Keywords

1 Introduction: What Is Organizational Resilience, and Why Should We Care

In this chapter, I explore recent developments in resilience research in organization and management studies, with a particular focus on cooperatives. The focus on cooperatives is useful, because owing to their democratic principles, shared ownership, and community engagement, cooperatives have developed organizational traits that foster resilience. Discussing resilience and cooperatives jointly aids a better understanding of how cooperatives contribute to resilience in general, and how they provide a bridge between organizational and societal resilience in particular.

It is not easy to put a finger on resilience—although theories about it seem to have flourished, its usefulness as a scholarly construct has been met with skepticism, and it has rarely been conceptualized and measured in empirical studies (Linnenluecke, 2017; van der Vegt et al., 2015). Some attribute the difficulty in pinpointing resilience to the fact that the world is becoming turbulent faster than organizations are becoming resilient. This is also called the “resilience gap,” a term coined by Hamel and Välikangas (2003). Others think resilience is a mere afterthought, as it can mostly be perceived after a crisis or disaster has already happened, thus, it is difficult to anticipate what enhances resilience (Coutu, 2002). Precisely because of the uncertainty involved and because of the rapid developments of our world today, in this chapter, I join recent reviews (Linnenluecke, 2017; Powley et al., 2020; Sutcliffe & Vogus, 2003; Williams & Shepherd, 2016) and argue that a more nuanced understanding of organizational resilience is necessary.

As will be discussed in greater detail in Chaps. 15 and 16, resilience is a cross-disciplinary concept with applications in many fields, such as psychology, public health, environmental science, engineering, management, and education. Its significance lies in promoting adaptive responses and recovery in the face of adversity and challenges. More recently, scientists in all fields have called for a more proactive approach and urged us to think about resilience as a capability that can be developed in preparation or, even better, to fully avoid adverse scenarios (United Nations, 2005). Due to its interdisciplinary nature, the concept of resilience is subject to various definitions as different fields approach and interpret it in diverse ways. While resilience exhibits variation and nuance based on context and perspective, several shared characteristics underlying its definition exist. First, resilience entails positive adaptation during times of crisis or stress, leading to a rebound toward a new stable state. Second, regardless of the domain, resilience is a mechanism to maintain stability (Maitlis, 2012; Westphal & Bonanno, 2007). Third, it involves learning, growth, efficacy, and competence (Sutcliffe & Vogus, 2003), as well as the capacity to recover from setbacks (Gittell et al., 2006; Powley, 2009; Zolli & Healy, 2012). Regardless of their field of study, scholars consistently revisit these foundational aspects. In contrast, the specific operationalization and mechanisms through which resilience unfolds may vary depending on the context and approaches employed in studying resilience.

Social scientists observed that some organizations and societies seem to be better at rebounding from adverse events (e.g., cooperative banks during episodes of financial crisis, in Bazot et al., 2019, or businesses with pre-existing collaborative networks after the New Zealand earthquakes, in Stevenson et al., 2014). Scholars in organization and management studies have been trying to identify the underlying traits that enable such increased resilience. Their recent conclusion is that one can only understand the complexities of organizational resilience by considering risk and crisis management (van der Vegt et al., 2015). Taking existing stipulations around defining resilience into account, Williams and colleagues proposed a more inclusive, process-based definition of resilience (for a complete review on organizational resilience, see Linnenluecke, 2017; Powley et al., 2020; Williams et al., 2017). In their study, Williams and colleagues define resilience “as the process by which an actor (i.e., individual, organization, or community) builds and uses its capability endowments to interact with the environment in a way that positively adjusts and maintains functioning prior to, during, and following adversity” (2017:742). Such a process-oriented definition reflects on the dynamic nature of resilience and acknowledges that depending on the timeline, organizing for resilience may require different resources and actions.

Resilience is also a multi-level concept (Linnenluecke, 2017; Williams et al., 2017), as it can be developed in various types of human collectives, such as families, organizations, and societies (van der Vegt et al., 2015). Organizational and societal resilience are interconnected concepts, where organizations’ resilience contributes to society’s overall resilience, and resilience on the societal level (e.g., due to sociocultural factors or state incentives) can cascade down to organizations (see Fig. 9.1). In other words, we should strive toward resilience on all levels of analysis, as resilient societies are more likely to translate their adaptiveness into their organizational cultures. As a result, we can observe an increased organizational resilience in these societies. At the same time, resilience built and fostered on the organizational level can spill over to adjacent entities and accumulate into society-level resilience.

Fig. 9.1
A framework exhibits resilience as a multi-level concept, encompassing society, communities, local organizations, and individuals.

Resilience is a multi-level, process-driven construct

Full size image

Chapter 15 discusses how cooperatives and hybrid organizations can contribute to resilience on the societal level. In this chapter, I take a closer look at the antecedents and consequences of organizational resilience. I examine cooperatives as organizational units and identify some specific traits contributing to their resilience. The three short case studies in this chapter (on the intensive care unit of the University Hospital of Geneva, Raiffeisen’s idea of cooperative banks, and the Swiss example of cooperative housing) illustrate that paying attention to the underlying principles of organizational forms can help us to identify and unlock resilience-enhancing logics and practices. In particular, the cases and extant literature indicate that cooperatives may have something to offer for a better understanding of the antecedents of organizational resilience.

