In a world shaped by tariffs, sanctions, and supply chain disruptions, many companies instinctively turn inward. Reduce risk. Pull back. Protect what they have. But new research from the University of Miami Patti and Allan Herbert Business School suggests that approach, while understandable, tells only half the story.
Published in the Journal of International Business Studies, the paper introduces a framework called "resilience duality," the idea that multinational enterprises must simultaneously protect themselves from external shocks while actively pursuing new opportunities, not as competing priorities, but as a single, integrated strategy.
In other words, the researchers suggest that companies must learn to protect themselves from disruption while continuing to pursue growth opportunities at the same time.
"Risk management and opportunity pursuit are often treated as separate foci," said Yadong Luo, Emery Findley Endowed Chair and professor of management at Miami Herbert. "But a viable geo-strategy must consider risk control and continued growth interactively."
Luo co-authored the paper with Tailan Chi of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Defense and offense at once
The framework centers on two concepts. Immunity refers to a firm's capacity to absorb and contain disruptions, detect threats early, buffer against supply shocks, and design resilient structures. Vitality refers to its capacity to grow through adversity, investing in new markets, digital transformation, and emerging technologies like AI.
The key insight is that these are not opposing forces. A company that exits a politically volatile market, for example, can simultaneously redeploy those resources toward innovation in a more stable region. Defense and offense, in this framework, are two sides of the same strategic move.
Luo draws a pointed contrast with "de-risking," the approach that has gained traction among governments and companies navigating U.S.-China tensions. De-risking, he argues, is passive and reactive, focusing entirely on the immunity side while leaving the vitality side unattended. "De-risking is legitimate and needed," Luo said, "but the logic undervalues the opportunity side at both country and firm levels."
The role of foresight
For companies wondering where to start, Luo is direct: organizational foresight is the most foundational capability a firm can build. This means developing structured scenario planning, scanning for early signals of both risks and opportunities, and cultivating leaders who are simultaneously forward-looking and pragmatic.
"MNEs [multinational enterprises] often fail not because they lack resources but because they either commit too rigidly to outdated assumptions or they lack visionary leaders who are both forward-looking for growth and pragmatic for risk control," Luo said.
The paper identifies three other behavioral enablers alongside foresight: an ambidextrous culture that can hold caution and boldness at once, an analyzer orientation that balances opportunity pursuit with measured risk assessment, and adaptive learning that extracts strategic insight from each disruption rather than merely recovering from it.
A new kind of regionalization
The paper also introduces a concept called "neo-regionalization" to describe how firms are reorienting their global footprints. Unlike traditional regional strategies defined by geography, neo-regionalization is shaped by geopolitical alignment and shared regulatory or technological standards, meaning that trade blocs like the CPTPP now span Latin America, Europe, and Asia simultaneously. Nations and companies engage in multiple overlapping agreements at once, creating a complex web of multipolar, plurilateral relationships that require firms to manage their international operations as an interconnected portfolio of strategic options.
Growing with turbulence
The broader message of the research is a reframe: global turbulence is not a temporary disruption to be waited out, but a permanent condition to be navigated and, ultimately, leveraged.
"Resilience is not just about surviving disruption," Luo said. "It is about staying adaptive enough to evolve through disruption. Grow with global turbulence via augmented resilience that simultaneously captures the health of immunity and the capability of vitality."
