Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to scrutinize the interplay between resilience and agility in explicating the concept of resilient agility and discuss institutional and organizational antecedents of resilient agility in volatile economies.

Design/methodology/approach: The authors develop a conceptual framework that offers an original account of underlying means of ambidextrous capabilities for organizational change and behaviors in volatile economies and how firms stay both resilient and agile in such contexts.

Findings: The authors suggest that resilient agility, an ambidextrous capability of sensing and acting on environmental changes nimbly while withstanding unfavorable disruptions, can explain entrepreneurial firms’ survival and prosperity. The authors then address institutional (instability and estrangement) and organizational (entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and bricolage) antecedents of resilient agility in volatile economies.

Originality/value: The authors highlight that unfavorable conditions in volatile economies might have bright sides for firms that can leverage them as entrepreneurial opportunities and propose that firms can achieve increased resilient agility when high levels of institutional instability and estrangement are matched with high levels of EO and bricolage.