Rethinking organizational resilience and strategic renewal in SMEs

Building on work that associates organizational resilience with crisis recovery and strategic renewal, I examine how small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) vary in the formalisation of activities intended to achieve strategic growth and activities to enhance resilience against acute operational interruptions. Drawing on data from 265 SMEs in the United Kingdom, the main argument of this paper is that variations in formalisation activities reflect differences in firm location, personal networks, the influence of external crisis events, and entrepreneurs’ attitudes towards the prevention of crises. The resulting typology identifies four clusters: Attentive Interventionists, Light Planners, Rooted Strategists and Reliant Neighbours. These findings contrast with prior theorizations of firms as either resilient or vulnerable and further illuminate our understanding of SME resilience and how this is shaped by historical, developmental and strategic factors. The study further develops associations between resilience and social capital, examines how locational choices generate a proximity premium, and develops a growth-survival-maturity perspective on SME resilience. Data reveals an interplay between an ensemble of entrepreneurial activities and decisions about planning, networks, learning, and location. Thus, the study offers a rethinking of prior theorizations about organizational resilience and strategic renewal.