Ekonomia i Prawo. Economics and Law
Organizational resilience of family business: case study
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12775/EiP.2018.005
Abstract
Motivation: Organizational resilience, understood as an ability to survive in harsh market conditions, captures increased research consideration in recent years. The same applies to family businesses that attracted significant attention lately. Although the interest in the topic grows, there are still remaining questions to be answered.
Aim: In the paper we focus on identifying factors affecting organizational abilities to adapt to dynamic, hostile and complex environment especially when disruptive events occur in the environment. Literature studies in the topic allowed development of research proposition — organizational resilience should help to survive negative occurrences in the environment and family business should focus their attention on building resilience capacity while it may allow and facilitate longevity and well-being of an organization.
Results: We illustrate this proposition with the use of two family company cases from the Silesian Voivodeship. The first is a case of a large production company that existed between 2000 and 2013, and after receiving increased growth in 2005–2012 period it went bankrupt in 2014 after two large contracts. The second is a case of a developer company from the same region that started its operation in the same period and managed to develop both its market and products in years. We compare the data flowing from interviews with the owners (that are also managers of these companies) using Eisenhardt (1989, pp. 532–550) methodology and that leads to creation of propositions for future research. Research results indicate there are several factors influencing ability to cope with critical situations. Firstly, we identified that professionalization of management of family business leads to better chances to survive in the environment. Secondly, we conclude that awareness to weak signals diminishes the probability of risky behaviors and helps to survive in dynamic, hostile environment.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Amann, B., & Jaussaud, J. (2011). Family and non-family business resilience in an economic downturn. Asia Pacific Business Review, 18(2). doi:10.1080/13602381.2010.537057.
Angrosino, M. (2007). Doing ethnographic and observational research. London: Sage. doi:10.4135/9781849208932.
Bhamra, R., Dani, S., & Burnard, K. (2011). Resilience: The concept, a litera-ture review and future directions. International Journal of Production Research, 49(18). doi:10.1080/00207543.2011.563826.
Boin, A. & van Eeten, M.J.G. (2013). The resilient organization. A critical appraisal. Public Management Review, 15(3) doi:10.1080/14719037.2013.769856.
Butts, C.T., Acton, R.M., & Marcum, C. (2012). Interorganizational collabo-ration in the Hurricane Katrina response. Journal of Social Structure, 13.
Carlock, R.S., & Ward, J.L. (2001). Strategic planning for the family business. New York: Palgrave.
Charmaz, K. (2011). Grounded theory methods in social justice research. In N.K. Denzin, Y.S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research. Los Angeles: Sage. doi:10.4135/9781446212165.n27.
Danes, S.M., Lee, J., Amarapurkar, S., Stafford, K., Haynes, G., & Brewton, K.E. (2009). Determinants of family business resilience after a natural dis-aster by gender of business owner. Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship, 14(04). doi:10.1142/s1084946709001351.
Eisenhardt, K.M. (1989). Building theories from case study research. Academy of Management Review, 14(4). doi:10.5465/amr.1989.4308385.
Hamel, G. & Valikangas, L. (2003). The quest for resilience. Harvard Business Review, September.
Harris, D., Martinez, J.L., & Ward, J.L. (1994). Is strategy different for the family owned businesses? Family Business Review, 7(2). doi:10.1111/j.1741-6248.1994.00159.x.
Holling, C.S. (1973). Resilience and stability of ecological systems. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 4. doi:10.1146/annurev.es.04.110173.000245.
Hollnagel, E., Woods, D.D., & Leveson, N. (2006). Resilience engineering: Con-cepts and precepts. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Instytut Biznesu Rodzinnego. (2016). Firma rodzinna to marka. Retrieved 27.02.2018 from http://www.ibrpolska.pl.
Jeżak, J. (Ed.). (2015). Przedsiębiorstwa rodzinne w Polsce. Znaczenie ekonomiczne oraz strategiczne problemy rozwoju. Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego.
Kachaner, N., Stalk, G., & Bloch, A. (2012). What you can learn from family business. Harvard Business Review, November.
Kantur, D., & Say, A.I. (2015). Measuring organizational resilience: A scale development. Journal of Business Economics & Finance, 4(3). doi:10.17261/Pressacademia.2015313066.
Kets de Vries, M.F.R., Carlock, R.S., & Florent-Treacy, E. (2007). Family business on the couch: A psychological perspective. London: Wiley.
Lumpkin, G.T. & Dess, G.G. (2001). Linking two dimensions of entrepreneur-ial orientation to firm performance: The moderating role of environment and industry life cycle. Journal of Business Venturing, 16(5). doi:10.1016/s0883-9026(00)00048-3.
Majda, A. (2015). Succession strategy in polish family businesses — a com-parative analysis. Research Papers of Wrocław University of Economics, 402. doi:10.15611/pn.2015.402.19.
Powley, E.H. (2009). Reclaiming resilience and safety: Resilience activation in the critical period of crisis. Human Relations, 62(9). doi:10.1177/0018726709334881.
Sheffi, Y. (2005). Building a resilient supply chain. Harvard Business Review. Supply Chain Strategy, 1(5).
Shin, J., Taylor, M.S., & Seo, M.G. (2012). Resources for change: The rela-tionships of organizational inducements and psychological resilience to employees’ attitudes and behaviors toward organizational change. Academy of Management Journal, 55(3). doi:10.5465/amj.2010.0325.
Somers, S. (2009). Measuring resilience potential: An adaptive strategy for organizational crisis planning. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Manage-ment, 17(1). doi:10.1111/j.1468-5973.2009.00558.x.
Turner, N. & Kutsch, E. (2016). Understanding resilience in organizational operations — an ambidexterity perspective. Academy of Management Pro-ceedings, 1. doi:10.5465/ambpp.2016.11836abstract.
van der Vegt, G.S., Essens, P., Wahlstrom, M., & George, G. (2015). From the Editors: Managing risk and resilience. Academy of Management Journal, 58(4). doi:10.5465/amj.2015.4004.
Williams, T.A., Gruber, D.A., Sutcliffe, K.M., Shepherd, D.A., & Zhao, E.Y. (2016). Organizational response to adversity: Fusing crisis management and resilience research streams. Academy of Management Annals, 12(1). doi:10.5465/annals.2015.0134.
ISSN 1898-2255 (print)
ISSN 2392-1625 (online)