1.1 Resilience as a Competitive Advantage

Until now, the prevailing approach focused on developing organizational resilience in a defensive and reactive manner. However, the real challenge for organizations (be it for- or non-profit) lies in a deep understanding of resilience at all operational levels and proactively building it to gain competitive advantage rather than relying solely on defensive responses to extreme events. “Resilience thinking” must no longer be limited to defensive and reactive measures; instead, it should be integrated into the organization’s everyday activities, transforming its nature and becoming a best practice to address even minor issues that seem to have nothing to do with potential crises. Hence, the greatest challenge for organizations is to shift their resilience from a collection of redundant preventive actions, which primarily involve resource management, into a proactive strategy built on practices that enhance the daily effectiveness of operations and processes (Annarelli & Nonino, 2016:2). Mastering this challenge will leave organizations with storable, flexible, convertible, and malleable resources, that enable decision makers to cope with and learn from the unexpected (Sutcliffe & Vogus, 2003).

In organization and management studies, resilience is seen as “the ability to dynamically reinvent business models and strategies as circumstances change” (Hamel & Välikangas, 2003:2). Strategic resilience extends beyond reacting to isolated crises or recovering from setbacks. It involves the ongoing ability to foresee and adapt to significant and long-term shifts that could permanently affect the survival chances of an organization. It emphasizes the capacity to initiate change proactively, even before the need for such changes becomes evident (ibid).

1.2 Measurements of Organizational Resilience

Currently, resilience indicators lack standardization, making it difficult to develop insights into the antecedents, mechanisms, and processes of resilience across cases (Powley et al., 2020:346). Barker Caza and colleagues suggest that the lack of measurability may have created a biased situation in research, where authors tend to only look at the positive aspects of resilience (Powley et al., 2020). However, it is important to note that resilience, if not flexibly adapted to the situation, may lead to rigidity and come at a cost to organizational learning (Williams et al., 2017). Therefore, Barker Caza and colleagues suggest that it is just as important to measure the negative as the positive aspects of resilience (Powley et al., 2020). Organizational sociologists have long been fascinated by organizational survival (for a review, see Josefy et al., 2017). What makes some organizations more likely to survive than others? Do firms learn from their own failures (J. A. C. Baum & Ingram, 1998), or perhaps even from the failures of their competitors (Kim & Miner, 2007)? Can the lessons learned from survival be translated into organizational resilience? What are the limits of resilience-enhancing learning? A closer examination of organizational survival could assist us in developing more accurate measurements and improving the overall empirical applicability of resilience as a concept.

1.3 Creating and Maintaining Resilience in Organizations

How to attain resilience and establish and sustain resilient processes? The literature has not yet achieved a unanimous agreement on implementing best practices (Annarelli & Nonino, 2016), and scholars call for more empirical research on the subject still (Sutcliffe & Vogus, 2003; Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001).

Organization and management scholars tend to approach resilience from a system perspective,Footnote 1 and the most important building blocks of organizations as complex systems are employees, teams and taskforces, the resources assigned to them, and the networks they constitute (van der Vegt et al., 2015). Whether or not an organization can implement measures that increase its resilience is also a matter of formal organizational structure. Case studies suggest that organizations with decentralized decision-making structures fare better in emergencies. Indeed, bureaucratic structures seem to block creativity, responsiveness, and adaptiveness of employees (McManus et al., 2008).

The definitional differences in resilience across fields and organizations, together with the conceptual and measurement challenges, indicate that more research on implementing practices that lead organizations toward better resilience is needed. General recommendations exist; for example, Powley et al. (2020:346) suggest that organizations can develop and maintain resilience by fostering a culture of resilience, investing in employee training and development, building strong relationships with stakeholders, and engaging in proactive risk management practices. However, the authors note that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to building resilience and that organizations must tailor their strategies to their specific contexts and needs.

1.4 The Dark Side of Resilience

Most research depicts resilience as a desirable outcome for individuals, communities, and organizations, as it enables actors to function in the face of adversity. However, this “functioning” may also bring about unwanted side effects. In their 2017 review, Williams and colleagues unexpectedly find that resilience may bring about resistance to change, failure to learn and adapt, and an overall inability of the organization to pivot or transform (Williams et al., 2017:750). This area is currently underresearched and requires further attention. Here are, nevertheless, a few mechanisms through which resilience could weaken an organization’s overall position, competitiveness, or survival chances. First, there is the potential concern of moral hazard. For example, Baum (2018) argues that increasing resilience may reduce interest in preventing adverse events from occurring. Second, the benefits of resilience can also be misinterpreted or misunderstood by guiding attention to only one aspect. For example, Aldrich et al. (2018) express their worry about governments placing too much emphasis on the resilience of physical infrastructure instead of the overall resilience of society, which can lead to increasing public tension. Third, resilience may create a false sense of security at the individual, organizational, and societal levels. The experiment of Tinsley and colleagues proves this possibility. Their results indicate that people who escape disaster and frame their experience as “resilience” are more likely to underestimate the level of danger in similar future situations (2012). Cooperatives may be better protected against these unwanted side-effects of resilience; however, just like other organizations, they should also develop internal processes to tackle them.

2 Why Are Cooperatives more Resilient than Other Types of Organizations?

Organizations are successful at creating resilience when they overcome complex problems (Bigley & Roberts, 2001). Cooperatives are particularly capable of creating resilience, as they were created to address complex problems in the first place (Niedworok et al., 2021:539). Cooperatives contribute to resilience by fostering collaboration, innovation, and adaptability (see Chaps. 11 and 14). Through democratic principles and shared ownership, cooperatives create a strong sense of community engagement and participatory decision-making (see Chap. 4).

