Measurement of Organizational Resilience - An Approach

Following the definition of modulus of resilience in engineering, organizational resilience has been measured here by the extent of successful change over time to reflect the strength of any organization to withstand “sudden blows”. Three factors have been considered to reflect organizational resilience viz.:1) extent of successful overall change in different asset bases like the suppliers, customers, technology, and organizational system, 2) continuity of such change over time, and 3) organizational size. A model has been developed incorporating suitable surrogate measures to reflect the extent of changes in different areas. Suitable weightings have been assigned to reflect the extent of overall change. Return on investment criteria has been used to judge the relative success of overall change. The measurement concept has been applied to two food processing organizations in the Pacific Islands country with the last overthrowing the government as the example of sudden blow. The continuity of change has been assessed over a twelve-year period. Two organizations have been found to differ in their level of resilience, one being 5.2 times more resilient than the other