Bouncing Forward or Locking In? Crisis-Era Decisions and Transformative Resilience in Istanbul’s Housing Development Sector

Abstract

This study addresses organizational adaptation under conditions of prolonged market instability within capital-intensive real estate sectors. It investigates the multidimensional alignment between crisis-era decisions and reported post-crisis organizational actions among 144 active housing developers in Istanbul. A two-stage analytical method was employed: nonlinear canonical correlation analysis (OVERALS) evaluated the global association between the two action sets, while co-occurrence network analysis and bridge centrality identified the structural positioning of individual practices. The findings indicate a non-random pattern of association that is broadly consistent with evolutionary resilience perspectives, without implying direct causal relationships or testing temporal performance shifts. Knowledge-oriented and relational practices—specifically corporate social responsibility, R&D and new market activity, and consultant reports—exhibited the highest cross-set connectivity with reported post-crisis adjustments. Defensive actions displayed more heterogeneous cross-set positions: project suspension was non-bridging under the baseline threshold, whereas budget control retained a comparatively prominent position in the bridge-strength ranking. This pattern suggests that defensive actions were not uniformly peripheral within the observed network. Overall, this study offers an exploratory framework for understanding how crisis-era action configurations correspond to reported organizational practices in highly volatile urban property markets.