The metamorphosis of organizational resilience: a strategic roadmap for SMEs in the digital age

Abstract Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly exposed to complex, recurring disruptions—ranging from pandemics and geopolitical crises to supply chain reconfigurations and climate shocks. While resilience has become a strategic imperative, existing literature often treats it as a static, single-level capacity. This study advances the discourse by conceptualizing resilience as a multilevel, metamorphic process—one that evolves through dynamic interactions across individual, organizational, and inter-organizational levels. Using a hybrid systematic literature review (SLR) of 76 peer-reviewed studies published between 2020 and 2025, the paper combines bibliometric mapping with the Theory–Context–Characteristics–Methodology (TCCM) framework to identify dominant theoretical perspectives, contextual contingencies, firm-level attributes, and methodological patterns. The findings reveal that adaptive leadership, digital transformation, and inter-organizational collaboration are key enablers of SME resilience. At the individual level, soft skills such as emotional and cultural intelligence shape managerial foresight. At the organizational level, agility and digital reconfiguration strengthen strategic responses to uncertainty. At the inter-organizational level, embeddedness in global value chains (GVCs) offers both opportunity and exposure, requiring careful orchestration between autonomy and cooperation. By integrating cross-level insights, this study offers a conceptual roadmap for building SME resilience and proposes a metamorphic model that captures resilience as a recursive and transformative capability. The review contributes theoretically by bridging fragmented perspectives and methodologically by demonstrating the utility of hybrid SLRs. Actionable implications are provided for scholars, policymakers, and SME practitioners seeking to enhance resilience amid accelerated turbulence.