✓ *Build virtual role systems*

The virtual role system refers to an advanced form of work team relationships. Resilient individual can operate in a virtual role systems environment; when many people in the organization are effective in this systems, the organization becomes more resilient. The virtual role system provides a work environment where the team can continue in the absence of one or more members (Mallak 1998). The review of the various processes and of the formalization of the various procedures allowed the creation of a coordinated system among the various company structures. The introduction of a new ERP helped to unify both the procedures and the language between the operators. The review of the organization chart, the assignment of responsibilities, and the implementation of a performance-based incentive system contributed to involve all stakeholders in the change process. Moreover, the training, also technical for the administrators, allowed the staff to have a broader vision with respect to the company. Having written and formalized the various activities and roles and having introduced ERP that gives a cross-sectional view of the whole company, the roles have become interchangeable and consequently the team can continue in the absence of one or more members. The various activities were mapped, described, and standard working times were defined. In the mapping of the various operational activities, the company has given an overall view to the various operators regarding the work to be done helping to complete the virtual system. This virtual system was also concretized at the operational level, getting the operators to alternate with respect to the activities. With this logic, the company has created workers with a broad vision and has been able to create a virtual system that has served in subsequent years.

#### **5. Discussion**

Barbera et al. (2017) highlighted that organizations could respond by self-regulation, by constrained or reactive adaptation, or by contented or powerless fatalism. Renn (2012) reported that organizations could deal with three different approaches to govern ris: Technocratic risk management, decisionistic risk management, and transparent risk governance. In our case, the perception of risk has become an opportunity for change. In the face of these budget cuts, management began refocusing the company's mission from infrastructure maintenance to providing services with a market-based logic. In the case analyzed, the management adopted the transparent risk approach (Renn 2012), and in doing that, they

adopted the reactive approach of resilience (Barbera et al. 2017) by generating benefits from the situation.

The case portrays a vivid picture of the role of accounting in supporting the development of resilient capacities. In particular, the adoption of tools like a business plan, budget, and other accounting technologies creates a particular realm of calculation with which judgements and decisions were made. In this sense, accounting rationalized and legitimized the process of resilience. Accounting contributed to formulate advice, information, emotional support, and practical help and therefore to reduce the uncertainties. Accordingly, accounting has given the company the basis for decisions ((Hopwood 1990, 1992; Miller and O'Leary 2019). Decision making and judgement requires ability to interpret the context.

Accounting practices offered a way of making things real, constructing seemingly objective and neutral records for abstract and complex (Hopwood 1990, 1992; Miller and O'Leary 2019), and this helped the case-organization to develop resilient capacities. It also helped to encourage interaction between various company areas and allowed to create a common language and favor the interaction between participants who do not usually operate in the same context (Lai et al. 2014). This is because accounting can influence perceptions, change language, and infuse dialogue (Hopwood 1990). In fact, the way in which the objectives were defined and checked made it possible to create communication channels between various operators. This certainly helped create interconnections and common language between the various structures and contributed to make the company resilient.

Another role of accounting in the resilience process has concerned the reduction of uncertainty to developing tolerance for uncertainty. The information perceived to be important by decision-makers are related to perceived environmental uncertainty (Gordon and Narayanan 1984). Accounting helped the management to reduce uncertainty and to improve decision making (Gul and Chia 1994). Our study shows how the development of resilient capacity goes through the management risk awareness supported by the existing and newly designed accounting systems. As observed above, in the caseorganization the business plan, as an example of newly developed accounting tool, supported the formalization of risks and the management of the opportunities of the changing environment to anticipate and cope with the external shock.

#### **6. Conclusions**

In this paper, we investigate the process of building resilience capacities. We highlighted how risk perception could be the trigger for this process, and the role of accounting. Organizations facing financial crisis could respond differently. In particular, drawing on Mallak (1998), we investigated the linkages between risk perceptions, accounting, and the emergence of resilience capacities.

The paper contributions are two-fold. Firstly, our analysis reveals that Mallak's framework is adequate in order to understand how resilience is built, and can therefore represent a point of reference for future studies. Second, the paper is one of the first attempting to show how accounting is implicated in making public sector organization resilient and its relationship with the risk awareness. During financial shock, public sector organizations face high level of uncertainties, both in terms of objectives to be pursued and the means through which achieve them. As the case shows, accounting in such contexts can support the organizational resilience by providing the legitimation of choices, thanks to the rational representation of uncertain objects. Furthermore, accounting support adaptive behavior by providing knowledge and ready to use answers. During financial shocks, the role of accounting need to be understood in a dynamic perspective. Whereas at the beginning of the financial shock, accounting plays a role as rationalization machine, during the implementation process of the solutions to cope or exploit the crisis, the accounting technologies' role change, supporting the organization more as an answer machine (Burchell et al. 1980). This conclusion is supportive of Mouritsen and Kreiner (2016) view that accounting support decisions not by solidifying decision but with a continuous process of decision "from causality to effectuation and from solutions to generation of alternatives" (p. 21). As such, a resilient organization is supported by accounting assuming multifaceted role not for the search of a new equilibrium but to continuously adapt to the uncertain internal and external environment (Barbera et al. 2020).

The results have both policy and managerial implications. From a policy perspectives, austerity and cut-back policy measures need to be planned supporting public sector organizations to develop resilient capacities. As we have shown in the case study, budget cut-back triggered organizational innovation and change, mobilizing the resilient capacities available. From a managerial perspective, public managers need to pay attention to the way accounting technologies are used throughout the organization. Accounting can play several roles, but that will be dependent on the way accounting is designed and developed. Future studies may be interested in studying the role of accounting versus other dimensions of resilience and understanding how accounting can affect performance in a resilience process.

This study is not without limitations. First and foremost, we based our analysis on one in-depth case study, therefore the results cannot be generalized in different contexts. Second, we observed the case analysis during a discrete point of time. As the development of resilient capacities takes time, a more longitudinal study would help in understanding more clearly the dynamics of resilience. Future studies can address the above limitations by extending the depth and length of analysis to corroborate, extend and amend our findings.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, E.B. and M.T.; methodology, E.B.; formal analysis, M.T.; investigation, E.B. and M.T.; resources, E.B.; writing—original draft preparation, M.T.; writing—review and editing, E.B.; supervision, E.B.; project administration, E.B.; funding acquisition, E.B. The paper's sections can be attributed as follows: Sections 1 and 3–5 to E.B., Sections 2–4 and 6 to M.T. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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