cricos no. 000213j a university for the world real r applying resilience in business (and related)...
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CRICOS No. 000213Ja university for the worldrealR
Applying Resilience in Business(and related) Systems
Dr Paul Barnes School of Management
CRICOS No. 000213Ja university for the worldrealR
Resilience is the capacity to cope with unanticipated dangers after they have become manifest, learning to bounce back (Wildavsky, 1991)
It is the buffer capacity or the ability of a system to absorb perturbation, or the magnitude of disturbance that can be absorbed before a system changes its structure by changing the variables. (Holling et al., 1995 )
Ecosystem resilience is the capacity of an ecosystem to tolerate disturbance without collapsing into a qualitatively different state that is controlled by a different set of processes.
A resilient ecosystem can withstand shocks and rebuild itself when necessary. Resilience in social systems has the added capacity of humans to anticipate and plan for the future. (Resilience Alliance, 2005 )
The capacity to adapt existing resources and skills to new systems and operating conditions (Comfort, 1999 )
Some definitions …. of resilience
CRICOS No. 000213Ja university for the worldrealR
.. the spontaneous appearance of features that cannot be traced to the character of the individual parts …. the understanding of which depends on …. learning how relatively simple parts, through webs of interactions, lead to complex wholes
An economy, a cell or an ant colony is not merely an aggregation of many components – people, bio-chemicals, or ants – but depends on higher-level organisation that grows out of the interactions among those components.
Telecommunication networks and the WWW, economic markets and supply chains, the human brain all exploit highly irregular architectures, yet operate effectively in the presence of noise and remain (in most instances) resilient in the face of component failures.
and …. Emergence
CRICOS No. 000213Ja university for the worldrealR
CONTEXT
IMPACT of aTECHNOLOGY
PotentiallySurprise Free
TechnologicalSurprise
ContextualInnovation
Techno-ContextualSurprise
Planned
Unexpected
Limited Dispersed
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4
2
3
• Parasitic Vaccines
• DNA fingerprinting
• Pesticides residues in food
• Algal blooms
• Unexpected behaviour of novel GMO’s
• Global warming
• Ozone depletion
• BSE
• nvCJD
The emergence Criticalities
CRICOS No. 000213Ja university for the worldrealR
• With the treat of impacts from extreme natural hazards all Infrastructure and networks of infrastructure become critical:
Infrastructure dependencies.
Rinaldi, S.M., Peerenboom, J. P. & Kelly, T.K. (2001) “Identifying, Understanding, and Analyzing Critical Infrastructure dependencies,” in IEEE Control Systems Magazine, December
CRICOS No. 000213Ja university for the worldrealR
Infrastructure Inter-dependencies.
Rinaldi, S.M., Peerenboom, J. P. & Kelly, T.K. (2001) “Identifying, Understanding, and Analyzing Critical Infrastructure dependencies,” in IEEE Control Systems Magazine, December
CRICOS No. 000213Ja university for the worldrealR
Comparative Spatial Scales: Ecosystems vs. Infrastructure Systems Ecosystem Infrastructure (After Rinaldi et al., 2001)
Part: Smallest part of a system that can be identified in an analysis
Individuals - an individual of the same species
Unit: A functionality related to collection of parts (i.e. a steam generator)
Population - a group of individuals of the same species living in the same geographic area.
Subsystem: an array of units (i.e. a secondary cooling system)
Community - all interacting populations living in the same geographic area
System: a grouping of sub-systems (i.e. coal power plant)
Ecosystem - all interacting communities of organisms and abiotic factors of the environment within a defined area
Infrastructure: a complete collection of like systems (i.e. electric power infrastructure)
Biosphere - the global ecosystem, including all the earth’s regions that can support life (land, air, water)
Inter-dependent systems of Infrastructure: the interconnected web of infrastructures.
CRICOS No. 000213Ja university for the worldrealR
Resistant and Resilient Systems Behaviour(After Fiskel, 2003)
System States
Resistant Resistant
A
Resilient Resilient
B
CRICOS No. 000213Ja university for the worldrealR
A collection of distributed electric generators (e.g., fuel cells) connected to a power grid may be more reliable and fault-tolerant than a central power station.
A swarm of miniature unmanned surveillance drones maybe less costly and more robust than a single conventional surveillance aircraft.
A network of autonomous software agents operating asynchronously may be more effective and speedier than a monolithic software program.
A geographically dispersed workforce linked by telecommunications may be less vulnerable to catastrophic events that could destroy a single facility.
A resilient systems response to ‘pressure’ could result in stronger capacities to sustain functionality (and output) by absorbing external disruption with a reduced tendency the undergo a regime shift.
CRICOS No. 000213Ja university for the worldrealR
A Threshold Transition – loss of functionality
Non-function
Functionality
Systems State
CRICOS No. 000213Ja university for the worldrealR
CRICOS No. 000213Ja university for the worldrealR
• Merrill Lynch– Number of employees lost : 3 – Amount of office space lost: 2,083,555– Physical location affected: 4 World Financial Center, Whole Building – 2002 revenue: $28.5billion– Headquarters: 4 World Financial Center, New York, NY 10080
– Returned back to work within 24hours– Transferring trading operations to London, Tokyo and Hong Kong – Used their web site to communicate relocation and emergency
transportation information to employees
A Resilient Organisation?
CRICOS No. 000213Ja university for the worldrealR
Crisis Prone organisations• Cultural beliefs about invulnerability• Non-existent or ineffective internal control mechanisms• Senior management not trained in decision making in crisis contexts• Contingency planning inadequate or non-existent
Accidents in highly complex systems • ‘Cook’ slowly• Occur suddenly
Empirical Findings
Crisis-prone Institutions
CRICOS No. 000213Ja university for the worldrealR
Professional Disciplines
Areas of Application
Focus of activity
Selection High-performance teams Globalised Business
Society / Culture Geo-Politics
Multi-organisation
Organisation
Team
Individual
NeurophysiologyCognitive Psychology
Cognitive Science
Corporate StrategyOrganisational TheoryOrganisational Psychology
Management Science
Cultural Anthropology History
Complexity TheoryEconomicsSociology
Political Science
Enhancing Resilience
Leedon, D.K. (2001) Final report: Sense Making Symposium, CCR Program, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense.
CRICOS No. 000213Ja university for the worldrealR
Crisis
Consequence(s)
Pre-Crisis
Post-Consequence
Trigger
Learning
Failure Fractals
CRICOS No. 000213Ja university for the worldrealR
Cities as nodes in Resilient systems
Systems of cities
CRICOS No. 000213Ja university for the worldrealR
Controlled Functional Loss - as an in-built adaptive (resilient) capacity in systemic management
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3
Functionality
Systems State
Non-function
CRICOS No. 000213Ja university for the worldrealR
Can resilience be a designed into (Business) systems?
If yes, would it confer sustainable advantage?
Are sustainability and resilience synonymous?
Can resilience be a designed into (Business) systems?
If yes, would it confer sustainable advantage?
Are sustainability and resilience synonymous?