Nonprofit organisational resilience: Proposing a conceptual adaptive capacity framework

Abstract

Orientation: Nonprofit organisations (NPOs) play a key role in resolving the challenges and inequalities prevalent in South Africa; however, turbulent events have led to existential concerns for many NPOs. It is important to understand how NPOs can augment their organisational resilience to mitigate existential concerns.

Research purpose: Organisational resilience literature is in the nascent phase, and it is not yet clear how organisational resilience may be achieved. The objective of this article is to peruse relevant literature and propose an adaptive capacities conceptual framework for NPOs to enhance organisational resilience.

Motivation for the study: A perusal of relevant literature was undertaken to identify the adaptive capacities of NPOs. One hundred and thirty-seven peer-reviewed articles were identified from electronic databases including EBSCO Host, Google Scholar, JSTOR, and Academic Search Complete. A thematic analysis of the literature reviewed resulted in 15 adaptive capacity themes that underwrite the proposed conceptual framework.

Research design, approach and method: A perusal of relevant literature was undertaken to identify the adaptive capacities of NPOs. Common themes occurring from the literature reviewed resulted in three broad adaptive capacity categories that underwrite the proposed conceptual framework.

Main findings: Nonprofit organisational resilience may be achieved by developing the interconnected adaptive capacities identified within the broad categories that are as follows: culture, leadership and people; tactical administration; and tactical planning and restructuring.

Practical/managerial implications: Barriers to organisational resilience are connected to managers’ beliefs that no benefit is gained from a resilience outlook. The proposed framework could assist to reduce this barrier.

Contribution/value-add: The conceptual model proposed provides a holistic view to enhance nonprofit organisational resilience and contribute to the academic literature on organisational resilience theory, which is in the nascent phase.