Organizational Adaptation to Exogenous Shocks: How Organizations Respond to Environmental Disruptions

Dear Colleagues,

Environmental shocks, which are typified by high-impact, unforeseeable, unpredictable, ‘Black Swan’ events, create highly disruptive environments for organizations (Taleb, 2007). Such shocks were witnessed in the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, the 2007-2009 global financial crisis, and the 2020-2022 COVID-19 pandemic. These events caused revolutionary upheavals in the ecosystem, disrupting the steady-state equilibrium in which organizations operated, and heralded the emergence of new, unfamiliar paradigms (Gersick, 1991). The mandates of a newly emerging paradigm invariably belie the tenets of the old paradigm, and organizations that neglect these new mandates predispose themselves to failure (Selsky and McCann, 2012; Slagmulder and Devoldere, 2018). Regrettably, there is little research that focuses on the early detection of such paradigm-shifting events and strategies for mitigating them.

For instance, in addressing the concept of strategic surprise management, research by Ansoff et al. (2018) notes that the ability to respond quickly and strategically to unpredictable change can determine the success or failure of firms. Research by Adobor et al. (2021) suggests that envisioning organizations as complex adaptive systems is required and that leadership must develop strategic adaptive capabilities to prepare for these episodic disruptions. Some studies proffer behavioral strategies – notably, the agency of the firm’s executives in managing the mental processes necessary to pursue innovative and cognitively distant opportunities – to be the essential vehicles for responding to disruptive environments (Foss, 2020; Gavetti, 2012; Mangaliso et al., 2022; Soluk, 2022; Vlas et al., 2022). Other studies highlight the presence of developed external institutions as more critical than organizational resources in mitigating the impact of environmental shocks (Chakrabarti, 2015). The organizational resilience literature dives into some of the distinct challenges brought about by disruptions, as embodied in volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and/or ambiguity (VUCA), suggesting different ways to approach disruption (Dimitriadis, 2021; Kim et al., 2024; Wang et al., 2024). However, more research is necessary to enhance our understanding of disruptive environments and develop long-term, sustainable strategies for mitigating them. Unless more thought is dedicated to environmental shocks, their impact will continue to wreak havoc on organizations and society at large.

This call for papers invites scholars and practitioners to explore organizational strategies for sustainable organizational performance in disruptive environments. The goal is to deepen our theoretical and practical knowledge in this area of research. The focus of the papers should be on understanding the challenges and opportunities presented by disruptive events and on proposing models for mitigate them. By contributing to this Special Issue of Administrative Sciences you will be joining a global conversation on how organizations can effectively buffer themselves from the impact of disruptive exogenous shocks. As such, we invite submissions of original papers that will advance our knowledge in this important area of research.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 300-500 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editors ([email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]) and cc to Administrative Sciences the special issue editor ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review. 

References:

Adobor, H., Darbi, W. P. K., & Damoah, O. B. O. (2021). Strategy in the era of “swans”: The role of strategic leadership under uncertainty and unpredictability. Journal of Strategy and Management. ISSN: 1755-425X.

Ansoff, I., Kipley, D., & Lewis, A. (2018). Implanting Strategic Management. New York, NY: Palgrave-MacMillan.

Bravo, O., & Hernández, D. (2021). Measuring organizational resilience: Tracing disruptive events facing unconventional oil and gas enterprise performance in the Americas. Energy Research & Social Science, 80, 102187.

Camillus, J., Ramanadhan, S., & Ganapathy, K. (2021). Strategy in the time of pandemics, climate change and the Kurzweil Singularity. Journal of Strategy and Management, 14(3), 300-314.

Chakrabarti, A. (2015). Organizational adaptation in an economic shock: The role of growth reconfiguration. Strategic Management Journal, 36(11), 1717-1738.

Dimitriadis, S. (2021). Social capital and entrepreneur resilience: Entrepreneur performance during violent protests in Togo. Strategic Management Journal, 42(11), 1993-2019.

Foss, N. J. (2020). Behavioral strategy and the COVID-19 disruption. Journal of Management, 46(8): 1322-1329.

Gavetti, G. (2012). Perspective - Toward a behavioral theory of strategy. Organization Science, 23(1), 267-285.

Gersick, C. J. (1991). Revolutionary change theories: A multilevel exploration of the punctuated equilibrium paradigm. Academy of Management Review, 16(1), 10-36.

Kim, J., Kwon, K., & Choi, J. (2024). Rethinking skill development in a VUCA world: Firm-specific skills developed through training & development in S. Korea. Personnel Review, 53(3), 657-673.

Mangaliso, M. P., Ndanga, L. Z. B., & Major, D. L (2022). Behavioral strategy, innovation, and environmental disruptions. In T. K. Das (Ed.). Innovation and Behavioral Strategy. (pp. 53-84). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc.

Mondragon, A. E. C., & Mondragon, C. E. C. (2012). The effects of low-probability, high-impact events on automotive supply chains: Black Swans and the 2011 earthquake-tsunami disaster that hit Japan. In Ciravegna, L. (Ed.). Sustaining Industrial Competitiveness after the Crisis: Lessons from the Automotive Industry (pp. 104-113). New York, NY: Palgrave-MacMillan.

Selsky, J. W., & McCann, J. E. (2012). Managing disruptive change and turbulence through continuous change thinking and scenarios. In Ramirez, R., Selsky, J., & Van der Heijden, K. (Eds.). Business Planning for Turbulent Times: New Methods for Applying Scenarios, 2nd Edition (pp. 167-186). New York: Routledge.

Soluk, J. (2022). Organizations’ resources and external shocks: Exploring digital innovation in family firms. Industry and Innovation, 29(6), 792-824.

Simchi-Levi, D., Schmidt, W., Wei, Y., Zhang, P. Y., Combs, K., Ge, Y., & Zhang, D. (2015). Identifying risks and mitigating disruptions in the automotive supply chain. Interfaces, 45(5), 375-390.

Slagmulder, R., & Devoldere, B. (2018). Transforming under deep uncertainty: A strategic perspective on risk management. Business Horizons, 61(5), 733-743.

Taleb, N. N. (2007). The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. New York: Random House.

Vlas, C.O., Vlas, R.E., Robinson, W.N., & Masoud, Y. (2023). How do external disruptions affect technological knowledge repository diversification? The role of repositories' historical and social aspiration levels and knowledge footprint. Knowledge and Process Management, 30(1), 110-121.

Wang, X., Zhang, Z. Jia, M. (2024). Taming the black swan: CEO with military experience and organizational resilience. Asia Pacific Journal of Management: 1-57. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-023-09941-1(3) 

Dr. Mzamo P. Mangaliso
Dr. Alfred O. Lewis
Dr. Cristina Vlas
Prof. Dr. dt ogilvie
Guest Editors

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• strategic management
• exogenous shocks
• environmental disruptions
• organizational adaptation
• sustainability