This study conceptualizes organizational resilience as a meta-capability comprising three sequential capabilities: preparation, response and recovery. Adopting a process-based perspective, it aims to develop and validate a multidimensional measurement scale and empirically investigate its differentiated influence on two distinct performance outcomes: short-term bounce-back and long-term bounce-forward.
A mixed-methods design was implemented. First, the dimensional structure of organizational resilience was delineated through qualitative content analysis of 126 academic articles. Initial scale items were then generated from semi-structured interviews with 15 senior executives. The scale's validity was confirmed using two independent sample sets, and a large-scale survey of 892 respondents was used to examine criterion validity via PLS-SEM.
The research validates an integrative 3 × 3 structural framework synthesizing three temporal stages (pre-/during-/post-crisis) with three conceptual dimensions (cognition-behavior-context), from which a 27-item scale was developed. After controlling for impact severity, slack resources, and firm characteristics, both preparation and recovery capabilities significantly drive dual performance goals, while response capabilities drive only short-term bounce-back with no significant effect on bounce-forward. This asymmetry stems from a cognitive lock-in effect: survival-oriented crisis response concentrates cognitive resources on immediate pressures, compressing the space for strategic reflection and double-loop learning.
This study provides a validated process-based scale for High-Impact, Low-Frequency extreme crisis contexts, measuring pre-/during-/post-crisis capabilities with demonstrated discriminant and criterion validity. By integrating the resource-based view with organizational learning theory, it reveals that resilience efficacy differences stem from the type of learning mechanism each stage triggers rather than resource attributes alone, advancing understanding of why the same crisis produces fundamentally different performance outcomes. By addressing construct overlap and incomplete stage coverage in existing literature and establishing a dual-performance framework, this research offers a refined management tool for achieving high-quality recovery in turbulent environments.
