Organizational Resilience

The concept of organizational resilience evolves through time, starting from Holling (1973) who pointed out that organization resilience is the system’s ability to recover its former shape from disruptions. Over the years, organizational resilience has been conceptualized in a deeper sense; the simple definition of recuperation to its normal state from adversities expanded with recovery ability and recovery times (Annarelli and Nonino,2016). Herrera and Jaczewski (2014) states that organizational resilience is based on the notion that individuals or a system’s ability to adapt, recover and thrive, returning to its normal functioning in an acceptable period of time, during expected or unexpected disruptions.

This concept was also noted by Patriarca et al (2018).

Currently, there is consensus amongst how organizational resilience is conceptualized, organizations’ ability to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to disruptions in a complicated and changing business environment.

• Features for resilient organizations
• Findings, Discussions, and Implications
• Huawei as a resilience organization

Huawei is considered a resilience organization because of its risk awareness, proactive responsiveness, effective resource mobilization, and focused and foresighted attributes enable the company to survive, recover, and prosper during disruptive times.

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More specifically, Huawei, the leading telecommunication company in China, was suffering from unprecedented crises in 2018. Australia, New Zealand and a range of western nations have joined the US in pursuit of prohibiting Huawei products and banning Huawei from high-speed 5G network infrastructure owing to alleged “national security” threats. Meanwhile, Meng Wanzhou, the Chief Financial Officer of Huawei, was arrested on the request of the US-based on an unproven bank fraud associated with US sanctions on Iran while connecting flights in Canada.

(Masctielli and Chung,2019).

Alternatively, Huawei has made important advances, including the launch of the world’s first 5G baseband chip and 5G smartphones, the signing of 60 commercial contracts, which helps Huawei become the world’s biggest telecom equipment supplier, despite moves by the US and Australia to official use of products. (Tan, 2018)

The previous report is based on the concept and the case example of resilient organizations, further research will be looking at what factors enable resilient organizations to survive, recover and prosper in the face of multiple disruptions.

Risk awareness

According to the integrated model of organizational resilience (Zolli and Healy, 2012), risk awareness is labeled as the most fundamental part to evade companies from an undesirable happening. This finding was also noted by Lam (2014), who pointed out that risk awareness provides the very foundation for Enterprise Risk Management success.

Crises can happen at any time and suddenly affect everyone in the business. Therefore, risk awareness is considered as the result of all staff, regardless of the different roles that employees play in organizations. Top management with high-risk awareness would reflect on business behavior and actions which are highly likely to cause potential risks to the firm The sense of risk awareness can be communicated from top management to the junior staff and make everyone in the business equipped with an awareness of risk and take a proactive approach towards risks in work before the real crisis happens. (Amit and Schoemaker 1993; Lam, 2014).

In Huawei, not only is Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei but also every employee has a strong sense of crisis. “For ten years, what I think about every day is a failure, blind to success, there is no sense of honor and pride, but the sense of crisis“ (Ren, 2015, p36). Ren emphasized the significance of risk awareness within the company and conveyed the risk consciousness and pressure in terms of thought-provoking speeches at regular meetings and the final elimination principle in talent competition mechanisms. The risk awareness throughout the whole organization, from top management to junior employees, has embedded in the corporate culture and has boosted the ability to respond timely and precisely associated with actual threats. Hence, every employee in Huawei is not nail-biting thanks to strong risk awareness within the firm when the 2018 crises occurred.

Dynamic leadership

Weick and Sutcliffe (2011) pointed out that resilience in organizations is more reliant on the whole organization than a few individuals. This observation was supported by the research finding by Andersson (2018) who emphasized the importance of followership for organizational resilience, that is more people getting involved in decision-making, the best solutions are highly likely to be prioritized and utilized by firms during disruptive times, less risky companies would undertake.

Huawei is an example of such a wisdom-collective organization, as Huawei is known for the rotating system of CEOs, which fits with its belief that talent from within the company can move through the ranks (De Cremer and Zhang, 2014). This CEO's rotating platform delegates responsibilities downward and absorbs collective wisdom through the whole organization, which provides opportunities for employees to realize their potentials in the face of a complicated business environment. Furthermore, collective efforts that dynamic leadership makes are likely to raise efficiency and reduce the possibility of the company collapsing reliance on one single leader making decisions during disruptive times.

Keeping focused

Kilpatrick and Silverman (2005) state that a clear vision helps to keep organizations more concentrated and increase business effectiveness. This implies that a clear vision gives organizations directions to focus on intended targets and create more value for customers.

Confronting such troublesome crises, Huawei dedicates itself to developing, testing 5G technology, and participating in 5G construction with operators, regardless of external negative information. Indeed, this keeping focused reaction is in exact accordance with Huawei’s vision, providing customers with the best products and services, and developing the most advanced technology in the world. Additionally, Huawei’s keeping focused in response to crises has made its share of worldwide smartphone jumped to 15.8% and has signed 25 commercial contracts, more than 10 thousand 5G base stations have been sent throughout the world, according to China News Week (2018). Clearly, keeping focused on what the company has been doing contributes to the survival, recovery, and prosperity of Huawei.

Long-term view

Long-term view helps companies to reach beyond targets. (Authers, 2017) In the cases of Huawei crises, the apprehension of Meng Wanzhou in Canada, instead of reacting progressively, the deputy chief executive Guo Ping stated that Huawei complies with all applicable laws and regulations in the countries where it operates; Huawei is unconscious of any incorrect behaviors by Ms. Meng; Huawei has every expectation that the Canadian and US legal systems will eventually reach a fair conclusion.

It can be seen in this announcement that Huawei didn’t complain about western countries but respect and integrate in the west, which is consistent with the long-term view in seek to expand global markets, especially in developed American and European markets. Long-term viewpoint has prevented Huawei from progressively response and the operation and financial system of the whole firm are well implemented after disruptive times.

Hence, a long-term view has pulled Huawei back from the crises and has facilitated the recovery of the company.