Antifragility Analysis: A Tool for Business Management in Turbulent Environments

Document Type : Original Article (Quantified)

Authors

1 Department of Management, Ayandegan University, Tonekabon, Iran.

2 Department of Economics and Business Administration, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, ​​Catalonia, Spain..

Abstract
This study, based on the MARA methodology and the concept of systems resilience, introduced a resilience analysis approach to the strategy selection problem. In chaotic and unpredictable environments, decision-making (especially for key and influential decisions such as strategy selection) is challenging. In changing and variable conditions, classical approaches to strategy selection as well as multi-attribute decision-making approaches lose their effectiveness. Classical scenario planning approaches are also unable to cope with chaotic environments due to their inherent limitations and simplification. In response to the shortcomings of the aforementioned approaches, the Matrix Approach to Robustness Analysis (MARA) was introduced, which is able to solve the strategy selection problem without computational constraints. However, this approach is suitable when a conservative decision-maker wants to choose a strategy with the lowest risk. Therefore, this approach does not provide a desirable outcome when the decision maker seeks to exploit opportunities. In this approach, after listing the decision options and defining scenarios based on the most important environmental indicators, the performance of the strategies in each of the different states of the indicators was determined and the total performance of each strategy in each scenario was compared with the performance of that strategy in the base scenario (status quo). The proposed approach was described in the form of a case study. In practice, this analysis shows which strategy (decision) can bring more benefits to the organization (decision maker) in the event of a change in each of the environmental impact indicators (scenario change). This concept is in contrast to robust analysis, which considers the option that has less risk in the event of a change to be superior. Using this tool in turbulent environments can help managers in the business management process.

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  • Receive Date 25 September 2025
  • Revise Date 08 December 2025
  • Accept Date 31 January 2026