Organisational Resilience and Crisis Management

Overview

Central governments and organisations have been susceptible to events that have challenged them to maintain service delivery to their residents’ expectations. Although organisations such as local governments continue to build capacities to withstand the adversity from such disruptive events, the persistent nature of these events gives a signal that the situations will only get more intense rather than better. On one hand, this has made it so that local governments are compelled to transfer the burden to their residents by increasing local taxation to build the capacities to enable them to maintain service delivery, or to limit or cease the services provided to residents within available resources. On the other hand, the increased demand for key services (e.g. social care) has not only affected the quality of services provided but also led to a reduction of other discretionary (but equally important) services. As a result, the welfare of residents has been and continues to be affected as these shocks persist. This challenge affects the attainment of SDG goal 11 - to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

Resilience is a term often used as a measure of resistance and/or recovery. Resilience is defined as an organisation’s capacity to anticipate and cope with uncertain shocks, allowing them to bounce forward through the enhancement or development of new capacities (see also McManus et al., 2007; Shaw, 2012; Barbera et al., 2017). Besides the financial aspects of resilience, different aspects of resilience have emerged in areas such as community, organisational, and individual resilience. Studies (Barbera et al., 2017, 2024; Jones 2017; Ogle et al., Hastings et al., 2015) have explored how local governments have used limited resources to respond to adversities from disruptive events in developed countries (Korac et al., 2017; ) over the past decade.

Extant research (Dom, 2024) has also examined the impact such disruptive events have on the financial conditions of local governments, and how these impact their financial resilience. However, there is less traction on research that explores how these events disrupt the non-financial conditions of organisations, and strategies they adopt to remain resilient in times of adversity and/or crisis. To address this research gap/problem, this research aims to understand the organisational resilience and resource management in times of crisis in a local government context. The following represent specific potential research questions include, but not limited to:
*How do disruptive events influence the non-financial conditions of Local Governments?
*What capacities and capabilities help/hinder Local Governments to be resilient in times of adversity and crisis?
*How do Local Governments respond to maintain their organisational resilience levels in times of adversity and crisis?

Proposed Methodology
Exploratory research approach that uses a qualitative, quantitative or mixed-methods.

Data Collection: Data can be collected from either or both primary and secondary sources. Secondary data from Government websites/database, Office for National Statistics (ONS), HM Treasury, etc. Primary data from semi-structured interviews, surveys, questionnaires, etc.

Data Analysis: Qualitative data can be analysed using thematic Analysis, Fuzzyset Qualitative Comparative Analysis (FsQCA), etc. Quantitative data can be analysed using Trend Analysis, Data Visualisations, Probit/Logit regressions, etc.

Timeline: 3 years (FT), 6 years (PT)

Flexibility on proposed area of research: Although the main focus of the proposal is in a local government context in the UK, this can be tweaked/changed slightly to focus on other public sector agencies and departments such as Higher Education Institutions, Police, Fire and Rescue, the National Health Services, etc. from other developed countries or emerging economies.

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Applications for October 2025 intake closes on 1st July 2025 and applications for Jan 2026 intake closes on 1st October 2025.