  Organizations face numerous challenges posed by unexpected events such as
energy price hikes, pandemic disruptions, terrorist attacks, and natural
disasters, and the factors that contribute to organizational success in dealing
with such disruptions often remain unclear. This paper analyzes the roles of
top-down and bottom-up organizational structures in promoting organizational
resilience. To do so, an agent-based model of stylized organizations is
introduced that features learning, adaptation, different modes of organizing,
and environmental disruptions. The results indicate that bottom-up designed
organizations tend to have a higher ability to absorb the effects of
environmental disruptions, and situations are identified in which either
top-down or bottom-up designed organizations have an advantage in recovering
from shocks.
