Conceptual Development of a Resilience Maturity Model for SMEs

In highly volatile and uncertain times, organizations are increasingly facing adversities and unexpected events that threaten their functioning and long-term existence. This urgently calls for organizations to emphasize on their resilience, which holds in particular for SMEs. Therefore, it is necessary to have a solid understanding of the concept of organizational resilience – how it is defined, by which variables it is determined, and how it can be assessed, maintained, and improved over time. Consequently, this chapter firstly derives a process-oriented definition for organizational resilience as the ability of an organization to anticipate, cope, and adapt to challenging conditions (e.g., crisis, shock, or other adverse events) with the aim to withstand or bounce back and emerge from them strengthened and more resourceful. Consequently, organizational resilience is specified by three determinants: resilience resources, resilience organization, and resilience capabilities. Subsequently, the conceptual development of a resilience maturity model for SMEs is presented. It offers a fast and easy-to-use assessment tool for managers of SMEs to benchmark oneself against selected resilience criteria. It can be used to assess strengths and weaknesses, which facilitates the development of roadmaps for improvement. Finally, it provides the opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of the applied improvement measures.