A look at the literature under the keyword "organizational resilience" makes it clear that the focus to date has mostly been on traditional companies (see Hoffmann 2017). Accordingly, the fundamental goal is for organizations to remain economically viable. This does not necessarily apply to civil society organizations. This is because they often do not exist for their own benefit, but are fundamentally oriented towards the common good. They often address social problems or aim to achieve a specific normative goal. In a somewhat utopian way of thinking, they therefore at best abolish themselves when the social grievance they want to counteract has been resolved or when the vision they are striving for has been achieved. Or they find a completely new purpose. However, this is not really realistic, as many social challenges will unfortunately remain with us for a long time to come.
This is another reason why the topic of resilience is and remains relevant for civil society. But what exactly do we mean when we talk about the resilience of civil society organizations? We have already presented our general definition of resilience in an earlier blog post; when applied to organizations, we use the following definition:
Organizational resilience is the ability of an organization to learn how to deal with crises in order to remain capable of acting in the long term.
Crises prevent "business as usual" and require active adaptation to the changes. Organizations are not equally good at this.
In our understanding, resilience is not a characteristic that an organization has or does not have, but rather one that can be developed, trained and strengthened in order to be able to continue to fulfil the self-chosen organizational purpose - see above - even in the changing and often (initially) worsening conditions of a crisis.
Various elements come together here: Based on its respective resources at the levels of the individual persons (individual), their interaction (intersubjective) and the organization itself (structural), it is able to select context-specific action strategies to deal with the respective crisis.
We understand resources to be both tangible things, such as financial buffers or emergency plans, as well as psychological and organizational cultural aspects. These include, for example, a good flow of information within the organization or a stable network for exchanging information with other organizations.
The availability of these resources ultimately creates the potential for organizations to take action in order to respond adequately to the respective crisis (i.e. to adapt in the moment or with foresight).
Each crisis must be assessed depending on the context. Each crisis has its own specific implications with very different restrictions, interdependencies and options for action. The corona crisis has different effects than climate change; a sports club was restricted differently by corona than homeless aid, etc.
The available strategies for action, whether implicit or explicit, ultimately open up the space for organizations to adapt to the respective crisis.
We differentiate between the time of adaptation: a resilient organization is able to learn and heal from past crises, overcome current crises and proactively transform itself with a view to future crises.
In general, this definition also applies to traditional companies. However, if we compare them with civil society organizations, we are less interested in how they can ensure their "bare survival" and profitability, but rather how they can maintain their core function oriented towards the common good. However, even at this basic level of definition, there is only a limited degree of differentiation: After all, even a sports club wants to remain in existence and have the necessary funds to purchase new jerseys or dumbbells for its members if required. This is why the findings on resilient (economic) organizations are also interesting for our research. The challenge lies in adapting this knowledge to the very different actors in civil society and their goals.
The resilient organization: very complex and quite abstract
Challenges are also evident in the literature on the subject: it is not easy to grasp the concept. In his basic work, Gregor Hoffmann describes organizational resilience as a very complex, social phenomenon. This allows for many interpretations and leaves many questions unanswered. The suggestions as to which factors lead to organizational resilience are correspondingly diverse. Scientific work on the resilience of organizations has been going on since the 1990s. However, researchers are still far from agreeing on what exactly constitutes a resilient organization. Empirical and theoretical studies have compiled a variety of skills and processes that are crucial. Examples include:
Observe developments closely and foresee them (anticipate)
Be able to protect oneself from negative consequences (prepare)
Deal actively and appropriately with disruptions or crises that occur (respond) and
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Draw intelligent conclusions from experience (learning and adapting).
That sounds reasonable at least - and fairly general. What being resilient means for an organization in its very specific identity and in its specific environment must be consciously and sensitively adapted in each case. There can therefore be no one resilience checklist for everyone - especially not for civil society organizations, which can range from loose activist collectives to large charities. So when we approach criteria for the resilience of civil society organizations in the near future, we will not carve them in stone. They must remain tangible and adaptable.
Resilient human, resilient organization?
The current state of research does not yet provide a clear answer as to how exactly individual resilience - which has been researched in psychology since the 1950s - and collective or organizational resilience are connected. It seems obvious that resilient people in organizations contribute to making the organizations as such more resilient - and vice versa. In other words, when optimistic characters tend to come together, the organization also gains confidence in the future. If the organization has a clear, positive vision and strategy, its members are also more likely to have a positive outlook on the common future. However, such correlations have so far only been scientifically proven to a limited extent (see Gilan et al. 2022). Based on our experience and research in the areas of New Work and collaboration, the individual and collective levels intertwine in a productive and supportive way. For this reason, we will also take a closer look at this intertwining with regard to the question of the resilience of civil society organizations.
In the near future, we will compile points that can provide orientation for reflecting on the resilience of one's own organization and setting impulses for change - tailored to the special needs and conditions of civil society actors. To this end, we continue to dig intensively through research and consulting literature, are in contact with resilience experts from various disciplines and approaches and are interviewing civil society actors: What are your own experiences and best practices? Does your organization already have a resilience roadmap? What are you missing to better address the topic? Please send us your questions and answers.
Contact:
Stephan Peters (project manager) – stephan.peters@betterplace-lab.org
Backround: We have been researching the concept of resilience at the betterplace lab since the beginning of the year. We are taking a closer look at the buzzword that runs through political papers, disaster prevention plans and glossy digital brochures from management consultancies by focusing on civil society. The research project "Resilient civil society" therefore first looks at what resilience can mean for civil society organizations. On this basis, it asks what approaches and support we need so that actors in the social sector can deal well with crises and setbacks in a complex world and learn from them.
Cited literature:
Gilan, D., Helmreich, I., Himbert, M., & Hahad, O. (2022). Wirkzusammenhänge zwischen individueller und kollektiver Resilienzförderung (pp. 71–91). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37296-5_3
Hoffmann, G. P. (2017). Organisationale Resilienz. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-53944-6
“The resilient civil society” is a research project of the betterplace lab, funded for the period January 2023 to June 2024 by the Deutsche Stiftung für Engagement und Ehrenamt.