of experienced and attentive
leadership in the crisis time
considering the change into new
ownership since 1990i
Lack of cross-functional training for
developing working teams and
employeesj,k
Lacking market penetrationl(i) strategy owing to

stringent low-price competition owing to

outsourcing trends
Lack of marketing skills
Incredible hike in wages and production

cost forcing outsourcing of productionm
Devaluation of currency (SEK)o
Devaluation of the Swedish currencyo

Collapse of Soviet Union, the company's
biggest marketn
Lack of dened growth strategies in the rm's

developmental stage under new ownership
surplused by crisis effects
SEK devaluationo considered to be most

inuential in driving the prots and

leverage down
Market problems resulting in loss of big
customers and order-volumen
423
Table A1 (continued )
Antecedents
Exogenous factors
Lack of contingency plansf
Case 6
Lacked economic
resilience
Inhibitors
Relational problems with banks for
nancingd
Losing order volumeb
High raw material stockse
Lack of partnerships and supplier
problemsd
Lack of dened growth strategies in terms of

product portfoliol(i, ii) or market diversicationl(iv)

Organizational inertia resulting in a order
volume-asset stock mismatch
Change in retail structure (closure of
special leather retailers) for Swedish

leather sector due to start of anti-fur
campaigns and high costsm
Loss of market in Russia which was more
than 50% earliern
Problems in dealing with raw
material stocks due to lack of
exibility in operationg
Customers order-volume
depreciation affecting salesturnoverb
Declining number of customers and
suppliersd
Case 7
Lacked economic
resilience
Inhibitors
Losing order volumeb
Loss of big customers in the home
textile sector due to low-price
competitiond
Lack of high-design prole in the
organizatione
Lack of formal production related
educationj,k
Lack of growth strategies along marketsl(iii, iv)
Case 8
Lacked economic
resilience
Inhibitors
High overhead and xed cost of
productiona
Lack of production exibility due to
own manufacturing and increasing
cost structureg
Lack of alternate crisis strategiesf
Lack of market developmentl(ii) resulting in
and product portfoliol(i,
ii)
Low-price competitionm
shrinking customer base due to their shift from

private label model to own label model
Increased cost structure lacking market
penetration strategiesl(i)
Financial reserve/Cash ow.

Sales decrease.
Loss in investment.
d
Networking with bank, suppliers, customers and other value chain members.
e
Material assets (FGI, raw material etc.), social assets (employees etc.), intangible assets (brand image).
f
Strategic exibility as quick, effective decision-making, contingency planning etc.
g
Operational exibility (in logistics etc.) and structural exibility (make-buy decisions).hRobustness: quality development and improvement.
i
Leadership and top management role.
j
Employee well-being.
k
Collectiveness in organization.
l
Ansoff's growth strategy.
i. Market penetration
ii. Market development
iii. Product development
iv. Diversication.
b
c
m
n
o
Change in industry structure.

Market problems.
Problem related to currency devaluation, exchange rates etc.
Thus certain future research directions are left open. This can be
related to either understanding the process of utilizing the available
antecedents along a process of generating rms' crisis response
repertoire, following pattern identication along the strategic and
operational modes executed by rms, or it can be quantitative works
related to investigation of combined effects of the antecedents in
enabling resilience, or a comparative evaluation of resilience antecedents and their different effects for large corporations and SMEs.
Appendix A
See Table A1.
Appendix B
See Table B1.
424
Table B1
Emergent pattern in the key antecedents during 200709 crisis.
Antecedents
Case 1
Lacked economic
resilience
Inhibitors
Cash ow problema with lesser bank
nancingd
Increased nished stock for capacity
running and wage payment forcing to
compromise through workforce lay-offe
Occasional raw material supply
uctuationse
Lack of operational exibility owing to
delocalized production and high FGI
stockg
Case 2
Facilitators
Resource and asset
Showed some
economic
Good nancial reservea
resilience through
No problem in nancing initial project
V-shaped recovery
start-ups through bank loansa,d
Increased nished stock for capacitye
Competitiveness
Continuous improvements (CI) in
production efciency with more efcient
small batch manufacturingh
Long-term decision-makingf
Exogenous factors
Lack of restructuring of product pyramid and

