Organizational resilience: leadership, operational and individual responses to the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Purpose

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, most organizations have experienced a sudden and unprecedented drop in revenue and productivity. However, the pandemic did not exclusively negatively impact organizations; rather, it resulted in both negative and positive effects. To delve into the multi-level process through which organizational outcomes change from negative to positive indicators, this study focuses on organizational resilience as a theoretical concept to overcome pandemic-related turmoil.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted a multi-level analysis based on grounded theory with a sample of 30 healthcare employees who worked in hospitals and were simultaneously enrolled in a part-time master of business administration (MBA) program at a university in the Midwest. Of the 30 participants, 21 were from a single university hospital (UH), and the remaining 9 participants were from other hospitals (non-UH).

Findings

The authors analyzed the data and incorporated three existing perspectives of organizational resilience (attribute, process and multi-level views) into an integrated model. The authors identified 25 first-order concepts and 8 second-order themes and categorized them into 4 aggregate dimensions at different unit levels: organizational field, leadership, operation and individual units.

Practical implications

A resilient hospital operates as a cohesive system, with entities at various levels – from individuals and teams to the broader organization – collaborating seamlessly to foster resilience. Top management team (TMT) should persistently communicate with employees to provide information about the current crisis and clear strategic directions to reduce employees' fear and prevent anomie stemming from future uncertainty. Managers should not only be concerned about employees' physical safety from infection and psychological safety from isolation but also encourage employees to elicit meaningfulness from their work. Furthermore, TMT and human resource (HR) teams should adapt human resource management (HRM) practices to allow for flexibility and optimism in employee roles.

Originality/value

In this study, the authors utilized a qualitative methodology with grounded theory in order to develop a comprehensive model that holds theoretical, methodological and practical significance. Theoretically, the authors' novelty lies in the synthesis of three distinct perspectives: attribute, process and multi-level. The authors merged these approaches into a unified model, identifying precursors of resilience at different levels. Methodologically, the authors focused on hospitals as target samples, which were the foremost and representative organizations severely confronting the crisis and turmoil brought by the pandemic. The authors documented organizations' experiences amidst the crisis as they unfolded in real time rather than in hindsight. This approach highlights the immediacy and significance of the authors' research in the realm of crisis management. Practically, the authors' findings illuminate that organizational resilience can be developed through a collaborative effort. It emerges from coordinated interactions across various organizational actors, from employees and middle managers to the TMT.

Citation

Kim, J., Lee, H.W. and Chung, G.H. (2024), "Organizational resilience: leadership, operational and individual responses to the COVID-19 pandemic", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 37 No. 1, pp. 92-115. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOCM-05-2023-0160

Introduction

After the outbreak of COVID-19 in late 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic (hereafter pandemic) changed almost every facet of people's lives, making serious impacts on organizations, the economy and employees. Most organizations had to temporarily shut their offices down or halt operations (Jones et al., 2020). Lockdowns paused economic growth throughout the world and the downfall of the world economy resulted in mass unemployment (Blustein et al., 2020). Social distancing measures drastically changed conventional managerial practices; for instance, face-to-face communication was restricted, on-site training disappeared, hiring froze, telework made knowledge sharing and employee engagement harder and housework and childcare shattered work–life balance as employees and their children stayed at home more than before. Nevertheless, we could witness some organizations successfully overcoming the pandemic-related turmoil. Organizational resilience is the best concept elucidating reasons why some organizations could quickly respond to it, effectively cope with it and further develop unusual ways of doing business in a sustainable manner (Sutcliffe and Vogus, 2003; Williams et al., 2017).