Cooperatives also provide a bridge between organizational and societal resilience. Cooperative organizational forms can be the source but also the result of increased societal resilience. For example, certain events can trigger a community’s resilience by increasing their willingness to cooperate. Often, new cooperatives emerge as a result (Rao & Greve, 2018). On the other hand, we can expect societies and markets with a larger density of cooperatives to be more resilient in general (Bazot et al., 2019; Caselli, 2018).

2.1 The Organizational Hurdles of Resilience

Organizations take cues from their environment and update their actions accordingly. Previous experience—regardless of whether it is the organization’s own experience or not—will contribute to future resilience as organizations encode new information, adjust mental models, and update their routines (Madsen, 2009). However, research shows that the learning effect from past experience is not linear, as organizations alternate between periods when they focus on safety and periods when they emphasize other goals, such as efficiency or innovation (Haunschild et al., 2015). Consequently, the ability to learn and increase resilience based on experience weakens over time, and thus, the organization’s vulnerability increases (Williams et al., 2017).

To maintain and improve resilience, organizations must overcome various challenges. According to Hamel and Välikangas (2003:20), there are four challenges that organizations must conquer to become more resilient. First, organizations must become conscious of their cognitive processes—what shapes them and how do they reflect back on the resources that are made available (for a review, see Eggers & Kaplan, 2013). To overcome the cognitive challenge, a company must free itself from nostalgia, denial, and arrogance. Decision-makers must constantly monitor change, and they must be willing to consider how shifts in the environment are likely to affect the company’s current success (Hamel & Välikangas, 2003). Second, in the quest for resilience, organizations must face the “strategic challenge,” i.e., the ability to create several new options as alternatives to “dying strategies.” This is because resilience requires alternatives and the ability to switch between them. Alternatives do not always have to be brand new. They may, in fact, be built on old, “forgotten” institutional logic, such as craft brewing in the industrialized Dutch beer brewing industry in the 1970s (Kroezen & Heugens, 2019). The important element of facing the “strategic challenge” is to value variety in strategic options, as variety is insurance against the unexpected (Hamel & Välikangas, 2003:30). Third, after having developed awareness and new ideas (i.e., mastered the first two challenges), organizations must be able to divert resources from past to future projects. Reallocating resources can be a painful and political process within any organization. To become more resilient, companies must mitigate the political climate around resource allocation. Hamel and Välikangas call this the “political challenge”; however, let us remember that the key here is resource (re)allocation. In most organizations, managerial power correlates with the size of controlled resources. No wonder if it is harder for new strategic options to attract resources, even though the fact of them being novel does not imply anything about them being riskier. Companies tend to “overinvest in the past,” and as a result, they have less flexibility to adapt to new situations. Unfortunately, rigid resource allocation is the enemy of resilience (Hamel & Välikangas, 2003:34–35). How individuals relate to resources can also differentiate resilient organizations from less resilient ones. Resilience requires transitioning from slack resources to self-reliance, which may activate new roles and identities within the organization (Powell & Baker, 2014; Williams & Shepherd, 2016).

The last challenge is of ideological nature. In the last century as much as in this one, the main goal of every organization was to “do more, better, faster, and cheaper” (Hamel & Välikangas, 2003:38). This is the ideology of optimization, and today it is no longer enough. Optimization only works if there is no essential change in what must be optimized (ibid). To achieve strategic resilience, companies have to commit themselves to perpetual, opportunity-driven renewal instead of process optimization (ibid:39).

Hamel and Välikangas emphasize that it is nearly impossible to master all four challenges (2003). Keeping the process-based definition of resilience in mind,Footnote 2 recent research agrees that resilience is not an outcome, but a continuous process (Williams et al., 2017). To maintain high levels of resilience, companies must stay vigilant and continuously look for new ways to address these four challenges. Following the research updates in the fields of innovation and strategic renewal can enhance managerial understanding on the subject (for a recent review, see Schmitt et al., 2018).

2.2 Cooperatives Are Well-Positioned to Face the Hurdles of Resilience

The four challenges described above are especially difficult to address in combination. However, cooperatives are well-equipped to do just that, due to their strong core values and operational practices. First, since decision-makers in cooperatives hear the perception of their members frequently, and are conditioned to actively listen to these voices, management cannot stay in denial for too long. Their democratic organizational infrastructure also keeps them from becoming arrogant. For example, in 2022, the Swiss retail cooperative, Migros, was considering the introduction of alcoholic beverages into its supermarket offering, in hope of increasing revenues. However, Migros cannot make such a decision without asking the opinion of its ca. 2.3 million members first. 630,000 people participated in the vote, and the result was clear—members preferred to keep their supermarkets alcohol free (Migros, 2022). This example demonstrates that cooperatives are capable of addressing the cognitive challenge. Second, due to their focus on satisfying local communities, cooperatives naturally develop a multitude of strategic alternatives. For example, the Swiss housing cooperative ABZ offers living spaces for every generation: more modest, small apartments for young people and students, four-room apartments for families with children, with additional community spaces and on-site kindergartens, and finally, ABZ also offers spaces that meet the needs of elderly people, including additional healthcare services (ABZ, 2022).

Third, given their democratic decision-making routines, cooperatives can mitigate the political challenges that arise from the question of resource (re)allocation. Research on hybrid organizational identities (to which cooperatives also belong) shows that hybrid organizations are able to “work through” paradoxical situations, such as conflicting goals, values, practices, and beliefs (Jay, 2013; Lüscher & Lewis, 2008). A recently conducted ethnography about a natural food cooperative in the United States reports that the tension between pragmatist (read: pro-business) and idealist (read: naïveFootnote 3) sections of the cooperative was internalized by the cooperative members, and due to the institutional traditions and rituals of the cooperative, clashes between the two groups enhanced the cooperative’s final decisions. In other words, what seems like a dysfunctional process within the organization, fostered functionality on the organizational level (Ashforth & Reingen, 2014).

