AVIATION GEOPOLITICAL RESILIENCE ENABLEMENT (AGRE): A THEORY-DRIVEN CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR ORGANISATIONAL RESILIENCE AND PREPAREDNESS IN THE MALAYSIAN AVIATION INDUSTRY

Abstract

Geopolitical disruption has become a persistent structural condition for the global aviation industry rather than an episodic external risk, yet aviation preparedness remains conceptually fragmented, particularly in the Malaysian context where post-pandemic recovery intersects with intensifying cost, capacity and geopolitical pressures. This conceptual paper presents a theory-driven integrative review that synthesises scholarship on organisational resilience, dynamic capabilities, crisis management, strategic risk management, supply chain resilience, government and regulatory support, and digitalisation. It advances an original contribution, the Aviation Geopolitical Resilience Enablement (AGRE) framework, which argues that generic resilience models are insufficiently differentiated to explain preparedness in a heavily regulated, ecosystem-dependent industry such as aviation. Departing from prior capability-based and critique-based resilience frameworks, AGRE positions organisational resilience as the mediating mechanism through which five antecedent enablers are translated into anticipatory, absorptive, adaptive and recovery-oriented preparedness within a dual-layer architecture comprising organisational and ecosystem-institutional influences. Beyond the synthesis, the review further weighs competing interpretations within the literature, including the tension between compliance-oriented and strategic risk management and the trade-off between supply chain efficiency and resilience. Six direct-effect propositions, five indirect-effect propositions and a structured doctoral research agenda are advanced to guide future quantitative validation using PLS-SEM testing within the Malaysian aviation ecosystem.