Theories of Adaptive Efficiency and the Determinants of Crisis Resilience

In this theoretical chapter, I reconstruct the theories of Olson and NWW and formulate hypotheses regarding the institutional and organizational determinants of crisis resilience. First, in section 2.1, I define the main concepts - institutions, organizations, adaptive efficiency and crisis resilience - and build a simple analytical framework for the analysis of adaptive efficiency. Next, in sections 2.2 and 2.3, I reconstruct Olson’s and NWW’s theories with reference to that analytical framework. In section 2.4, I highlight an aspect of adaptive efficiency that both Olson and NWW do not discuss in their accounts.