Finally, with respect to the ideological challenge, or in other words, the dilemma of being hyper-focused on optimization instead of strategic evolution and perpetual renewal, cooperatives have the advantage that their primary goal was never optimization. As Niedworok and colleagues emphasize, cooperatives can be seen as highly flexible forms of organizations, capable of mitigating a wide array of problems, and even facilitating innovation (2021).

In addition to being prepared to face the four main challenges outlined above, cooperatives are also known for their stability and longevity. This is important, because according to Hamel and Välikangas, longevity is a key element of organizational resilience, as it allows for complexity to develop.

3 Three Cases of Resilience-Enhancing Cooperative Logics

In the following section, I briefly introduce three real-world examples of organizations building or contributing to resilience. The example of Raiffeisen Bank, and cooperative banks, in general, showcase a common situation of why cooperatives emerge in the first place: to solve community-specific problems. Raiffeisen's initiative to create cooperative banks was primarily focused on strengthening community resilience. During the financial crisis, it also became evident that Raiffeisen banks demonstrated greater organizational resilience compared to their non-cooperative counterparts. The case of the intensive care unit at the University Hospital of Geneva is set in a non-cooperative organizational setting, at a certain point in its history, the employees adapted cooperative logics and were thus able to increase the resilience of their unit. Finally, the case of the Swiss housing cooperatives illustrates how cooperative structures that are deeply embedded into societies can contribute to societal resilience. This last case also discusses some of the challenges cooperatives face in modern times.

3.1 Resilience by Design: Raiffeisen’s Idea of Cooperative Banking

3.1.1 Reviving an Old Organizational Form to Tackle New Challenges

In the 1850s, the German agricultural depression became so severe, that emergency food aid and other forms of charity were no longer able to address the social and economic problems. When Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen realized this, he established the first rural credit cooperative in 1864 to provide financial resources to the impoverished rural population. Raiffeisen formulated his own set of principles for credit cooperatives, which have lost little of their validity and topicality and have recently resurfaced in many academic articles and European policy documents on social innovation. These principles were based on the trilogy of self-help, self-responsibility, and self-administration, which became his adage for individual farmers. It is important to note that Raiffeisen did not invent the cooperative model, since it already existed in the Middle Ages in the form of commons and guilds, but he revived and adapted it to the needs of the rural population (see Chap. 5). Many other European countries soon replicated cooperatives established in the Raiffeisen tradition, and national cooperative champions encouraged farmers to establish farmers’ unions and to set up agricultural and credit cooperatives to feed their existential needs (Groeneveld, 2020).

3.1.2 Responding Locally to Unlock Resilience

Raiffeisen’s idea of establishing credit cooperatives helped to correct market failures, such as financial exclusion, and to overcome the associated problems of asymmetric information in favor of the rural population, particularly farmers and small businesses. By providing access to credit and financial resources, Raiffeisen’s credit cooperatives helped to ameliorate the living conditions of the rural population and break the negative spiral of worsening life conditions. The three principles (see above) became the backbone of jointly owned firms by farmers, which helped to stimulate people to take control of their own destinies. In retrospect, many scientists and policymakers now qualify Raiffeisen as a “social innovator” who found a solution to a social problem, and society as a whole was the main beneficiary. Therefore, Raiffeisen’s idea of credit cooperatives helped to unlock resilience in the community by providing access to financial resources and promoting self-help and self-responsibility (Groeneveld, 2020).

3.1.3 Cooperative Banks Are more Resilient

During the great financial crisis of 2007/2008, cooperative banks were less affected and more resilient than organizations with other ownership structures (Birchall & Ketilson, 2009). We should keep in mind that every crisis is different, and affects organizations, societies, and economies differently (Rao & Greve, 2018). Consequently, there is no one-size-fits-all ownership structure that will guarantee a certain level of organizational resilience, and the effects of new crises will need to be constantly made sense of on all operational levels of organizations (Christianson & Barton, 2020).

However, as Groeneveld aptly summarizes it (2020), certain common traits of cooperatives lead the research community to believe that cooperatives are a particularly well-suited form to build resilience. First, cooperative banks have a distinctive cooperative nature that results in a low-risk profile and a strong focus on the real economy, which may help them weather financial crises (Chiaramonte et al., 2015). Second, cooperatives have strong local knowledge and relationships, which can help them better understand the (changing) needs of their customers and respond to (shifting) local economic conditions. Third, cooperative banks can provide access to credit and financial resources to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and households, which can help to ameliorate the living conditions of the rural population and break the negative spiral of worsening life conditions. Fourth, in times of crisis, cooperative banks can demonstrate their long-term orientation, solidarity, and local anchoring, which are important attributes for resilience (Groeneveld, 2020).

