CAUSAL MODELLING OF FACTORS AFFECTING ORGANIZATIONAL RESILIENCE IN ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY

Abstract

Organizational resilience has become increasingly critical for business sustainability in contemporary economic environments characterized by unprecedented volatility and uncertainty. This study develops and validates a comprehensive causal model of factors affecting organizational resilience during economic uncertainty using the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) methodology. Through systematic expert consultation with five domain specialists, nine critical resilience factors were identified and analyzed: Leadership Agility, Resource Flexibility, Risk Management Capability, Employee Adaptability, Digital Capability, Communication Effectiveness, Innovation Capability, Supply Chain Adaptiveness, and Organizational Learning. The DEMATEL analysis established direct and total-relation matrices, computed prominence and relation values, and constructed a cause-effect diagram to reveal the causal structure of organizational resilience. The findings indicate that Communication Effectiveness emerges as the strongest cause factor with the highest positive relation value (D-R = 1.262), followed by Leadership Agility (D-R = 0.671), Digital Capability (D-R = 0.623), and Employee Adaptability (D-R = 0.616), collectively functioning as primary drivers of organizational resilience. Conversely, Resource Flexibility demonstrates the strongest effect characteristic (D-R = -1.516), indicating it represents a key outcome of resilience-building efforts, while Innovation Capability (D-R = -0.687), Supply Chain Adaptiveness (D-R = -0.536), and Organizational Learning (D-R = -0.453) function as downstream consequences. Risk Management Capability occupies a unique near-neutral position (D-R = 0.019) with the highest prominence value (12.644), suggesting it serves as a critical mediating variable influenced by foundational factors while simultaneously affecting downstream outcomes. The prominence analysis reveals Digital Capability (12.429), Employee Adaptability (12.059), and Communication Effectiveness (12.233) as highly integrated system nodes with strong total interaction intensity. These findings provide actionable insights for managers and policymakers, indicating that strategic interventions should prioritize strengthening cause factors—particularly Communication Effectiveness and Digital Capability—to generate cascading improvements throughout the resilience system, while monitoring effect factors as performance indicators of overall resilience capacity. The study contributes to organizational resilience literature by providing empirical evidence of causal mechanisms linking resilience factors and offers a validated framework for resource allocation and strategic planning in volatile economic environments.