Heterogeneous corporate culture and organisational resilience

This study examines how heterogeneous corporate culture shapes organisational resilience, drawing on dynamic-capabilities theory and organisational learning theory. Using textual analysis of management discussion and analysis sections from 19,019 Chinese firm–year observations spanning 2010 to 2023, we construct two culture indices, competitive orientation (CMP) and cooperative orientation (COP) and relate them to an entropy-weighted resilience index. Firm fixed-effects regressions confirm that both orientations strengthen resilience, yet operate through distinct capability pathways. Mediation analysis shows that competitive culture transmits its effect primarily through elevated R&D intensity, consistent with knowledge-creation and seizing mechanisms, while cooperative culture operates through greater capital expenditure intensity, consistent with resource reconfiguration and collective asset commitment. Instrumental-variable estimation, Heckman selection correction and propensity-score matching corroborate these findings, alleviating concerns over reverse causality and self-selection. Heterogeneity tests further show that both pathways are substantially stronger in high-technology industries and larger enterprises. The results contribute a dual-pathway framework to the resilience literature, documenting that cultural orientations encode distinct resource-allocation logics whose resilience payoffs depend on industry context and firm scale. For practitioners, the findings suggest calibrating capability investments to an organisation’s dominant cultural orientation rather than adopting a uniform cultural template.