3.1.4 Hybridization of Cooperatives May Undermine Their Resilience

In response to various isomorphic pressures, cooperative banks have relaxed their adherence to a number of Raiffeisen’s original principles over the years (Groeneveld, 2020). Some scientists argue that this has led to a loss of distinctiveness and social innovativeness (Boscia et al., 2015; Poli, 2019) while Groeneveld presents a more balanced view by stating that cooperative banks have not completely abandoned their original principles and that a more nuanced understanding of their distinctiveness and degree of hybridization is needed (2020). The further modifications of the original cooperative ideas are indisputable (their effect on resilience and organizational distinctiveness is not). Many of the modifications made by cooperative banks have meant a departure from the founding principles of Raiffeisen. First, a move toward commercial banking practices seems to have occurred. This means that cooperative banks have adopted strategies that move them toward the operational mode, management practices, and strategies of commercial banks. Many of these new practices were meant to combat difficulties inherent to the cooperative form in the first place. As a result, the cooperative identity of banks started to fade. Second, cooperative banks have experienced a continuously declining local presence, which commenced in the 1950s. Without being linked to local communities, cooperative banks may lose their ability to perceive, respond, and adapt to local crises. Third, many scholars consider member growth and the increasing optimal size of cooperative banks as threats to governance (Höhler & Kühl, 2018). As early as the 1950s, the expanding size and complexity of local cooperative banks meant that the inclusion of professional bankers on the elected boards was inevitable. As a result, financially compensated managers replaced the originally unsalaried and voluntary cashiers. This change affected governance and planted the seeds for information asymmetries and principal-agent problems, i.e., “potential conflicts of interest between managers and owners” (Groeneveld, 2020:369, see also Fama & Jensen, 1983). This short case example demonstrates that the special attributes of cooperatives are likely to create more resilience, while the disappearance of these attributes may decrease the organization’s and its stakeholders’ overall resilience levels. At this point, it is important to note that in the case of cooperative banks, we cannot clearly separate its effects on organizational and societal resilience, as this case shows us that cooperatives can contribute to both. For example, access to financial resources can help individual cooperatives to be more resilient, while correcting market failures and demonstrating solidarity can contribute to the resilience of the broader society (e.g., Chiaramonte et al., 2015; Coccorese & Shaffer, 2021).

3.2 Emerging Organizational Resilience: Intensive Care Unit at the University Hospital of Geneva

When the University Hospital of Geneva merged its two intensive care units (ICU) in 2005, an organizational crisis unfolded. Many difficulties arose during the merger. However, instead of the expected chaos, efficiency and quality of care unexpectedly increased. This means that the teams involved in the merger could weather the uncertainty that was brought upon them surprisingly well. What caused this sudden onset of resilience? The hospital appointed a research team to investigate the situation to codify and routinize the practices that led to it. The team, consisting of authors Pariès et al. (2013) combined existing resilience capabilities lists from extant scholarly works (e.g., Hollnagel et al., 2006) to investigate the causes of the suddenly emerging organizational resilience at the hospital. As a result of their efforts, a follow-up project named REACT was launched to further improve the crisis management abilities of the hospital staff.

ICU systems (including the individuals, work groups, and the service as a whole) are known to operate under high pressure, and extremely complex clinical conditions, which require them to adapt quickly (Madsen et al., 2006; Pariès et al., 2013). Prior to the merger of the ICUs in Geneva, the 2 units, namely, the surgical intensive care unit and the internal medicine intensive care unit had a history of competition and conflict, which manifested itself in rivaling managers and different management methods in the units. After the merger, when the head of the former internal medicine intensive care unit took over, the unit struggled with establishing its legitimacy, and absenteeism, high employee turnover, and burnout became an everyday sight. Surprisingly, amidst these difficulties, the overall performance of the service increased. In the first 2 years after the merger, 20% more patients were admitted, peak hours were well-handled, and patient readmission rates decreased.

Pariès and colleagues recorded their observations about the ICU, distinguishing among the different levels of operation (individual—team—unit), as well as the nature of the observed situations (normal—disturbed—crisis). They concluded that most features of resilience engineering theory seemed to be present in the ICU; however, they emphasize that these features were not there by design, but rather, they emerged from experience. In the following, I will briefly summarize their most important findings and show how some of the observed mechanisms and actions resemble the operational logic of cooperatives.

3.2.1 Collective Information Sharing Increases Resilience

The medical visit is an institutionalized event at the ICU, in which people in different roles (residents, senior physicians, deputy head doctors, nurses, etc.) participate. Each participant in the medical visit examines the patients using their own unique set of knowledge, expertise, and competences. As a result of the diversity in experience, the examination process is more robust. It also offers a platform for the group to make sense of their observations and discuss various possible trajectories and complications. For example, doctors suggest signals and control values that should alert the nurses, and provide instructions for recovery, thus prompting nurses to be prepared in case such a problem occurs. During non-crisis situations, medical visits happen in an expected and anticipated rhythm. However, when complex cases occur, deviation from the protocol occurs—but due to the collective sharing process, this deviation is based on collective consensus, and the responsibility is shared among all participants (Pariès et al., 2013).

3.2.2 Assessing the Situation and Responding in Real Time

Whether or not a team can correctly gauge the severity of a situation can directly influence patient survival rates. The main challenge of the ICU is to navigate its relatively fixed capacities to the fluctuating demands of the patients. In the ICU of the University Hospital of Geneva, leading nurses participate in doctors’ symposia to better assess patients’ status and anticipate their release. When this anticipatory regulation process fails due to workload surges, a capacity crisis occurs, and the operating mode of the unit immediately shifts. To maintain system resilience, it is important to immediately recognize the emergence of a crisis, and to switch to a different steering logic. In this logic, “priorities, objectives and trade-off criteria are modified, and teams, roles, and responsibilities are being reconfigured” (e.g., nurses may take on the roles of residents) (Pariès et al., 2013).

