Constructing social resilience : a perspective of organisational structure and informational relation

• Main Author: Tasic, Justyna Katarzyna
• Other Authors: Sulfikar Amir
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Sociology
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/88679; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/48033
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Recently, the notion resilience has received a lot of attention from scholars, organisations, communities, and governments to enhance capacity in dealing with growing risks and uncertainties. This research addresses the major challenge of apprehending resilience from a social science perspective. More specifically, through the compilation of three papers, this thesis seeks to better understand key factors of social resilience and propose new ways to enhance it. The dissertation highlights that social resilience is strongly related to social interactions, flow of information, and organisational structures and their context. To accomplish its research objective, this thesis explores 1) how organisational interdependencies affect emergency response at multiple levels; 2) how organised trust-based interactions and information dissemination can enhance disaster resilience; and 3) how an organisation can enhance its resilience capacity through multilevel management efforts. The dissertation employs a case study approach to explore how social resilience is shaped in different contexts. The case study analyses combine both qualitative (observation, interviews, document studies, open-ended questionnaire) and quantitative methods (social network analysis, agent-based modelling, closed-ended questionnaire). This thesis advances resilience and crisis management studies with the concepts of 1) multilevel interdependencies in complex organisational systems and 2) informational capital in crisis management settings, as well as proposes 3) the multilevel framework to enhance organisational resilience. The dissertation makes a significant contribution to improving resilience practices through a framework that captures how organisations can self assess crisis preparedness and response capacity, and learn to enhance resilience. The thesis highlights workable solutions and policy recommendations, which are expected to inform practitioners in applying more comprehensive strategies for resilience and crisis management.