Resilience and organisational institutionalism from a cross-cultural perspective: an exploration based on urban climate change adaptation in Vietnam

Resilience theory has gained considerable prominence with regard to the management of social-ecological systems and more recently climate change adaptation. Yet, how resilience is precisely understood, how its institutionalisation works and how organisations can operationalise principles for achieving resilience often remains vague. Therefore, the paper explores how institutional and organisational theory can enhance the understanding on resilience. Linking organisational institutionalism to resilience theory, the paper analyses in particular how resilience thinking can diffuse and translate into organisational action, and which challenges and barriers may exist. Empirical research on formal urban climate change adaptation in Vietnam is used to explore the important role of distinctive institutional features in a given culture, region or sector for shaping this process. It is argued that such context-specific institutional framework conditions are often underemphasised, thereby, hampering the transferability as well as operationalisation and implementation of resilience propositions. Relevant aspects include epistemological, ontological and normative dimensions. Linking the case study to neoinstitutional theory, recommendations are developed for increasing the intercultural transferability of resilience thinking into organisational practices.