It is also important to identify the type of crisis as it emerges. In case of a capacity crisis such as the one described above, the bottom of the pyramid (e.g., nurses and residents) gets mobilized. A key success factor in managing such a capacity crisis is the dynamic adaptation of the level of delegation, as well as decentralization at the operation floor. In the case of a complexity crisis, however, mobilization at the “top of the pyramid” (e.g., senior doctors and experts from other units) occurs, while junior employees are delegated to attend more “inferior” tasks. Regardless of the type of crisis, whether the team can collectively (and on time) recognize the need to shift from non-crisis to crisis mode, will determine the unit’s resilience (Hollnagel, 2010).

3.2.3 Self-Organization and Collaboration across Roles and Teams

Following the merger, due to the lack of clarity of the frameworks and policies senior physicians did not feel supported by the unit management. Thanks to the relatively high autonomy doctors have in their vocation, they were able to self-organize and create a guidance framework for themselves when the management did not provide one. The doctors proactively created new procedural responses and cooperation modes to handle difficult situations. As these cooperation modes proved efficient, they later became institutionalized within the unit. Pariès and colleagues point out that such poly-centric governance practices are better suited to generate system resilience (see also Ostrom, 2010).

3.2.4 Adaptation of Protocols in a Cooperative Setting

Pariès and colleagues also observed that during times of crisis, caregivers have a different attitude to protocols. Protocols are necessary, but “they may need to be adapted – sometimes invented—to have a quicker and more efficient effect.” However, while doctors (who are usually the innovators) benefit from proposing inventive strategies, the nurses (who must implement these strategies) may be punished for performing these actions “outside the protocol’s protective scope.” As a result, a competitive atmosphere emerges, where doctors must convince nurses to break the protocol, while nurses may veto the doctors’ decisions if they deem it too risky or not convincing enough. This cooperative way of doctors and nurses balancing rules and flexibility contributes to the system’s resilience.

Pariès and colleagues emphasize that the resilient features were not planned in the case of the ICU in Geneva and that in many cases resilience could only be achieved at great personal costs, such as chronic stress levels and exhaustion of hospital staff (e.g., 17% of the caregivers had a higher burnout score in the first 2 years after the merger). One could but speculate, had the organizational form and mindset been adapted early on, such sacrifices might have been diminished or avoided.

3.3 Organizational Resilience Fosters Societal Resilience: Cooperative Housing in Switzerland

3.3.1 The Social Benefits of Housing Cooperatives in Switzerland

In Switzerland, ca. 12% of rental apartments are provided by non-profit housing cooperatives and social institutions (cities and municipalities) (Kraft, 2021). The goal of housing cooperatives is to create quality and affordable housing for all segments of the population. In most housing cooperatives, residents are members and have a say in decision-making. Instead of paying a security deposit like in a regular rental apartment, they pay for a so-called share certificate. This makes them co-owners and they thus share the responsibility for the entire cooperative. This form of cooperative living is often referred to as the “third way” between renting and homeownership. According to the Swiss Association of Non-Profit Housing Developers, living in a housing cooperative offers several advantages. First, residents of cooperatives benefit from lower average rents compared to the rest of the housing market. This is because cooperatives do not aim to generate profits with their properties. They charge only a so-called cost-based rent, meaning they charge only as much as the apartment (including land, construction costs, maintenance, and management) actually costs. Second, the properties of cooperatives cannot be resold. They are removed from speculation and remain affordable in the long term. Third, residents enjoy high housing security, as their apartments cannot be easily terminated. Fourth, members can participate in the cooperative’s decision-making processes. Each cooperative member is invited to the general assembly and can vote on important matters and elect members of the board. Furthermore, any member can submit a proposal to the general assembly to suggest changes. A further option for those who wish to be even more actively involved is to participate in the board or a working group. Fifth, many housing cooperatives foster an active community life in their neighborhoods, with events, recreational offerings, and social services, thereby diminishing loneliness in the community. Finally, joining a cooperative does not require a large amount of personal capital, and is therefore available to everybody (Verband der gemeinnützigen Wohnbauträger, 2023). As a result, cooperative housing communities are more socially inclusive.

3.3.2 A Short History of Cooperative Housing in Switzerland

Housing cooperatives in Switzerland can only flourish due to the presence of multiple factors such as agreeable market conditions, political and regulatory willingness, and cultural as well as societal acceptance. Today, nobody questions their beneficial impact on society. However, their development was not always straightforward. The following short historical overview demonstrates how the co-alignment of multiple factors (e.g., peace and economic stability) contributed to the acceptance and spreading of housing cooperatives in Switzerland.

The first Swiss housing cooperatives emerged after 1860, during the industrialization of the country, as an attempt to address poor living conditions. Especially between 1890 and the First World War, many housing cooperatives were founded in the cities of Basel, Bern, Biel, Zurich, Winterthur, and St. Gallen. Only a few of these housing cooperatives from the nineteenth century still exist today, and there is no record of significant construction projects by housing cooperatives during this time. It was not until 1910 that the actual cooperative movement began with the establishment of the first railway worker cooperatives supported by federal enterprises (Mangold & Ruf, 1929). During the First World War, a few more housing cooperatives were established in cities; however, due to economic conditions of the time, they were scarcely able to construct any apartments. It was only after the First World War that circumstances allowed for an increased establishment of housing cooperatives and the construction of apartments. The housing shortage was so significant that many cities, cantons, and even the federal government initiated active housing construction support. This led to the first wave of housing cooperative booms (Schmid, 2004). A second wave of establishment and construction was observed during and after the Second World War (Küng, 1948).