focused growth strategiesl(i,
ii)
Case 4
Showed good
economic
resilience
through
V-shaped
recovery
Facilitators
Resource and asset
No cash ow problemsa
Good relation with bank to pay invoices
on-timea,d
Development of unied brand image
with 80% under own labele
Learning and culture
Closer relationship with employeesk
Higher responsibility of employees in
decision making, higher education and
knowledge level and some job trainingj,k
Role of Chairman in decision-making
during crisisi
Competitiveness
Work close to the customer for getting
more order volume with deeper
relationshipd
Facilitators
Financial reserve generated through sale
of few owned subsidiaries augmenting
equity and also using retained earningsa
Good earnings generated by labels and
printing businessesa
Launch of innovative products for new
marketse
Learning and culture
Entrepreneurial leadership with
administrative top management
supporti
Fairly autonomous functioning and
decision-making of the subsidiariesf,i
Rolling plansf
Resource and asset Competitiveness
Operational exibility in all business
divisions through efcient logistics and
multiple distribution centersg
manufacturing country's currencyo
Low-cost import penetrationm

Underdeveloped market for functional
product portfolio
Market penetrationl(i) through increase cost

effectiveness (ramping down production in

Portugal while ramping up in Tunisia having
nearly one-third cost)
New product diversication strategyl(iii, iv) within
new sector
New customer base development in the European
automotive sectorl(ii, iv)
Inhibitors
Restricted customer base (80% sales to
one big automotive customer)d
Lesser exibility in supplier selection
process due to costly and longer
validation processd
Case 3
Showed
signicant
economic
resilience
Increased relative strength of
Delocalization of production in the

automotive industrym
Product portfolio diversication into knitwear,

shoes etc.l(iii)
Delocalize production to Estonia by acquiring

manufacturing rm for cost minimizationl(i)
Development of own label through launch of sublabelsl(i)
Market diversication with innovative product

launches in several business divisionsl(ii,
iv)
Delocalized production and warehousingl(i)
425
Table B1 (continued )
Antecedents
Exogenous factors
New cooperation agreements with
marketing partners and agenciesd

Inhibitors
Postponement of customer orders and
installations for industrial goods
resulting in building up of stocke and
reducing cash owa
Short-term cost effectiveness and loss of
expertise through employee lay-offe,j
Case 5
Lacked economic
resilience
Case 6
Lacked economic
resilience
Inhibitors
Inexibility at the supplier side due to
lack of alternate suppliers (only one for
yarn dyeing)d
Reduced slack resources aimed at
creating a more tighter, cost-effective
organizatione
Declining customer order volume since
2000s IT crisis and change in their
buying strategyd
Lack of formal leadership-related
education for top managementi
Retrenchment of 4 peoplee,j
Lack of contingency plansf
Inhibitors
Hard to work with banks related to cash
issuesd
Supplier terms of payment problems
related to dealing invoiced
Depreciation of the internal raw material
stock value to match the reduced
turnovera,e
Cash ow problem due to sudden shift
in supplier's credit to cash payment
scheme affecting retained earningsa
Firm already in a declining phase since the IT crisis
of 2000 due to declining customer order volume

and change in their buying strategy (lack of
market/customer penetration or diversication)l(ii,
iv)
Lack of dened market penetration initiatives in

nding newer retail formats for sellingl(i)

Need for leather cluster development for export
increase
Poor winter in 2008

Change in retail structure (closure of
special leather retailers) for Swedish
leather sector due to start of anti-fur
campaigns and high costsm
Lack of exibility to reduce stockg
Lack of rapid decision-making and
contingency planningf
Case 7
Lacked economic
resilience
Inhibitors
Decrease in order volume and margin
due to increasing raw material costs and
loss of couple of big customers outside
Swedenb
Rapid ramping down of current assets
like raw material stockse
Not yet operationalized their market development

strategy of nding newer customersl(i, ii) in the
public transportation sector and offering them
newer products with the right pricing strategy
High SEK to US Dollar and Euro exchange

rates affecting exports earningo

Lack of long-term vision for reecting on
declining sales turnover in the
organization (more short-term day-topday problem solving)f,i
Case 8
Signicant
economic
resilience
Loss in investment.
Market problems.
Facilitators
Resource and asset
Consolidated internal restructuring to
reduce overhead and xed costs (by
outsourcing production capacity)e
Good bank loan agreementa,d
Competitiveness
Agility through reduced delivery leadtimeg
Shift from make to buy decision

