The multilevel path to climate change adaptation

Climate change is a much neglected but urgent matter for society. Frequent and extreme weather events, fires, rising sea levels, and other such events are just some of the expected effects for which organizations must prepare and adapt. This article presents a systematic literature review on climate change adaptation and analyzes the factors that influence organizations’ strategic decision-making. The findings lead to a model elaborated to explain the role of such factors, considering their level of influence – individual, organizational, and institutional. This study contributes to the literature by proposing a model of climate change adaptation and explains the relationship between the internal and external factors in a multilevel context. The model identifies risk perception as one of the main contingent factors in adapting to climate change. Other contingent factors are the organizational resources and capabilities, stakeholders, and partnerships. Finally, the study demonstrates that public policies, values, individual experience, and cognitive capacity are important antecedents in the adaptation process.