Thesis
Beyond survival : crisis management capability development and organisational enhancement in high-growth Scottish SMEs
- Creator
- Rights statement
- Awarding institution
- University of Strathclyde
- Date of award
- 2026
- Thesis identifier
- T17656
- Person Identifier (Local)
- 201879257
- Qualification Level
- Qualification Name
- Department, School or Faculty
- Abstract
- This research investigates how high-growth potential Scottish small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) develop crisis management capabilities that enable organisational enhancement beyond pre-crisis potential during extreme uncertainty conditions. Through longitudinal case study methodology spanning March 2020 to March 2021, the investigation examines six high-growth SMEs as they navigated the COVID-19 pandemic, providing unique real-time analysis of organisational development during actual crisis conditions. The study addresses critical gaps in crisis management literature, which has predominantly focused on large organisations whilst emphasising survival and recovery paradigms that may inadequately capture SME-specific capabilities and transformation possibilities. Drawing on crisis management, sense-making, strategic adaptation, resource innovation, resilience, and antifragility theories, the research employs purely inductive qualitative methodology to generate theoretical understanding from empirical observations. The study’s central contribution is the Crisis Management Capability Development Model – a comprehensive framework explaining how sustained crisis exposure enables progressive capability enhancement through five interconnected mechanisms operating simultaneously across temporal crisis phases. This model demonstrates that crisis management effectiveness emerges through accumulated learning rather than formal planning, whilst revealing how SME structural characteristics create distinctive advantages for uncertainty navigation that may exceed large organisation capabilities. Methodologically, the research establishes precedents for crisis-concurrent data collection approaches that capture developmental processes in real-time rather than relying on retrospective reconstruction. The COVID-19 pandemic provided unique natural experiment conditions enabling comparative analysis across diverse organisational contexts. The findings have practical implications for SME practitioners, demonstrating that crisis management capabilities develop through sustained practice and iterative learning rather than comprehensive planning or resource accumulation. The study moves beyond crisis management thinking from defensive frameworks emphasising survival toward transformational approaches recognising extreme uncertainty as catalyst for organisational enhancement. The investigation demonstrates that crisis conditions, when effectively navigated through systematic capability development can serve as transformational opportunities enabling lasting strategic advantages extending well beyond immediate crisis resolution.
- Advisor / supervisor
- Casulli, Lucrezia
- Matthews, Russell
- Resource Type
- DOI
- Date Created
- 2025
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PDF of thesis T17656 | 2026-03-10 | Public | Download |