How Environmental Turbulence Shapes the Path from Resilience to Sustainability: Useful Insights Gathered from Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

In the context of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), organizational resilience has emerged as a critical capability for navigating dynamic and turbulent environments. The ability of firms to sustain their performance despite external disruptions, particularly those arising from market and technological change, is paramount for achieving long-term sustainability. This study offers a novel contribution by examining how two key dimensions of environmental turbulence—market turbulence and technological turbulence—moderate the relationship between organizational resilience capacity and sustainability performance. Our empirical findings, based on data from 423 SMEs, demonstrate that while organizational resilience positively correlates with sustainability performance, this relationship is significantly weakened under high levels of market and technological turbulence, indicating a negative moderating effect. These results advance resource-based and dynamic capabilities theory by highlighting the contingent nature of resilience in unstable contexts. Furthermore, this study provides practical guidance. SMEs should strategically invest in resilience-building efforts and continuously adapt their strategies in response to environmental fluctuations. Targeted approaches to managing different forms of turbulence and forming resilience-oriented collaborations can enhance sustainability outcomes. This research makes significant contributions to theory and practice; however, there are limitations that future research should take into account in order to appropriately utilize this study’s findings.