Orchestrating Collaborative Resilience: A Network Perspective on Interorganizational Adaptation under Environmental Uncertainty
Keywords:
collaborative resilience, interorganizational networks, collaborative governance, network embeddedness, adaptive learning, environmental uncertaintyAbstract
Organizations increasingly depend on interorganizational networks to withstand persistent environmental uncertainty, yet existing research remains fragmented across network theory, governance theory, and organizational resilience. This article addresses the unresolved theoretical problem of how resilience emerges collectively across organizational boundaries rather than within isolated firms. Its objective is to develop Collaborative Resilience as a middle-range theory explaining how relational structures are transformed into network-level adaptive capability. Through conceptual integration of interorganizational network theory, the relational view, resource dependence theory, governance theory, and organizational resilience, the article specifies a sequential mechanism linking network embeddedness, collaborative governance, coordination capability, interorganizational trust, adaptive learning, and collaborative resilience. Environmental uncertainty is theorized as a principal boundary condition strengthening the adaptive value of collective learning. The proposed framework advances current knowledge by shifting the unit of explanation from the individual organization to the interorganizational network, integrating previously disconnected theoretical traditions, and formalizing six propositions that clarify the emergence of collaborative resilience. The framework establishes a bounded platform for longitudinal, multilevel, comparative, and digitally oriented research on interorganizational adaptation.
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