The Human Factor in Cyber Resilience: Behavioural, Organisational and Sociotechnical Perspectives

Beyond Security: A Qualitative Study Of Cyber Resilience Across Beyond Security: A Qualitative Study Of Cyber Resilience Across The Software Development Lifecycle In German Organisations The Software Development Lifecycle In German Organisations

Human Factors and Crisis Resilience: A Qualitative Investigation of Psychological Resource Configurations Among Crisis Management Professionals

Organisational crises are intensifying, yet the psychological mechanisms determining how individuals and teams perform under acute disruption remain insufficiently understood. Conservation of resources (COR) theory offers a widely cited framework, but its resource caravan concept leaves functional relationships among resources unspecified. This study investigated what human factors contribute to crisis resilience, how they interact and what organisational conditions shape their deployment. Semi‐structured interviews with 20 crisis management professionals (mean 21.8 years' experience, range 8–44) from risk management, security management, emergency response and academic domains were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Twelve human factors were identified across individual, interpersonal and organisational levels. Building on these accounts, three configurational relationship types (synergistic, compensatory and conditional) are proposed to shape crisis performance in ways not reducible to additive or interaction effects. This configurational logic is characterised by equifinality (multiple resource combinations producing equivalent outcomes) and asymmetric causation, distinguishing it from standard moderation models. Collective sensemaking is theorised as a resource‐generative mechanism conditional upon psychological safety, and organisational culture is identified as a moderator of the individual‐to‐collective resilience transfer. The findings elaborate COR theory by proposing specified functional relationships within resource caravans and generating testable propositions for future research. Implications for crisis team composition, crisis exercise design and organisational preparedness are discussed.

ORGANISATIONAL RESILIENCE AS A DRIVER OF SAFETY: A MODEL BASED ON THE IRON FOUNDRY INDUSTRY

This study aimed to develop a model for managing organisational resilience (OR) in iron foundries, positioning resilience as a key driver of safety performance. The model is designed to support managers in analysing, evaluating, responding to, and continuously improving OR within complex industrial environments. Drawing on a literature review, the study adopted key concepts of resilience, situational awareness, proactive attitudes, and safety. Empirical research was carried out in 15 Polish foundries during the COVID-19 crisis, involving 510 employees. A survey of 48 items measured OR attributes (38 items), situational awareness (SA), and proactive attitudes (PA) – two factors closely related to resilience (10 items). To complement the quantitative results, in-depth interviews were conducted with 10 managers. Findings revealed that OR is both dynamic (responsive to disruptions) and complex (multi-attribute in nature), with an average OR score of 3.71, corresponding to 74.2% of its maximum potential. Importantly, higher levels of SA and PA were strongly correlated with greater resilience potential, confirming their role as safety-enhancing capabilities. Based on these findings, a practical model for developing OR was proposed, grounded in the Deming cycle. It encompasses five stages: diagnosing OR through the questionnaire, evaluating results, preparing an action plan, implementing improvement measures, and monitoring outcomes. The model contributes to strengthening decision-making, risk management, and ultimately the safety of foundry operations.

Navigating Uncertainty: The Role of Leadership, Organisational Culture, and Psychological Preparedness in Adaptive Risk Taking

The research studies the psychological predictors of risk taking in a rapid, constantly changing work environment within the finance industry. Touching upon various important domains such as leadership, organisational culture, behavioural finance, psychology, and human dynamics at work, the research explores how emotional, cognitive, and dispositional resources come together and interact in high-stakes finance environments. Targeting an understanding of risk-taking behaviour, this study, with a sample size of 436 financial market analysts, examines what factors shaped financial risk-taking behaviour and finds it to be positively aligned with and driven by emotional intelligence, openness to experience (as an aspect of the Big Five personality traits), and the pathway-thinking dimension of hope. The neuroticism characteristic of personality was negatively aligned with risk-taking behaviour. Thus, the idea is to look at psychological dimensions not just as traits of an individual but as instruments that human resources (HR) within an organisation bring to the table, which can be leveraged to yield better workplace outcomes. This perspective is being looked at from the leadership lens in this paper to understand what can be done from that dimension in terms of interventions, cultural frameworks, and provisions of psychological safety. As a micro study, this paper also aims to build a larger macro framework to guide how psychological attributes can be utilised in high-stakes, volatile environments to bring better outputs sustainably.

