Social collective organizing: a dynamic capability for the social resilience of a territory

Purpose This research aims to explore how emergent social collectives contribute to the social resilience of their territory by enacting dynamic capabilities (DCs) to face persistent social adversities untapped by local governments. Design/methodology/approach We comparatively analyze two social collectives which emerged to tackle food poverty in Italy (Spesasospesa.org) and cardiac arrest in France (30 min to save lives). Through an abductive research approach, we search DCs allowing social collectives and their founders to mobilize territorial capabilities and self-organize. Findings The DCs enabling social collective organizing for the social resilience of territories are: (1) interpreting an external trigger as an opportunity to address persistent social adversities (sensing); (2) mobilizing various territorial capabilities to ideate and implement a solution (seizing); (3) reconfiguring DCs to further deploy and adapt the solution to new domains and geographical areas; and (4) enacting overarching individual and organizational boundary spanning capabilities. Originality/value This research outlines social resilience as a DC in social mission-driven organizations rather than within firms, focuses on emergent and heterogeneous social groups and on long-term adversities affecting a territory. Its main contributions highlight: (1) how triggering events impact social collectives’ emergence and resilience capabilities mobilization; (2) how social collective self-organizing and DCs contribute to the social resilience of a territory; (3) how the pair of founders sense an opportunity and activate collective capabilities for social resilience; (4) the crucial role of boundary spanning capabilities; and (5) how territorial characteristics influence the resilient capabilities mobilized.