Resilience of work systems: Conducting a design science research approach to synthesize theory and design a conceptual model for manufacturing SMEs

Resilience of manufacturing SMEs is becoming increasingly relevant in face of global uncertainties and dynamics. To make sure these companies can adapt and react, a stronger emphasis on resilience at all levels of the organization becomes success critical. The level of work systems has a central role here, because the socio-technical relationships between human, technology, and the organization are the basis for resilient action in daily operations. However, little nowledge exists about how the concept of resilience can be adapted to redesign or restructure work systems. For this reason, the question of how a conceptual model of a resilience-oriented work system can look like is being explored. The paper presents the development of a first conceptual model that outlines a specific set of design elements for resilience-oriented work systems. The research is structured using the design science research (DSR) approach of Hevner (2004). It starts with a problematizing literature analysis where the research areas of organizational resilience, work system theory and socio-technical systems are critically examined and synthesized. The resulting conceptual model then is evaluated in a first iteration with the help of the case study of a manufacturing SME. Finally, this leads to first indications about potential ways to increase resilience of work systems. These results provide a starting point for further development and evaluation the conceptual model. The main contributions of this research are that it adds theoretical value by combining research theories in a novel way and offers a conceptual basis for follow-up studies and investigations.