Organizational Resilience of Family Businesses (Odpornosc organizacyjna przedsiebiorstw rodzinnych)

Organizational resilience is a complex, strategic question that still lacks a clear answer, in particular relating to whether and how it is beneficial for the competitive advantage of a family business. We define organizational resilience of a family business as a dynamic, ambidextrous capability to recover from and positively adjust to an unexpected, adverse situation. In this study, using the strategic management theoretical background, we link organizational resilience to the competitive advantage of family businesses. We test this conjecture using data from 193 Polish small and medium-sized manufacturing family businesses. Drawing on these findings, we conceptualize organizational resilience along two dimensions: community robustness and creative agility identified as a key duality of organizational resilience in the context of family businesses. Results demonstrate that ambidextrous organizational resilience is positively correlated with the competitive advantage of a family business. We discuss the contribution of the theory of ambidexterity and dynamic capabilities to the understanding of organizational resilience, as well as the implications of the latter for the creation of competitive advantage by a family.