From Responsibility to Resilience to Social Innovation: A Cyclical Theory of Responsible Networked Resilience in External Crises

ABSTRACT External crises unsettle resources, routines, and what responsible action means. Prior research links CSR to stakeholder support and resilience. Yet these relationships remain fragmented, leaving mechanisms connecting responsibility, inter‐organizational cooperation, resilience, social innovation, and renewed responsibility expectations under‐specified. To address this gap, the article develops responsible networked resilience (RNR) as a cyclical multilevel process. RNR proposes that institutional shock exposes gaps between commitments and stakeholder needs, prompting CSR recalibration. As priorities are made credible and aligned, partner commitment emerges, while resource orchestration turns cooperation into coordinated capacity and network‐enabled resilience. Resilience becomes generative when cooperative learning extends beyond the emergency through beneficiary participation, post‐emergency resources, and decision rights for experimentation. Finally, durable innovations can reshape responsibility expectations, while symbolic adaptation, power concentration, resource capture, or institutional closure can interrupt or reverse the cycle. RNR therefore explains when responsible cooperation moves beyond continuity to create social value—and when it does not.