More investments in marketing and other
strategic issues like adjusting the product
pyramid/portfoliol(i, iii)
Inhibitors
Shrinking customer base due to their shift
from private label to own labelsm
426
Financial reserve/Cash ow.

Sales decrease.
d
Networking with bank, suppliers, customers and other value chain members.
e
Material assets (FGI, raw material etc.), social assets (employees etc.), intangible assets (brand image).
f
Strategic exibility as quick, effective decision-making, contingency planning etc.
g
Operational exibility (in logistics etc.) and structural exibility (make-buy decisions).
h
Robustness: quality development and improvement.
i
Leadership and top management role.
j
Employee well-being.
k
Collectiveness in organization
l
Ansoff's growth strategy
i. Market penetration
ii. Market development
iii. Product development
iv. Diversication
b
m
o
Change in industry structure.

Problem related to currency devaluation, exchange rates etc.
Appendix C. Pertinent extract from Survey questionnaire

1. How do you relate the signicance or lack of the following
learning and cultural factors to the economic transition prole
of your company in recent global credit crunch and 90s
economic crisis? (Signicantly/Moderately/Poorly)
- Collective awareness & group/team learning
- High shared values/sentiment/vision/knowledge
- Sense of purpose & Passion for work (among employees)
- Valuable and attentive leadership
- Respect for the employees
- Employee accountability for organization's reliability
- Clear beliefs, values and actions conveyed by top management to all employees
- Diversities (job rotation, retraining)
- Reduced departmental silos
- Trust among employees
factors to the economic transition prole of your company in
recent global credit crunch and 90s economic crisis? (Signicantly/Moderately/Poorly)
Material/Systems resourcefulness:
- Excess capacity (materials, FGI, labor) to match
demand surges
- Inventory management system
- Centralized distribution centre
- Reliable and up-to-date information transfer
- Innovative operations, processes or technologies
- Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) system
- Back-up of utilities
Financial resourcefulness:
- Cash ow and liquidity
- Insurance coverage for facilities, equipment, goods and
personnel
- Financial reserves, budgetary control and less debt
Social resourcefulness:
- Employees with wide variety of skills beyond own jobs
- Employees have specialized skill and expertise to act
Network resourcefulness:
- Strong support of network and partnerships with
suppliers etc.
- Alternate suppliers/Suppliers with multiple skills
Intangible resourcefulness:
- Brand reputation and good will
factors to the economic transition prole of your company in
recent global credit crunch and 90s economic crisis? (Signicantly/Moderately/Poorly)