COGNITIVE RESILIENCE AS A NEW DIMENSION OF EUROPEAN UNION SECURITY: CONCEPTUAL DELIMITATIONS AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS

The paper advances the central argument that cognitive resilience has emerged as a distinct analytical and operational category within contemporary European Union security studies. While related to psychological, societal, and informational resilience, cognitive resilience is conceptualised here as a multidimensional capacity aimed at preserving the integrity, adaptability, and coherence of cognitive processes under conditions of manipulation, disinformation, and epistemic destabilisation. Methodologically, the study employs a qualitative, theory-building research design, combining conceptual analysis, systematic review of academic literature and EU strategic documents, and theoretical meta-synthesis across security studies, cognitive warfare doctrine, and cognitive psychology. This interdisciplinary approach enables the clarification of conceptual boundaries and the integration of diverse theoretical perspectives into a coherent analytical framework. The findings demonstrate that cognitive resilience constitutes a necessary extension of the resilience paradigm, addressing a critical gap in both academic literature and EU policy frameworks. Existing approaches remain predominantly focused on regulating information flows and mitigating external threats, while insufficiently addressing the internal cognitive mechanisms that enable manipulation to be effective. In response, the paper proposes an operational definition of cognitive resilience and identifies its core dimensions, cognitive filtering capacity, interpretative coherence, adaptive flexibility, and epistemic trust, thus enabling future empirical measurement and comparative research. The study concludes that the integration of cognitive resilience fundamentally expands the security paradigm, repositioning cognition as a central strategic domain and cognitive autonomy as a key determinant of democratic stability. As such, cognitive resilience emerges not merely as a complementary concept, but as a strategic capability essential for the EU’s capacity to withstand and adapt to the challenges of contemporary cognitive warfare.

Leadership as a Cultural Enabler of Knowledge Management in High-Reliability Organisations

In the context of high-reliability and high-consequence organisations, knowledge management initiatives are often impeded by cultural barriers that hinder the disclosure, sharing, and utilisation of sensitive knowledge. The present paper examines how leadership shapes organisational culture conditions that determine the effectiveness of knowledge management, drawing on empirical evidence from nuclear security culture (NSC) self-assessment processes conducted in medical organisations using radioactive sources. The study conceptualises NSC self-assessment not as a compliance exercise, but as a structured knowledge management intervention aimed at eliciting tacit knowledge, weak signals, and experiential insights related to organisational vulnerabilities and human performance. The present paper builds on qualitative and mixed-method evidence from the first Polish self-assessment of nuclear security culture in a medical facility, supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The paper analyses how leadership behaviours influence knowledge creation, psychological safety, and the translation of assessment findings into organisational learning and change. The findings of the study indicate that leadership plays a decisive role in reducing cultural barriers to knowledge management, including fear of blame, formalism, and low trust in governance structures. The presence of visible leadership engagement, non-punitive responses to reported weaknesses, and active sense-making of assessment results have been found to significantly enhance knowledge sharing and learning outcomes. Conversely, leadership approaches that prioritise regulatory compliance have been shown to impede the practical application of knowledge derived from assessments and to diminish the efficacy of change processes. The present paper contributes to the knowledge management literature by positioning leadership as a cultural enabler of KM effectiveness in contexts where knowledge is sensitive, risk-laden, and ethically constrained. The present study extends the existing research in the fields of knowledge management (KM) and organisational culture by demonstrating how assessment-based KM initiatives can support sustainable change when embedded within leadership-driven cultural frameworks. Practical implications are offered for leaders and KM practitioners designing and governing knowledge initiatives in high-risk organisational settings.