The relationship between enterprise governance structures and organisational resilience in post-conflict economies remains underexplored. Rwanda's distinctive socio-political context, characterised by a centralised developmental state model, provides a critical case for examining how governance adaptations influence business durability and performance. This study aims to compare the governance mechanisms of state-linked enterprises and privately-held firms, analysing their respective contributions to organisational resilience. It seeks to identify the specific governance attributes that correlate with sustained performance and adaptive capacity. A longitudinal comparative case study design was employed, utilising a mixed-methods approach. Data were synthesised from corporate reports, policy documents, and semi-structured interviews with senior executives and board members from a purposively sampled cohort of enterprises. State-linked enterprises demonstrated superior resilience in maintaining operational continuity during systemic shocks, with 78% reporting uninterrupted service delivery. However, privately-held firms exhibited greater adaptive innovation in business model pivoting. A central theme was the critical role of relational governance, extending beyond formal board structures, in facilitating resource access and institutional alignment. Governance resilience is multifaceted; formal compliance mechanisms alone are insufficient. The Rwandan model suggests that deeply embedded, network-based governance can be a potent stabilising force, though it may concurrently constrain certain types of entrepreneurial innovation. Policymakers should encourage hybrid governance frameworks that blend the stability of relational networks with formal incentives for innovation. Enterprises should invest in building strategic redundancy within their governance networks to enhance adaptive capacity. corporate governance, organisational resilience, post-conflict economy, developmental state, mixed methods, East Africa This paper provides the first longitudinal, comparative analysis of governance-resilience dynamics in Rwanda, introducing the concept of 'relational governance depth' as a key explanatory variable for enterprise stability in constrained institutional environments.
Uwase et al. (Fri,) studied this question.