Flexibility:
- Quick reallocation of orders to alternate suppliers (when
required)
- Flexible and fast transportation and logistics
- Flexible internal processes and operations with regular
monitoring
- Flexible decision-making and contingency plans
- Demand-drivenness (Market intelligence and customer
centricity)
Redundancy:
- Parallel processes/manufacturing facilities etc.
- Multi-channel distribution or retailing facility
- Alternate strategies and decision making ability
Robustness:
- Followed lean management principles (like Six Sigma, ISO
9000 etc.)
Networking:
- Interaction with other supply chain members
- High transparency in information ow among the supply
chain members
- Interaction (among departments) within the organization
- Investments in supplier's or customer's operations and risk
sharing
- Collaborative decision making
References
Acquaah, M., Amoako-Gyampah, K., Jayaram, J., 2011. Resilience in family and
nonfamily rms: an examination of the relationships between manufacturing
strategy, competitive strategy and rm performance. International Journal of
Production Research 49, 55275544.
Acs, Z., Audretsch, B., Carlsson, B., 1990. Flexibility, plant size and restructuring. In:
Acs, Z., Audretsch, B., Carlsson, B. (Eds.), The Economics of Small rms: A
European Challenge. Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp. 141154.
Adler, P.S., Kwon, S., 2002. Social capital: prospects for a new concept. Academy of
Management Review 27, 1740.
Ansoff, H.I., 1957. Strategies for diversication. Harvard Business Review 35,
113124.
Appelbaum, S.H., Gallagher, J., 2000. The competitive advantage of organizational
learning. Journal of Workplace Learning: Employee Counselling Today 12,
4056.
Ates, A., Bititci, U., 2011. Change process: a key enabler for building resilient SMEs.
International Journal of Production Research 49, 56015618.
Bandura, A., 1998. Self-efcacy: The Exercise of Control, 2nd ed. W.H. Freeman, New
York.
Barton, M., Christianson, M., 2006. Organizational resilience: a social mechanisms
perspective. Annual Academy of Management Meeting. Atlanta, G.A.
Beer, M., Nohria, N., 2000. Cracking the code of change. Harvard Business Review
78, 133141.
Bhamra, R., Dani, S., 2011. Creating resilient SMEs. International Journal of
Boisot, M., Child, J., 1999. Organizations as adaptive systems in complex environments: the case of China. Organization Science 10, 237252.
Bourgeois, L., Eisenhardt, K., 1988. Strategic decision processes in high velocity
environments: four cases in the microcomputer industry. Management Science
34, 816835.
Bunderson, J.S., Sutcliffe, K.M., 2002. Why some teams emphasize learning more
than other: evidence from business unit management teams. In: Neal, M.,
Mannix, E., Sondak, H. (Eds.), Research on Managing Groups and Teams.
Elsevier Science, New York, pp. 4984.
Burnard, K., Bhamra, R., 2011. Organisational resilience: development of a conceptual framework for organisational responses. International Journal of
Chakravarthy, B.S., 1982. Adaptation: a promising metaphor for strategic management. Academy of Management Review 7, 3544.
Christopher, M., Rutherford, C., 2004. Creating supply chain resilience through agile
six sigma. Critical Eye, 2428.
Coutu, D.L., 2002. How resilience works. Harvard Business Review 80, 4652.
Dangayach, G.S., Deshmukh, S.G., 2001. Practice of manufacturing strategy: evidences from select Indian automobile companies. International Journal of
Davidsson, P., Achtenhagen, L., Naldi, L., 2007. What do we know about small rm
growth? The Life Cycle of Entrepreneurial Ventures: International Handbook
Series on Entrepreneurship, 361398.
Dean, D., 2010. A CEO's guide for reenergizing the senior team. McKinsey Quarterly.
Demmer, W.A., Vickery, S.K., Calantone, R., 2011. Engendering resilience in smalland medium-sized enterprises (SMEs): a case study of Demmer Corporation.
International Journal of Production Research 49, 53955413.
Edmondson, A.C., 1999. Psychological safety and learning behaviour in work teams.
Administrative Science Quarterly 44, 350383.
Edmondson, A.C., Moingeon, B., 1998. From organizational learning to the learning
organization. Management Learning 29, 520.
Eisenhardt, K.M., Martin, J.A., 2000. Dynamic capabilities: what are they? Strategic
Management Journal 21, 11051121.
Fassoulsa, E.D., 2006. Transforming the supply chain. Journal of Manufacturing
Technology Management 17, 848860.
Flick, U., 2009. An Introduction to Qualitative Research. Sage, London.
Freeman, S.F., 2004. Beyond traditional systems thinking: resilience as a strategy for
security and sustainability, 3rd International Conference on Systems Thinking
