Resiliency the Elusive Piece in the Service Management Puzzle

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of "resiliency management" as a response to an emergent services dominant contextual landscape that is fundamentally changing and presenting institutions with very pertinent challenges. It is argued that in view of the prevailing contextual unpredictability, instability and turbulence that characterises this context, resiliency constitutes the elusive piece of the services management puzzle. Two fundamental perspectives of resilience are identified and explored, namely a reactive and proactive stance. A multidisciplinary literature study is adopted in exploring the concept and the two emergent perspectives thereof. The insights gained from the literature study form the basis for the discussion in this paper. An important conclusion is that a culture of "resiliency awareness" stems from the host of daily experiences of institutional members in responding to the stresses and disjuncture's that position and equips institutional employees to adapt and deal with the unforeseen and unexpected emergent realities that characterise the contemporary global services economy.