Adaptive Resilience in Shrinking Regions: Emerging Firm-Level Patterns of Authentic Leadership and Endogenous Renewal in a Resource-Constrained Legacy Organization

Since the late 1970s, regional areas in Japan have experienced prolonged contraction driven by population decline, aging, and industrial shrinkage. Prior research has shown that some localities exhibit adaptive resilience under these conditions, yet the firm-level processes underlying such resilience remain insufficiently understood. This study examines Nagano International Country Club (NICC), a regionally central growth-era firm in Nagano Prefecture that increased its visitor numbers to 165% of the 2013 level despite severe financial constraints and flat performance among nearby competitors. Using semi-structured member interviews ( n = 3), employee surveys ( n = 5), and a reflexively governed autoethnographic analysis, the study explores how stakeholders perceived NICC’s recovery trajectory. Under extreme resource scarcity, the manager repeatedly engaged in a low-cost, labor-intensive practice of personally repairing divots. Participants interpreted this sustained practice as an authentic expression of leadership that appeared to foster trust, activate or generate a sense of belonging, and encourage voluntary participation in course maintenance. These processes were perceived as contributing to spontaneous value co-creation that emerged without crisis framing or financial incentives. The study offers a context-specific interpretation of how endogenous, trust-based value co-creation may be experienced within a resource-constrained legacy firm and suggests that early contours of adaptive resilience observed at the regional level may also manifest at the firm level.