in Management Session on Sustainability, Philadelphia.
Ghobadian, A., Gallear, D., 1997. TQM and organisation size. International Journal of
Operations and Production Management 17, 121163.
Gittell, J.H., Cameron, K., Lim, S., Rivas, V., 2006. Relationships, layoffs and
organizational resilience: airline responses to the crisis of september 11th.
The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 42, 300329.
Glaser, B.G., Strauss, A.L., 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for
Qualitative Research. Aldine, New York.
Grant, R.M., 1991a. Contemporary Strategic Analysis. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Grant, R.M., 1991b. The resource-based theory of competitive advantage: implications for strategy. California Management Review 22, 114135.
Gray, C., 2002. Entrepreneurship, resistance to change and growth in small rms.
Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development 9, 6172.
Gunasekaran, A., Rai, B.K., Grifn, M., 2011. Resilience and competitiveness of small
and medium size enterprises: an empirical research. International Journal of
Hale, A., Heijer, T., 2006. Dening resilience. In: Hollnagel, E., Woods, D.D., Leveson,
N. (Eds.), Resilience Engineering: Concepts and Precepts. Ashgate, Aldershot, UK.
Hatum, A., Pettigrew, A., 2006. Determinants of organizational exibility: a study in
an emerging economy. British Journal of Management 17, 115137.
Herbane, B., 2010. Small business research: time for a crisis-based view. International Small Business Journal 28, 4364.
Ireland, R.D., Hitt, M.A., Vaidyanath, D., 2002. Alliance management as a source of
competitive advantage. Journal of Management 28, 413446.
Ismail, H., Snowden, S., Poolton, J., Reid, I., Arokiam, I., 2006. Agile manufacturing
framework and practice. International Journal of Agile Systems and Management 1, 1128.
Ismail, H.S., Poolton, J., Shari, H., 2011. The role of agile strategic capabilities in
achieving resilience in manufacturing-based small companies. International
Journal of Production Research 49, 54695487.
Jones, O., 2003. The persistence of autocratic management in small rms: TCS and
organizational change. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and
Research 9, 245267.
Jones, O., Crompton, H., 2009. Enterprise logic and small rms: a model of
authentic entrepreneurial leadership. Journal of Strategy and Management 2,
329351.
Keay, J., 2012. Non-Eurozone EU: The Years Ahead, Global Finance. Global Finance
Media Inc., New York, p. 26.
Keller, S., Price, C., 2011. Beyond Performance: How Great Organizations
Build Ultimate Competitive Advantage. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken,
New Jersey.
Kumar, M., Antony, J., Tiwari, M.K., 2011. Six sigma implementation framework for
SMEsa roadmap to manage and sustain the change. International Journal of
427
Leiblein, M.J., 2011. What do resources- and capability- based theories propose?
Journal of Management 37, 909932.
Lengnick-Hall, C.A., Beck, T.E., 2005. Adaptive t versus robust transformations:
how organizations respond to environmental change. Journal of Management
31, 738757.
Lengnick-Hall, C.A., Beck, T.E., 2009. Resilience capacity and strategic agility:
prerequisites for thriving in a dynamic environment. In: Nemeth, C., Hollnagel,
E., Dekker, S. (Eds.), Resilience Engineering perspectives, 2nd ed. Ashgate,
Aldershot, UK.
Levy, M., Loebbecke, C., Powell, P., 2003. SMEs, co-opetition and knowledge
sharing: the role of information systems. European Journal of Information
System 12, 317.
Li, H.-H.J.K., Tan, K.H., Hida, A., 2011. Sustaining growth in electronic manufacturing
sector: lessons from Japanese mid-size EMS providers. International Journal of
Linnenluecke, M., Grifths, A., 2010. Beyond adaptation: resilience for business in
light of climate change and weather extremes. Business and Society 49,
477511.
Lippman, S.A., Rumelt, R.P., 2003. A bargaining perspective on resource advantage.
Strategic Management Journal 24, 10691086.
Mangan, J., Lalwani, C., Butcher, T., 2008. Global Logistics and Supply Chain
Management. John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey.
McElroy, W., 1996. Implementing strategic change through projects. International
Journal of Project Management 14, 325329.
McManus, S., Seville, E., Vargo, J., Brunsdon, D., 2008. Facilitated process for
improving organizational resilience. Natural Hazards Review 9, 8190.
Mitroff, I., Pearson, C., Pauchant, T.C., 1992. Crisis management and strategic
management: similarities, differences, and challenges. Advance in Strategic
Management 8, 235260.
