Drivers of Enterprise Resilience Under Compound Shocks: A PLS-SEM Analysis of Vietnamese Firms and Cooperatives

Between 2020 and 2022, enterprises in emerging economies faced a succession of overlapping shocks—the COVID-19 pandemic, the supply-chain and energy consequences of the Russia–Ukraine conflict, and a sharp tightening of credit conditions—that tested their capacity to absorb losses, keep operating and adapt. Yet we still know little about which capabilities are associated with resilience, because most studies look at large firms in developed economies and test one capability at a time. This study asks which capabilities are most strongly associated with the resilience of small and medium-sized enterprises and cooperatives facing compound shocks, and through which pathways these associations run. Drawing on the dynamic-capabilities view and the resource-based view, an integrative model of six capabilities—anticipatory preparedness, leadership dynamism, institutional and government support, organizational social capital, human-resource resilience and digital transformation—is tested on survey data from 345 Vietnamese enterprises and cooperatives using PLS-SEM, with mediation analysis, common-method diagnostics and robustness checks. The findings suggest that human-resource resilience is the strongest correlate of perceived resilience, whereas institutional and government support is the only capability also associated with faster outcome-based recovery. Managers should treat workforce development and digital adoption as core resilience investments rather than discretionary costs, and state support programs should pair the financial and administrative assistance firms demand with the skilling and digitalization support that is most strongly associated with resilience in these data.