The relationship between resilience and organisational control systems in the South African aviation industry

Background: Organisational control systems, such as quality assurance and corporate governance, configure an organisation’s internal environment to manage the velocity of change and pro-actively stabilise disturbances. Resilience in a socio-technical system is a multi-disciplinary approach to instil a system’s transformability and adaptive capacity to achieve desirable outcomes and continuous improvement. This study confirms theoretical postulations that detachment between the disciplines of quality assurance and corporate governance reduces resilience in a socio-technical system. Coherence between these disciplines in a complex socio-technical system is achieved through four components of organisational resilience: strategic management and company culture, monitoring and awareness, exposure management and responsive adaptation. Objectives: This study aimed to explore stakeholders’ perceptions of the relationship between the components of organisational resilience and organisational control systems in the South African aviation industry. Method: A cross-sectional survey was used to collect data from 203 stakeholders in the South African aviation industry. The data set was subjected to descriptive and inferential statistical analyses. Results: A strong positive linear relationship exists between organisational control systems and organisational resilience and its four components: Strategic management and company culture, Monitoring and awareness, Exposure management and Responsive adaptation. Conclusion: This study revealed that a harmonised application of organisational control systems, such as quality assurance and corporate governance, stimulates organisational resilience in a socio-technical system through the autonomous advancement of four components of organisational resilience. Furthermore, the robustness of organisational control systems activates an organisation’s capacity to adapt sustainably, whilst maintaining stakeholder value within complex socio-technical systems, such as the aviation industry.