Why Some Firms Perceive Climate Risks and Others Do Not—Evidence From the Logistics Sector

ABSTRACT This study explores how companies perceive risks stemming from climate change as a gradual process, focusing on the logistics sector. It advances research on organizational climate risk perception by integrating perspectives on embeddedness and resource configurations. Based on 41 semi‐structured interviews with representatives of 22 logistics companies in the Osnabrück region, we find that firms' resource configurations shape their capacity to perceive climate risks: Resource‐rich firms are more adept due to human resource slack, allowing them to process and document climate‐related sensory experiences and undertake anticipatory exercises. In contrast, resource‐poor firms display unrealistic optimism, leading to inadequate preparedness. While territorial embeddedness can broaden experience with climate impacts, embeddedness in interorganizational networks provides limited support for climate risk perception. Overall, sensory experiences and internal resource allocation—particularly human capital dedicated to future‐oriented thinking—constitute antecedents of organizational climate risk perception, a critical prerequisite for adaptive capacity.