Contextualized by disruptions and uncertainties, projects are increasingly required to develop resilience as a dynamic capability. However, as a dynamic capability, the intricate interconnected relationships between project resilience and other organizational capabilities remain underexplored. Furthermore, implementation strategies under varying project characteristics lack systematic investigation. Based on this premise, this study systematically constructs capability linkages and conducts comparative analyses across different scales of projects.
This study employs a hybrid approach combining necessary condition analysis (NCA), the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and the network comparison test (NCT) to formalize this framework. The research data comes from 546 senior executives (e.g. project managers) across 157 projects in Bangladesh.
Firstly, project resilience relies on flexibility, redundancy, agility and visibility, all of which are necessary for achieving high-level project resilience and exploring fundamental enablers. Secondly, the configurations of dynamic capabilities that achieve project resilience show that large projects depend on redundancy and agility. In comparison, small projects rely on combinations of either redundancy or visibility or either agility or flexibility. Thirdly, the centrality of sub-dimensions within the four capabilities varies by project scale. Information tracking (under visibility) is critical to project resilience across all contexts, whereas stakeholder management (under flexibility) is more prominent in smaller projects.
This study acknowledges three limitations. First, reliance on self-reported data from Bangladesh limits generalizability. Future research should validate findings in developed economies using objective measures to overcome potential biases. Second, the study did not explore capability configurations across specific resilience stages (detection, activation and response), warranting future stage-specific and comparative analyses. Third, the cross-sectional design precludes establishing causal mechanisms. Future studies should employ longitudinal methods to verify the reciprocal relationships between organizational and dynamic capabilities.
Managers should focus on three strategies to enhance project resilience. First, strengthen foundational organizational capabilities to create resource buffers and accelerate recovery. Second, utilize the “iron triangle” to dynamically prioritize capabilities, favoring agility in early stages and resource security in later phases. Third, align strategies with project context: large projects must leverage resource advantages while mitigating inertia, whereas small projects should balance their inherent agility with proactive resource planning.
This study confirms the complex relationship between project resilience and organizational capabilities, providing practical guidance for risk monitoring and resource allocation in project management.
Establishing a framework linking organizational capabilities to resilience, this study clarifies three theoretical contributions: (1) It conceptualizes project resilience as a dynamic capability develops its multifaceted relationship with organizational capabilities. (2) The study examines the independent, configurational and dimensional effects of organizational capabilities, identifying key configurational pathways while exploring critical internal elements. (3) It integrates dynamic capability theory with project contingency theory to investigate differences in how organizational capabilities constitute resilience across projects of varying scales.
