Organisational resilience: Shifting from planning-driven business continuity management to anticipated improvisation

Abstract

As unpredictable major-impact events are on the rise, many organisations have adopted an organisational resilience (OR) approach for dealing with these so-called ‘black swan events. What OR comprises is subject to ambiguity and multiple interpretations. This article presents a perspective that makes a distinction between predictable risks and unpredictable major-impact events. The article argues that predictable risks would benefit from an adaptive and efficient business continuity management (BCM) capability. Using several cases, the article demonstrates how the adaptability and efficiency of BCM can be improved in practice. For unpredictable events, this article calls for a strategy of anticipated improvisation. Both strategies necessitate executives and regulators to accept less planning and to put more trust in the expertise of specialists and managers.