Crisis Management as a Strategic Option for Enhancing Competitiveness: The Mediating Role of Organizational Resilience

This study examines the function of crisis management as a strategic mechanism in the promotion of organizational resilience and competitiveness. Unlike the majority of the preceding research which typically treats crisis management as a reaction to an unexpected event, the current study views it as a unique capability and a sustainable strategic resource that will provide an ongoing competitive advantage. The research followed a descriptive-analytical applied methodology, and a 30-question survey was distributed to 100 managers and specialists in a wave of tourism companies of Karbala and Babylon and 79 of the responses were usable. Using a five- Likert scale, the survey measured the dimensions of crisis management, organizational resilience and competitiveness. SPSS was utilized for the descriptive and normality statistics and SmartPLS was used for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) to evaluate the hypotheses. The study revealed that organizational resilience has a mediating effect between crisis management and competitiveness. These results endorse the validity of the three hypotheses and conclude that crisis management impacts competitiveness both directly and obliquely, with resilience as a critical mediating factor.