Pal, R., Torstensson, H., Mattila, H., 2011. Organisational resilience and health of
business systems. International Journal of Business Continuity and Risk
Management 2, 372398.
Peck, H., 2006. Reconciling supply chain vulnerability, risk and supply chain
management. International Journal of Logistics 9, 127142.
Penrose, E.T., 1959. The theory of the growth of the rm. Oxford University Press,
Oxford.
Penrose, J.M., 2000. The role of perception in crisis planning. Public Relations
Review 26, 155171.
Perrow, C., 1984. Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies. Basic
Books, New York.
Prahalad, C.K., Hamel, G., 1990. The core competence of the corporation. Harvard
Business Review May, 7991.
Rainnie, A., 1989. Industrial Relations in Small Firms: Small isnt Beautiful.
Routledge, London.
Reinmoeller, P., Baardwijk, N.V., 2005. The link between diversity and resilience.
MIT Sloan Management Review 46, 6165.
Rice, J.B.J., Caniato, F., 2003. Supply Chain Response to Terrorism: Creating Resilient
and Secure Supply Chains, Supply Chain Response to Terrorism Project: Interim
Report of Progress and Learnings. MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics
(CTL) and Politecnico di Milano for the Supply Chain.
Salavou, H., Baltas, G., Lioukas, S., 2004. Organizational innovation in SMEs: the
importance of strategic orientation and competitive structure. European
Journal of Marketing 38, 10911112.
Schulman, P.R., 1993. The negotiated order of organizational reliability. Administration and Society 25, 353372.
Senge, P.M., 1990. The Fifth DisciplineThe Art and Practice of the Learning
Organization. Currency Doubleday, New York.
Seville, E., Brunsdon, D., Dantas, A., Le Masurier, J., Wilkinson, S., Vargo, J., 2006.
Building Organisational Resilience: A summary of Key Research Findings.
Shef, Y., 2007. The Resilient Enterprise: Overcoming Vulnerability for Competitive
Advantage, 1st ed. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Shef, Y., Rice, J.B., 2005. A supply chain view of the resilient enterprise. Sloan
Management Review 47, 4148.
Starr, R., Newfrock, J., Delurey, M., 2003. Enterprise resilience: managing risks in
the networked economy. Strategy Business Magazine 30, 110.
Strauss, A.L., 1987. Qualitative Analysis for Social Scientists. Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge.
Sullivan-Taylor, B., Branicki, L., 2011. Creating resilient SMEs: why one size might
not t all. International Journal of Production Research 49, 55655579.
Sutcliffe, K.M., Vogus, T., 2003. Organizing for resilience. In: Cameron, K.S., Dutton, J.
E., Quinn, R.E. (Eds.), Positive Organizational Scholarship: Foundations of a New
Discipline. Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, CA, pp. 94110.
Tang, C., 2006. Robust strategies for mitigating supply chin disruption. International
Journal of Logistics Research and Application 9, 3345.
Thun, J.-H., Drke, M., Hoenig, D., 2011. Managing uncertaintyan empirical
analysis of supply chain risk management in small and medium-sized enterprises. International Journal of Production Research 49, 55115525.
Van Gils, A., 2005. Management and governance in Dutch SMEs. European
Management Journal 23, 583589.
Vargo, J., Seville, E., 2011. Crisis strategic planning for SMEs: nding the silver
lining. International Journal of Production Research 49, 56195635.
Weick, K.E., 1993. The collapse of sense making in organizations: the Mann Gulch
disaster. Administrative Science Quarterly 38, 628652.
Weick, K.E., 1995. Sensemaking in Organizations. Sage, Thousand Oaks,CA.
Weick, K.E., Sutcliffe, K.M., 2007. Managing the Unexpected: Resilient Performance
in an Age of Uncertainty. Wiley and Sons, San Francisco, CA.
428
Weick, K.E., Sutcliffe, K.M., Obstfeld, D., 1999. Organizing for high reliability:
processes of collective mindfulness. In: Sutton, R., Staw, B. (Eds.), Research in
Organizational Behaviour. JAI, Greenwich, CT, pp. 81124.
Wesson, T., De Figueiredo, J.N., 2001. The importance of focus to market entrants: a
study of microbrewery performance. Journal of Business Venturing 16, 377403.
Westrum, R., 2006. A typology of resilience situations. In: Hollnagel, E., Woods, D.
D., Leveson, N. (Eds.), Resilience Engineering: Concepts and Precepts. Ashgate,
Aldershot, UK.
Woods, D.D., 2006. Essential characteristics of resilience. In: Hollnagel, E., Woods, D.D.,
Leveson, N. (Eds.), Resilience Engineering: Concepts and Precepts. Ashgate, Aldershot, UK.
Vossen, R.W., 1998. Relative strengths and weaknesses of small rms in innovation.
International Small Business Journal 16, 8894.
Yin, R.K., 2009. Case Study Research: Design and Methods, 4th ed.. Sage,
London.

