Antecedents to bounce forward: A case study tracing the resilience of inter-organisational projects in the face of disruptions

Abstract

Inter-organisational projects depend on stakeholder interactions and joint decision-making to perform and continually adjust to variations. This paper examines the emergence of transformative resilience (i.e., dynamic project capabilities to pursue fundamentally new strategies and practices) when facing external disruptions. A process-orientated case study was conducted within a culturally diverse project network of disaster risk management actors from Sweden and four Asian countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study found three crucial interactional considerations in the premise of project resilience during challenging times. These considerations concern contextual (through proactivity for a common picture and centralisation of linkages), behavioural (through stakeholders’ willingness to engage, commit and distribute agency), and cognitive embeddedness (through appreciation of diversity and reflexivity of actions). The findings enrich our understanding of resilience with new insights into the sequential and antecedent role of social embeddedness in projects’ organisational transformation and the complexity of inter-organisational relationships in uncertain times.