Guest editorial: Resilience in a post-pandemic world – has anything changed?

Abstract

We have the pleasure to present this special issue of Continuity and Resilience Review on Resilience in a post-pandemic worldhas anything changed?. Never has there been a crisis of such scale and magnitude as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, affecting all parts of the world, having been exacerbated by the globalised nature of business and society, with significant effects still in 2023.The disciplines of risk, resilience and business continuity were suddenly thrust into centre stage of discourse at macro levels of governments, meso levels of organisations and micro levels of individuals. The concept of risk resilience became more prominent in practice and research, with the momentum steadily growing throughout the global pandemic. However, to ensure increased awareness and effective implementation of risk resilience at mesoorganisational levels, there is a need for more empirical research with in-depth and critical consideration of risk resilience and its measurement (Hillman and Guenther, 2021).In this special issue, we analyse the current state of play in relation to risk, resilience and business continuity as we progress through the crisis stages (Fink, 1986) and reflect on the earlier, more chaotic phase, which has just passed. When we started on this journey of putting together a special issue on this topic, we speculated on the (in)adequacy of prior risk and resilience practices and theories and if there were clear and positive shifts in how these disciplines were viewed more broadly. Based on the latter, we considered the challenges posed by the pandemic across various sectors of society.Earlier in the pandemic, predictions around its potential impact on organisational practice, including increased use of risk functions in strategic planning, renewed interest in crisis management and closer links between crisis management and other risk disciplines were made (Deloitte, 2021). In 2022, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported that experts in risk management, resilience and business continuity appeared to be in higher demand because of COVID-19 (Bloom, 2022). Furthermore, the UK Government published its Resilience Framework in 2022, which argues that a strong resilience system at all levels of government and across the public, private and non-profit sectors is now more important than ever.In response to this, this special issue addresses the overarching question on the role and impact of COVID-19 on risk resilience, risk management and business continuity from an organisational perspective. Taking an inclusive approach, we included empirical and theoretical articles from a broad spectrum of disciplines and geographical regions. Articles from academics and practitioners, including reflective and opinion pieces, were also featured in this special issue. Mohamad et al. (2023) present empirical findings from the SME sector, focussed on supply chain risk and business continuity strategies in the Malaysian food industry during the pandemic. Isip et al. (2023) discuss how environmental h...

Comeback or evolution? Examining organizational resilience literature in pre and during COVID-19

“…COVID-19 has shaken crisis literature (Beech and Anseel, 2020; Karlsson et al. , 2023) and challenged many ideas about resilience (Paeffgen, 2023).…”