Organizational Reliability Model Verification in the Crisis Escalation Phase Caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This article concerns the Organizational Reliability Model (ORM) verification in the crisis escalation phase caused by critical conditions of organization functioning induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. ORM is constituted by three reliabilities, human resources, information technology, and management, which are mediators through which Type-1 and Type-2 reliability capabilities influence organizational reliability. Organizational reliability is a prerequisite for sustainability of contemporary organizations. The model was developed and verified for a variety of operating conditions. However, crisis induced by a Black Swan type of event creates conditions so critical that it calls for verification of known paradigms and models, as an element of crisis-state theory building. This is why this paper’s aim was to verify the ORM and explain the mechanisms of shaping organizational reliability in such conditions in order to contribute to both theory (verifying the organizational reliability paradigm among organizations in crisis) and practice (proposing mechanisms, potentially helping them survive). The ORM is empirically verified based on the sample of 115 employees from Italy operating under critical conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic (research carried out in the week of 18–22 March 2020). In order to verify the hypothesis, the path analysis was executed using SPSS AMOS. The results confirmed that in the extreme critical conditions causing crisis escalation for the organizations, there is a need to redefine the existing paradigms, including ORM. The results show that the HR reliability role in the ORM has drastically changed and the mechanism of its influence on organizational reliability is significantly different in crisis influenced by critical conditions of organization functioning. They also confirmed that IT together with HR is dependent on management to change the way of working and until that, its reliability may be counterproductive for the reliability of organizational as a whole. Therefore, obtaining sustainability in the crisis escalation phase requires redefining the mechanisms for securing organizational reliability.

Innovative human resource management strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic narrative review approach

“…In the uncertain conditions caused by COVID-19, in order to create safe and reliable conditions in the organization, it is necessary to pay attention to the three pillars of reliability, which include human resources, information technology, and management in general and not separately. [ 42 ]. Human resource reliability refers to the ability to anticipate and detect potential risks and problems, prevent disruptions in the performance of IT systems, maintain adequate performance, solve problems to promote effective performance and learn through experience.…”

“…The manager’s reliability, however, is focused on the ability to anticipate and detect potential risks and problems that prevent the organization from reaching its goals, change in the management system to prevent disruption, restore the organization’s performance to its natural state in case of disruption, and learn from mistakes. This ratability promotes work motivation, job satisfaction, organizational values, commitment and interaction, and managers' abilities and interpersonal relationships 42 , 43 . The structure and interaction of these three pillars (human resources, information technology, and management) in the organization must change in the wake of crises.…”

The Verification of Employees’ Dynamic Capabilities Based Model of Job Performance in Organizations Functioning in the Crisis Caused by COVID-19 Pandemic

“…The EDC based Model of Job Performance modified for the time of the initial phase of crisis occurring in organization due to Black Swan phenomena is presented in Figure 1. The obtained results confirmed that during the crisis caused by Black Swan, traditional models and paradigms of management indeed do not work the same (Bieńkowska, Tworek, and Zabłocka-Kluczka, 2020). Due to the predicted disruption of job performance in times of crisis, the Job Performance Model based on EDC was also verified to have a different structure (Figure 2).…”

“…However, decision makers "are mostly concerned about the cost of mistakes, rather than exact knowledge about the statistical properties" (Taleb, 2007, p. 199). Moreover, in such extreme conditions of the organization's functioning causing crisis to occur in it, traditional models and paradigms of management do not work (Bieńkowska, Tworek and Zabłocka-Kluczka, 2020) and they need to rely on changed models in order to secure proper operation in critical conditions. The procedures normally adopted in the organization and the routines and down practices are no longer sufficient.…”

Reliability Evaluation of the Factors That Influenced COVID-19 Patients’ Condition

“…These two specifics (complexity of the investigated system and uncertainty of the initial data) are the principal factors that cause the development of new methods for reliability analysis in healthcare safety. The studies of healthcare safety in time of the coronavirus pandemic are restricted by uncertainties and weak knowledge even more [10,11,24]. Therefore, the methods for reliability analysis that allow analysis and evaluation based on uncertain data should be considered as the first.…”