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Developing Organisational Resilience to Fundamental Crises: Evaluating Social Media as a Key Enabler for Resource Bricolage within Retail micro-SMEs

Dafydd Cotterell

Swansea University Author: Dafydd Cotterell

  • E-Thesis – open access under embargo until: 26th March 2026

DOI (Published version): 10.23889/SUthesis.66294

Abstract

Recent years have presented the UK economy with a series of fundamental crisis events, fostering complex challenges for UK businesses. These crisis events continue to test the adaptive capacity of businesses and have impeded the continuity of trade within several UK sectors. Such crisis events have...

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Published: Swansea, Wales, UK 2024
URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa66294
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spelling v2 66294 2024-05-03 Developing Organisational Resilience to Fundamental Crises: Evaluating Social Media as a Key Enabler for Resource Bricolage within Retail micro-SMEs b832071c979b9d070715233950ccdcea Dafydd Cotterell Dafydd Cotterell true false 2024-05-03 CBAE Recent years have presented the UK economy with a series of fundamental crisis events, fostering complex challenges for UK businesses. These crisis events continue to test the adaptive capacity of businesses and have impeded the continuity of trade within several UK sectors. Such crisis events have had particularly sobering effects for the UK retail sector, and more specifically retail micro-SMEs. This research evaluates the experiences of retail micro-SMEs across the trans-crisis phase of the Covid-19 crisis, evaluating the role of effective social media use as an enabler for resource bricolage. Resource bricolage receives much precedent within crisis literature as an effective vector of organisational resilience in the face of crisis, however little is known regarding the key enablers of the bricolage process. With social media’s well documented ability to support positive commercial outcomes within business functions such as marketing, internationalisation, and innovation, it is logical to consider its role as an enabler of resilience. This study used a qualitative methodology where a semi-structured interview was applied as the research instrument. Overall, 20 interviews were conducted of which all participants were owner managers of retail micro-SMEs. The data collected was analysed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis, where prevalent themes were identified within the data. The study found that social media did indeed enable resource bricolage, where resource bricolage was an effective activity for developing resilience. Furthermore, the research identified that the degree of social media use, business experience and externally derived crisis forces all significantly contributed to the resilience of retail micro-SMEs. In addition to these three factors, the role of support mechanisms was also identified as a determining factor for businesses. These four factors cumulatively interceded the resilience of retail micro-SMEs, were businesses could be classified into one of three resilience categories. These three categories included businesses that failed, survived and thrived as a result of the crisis. Thesis Swansea, Wales, UK Crisis Management, Organisational Resilience, Small Business, Retail, Covid-19 26 3 2024 2024-03-26 10.23889/SUthesis.66294 COLLEGE NANME Management School COLLEGE CODE CBAE Swansea University Jones, Paul ; Huxtable-Thomas, Louisa ; Bowen, Robert Doctoral Ph.D 2024-09-09T12:40:24.8976201 2024-05-03T13:37:15.4000876 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Management - Business Management Dafydd Cotterell 1 Under embargo Under embargo 2024-05-03T13:47:37.8068380 Output 6326271 application/pdf E-Thesis – open access true 2026-03-26T00:00:00.0000000 Copyright: The author, Dafydd J. Cotterell, 2024. true eng
title Developing Organisational Resilience to Fundamental Crises: Evaluating Social Media as a Key Enabler for Resource Bricolage within Retail micro-SMEs
spellingShingle Developing Organisational Resilience to Fundamental Crises: Evaluating Social Media as a Key Enabler for Resource Bricolage within Retail micro-SMEs
Dafydd Cotterell
title_short Developing Organisational Resilience to Fundamental Crises: Evaluating Social Media as a Key Enabler for Resource Bricolage within Retail micro-SMEs
title_full Developing Organisational Resilience to Fundamental Crises: Evaluating Social Media as a Key Enabler for Resource Bricolage within Retail micro-SMEs
title_fullStr Developing Organisational Resilience to Fundamental Crises: Evaluating Social Media as a Key Enabler for Resource Bricolage within Retail micro-SMEs
title_full_unstemmed Developing Organisational Resilience to Fundamental Crises: Evaluating Social Media as a Key Enabler for Resource Bricolage within Retail micro-SMEs
title_sort Developing Organisational Resilience to Fundamental Crises: Evaluating Social Media as a Key Enabler for Resource Bricolage within Retail micro-SMEs
author_id_str_mv b832071c979b9d070715233950ccdcea
author_id_fullname_str_mv b832071c979b9d070715233950ccdcea_***_Dafydd Cotterell
author Dafydd Cotterell
author2 Dafydd Cotterell
format Staff Thesis
publishDate 2024
institution Swansea University
doi_str_mv 10.23889/SUthesis.66294
college_str Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
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hierarchy_top_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
department_str School of Management - Business Management{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Management - Business Management
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description Recent years have presented the UK economy with a series of fundamental crisis events, fostering complex challenges for UK businesses. These crisis events continue to test the adaptive capacity of businesses and have impeded the continuity of trade within several UK sectors. Such crisis events have had particularly sobering effects for the UK retail sector, and more specifically retail micro-SMEs. This research evaluates the experiences of retail micro-SMEs across the trans-crisis phase of the Covid-19 crisis, evaluating the role of effective social media use as an enabler for resource bricolage. Resource bricolage receives much precedent within crisis literature as an effective vector of organisational resilience in the face of crisis, however little is known regarding the key enablers of the bricolage process. With social media’s well documented ability to support positive commercial outcomes within business functions such as marketing, internationalisation, and innovation, it is logical to consider its role as an enabler of resilience. This study used a qualitative methodology where a semi-structured interview was applied as the research instrument. Overall, 20 interviews were conducted of which all participants were owner managers of retail micro-SMEs. The data collected was analysed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis, where prevalent themes were identified within the data. The study found that social media did indeed enable resource bricolage, where resource bricolage was an effective activity for developing resilience. Furthermore, the research identified that the degree of social media use, business experience and externally derived crisis forces all significantly contributed to the resilience of retail micro-SMEs. In addition to these three factors, the role of support mechanisms was also identified as a determining factor for businesses. These four factors cumulatively interceded the resilience of retail micro-SMEs, were businesses could be classified into one of three resilience categories. These three categories included businesses that failed, survived and thrived as a result of the crisis.
published_date 2024-03-26T12:40:23Z
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score 11.037253

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