Strategic hospital resilience capability response to adversity: fusing government regulation and COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose: Strategic leadership plays an important role in achieving organizational success in surviving and growing in a challenging business environment. This study aims to examine the role of strategic leadership in responding to a rare moment in the health industry, which is the combination of government regulations that tend to continue to change and the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 358 respondents from 141 type C and D hospitals in Indonesia participated in this research. This study used six latent variables and 27 dimensions, processed using structural equation modeling. Findings: The results of this study confirmed that resilient leaders will not seek new partners by developing network capabilities; but rather choose to save the hospital first, by resources reconfiguration as response to the unanticipated adversity caused by fusing the government regulation and emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Originality/value: This study makes an important contribution that enables hospital management to develop action plans in response to national health-care regulations coupled with the emergence and extension of the COVID-19 pandemic; as well as the results of the investigation into organizational resources, and to implement strategic resilience capability more effectively.