Organizational research treats resilience as the primary outcome of crisis response without examining how varying degrees of vulnerability shape diverse outcomes. This is due to the lack of frameworks assessing organizational vulnerability. This study aims to address this gap by conceptualizing organizational vulnerability and developing the organizational vulnerability matrix (OVM) to assess hospitality and tourism (H&T) businesses.
This study adopts a conceptual research design. It synthesizes existing concepts to develop a structured framework for categorizing H&T businesses based on their vulnerability profiles.
Organizational vulnerability is conceptualized by integrating exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity to highlight the conditions that collectively determine an organization’s ability to respond to disruptions. The OVM categorizes H&T businesses into complacent, fragile, resilient and fortified based on their vulnerability profiles. The OVM considers vulnerability as dynamic, as businesses can transition between quadrants depending on the conditions that shape their adaptive capacity. Additionally, six dimensions of organizational vulnerability are discussed to highlight the factors causing exposure and susceptibility in contemporary H&T businesses.
This study introduces a new conceptual lens in H&T research by extending vulnerability frameworks to the organizational level. It offers a novel, structured framework that integrates exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity to assess the vulnerability of H&T businesses. Unlike traditional vulnerability frameworks that focus primarily on resilience as an outcome, the OVM emphasizes four potential outcomes based on the business’s vulnerability profile. Additionally, this study identifies and elaborates on the key dimensions of organizational vulnerability relevant to contemporary H&T businesses.