Moita Antecedents of Organizational Resilience in Economic Crises An Empirical Study of Swedish Textile and Clothing SMEs

Загружено:

Сведения о документе

Оригинальное название

Авторское право

Доступные форматы

Поделиться этим документом

Поделиться или встроить документ

Параметры публикации

Этот документ был вам полезен?

Это неприемлемый материал?

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Moita Antecedents of Organizational Resilience in Economic Crises An Empirical Study of Swedish Textile and Clothing SMEs

Загружено:

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Int. J.

Production Economics 147 (2014) 410428

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Int. J. Production Economics

Antecedents of organizational resilience in economic crisesan

particularly vulnerable to failures in both continuous shifts and

R. Pal et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 147 (2014) 410428

Fig. 1. Bankruptcy statistics of Swedish textile and clothing rms (19932010).

sectors, but it is noticeable from Swedish central statistics that the

2. Framework for antecedents of SME resilience

regarding nancial and human resources (Vargo and Seville, 2011).

R. Pal et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 147 (2014) 410428

Fig. 2. Theoretical framework.

setting them apart from larger organizations. Another key aspect,

exchange uniquely complementary sets of knowledge

R. Pal et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 147 (2014) 410428

needed for developing resilience. Rice and Caniato (2003) stressed

suggests building of robustness through quality managed lean

2.3. Learning and culture and resilience

R. Pal et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 147 (2014) 410428

a. Leadership and top management decision-making and resilience

The model has been in accordance to the general way to study

R. Pal et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 147 (2014) 410428

Business Health in terms of Z-score

sales-turnover and poor protability and leverage ratios

0.641.01 (catastrophic) between 199092 due to negative

protability, solvency and leverage ratios

1.512.07 (unhealthy) between 199095 due to declining

protability, leverage and solvency ratios and declining

1.272.66 (unhealthy) between 199093 due to low

protability and leverage ratios

2.132.67 (unhealthy) between 199094 due to poor

2.162.56 (unhealthy) between 199094 due to poor

Unhealthy Z-scores owing to lower turnover ratio along

the coding see Pal et al. (2011). A deepening analysis is

R. Pal et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 147 (2014) 410428

Dynamic competitiveness factors

Learning and cultural factors

Most frequent response.

identify and describe the emergent pattern in the antecedents and

emergent pattern and also support rival explanations highlighting

R. Pal et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 147 (2014) 410428

4. Case companiesbusiness type and economic resilience

were also considered to be moderately important in inuencing

Fig. 3. Z-score transition proles (19892010).

R. Pal et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 147 (2014) 410428

companies 1, 2 and 6 rated it to be strongly to moderately

5.3. Learning and cultural factors and economic resilience

5.4. Interview ndings and Z-score transition prole analysis

Learning and Culture (LC)

Dynamic Competitiveness (DC)

Symbols in parentheses () represent degree of correlation.

R. Pal et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 147 (2014) 410428

lack of nance and cash ow along with lower manufacturing and

6. Discussion: explanation of evident patterns

Learning and Culture (LC)

Good leadership, employee collectiveness (except in 2)

Signicant strategic and operational exibilities

Dynamic Competitiveness (DC)

Relations: : Signicant/High correlation, -: Moderate correlation, : Low/Poor correlation.

cf. Appendix 1 and 2 for details.

R. Pal et al. / Int. J. Production Economics 147 (2014) 410428

from supplier's credit to cash payment scheme (in rm 6) or