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

Citation

Karlsson, P.S., Offord, M. and Enang, I. (2023), "Guest editorial: Resilience in a post-pandemic world – has anything changed?", Continuity & Resilience Review, Vol. 5 No. 2, pp. 113-115. https://doi.org/10.1108/CRR-07-2023-045

We have the pleasure to present this special issue of Continuity and Resilience Review on Resilience in a post-pandemic world – has 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 meso-organisational 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 hostility, entrepreneurial orientation and dynamic capabilities affected export performance during COVID-19, based on their qualitative research in manufacturer-exporter agro-processing firms in the Philippines.

Tetteh et al. (2023) present an empirical case study of women entrepreneurs in the beauty industry in Ghana and how opportunity recognition manifested itself during COVID-19.

Karlsson and Offord (2023) present a reflective case study on higher education during COVID-19, taking a crisis and resilience perspective.

Ferguson (2023) discusses what elements a practitioner handbook designed for business continuity and resilience in government requires, in his South African context.

Finally, Hillson (2023) questions whether resilience is enough, or if there is a need to consider the concept of antifragility, in his conceptual opinion piece.

We thank the editorial team at the Continuity and Resilience Review for their support throughout the special issue process and all authors from around the world who submitted their contributions. We believe that this issue has achieved its overarching aim. We hope that the salient points, including the new knowledge on risk resilience, risk management and business continuity, during the COVID-19 pandemic has been effectively communicated and will be used to advance organisational practice. This special issue continues some of the existing debates in the CRR journal. For example, supply chain resilience remained a popular theme, with one selected paper building on the supply chain special issue by Yuen et al. (2022) and other recent supply chain papers. Another paper builds on the theme of women entrepreneurs, which Tiwari and Shastri (2022) also recently wrote about. One paper contributes to Stamenkov's (2022) paper about business continuity plans. Therefore, we are confident that everyone will find something that is of particular interest to them in this special issue.