3.3.3 Success Factors of Swiss Housing Cooperatives

Housing cooperatives in Switzerland come in all shapes and sizes. The variations in design, objectives, organization, underlying cooperative principles, and even regional distribution are substantial. However, these cooperatives play a significant role in the quantitative and qualitative housing supply of Switzerland, particularly in cities, urban areas, as well as in communities outside of them. In addition to offering affordable rents, most housing cooperatives provide a wide range of benefits to both residents and members, as well as to the public sector, benefits that are not typically found with non-profit housing providers. These results are evident in terms of rental rates, occupancy rates, composition of residents, as well as the many social, communal, and membership-related additional offerings (Schmid, 2004). This achievement can, in part, be attributed to the alignment of cooperative organizational design with the specific requirements and cultural norms of local communities, which vary from canton to canton in Switzerland.

3.3.4 Challenges of Housing Cooperatives

Survey results (Schmid, 2004:102) show that the “cooperative mindset” among tenants, members, and policymakers has been declining for some time. The opportunities and benefits of cooperative housing are less widely known, and the cooperative movement is less present in political and general public discourse. This may be because cooperatives themselves are no longer as politically active, like they were once, during World War I, when the cooperative movement was a formative political force alongside labor and trade union movements. Today, a collective identity in terms of cooperative politics no longer exists (ibid). The political power of housing cooperatives has not completely vanished, though. Balmer and Gerber report that housing cooperatives are well-equipped to sustain themselves in the face of political jolts and to resist financial constraints or market-oriented rental practices. They are also capable actors in the context of local counter-reactions to housing scarcity and the strategic measures that are favored by local stakeholders who resist the rollback of the state (2018).

At the same time, many housing cooperatives seem to have a structural problem. As census data shows, housing cooperatives cannot always offer solutions that meet today’s modern living requirements (read: demand for more space in apartments). Due to small spaces, it is often precisely the families that must decide against cooperative living. This indicates that in some areas, it is becoming harder to find tenants that are committed to the cooperative, and would be willing to act as board members, for example. With the diminished interest in housing cooperatives,Footnote 4 the risk of having to run these organizations by external, third-party services increases, further eroding cooperative identity (Schmid, 2004:106).

The survey also reveals a surprising level of inconsistency with regard to how these housing cooperatives are organized and managed. There is a large variety in forms of management (from self-management to third-party management), degrees of professionalization, and types of boards and auditors. In sum, while housing cooperatives are proven to contribute to community-level resilience worldwide (e.g., during the COVID-19 crisis, see Arnold & Quintas, 2020), for them to remain attractive in the future, a higher level of professionalization is recommended (Schmid, 2004:110).

3.4 Case Study Outcomes and Reflections

The first two organizations in the above examples created and nurtured resilience, which eventually helped them to overcome difficulties in critical situations. It is notable that the University Hospital of Geneva does not have a cooperative structure; however, after the merger of the two units, doctors, nurses, and other stakeholders were so worried about the potential problems that might emerge that they adopted a cooperative mindset, which contributed to an overall higher level of resilience of the hospital, even without the support of upper management. This mindset manifested in practices of openness and generativity, during which the group of colleagues (consisting of nurses, residents, and doctors) used their collective knowledge and resources to make sense of emergent situations, and modify their behavior to solve them (Carmeli et al., 2013).

Raiffeisen Bank, on the contrary, had a cooperative structure and culture at the beginning, however, these became diluted over the years, which resulted in decreased resilience. Overall, the two case studies show that neither traits of the cooperative as an organizational form nor resilience levels are constant in time. Resilience can emerge from experience (in the ICU in Geneva), but it can also be designed (as in the case of the Raiffeisen banks). Resilience levels can change due to organizational restructuring, or due to a shift in the organizational mindset. In any case, organizational resilience is not something that we should take for granted in the presence of one organizational form or another, as it is the result of continuous human effort and communication across multiple levels of the organization (van der Vegt et al., 2015).

The third case, focusing on housing cooperatives, serves as a bridge between organizational and societal resilience. This case underscores the fact that the societal advantages of cooperatives can only be consistently realized when there is a widespread societal consensus regarding their utility. Presently, Swiss housing cooperatives are confronted with numerous challenges, suggesting that even well-established cooperatives with lengthy traditions can diminish in significance if they fail to modernize their offerings. Although housing cooperatives have undoubtedly played a role in enhancing societal resilience in Switzerland, their future could be more precarious than many are willing to acknowledge.

3.4.1 How Did the Three Organizations Overcome the Cognitive, Strategic, Political, and Ideological Challenges in Their Quest Toward Resilience?

The strategic challenge, (i.e., to create new options instead of sticking to “dying strategies”), was, or is currently being addressed in all three cases. The ICU at the University Hospital of Geneva learned to recognize crisis situations and became good at switching between tasks and roles. Swiss housing cooperatives have been implementing measures to address the emerging new needs of their members, however, at this point, their strategic renewal is still an ongoing process.

The historic case of Raiffeisen Bank serves as an example of how an organization can simultaneously tackle the strategic, cognitive, and political challenges by its mere establishment. Raiffeisen noticed a society-level challenge, and addressed them by creating an entirely new type of organization. Having illustrated how Raiffeisen Bank addressed multiple dimensions of organizational challenges, we now return to examine specifically the cognitive challenge. This challenge (i.e., recognizing and accepting the need for change) was addressed by the ICU when they appointed a research team to investigate the situation after the merger and codify and routinize the practices that enabled the team’s resilience. In housing cooperatives, the cognitive challenge is constantly in the forefront of attention due to their role vis-à-vis the state and the market (Balmer & Gerber, 2018). Interestingly, it is not so much their own cognitive challenges rather than the cognitive challenges of the Swiss policymakers that housing cooperatives address. Housing cooperatives use their interface toward the state and market to also manage the political challenge (i.e., the difficulty of reallocating resources and mitigating the political climate while doing so).

