Corporate Crisis and Disaster Management in the Digital Era: Building Organisational Resilience through Digital Transformation

Abstract:

Corporate crises are increasingly shaped by interconnected digital infrastructures, global supply chains, cloud services, artificial intelligence and data-intensive business models. This conceptual article examines how digital transformation is changing the character and management of corporate crises. It develops an integrated Digital Crisis Resilience Framework (DCRF). Drawing on crisis management, organisational resilience, dynamic capabilities, stakeholder and socio-technical systems theories, the article conceptualises resilience as a continuous strategic capability rather than a reactive emergency function. The DCRF integrates eight capabilities across the crisis lifecycle. Comparative analysis of the NotPetya/Maersk, SolarWinds, COVID-19, Colonial Pipeline and CrowdStrike cases illuminates the Digital Resilience Paradox: digitalisation can simultaneously strengthen adaptive capacity and increase systemic vulnerability. A five-level Digital Crisis Resilience Maturity Model, research propositions and an implementation roadmap are proposed. The article contributes by integrating fragmented research streams and extending crisis resilience from the firm level to the wider digital ecosystem.