'How to learn to be adaptive?' An analytical framework for organizational adaptivity and its application to a fish producers organization in Portugal

This paper analyses and illustrates the ways in which organizational adaptivity is important to the resilience of socio-ecological systems (SESs). Resilience and organizational literature are used as theoretical contributions to help understand the nature of adaptive organizations and how changes in external structure and in organizational practices may reinforce each other. Building on this literature review, we elaborate an analytical framework for studying organizational adaptivity. We apply the framework to a case study of the ArtesanalPesca fish producers organization from Sesimbra in Portugal in order to empirically explore the relative weight of the factors contained in the framework and the relations between them. The case outlined contains lessons on how adaptivity may help an organization to move towards a sustainable business model and how it may be an essential part of such a model.

[1]  Jeremy Hall,et al.  Innovation dynamics and environmental technologies: the emergence of fuel cell technology , 2003 .

[2]  Rodrigo Lozano,et al.  Developing collaborative and sustainable organisations , 2008 .

[3]  Beth A. Bechky,et al.  Boundary Organizations: Enabling Collaboration among Unexpected Allies , 2008 .

[4]  W. Bennis,et al.  The Social Psychology of Organizations , 1966 .

[5]  C. Folke,et al.  Trust-building, Knowledge Generation and Organizational Innovations: The Role of a Bridging Organization for Adaptive Comanagement of a Wetland Landscape around Kristianstad, Sweden , 2006 .

[6]  C. S. Holling,et al.  Barriers and bridges to the renewal of ecosystems and institutions , 1997 .

[7]  Thomas Elmqvist,et al.  Navigating Social–Ecological Systems: Living with disturbance: building resilience in social–ecological systems , 2002 .

[8]  C. Folke,et al.  Navigating Social–Ecological Systems: Synthesis: building resilience and adaptive capacity in social–ecological systems , 2002 .

[9]  S. Gopalakrishnan,et al.  Theories of organizational structure and innovation adoption: the role of environmental change , 1998 .

[10]  Donald A. Schön,et al.  Organizational Learning: A Theory Of Action Perspective , 1978 .

[11]  E. Mishler.  Research Interviewing: Context and Narrative , 1986 .

[12]  B. Hansson,et al.  Individual and Structural Determinants of Environmental Practice , 2003 .

[13]  C. S. Holling,et al.  Resilience and Sustainable Development: Building Adaptive Capacity in a World of Transformations , 2002, Ambio.

[14]  C. Argyris.  Double Loop Learning in Organizations , 1996 .

[15]  C. S. Holling,et al.  Panarchy Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems , 2002 .

[16]  R. Kahn,et al.  The Social Psychology of Organizations , 1966 .

[17]  Clark A. Miller.  Hybrid Management: Boundary Organizations, Science Policy, and Environmental Governance in the Climate Regime , 2001 .

[18]  Flor Avelino,et al.  Empowerment and the challenge of applying transition management to ongoing projects , 2009 .

[19]  A. Inkeles,et al.  International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. , 1968 .

[20]  C. S. Holling.  Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems , 1973 .

[21]  Jan van Tatenhove,et al.  Policy and power: A conceptual framework between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ policy idioms , 2004 .

[22]  I. Figueiredo,et al.  The fishery for black scabbardfish (Aphanopus carbo Lowe, 1839) in the Portuguese continental slope , 2009, Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries.

[23]  Garry D. Peterson,et al.  Response diversity, ecosystem change, and resilience , 2003 .

[24]  C. S. Holling.  Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management , 2005 .

[25]  D. Guston.  Boundary Organizations in Environmental Policy and Science: An Introduction , 2001 .

[26]  L. Gunderson.  Navigating Social–Ecological Systems: Adaptive dancing: interactions between social resilience and ecological crises , 2002 .

[27]  W. Zipperer,et al.  Linking social and ecological systems , 2011 .

[28]  John J. Sosik,et al.  Relationships between leadership style and vision content: The moderating role of need for social approval, self-monitoring, and need for social power , 2007 .

[29]  G. Yukl,et al.  Leadership in Organizations , 1981 .

[30]  Carl J. Walters,et al.  Adaptive Management of Renewable Resources , 1986 .

[31]  Eppen Gd,et al.  Bundling--new products, new markets, low risk. , 1991 .

[32]  Lisa V. Bardwell.  Problem-Framing: A perspective on environmental problem-solving , 1991 .

[33]  David W. Cash,et al.  Knowledge systems for sustainable development , 2003, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[34]  W. Richard Scott,et al.  Reflections on a Half-Century of Organizational Sociology , 2004 .

[35]  C. Folke,et al.  Navigating social–ecological systems: building resilience for complexity and change: Fikret Berkes, Johan Colding and Carl Folke (Eds.). Cambridge University Press, 2003. xxi + 393 pages. ISBN 0-521-81592-4 (hardback), £65 , 2004 .

[36]  E. Paolucci,et al.  Commercial development of energy—environmentally sound technologies for the auto-industry: the case of fuel cells , 2003 .

[37]  E. Ostrom.  A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems , 2009, Science.

[38]  Anne Loeber,et al.  Theories of Policy Learning: Agency, Structure, and Change , 2006 .

[39]  Roger Wilkinson,et al.  Beyond Participation: Boundary Organizations as a New Space for Farmers and Scientists to Interact , 2005 .

[40]  Halina Szejnwald Brown,et al.  Bounded socio-technical experiments as agents of systemic change: The case of a zero-energy residential building , 2008 .

[41]  A. Bandura.  Social learning theory , 1977 .

[42]  W. Adger.  Social and ecological resilience: are they related? , 2000 .

[43]  Why do Some Boundary Organizations Result in New Ideas and Practices and Others only Meet Resistance? , 2009 .

[44]  C. S. Holling,et al.  Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability in Social–ecological Systems , 2004 .

[45]  John Grin.  The politics of transition governance in Dutch agriculture: conceptual understanding and implications for transition management , 2012 .

[46]  Claudia Pahl-Wostl,et al.  Using framing parameters to improve handling of uncertainties in water management practice , 2010 .

[47]  J. Grin,et al.  Transitions to Sustainable Development: New Directions in the Study of Long Term Transformative Change , 2010 .