Empirical Evaluation of the Impact of Resilience and Sustainability on Firms’ Performance

Abstract

The concepts of resilience and sustainability appear multi-dimensional and correlated, depending on the context. Operational sustainability practices can enhance the resilience of a firm, and support its growth. This study aims at analyzing the impact of a sustainability strategy, measured by means of a sustainability maturity index (SMI), on the financial performance of a company. Since the SMI is strictly correlated to resilience capabilities, the performed analysis represents a first level integration of the sustainability and resilience indicators in a common framework. A data sample from 53 organizations was collected through structured interviews and analyzed to identify possible relationships between the SMI and the financial performance indexes. The analysis does not support commonly reported arguments: we show that profitability does not show a significant relationship with sustainable strategic intent. Interestingly, firm country of origin, size of the organization, and market focus, likewise, do not have a significant relationship with SMI. Arguably, multi-dimensional company performance, including both financial and non-financial measures, should be considered to assess the impact of sustainability practices. Moreover, further investigations are needed to capture firms’ nonfinancial indicators of performance that are related to sustainability and resilience, for building up a unified framework enabling trade-off analysis.

Thriving, Not Just Surviving in Changing Times: How Sustainability, Agility and Digitalization Intertwine with Organizational Resilience

“…This capacity is commonly known as resilience, and the health crisis linked to COVID-19 has shown how it correlates with environmental and socio-economic sustainability. The nature and modalities of correlation between resilience and sustainability have not yet been appropriately investigated [7,8].…”

Decision-making framework for a resilient sustainable production system during COVID-19: An evidence-based research

“…Hence, to analyze supply chain sustainability, it is necessary to address the effect of sustainability initiatives on system resilience ( Fahimnia and Jabbarzadeh 2016 ). Therefore, operational sustainability practices are considered a component of and promoter of a firm's resilience ( Balugani et al 2020 ).…”

“…The third view acknowledges that resilient practices may influence supply chains sustainability but claims that this is not always the case. Although resilience and sustainability are considered strictly correlated, their relationship may be complex and may vary according to the context due to the multidimensionality of the two concepts, different definitions, and fields of applicability ( Balugani et al 2020 ). Hence, a supply chain being resilient does not mean it is sustainable.…”

“…These include having different goals and research focuses, different assumptions of normality, approaches in pursuing their objectives, and emphasizing different values (Roostaie et al 2019a). Balugani et al (2020) highlighted trade-offs between sustainability and resilience on a small scale. Thus, the integration of sustainability and resilience should achieve a compromise ( Zavala-Alcívar et al 2020 ).…”

“…Supply chain sustainability is defined as maintaining business continuity in order to reduce long-term business risks ( Ivanov et al, 2017 , Ivanov, 2018b , Ivanov, 2018a ); while supply chain resilience is “the ability of a system to return to its original state or move to a new, more desirable state after being disturbed” ( Christopher and Peck 2004 ). Both concepts are multi-dimensional and correlated (Roostaie et al 2019b; Balugani et al 2020 ) with several intersections between them ( Ivanov 2018b ) and play a key role in strategic decision-making ( Ardebili and Padoano 2020 ). Supply chain sustainability and resilience have recently attracted researchers' interest due to the significant increase in supply chains' complexity ( Ramezankhani et al, 2018 , Ivanov and Dolgui, 2019 ).…”