Duration
18 May 2026 - 22 May 2026
In view of the polycrisis in the economy, society and the environment, resilience is the new magic word, and not only in organisational sciences. However, this is by no means new territory for organisational theory. Instead, the problem of adaptation and contingency in the (organisational) environment has been one of, if not the central issue in organisational theory for more than half a century. Flat hierarchies, decentralisation and the organisation of networks and value c hains are just as much part of old and new research catalogues as strategic planning, the creation of redundancy and the management of innovation. Finally, Karl Weick’s groundbreaking work on high-security organisations, which brought the management of the unexpected to the forefront of attention, should also be mentioned.
Conceptually, organisational theory is therefore not unprepared. However, it is necessary to examine which of the concepts are still viable, what further and new developments the theory has to offer, and which gaps need to be closed. In the context of permacrisis conditions – climate stress, geopolitical instability, demographic shifts, technological disruption, and legitimacy crises – it becomes essential to ask how organisations and social systems adapt, transform, and sometimes fail.
Above all, however, there is also the empirical question of the extent to which organisations could not only be resilient in theory, but also (are able to) manage risks, uncertainty and the unexpected in practice. We particularly invite work that interrogates the tensions between resilience discourse and resilience reality, including performative uses of resilience, its managerialisation, and potential unintended consequences. In this context, it will be necessary to take into account, both
theoretically and empirically, that functional failure in societies under stress not only endangers organisations, but also social (sub)systems and calls into question the legitimacy of organisational society as a whole.
Against this background, we want to present and discuss topics such as
• Social and organisational resilience
• Resilience of value chains and networks
• Managing the unexpected
• Security and precaution
• Disaster control
• Cyber security
• Resilience and social inequality
• Digital infrastructures, AI-driven vulnerabilities, and systemic risk
• Institutional trust, legitimacy, and the politics of resilience
• Resilience narratives, framing, and sensemaking
The list of keywords is by no means exhaustive; it serves as an invitation for theoretical, conceptual, and empirical contributions across sociology, management studies, public administration, economics, psychology and related disciplines.
Deadline
Contributors to the seminar at the IUC Dubrovnik submit an extended abstract (1,000 – 1,500words) by 15 February 2026 electronically via email to Rebekka Hensen (rebekka.hensen@hsuhh.de). Feedback will be provided by 28 February 2026. Subsequently, the peer-reviewed full papers are planned for publication in a special issue of Management Revue (IF: 1.7, CS: 1.0). Further information will be provided in the seminar.
We look forward to receiving your contribution and welcoming you to the seminar, even if it is(only) as a discussant.
