As a result of the aforementioned distinction of micro-level and macro-level resilience, it can be recognised that the practical implications for temporary organisations are defining crisis-relevant key stakeholders and fostering an understanding of the evident interdependence. Due to temporary organisations already generally being coordinated through relationships and
networks (Bechky, 2006), such relations most likely already exist. Therefore, improving these relationships could be advised in correlation to Duchek’s (2020) proactive resilience capabilities in order to improve the overall resilience on an industry level. Furthermore, one implication is that the prevalent understanding of filmmaking as a business should be fostered as opposed to being a cultural activity. This was indicated by Producer E, who felt that the Scandinavian countries, with the exception of Iceland, are far behind France or Germany in that regard (PE, 2021). Therefore, clarifying the roles and narratives between key stakeholders do foster interdependent action in crisis situations is seen as essential.
In addition, the data analysis implied that resilience capabilities could be learned and appropriated. More precisely, it was indicated how constantly dealing with crises and the archetypal uncertainty of the film industry makes you better equipped to cope with unanticipated events. This further relates to the notion of “organizational resilience capabilities [developing] over time and [emerging] from the process of coping with threatening situations and unexpected events” (Duchek, 2020, p. 224). Therefore, it is suggested that purposeful organisational training schemes could be employed to foster individual and micro-level resilience, both in temporary and permanent organisational forms. However, it is recognised that due to the scarcity of time and no affiliations prior or post the project, the learning schemes in temporary organisations should potentially be addressed by the various worker unions instead of on-the-project learning. One caveat to such an understanding, however, is that the analysis could not conclusively show that the exposure in the industry makes a person resilient or that simply innately resilient people find their way into the industry. Therefore, exploring this conundrum may be subject to further research. While the fact that interview answers indicated the former, it could also be assumed that non-resilient people simply do not prevail due to the aforementioned concept of reputational importance (DeFillippi & Arthur, 1998;
Jones & DeFillippi, 1996).
Lastly, the notion of achieving ambidexterity implies that one major implication for industry professionals making such decisions, is that they are aware of what the outcomes portray and do not make them on imperfect knowledge. While this possibly is an understanding that is passed on between creative workers, an intricate awareness of this concept and the potential outcomes may be crucial in managing one’s career within the film industry. This is, for example, partly reinforced by Jones and DeFillippi’s (1996) six principles combining the importance of industry and self-knowledge within the boundaryless careers of the film industry.
6 Conclusion
This thesis set out to explore whether the constant exposure to uncertainty and routinely coping with unanticipated events impact the resilience of temporary organisations in terms of bigger, high-impact events. In order to evaluate this, a research question was established that focused on the film industry’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and asked whether said response renders the industry resilient and how resilience might manifest itself. Through engaging with industry members who experienced the crisis and the film industry’s reaction to it up close and, at times, even were essential cogs in the machine when developing response procedures, it was found that regularly dealing with uncertainty did in fact precipitate a more effective coping response. Furthermore, it was established that filmmaking exhibits all three major resilience capabilities and that especially the production sector is inherently resilient. Therefore, it is implied that the findings are generally applicable in the broader context of temporary organisations, since dealing with uncertainty under various time and resource constraints is an evident feature of such types of organising. More precisely, based on the example of the film industry, it can be expected that temporary organisations are well equipped for handling unexpected events due to their inherent problem-solving capabilities and other decisive characteristics, such as adaptability and flexibility.
However, by indicating both the necessity of impromptu trade-offs to achieve ambidexterity and the precondition of collaborative action, two potentially restrictive features limiting resilient action were recognised. First, it was emphasised how the willingness to favour economic instead of creative concerns when reacting to unexpected events might contribute to a more resilient response, while the other way around, it could possibly aggravate the situation.
In addition, it was insinuated that such decisions not only are innately subjective, but that they also are highly situational. Therefore, the same person might favour economic considerations in one instance and artistic values in the next. Consequently, the effect of such decision on resilience is dependent on the nature of any given decision. Since managing opposing organisational goals is an established characteristic of creative and cultural work, it can be expected that the findings translate to other cultural productions, such as art or music. The emphasis on the highly collaborative way of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic that was evident in the film industry, gave rise to a theorisation of resilience on a micro-level and on a more superordinate macro-level. The latter specifically resulted from the contextual embeddedness of temporary organisations that rendered dealing with unexpected events a
collective task. In proposing such a differentiation, the goal is to elaborate on resilience in the context of temporary organisations and highlight that effectively handling problems on a project-basis need not transpire on an industry level. Following, some limitations of this thesis are elucidated and recommendations for clarifications through potential future studies are made.