Resilience: The concept, a literature review and future directions

Abstract

In an ever-more interconnected world, countries, communities, organisations and individuals are all subjected to a diverse and ever-changing environment. The threats that this often turbulent environment poses can vary in both severity and frequency. Threats may also originate internally or externally to a system and create far reaching implications and impacts. Often, the impacts of these events are felt across the world. An event in one area can often have disastrous effects in another (Juttner 2005). Events can also take many forms as highlighted by several recently publicised occurences including the 2008 global financial crisis, the 2010 Haiti and Chile earthquakes and the unfolding events of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster following the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Natural disasters, pandemic disease, terrorist attacks, economic recession, equipment failure and human error can all pose both a potentially unpredictable and severe threat to the continuity of an organisation’s operations and infrastructure. The difficulty in proactively addressing these events lies in the fact that disasters are a multifarious concept, composed of many different elements that seem to defy any precise definition (Alexander 2003). It is often only through hindsight that disasters look like the events for which individuals, communities, organisations and countries should have prepared. Additionally, it is not only disasters that pose a threat but also small uncertainties or deviations that can cause significant challenges, particularly within the context of organisations and their associated networks. In order to withstand these challenges, it is essential that sufficient effort be channelled into developing robust and resilient organisational systems capable of withstanding and responding to these uncertainties and challenges.