RESILIENCE THINKING: LESSONS FOR PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Abstract
The notion of resilience is rapidly gaining influence in public administration practice and research, but a more comprehensive resilience research agenda in public administration is yet to emerge. This article aims to clarify how experiences and potential contributions from social‐ecological resilience research can inform resilience studies in public administration. By contrasting key components of the resilience paradigm and its policy prescriptions with established findings from public administration research, a set of key shortcomings of social‐ecological resilience thinking are identified: (1) deterministic systems models; (2) simplified accounts of politics and policy; and (3) a lack of systematic and generalizable empirical studies. To avoid these shortcomings, it is suggested that public administration resilience studies should explore multiple and competing models for how resilience can be generated; analyse trade‐offs between resilience and other values of public administration; avoid systems theoretical resilience models; and apply the notion of resilience in areas beyond crisis management.
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It remains unclear what resilient organizations actually do and how organizational resilience may be achieved in practice.
“But this falls short: it remains unclear what resilient organizations actually do and how organizational resilience may be achieved in practice (Boin and van Eeten 2013;Duit 2016).”
From Organizational resilience: a capability-based conceptualization (2020) · cites this paper as Duit 2016
Most studies treat resilience as an outcome, focusing on sources and factors that distinguish resilient from less resilient organizations.
“Most studies just point to organizational characteristics, resources, or processes that seem to be significant for resilience (e.g., Weick 1993;Kendra and Wachtendorf 2003;Gittell et al. 2006).This means that resilience is simply treated as an outcome-when organizations perform well during crisis or bounce back from interruptions (e.g., Horne and Orr 1998).”
From Organizational resilience: a capability-based conceptualization (2020) · cites this paper as Duit 2016
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References 83 · Cited by 285
- Authors
- DUIT, A.
- Affiliations
- Stockholm University (SE)
- Corresponding author
- DUIT, ANDREAS
- ORCID
- DUIT, ANDREAS
- Venue
- Public Administration
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2015-05-28
- Volume
- 94
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 364-380
- ISSN
- 0033-3298 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9299
- OpenAlex
- W2145817923
- Cited by
- 285
- References
- 83
- Citations by year
- 2026: 42 · 2025: 25 · 2024: 30 · 2023: 38 · 2022: 45 · 2021: 30 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 38.70
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Public Administration (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Vetenskapsrådet (421-2011-1837)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Disaster Management and Resilience
- Social Sciences › Public Administration › Public Policy and Administration Research
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Public Administration and Political Analysis
- Keywords
- resilience, social-ecological resilience, crisis management
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