Resilience is not a silver bullet - Harnessing resilience as core values and resource contexts in a double adaptive process

This paper addresses one of the paradoxes of the resilience perspective: if we admit that we cannot foresee what kind of disturbance that we have to cope with, it will also be difficult to decide on what to invest in to improve resilience and safety. With this challenge in mind, three previously published case studies were re-analysed using the Systemic Resilience Model. The Systemic Resilience Model describes systems in terms of events, resilience functions, and strategies of stability or flexibility. It was observed that that the object of resilience shifts under pressure. Further, it was found that the notion of system goals in the Systemic Resilience Model should be replaced with the notion of core values, which can shift along a core value ladder. Our contribution is an increased understanding of the of what and against what of resilience. It was concluded that resilience is a double adaptive process - both as an entity coping with the unexpected or unplanned, and as a phenomenon that shifts along a ladder of core values during pressure regarding both fundamental objectives, functions, structure and system boundaries. This knowledge can be used to improve the implementation of resilience in socio-technical systems.Funding Agencies|Swedish Transport Administration (TRV); Air Navigation Services of Sweden