What do they really want? Knowing how to balance stakeholder needs for resilience through insights from an SME in New Zealand

Abstract

In the wake of a tumultuous 2020, the 2021 Deloitte Global Resilience Report (the Report) sought to define traits of resilient organisations. The Report found one of the critical attributes for any organisation to bounce back from unexpected challenges was being responsible towards stakeholders. It noted that organizations that survived balanced the stakeholder needs through adaptability while pivoting responses to disruptive events. Previous research has confirmed that value maximisation for stakeholders is a crucial driver of success for any firm. Moreover, the focus on organisational resilience is not novel as many seek to gain insights into how organisations and their individuals cope with adversities. The need to achieve desirable results and mitigate impacts posed by the latest pandemic causing economic and emotional stress are vital drivers for continued focus on resilience. While management literature has addressed the area well around how to manage stakeholders, the focus on SMEs and their stakeholders’ engagement has been lacking. Since the Report identifies resilience and balancing stakeholders as intrinsically connected, we chose to focus our research on examining this for SMEs. We chose SMEs as they are an integral part of any nation’s economy. The recovery of SMEs post-COVID-19 is vital to the sustainability and growth of every economy, including the well-being of these business owners and the people they employ. We conducted a systematic literature review across three databases – Proquest, Scopus, and Science Direct using the keywords – organisational resilience, stakeholders, and SMEs. Following a review of abstracts for 207 papers, we found only 69 articles published between 2010 and early 2021 to examine resilience and stakeholders for SMEs. Our detailed evaluation found that recurring themes in the literature were around adaptability, innovation, and focus on creating revenue streams. The literature also emphasised resilience through the perspective of planning and preparing for a changing business and legal environment. While the literature stressed the importance of communicating with stakeholders, it was deficient in focusing on how SMEs need to balance these stakeholders’ needs. It did not offer any insight on stakeholder engagement or strategies as a focus area for building resilience in SMEs. Based on a single case study, our research provides insights from a business, which thrived after the Canterbury earthquakes in New Zealand. We justified using a single case study as our examination needed to appreciate and obtain an in-depth multi-faceted understanding of building resilience while balancing stakeholder needs. A decade after the earthquakes, this SME has survived and continues to thrive due to mindful decision-making, which includes the moderating role of balancing stakeholder needs. Our research achieves a dual contribution. Firstly, the insights from analysis of the existing literature supported with evidence from empirical research address a critical gap in SME resilience literature with a focus on balancing stakeholder needs. Second, we offer a toolkit to SMEs on how to balance stakeholders needs with the purpose of building resilience. We also note that findings from this research may have implications for policies around supporting SMEs with stakeholder engagement.