Essays on Resilience in the Face of Adversity
Abstract
Organizations often experience adversity, which can be “an unfortunate event or circumstance or the state of serious and continued difficulty” (Tian and Fan 2014, p. 252); yet few successfully overcome such adversity. This dissertation focuses on identifying the factors that help organizations overcome adversity and become resilient. In Essay 1, I consider multilateral co-branding alliances (MCAs)—three or more independent firms operating under a single alliance brand while retaining their own individual brands. Although firms can gain significant value from participating in MCAs, disruptive events can undermine this value and make it unattractive for the alliance members to continue their participation. I investigate one such alliance disruption undermining the value of the common brand, and whether rebranding an MCA after a brand harm crisis can increase member firm extendedness—their continued participation in the alliance. I also evaluate the how the individual members’ “shadow of the past” i.e. their idiosyncratic experience with the alliance brand—explains the variation their extendedness. In Essay 2, I focus on multinational enterprises’ international expansion aspirations. MNEs often depend on physical locations owned and operated by host country local partners. Both parties have a vested interest in outlets shedding their early-stage vulnerability and transitioning to maturity. Maturity, however, does not confer immunity from sudden dips in sales that all outlets experience. The most severe of these—what I term a setback—might even pose an existential threat to the outlet. I identify the factors driving outlets’ resilience⸺ the likelihood and speed of their recovery from setback. I posit that the firm and its local partners’ ability and motivation to leverage the resources conferred by incubation (time spent in each phase of the lifecycle), imprinting (the outlets’ performance in their early days), learning (specifically from other outlets worldwide that have gone concurrently into setback), and incentives (elicited by the royalty regime) determine setback-experiencing outlets’ resilience. My research thus helps augment our understanding of organizational resilience, which is not just advantageous, but crucial for the organizations to ensure their long-term success, and the ability to thrive amidst adversity.