When East Meets West in Building Organisational Resilience : An Exploratory Study Among Bangladeshi Exporters

Abstract

<p> This longitudinal qualitative study examines how globally operating readymade garment exporters from Bangladesh build organisational resilience in order to cope in the turbulent business environment. We found that at the time of crisis, such as the one caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic, the studied exporters lacked robustness, and were not prepared for unexpected external shocks. However, the companies built resilience by adaptation to the situation as well as possible. Their ability to build resilience was found to be partly rooted in the local culture. At the time of crisis, the companies combined <em>jugaad</em>—a regional cultural practice—with a Western mindset and management tools. In this study, this unique combination of regional and Western practices is labelled as <em>jugalbandi</em>. Interestingly, organisational resilience which is achieved in this way seems to be temporary: the exporters discarded the locally-embedded practices when the situation stabilised. Our study challenges the mainstream views on organisational resilience espoused in earlier research, and develops a context-sensitive, culture-embedded framework of resilience building.<br></p>