Indeed, in all three cases, actors have developed various responses to political challenges. In the ICU’s case, resource reallocation happened when the hospital announced the merger, and the political climate was managed thanks to the staff’s flexible adaptation skills, as well as individual-level resilience. Housing cooperatives contribute to solving resource challenges in the Swiss housing policy context by providing an alternative to state and market solutions for housing provision (Balmer & Gerber, 2018).

Finally, the ideological challenge (i.e., commitment to perpetual, opportunity-driven renewal instead of process optimization) is being addressed in all three cases. Perhaps slightly less so in the context of the ICU, as optimization is still a dominant logic in the healthcare industry complex. However, this particular ICU team’s case demonstrates that there is a willingness on the individual and team unit levels to embrace opportunities and renew practices.

The three cases in this chapter demonstrate that resilience is the result of a “complex interplay of many factors at different levels of analysis” (van der Vegt et al., 2015:977). However, the spillover from one level of analysis to the next is not guaranteed. Developing capacities for resilience at lower levels does not necessarily increase overall system resilience (van der Vegt et al., 2015:977). For cross-level resilience spillover, a great amount of holistic organizational awareness and conscious, process-oriented orchestration seems to be necessary. Organizations need to adopt a time-oriented approach: even if the spillover is facilitated at one point in time, there is no guarantee that it will function in the future. It requires continuous effort, learning from past experiences, and frequent adjustments to maintain cross-level resilience. In other words, organizations can purposely nurture and develop their resilience (Sutcliffe & Vogus, 2003); however, it requires a shift in organizational members’ focus and attention, and this may influence resource allocation (Bigley & Roberts, 2001). For any organization, the key is to understand the trade-offs between the allocation of resources for building resilience and other activities (Williams et al., 2017:757).

The above case studies discussed how cooperatives could contribute to the solution of complex and significant issues that affected or still affect a large part of society. It seems from the cases that cooperative logics are particularly helpful in mitigating complex societal challenges. To meaningfully address grand challenges, a complex interplay between actors of different hierarchical levels and geographies is necessary. In other words, top-down and bottom-up approaches need to continuously reinforce each other (Chatterjee et al., 2023). Cooperatives are uniquely positioned to facilitate dialogue between top-down and bottom-up voices, as their inclusive management approach reaches and empowers underprivileged groups, while they are recognized by major market and political actors (Niedworok et al., 2021). Indeed, linking various groups of society and decision makers, cooperatives are well-positioned to perceive and problematize local challenges, and then advocate for them in the national policy-making process.

4 Avenues for Future Research

Most studies look at organizational resilience during or immediately following adverse events (e.g., Bazot et al., 2019; Billiet et al., 2021; Musson & Rousselière, 2020). However, it is both timely and crucial to shift our crisis-oriented mindset toward an approach where resilience becomes an inherent feature of organizations right from their inception. One promising avenue is the integration of crisis management and resilience. The dynamic interplay of these two fields could enable future scholars to discover how aspects of leadership, time, complexity, and mindfulness can contribute to more resilient organizing (Williams et al., 2017). Additionally, the development of quantifiable resilience metrics within the framework of corporate reporting, akin to ESG standards, presents a transformative pathway for companies. Lastly, organizations, especially cooperatives, could harness tools like strategic forecasting and scenario planning to pre-emptively identify emerging societal needs (Scoblic, 2020).

5 Conclusion

This chapter provided an overview of recent developments in resilience research in organization and management studies. Most notably, scholars emphasize the necessity of moving away from understanding resilience as a defensive and reactive measure. Instead, organizations need to proactively design their capabilities, such as knowledge, skills, processes, and routines, in a way that enables them to anticipate and respond effectively to adverse events while reducing overall vulnerability. Organizations should recognize that resilience is not merely an outcome but a dynamic process, one that evolves over time and requires constant reevaluation and adjustment based on experiences and cues from the environment (Williams et al., 2017).

The three cases described in this chapter illustrate that cooperatives, owing to historical and structural factors, have developed organizational traits that foster resilience. Hence, decision makers across various organizational contexts can gain insights by examining the problem-solving and adaptive capabilities demonstrated by cooperatives. These cases also serve as a reminder that components of resilience building are contingent on specific contexts. While other organizations can certainly derive lessons from cooperatives, there are no off-the-shelf solutions for resilience. Instead, organizations should cultivate an internal understanding of the obstacles hindering their journey toward greater resilience. Addressing the four challenges—cognitive, strategic, political, and ideological—outlined by Hamel and Välikangas (2003) is a promising starting point. Simultaneously, cooperatives should regularly assess whether they are staying aligned with their principles and values. Only then can the cooperative structure genuinely enhance resilience.

Lastly, while this chapter primarily focuses on organizational resilience, it cannot be isolated from other levels such as individual, community, and societal resilience. Scholars universally agree that an organization’s resilience is significantly influenced by the environment in which it operates (e.g., van der Vegt et al., 2015:973). To mitigate the undesired side effects of resilience, such as system rigidity, false sense of security, and to address grand societal challenges, adopting a multi-stakeholder approach to resilience will become imperative in the future (see also Chaps. 14 and 15). Ultimately, the resilience of any society relies on the resilience of the institutions that comprise it (van der Vegt et al., 2015:977).