The relationship between environmental scanning and organizational resilience: Roles of process innovation and environmental uncertainty

Abstract

Due to increased global environment volatility and uncertainty, organizations are constantly faced with unexpected events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which has brought large international disruptions for several firms. Organizational resilience is a potential notion for describing how firms might stay alive and thrive in such a volatile environment. Therefore, this study aimed to examine how SMEs can foster their resilience through investigating the roles of environmental scanning and process innovation while testing the moderating role of environmental uncertainty. To achieve this aim, we tested a structural model through an empirical investigation with partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) using a sample of 249 Egyptian SMEs. The results reveal that process innovation is a necessary condition for environmental scanning to affect organizational resilience. Furthermore, the results do not support the moderating role of environmental uncertainty the indirect relationship between environmental scanning and organizational resilience. Our findings contribute to innovation and resilience literature by proving that process innovation is a necessary mechanism to translate environmental scanning information to enhance resilience. This research is the first to highlight the role of process innovation in linking environmental scanning to organizational resilience. Our results provide insights about how Egyptian SMEs could remain resilient amidst the COVID-19 through scanning their environments to improve internal processes. We discuss related theoretical and managerial implications.

Renew or die amidst COVID-19: investigating the effect of organizational learning culture on strategic renewal through strategic reconfiguration and digital transformation

“…The methodology for survey design is thought to be a potential source of bias favoring organizational members, nevertheless. This could serve to highlight how significant organizational reality is (YahiaMarzouk and Jin, 2022).…”

“…Due to this, many scholars have been concentrating on examining how organizations survived the epidemic by looking at their resilience during the pandemic (e.g. Dhoopar et al, 2022;Gorjian Khanzad and Gooyabadi, 2021;Jia et al, 2020;Thomas and Suresh, 2022;YahiaMarzouk and Jin, 2022). While the current literature claims that knowledge of the pandemic and the resilience of many business sectors has risen, it is apparent that knowledge of the factors supporting strategic renewal in the face of the epidemic has been under-studied (Gottardello and Karabag, 2022).…”

“…However, amidst the COVID-19 period, most researchers (e.g. Dhoopar et al, 2022;Gorjian Khanzad and Gooyabadi, 2021;Jia et al, 2020;Thomas and Suresh, 2022;YahiaMarzouk and Jin, 2022) focused on studying the ability of companies to stay robust and continue their operations amidst the pandemic through studying the concept of organizational resilience and its enablers, ignoring investigating how the survived organizations where able to survive through making systematical changes, applying structural adjustments and/or modifying their strategies. In this regard, Angelidou et al (2022) asserted that in response to the COVD-19 pandemic, numerous businesses across numerous industries and nations started to reorganize their production capacities and service offerings to accommodate the surge in demand for health care and personal protective equipment.…”

“…, 2022; Gorjian Khanzad and Gooyabadi, 2021; Jia et al. , 2020; Thomas and Suresh, 2022; YahiaMarzouk and Jin, 2022) focused on studying the ability of companies to stay robust and continue their operations amidst the pandemic through studying the concept of organizational resilience and its enablers, ignoring investigating how the survived organizations where able to survive through making systematical changes, applying structural adjustments and/or modifying their strategies. In this regard, Angelidou et al.…”