Since the seminal works of Meyer (1983) and Weick (1993), management researchers have paid attention to organizational resilience. In early crisis management literature, the concept of organizational resilience was narrowly defined, focusing solely on an organization's ability to recover to its pre-crisis stable state. Later, the concept broadened to encompass a comprehensive process that includes anticipation, coping, recovery and even thriving and prosperity beyond the original state (Duchek, 2020; Hillmann and Guenther, 2021). Several concepts share similarities with organizational resilience. For instance, the High-Reliability Organization (HRO) emphasizes swift decision-making based on imperfect data, shedding routines to enhance adaptability and ensure survival (Waller and Roberts, 2003). Similarly, “dynamic capabilities” pertain to an organization's adaptability in response to volatile and unstable environment (Buzzao and Rizzi, 2023). In light of the pandemic, it's imperative to select a framework that holistically addresses the multifaceted challenges organizations face. We advocate for organizational resilience as a more encompassing umbrella concept. We define organizational resilience as an organization's capabilities to react to and recover from duress or disturbances with minimal effect on stability and functioning (Linnenluecke, 2017; Sutcliffe and Vogus, 2003). Our conceptualization not only addresses immediate response mechanisms but also emphasizes long-term recovery and stability. In the context of a global pandemic, this broader perspective is crucial, ensuring organizations are equipped not just to adapt, but to thrive amidst challenges.

A large number of studies on organizational resilience have been conducted so far, but most of them have two drawbacks. On the one hand, most prior empirical works were conducted in a retrospect manner, far after the process and outcome of a crisis became known to the public. Thus, there is a possibility that attributes (or precursors to resilience) most saliently exposed to the public could have been later picked and assorted into components of resilience. In other words, much knowledge on resilience is acquired after a crisis ends, either uncovering precursors, such as individual and organizational qualities (attributes) leading to organizational resilience (e.g. Burnard and Bhamra, 2011; Coutu, 2002; Crichton et al., 2009; Gittell et al., 2006; Hamel and Valikangas, 2003; Sutcliffe and Vogus, 2003; Teo et al., 2017; Wildavsky, 1988), or proposing theoretical (process) models (e.g. Duchek, 2020). In particular, even well-known resilience studies (e.g. Gittell et al.’s (2006) study on the September 11 attacks) were conducted with post-hoc analysis when a significant amount of time had passed since the major disasters had occurred.

On the other hand, theoretical and practical utilization of insights learned from previous studies are limited in that organizational resilience was highly subject to crisis types (Hillmann and Guenther, 2021) or in that two organizations were simply compared in terms of a certain aspect. For example, resilience studies on a single disaster (e.g. Boin and van Eeten's study (2013) on the Challenger explosion) or a simple comparison (e.g Weick and Sutcliffe's (2007) study on two – either more or less reliable – organizations) are ill-equipped (Brumback, 2009) to provide contemporary organizations with effective avenues for overcoming the pandemic.

To overcome these shortcomings, the present study is aimed at making contributions to the resilience literature for two following reasons. First, while most existing empirical studies conducted post-hoc analysis just after crises ended, the present research employed an ongoing field analysis by focusing on an in-progress event, the pandemic, which had not yet ended at the time of writing. The pandemic provides a unique opportunity to resolve the first methodological problem (i.e. shortcomings of retrospective surveys) from previous studies on resilience. Sudden changes associated with the pandemic such as social distancing, mandatory work from home and sanitary requirements that have penetrated most parts of an organization are extremely new practices that have never been dealt with in previous research. Second, the present study was conducted in the midst of this worldwide crisis with a prompt action-oriented research purpose. It is considered that knowledge obtained from existing research targeting at a single devastating event or comparing two organizations with either high or low reliability has low applicability and even to be somewhat questionable. In terms of scope and extent, this work views the pandemic as one of the most significant crises in human history, not merely in one or two organizations and helps researchers and practitioners cope with many problems stemming from the current and the future emerging pandemic.

To this end, we conducted a qualitative action-oriented study on hospitals in Ohio as target organizations. Particularly, considering hospitals as our target samples, which were the foremost organizations severely confronting the crisis and turmoil brought by the pandemic, our inductive study can serve as a vivid natural experiment that proposes a solid theoretical and practical model. Our endeavor will provide scholars and practitioners with a more in-depth understanding of how to develop organizational resilience to respond to unexpected organizational disturbances. The present study is structured as follows. First, a literature review is conducted. Then, the data collection and analyses processes are discussed by drawing on grounded theory (Strauss and Corbin, 1998) as the methodological underpinning. Particularly, organizational and employees' responses to the pandemic at multi-level units, including organizational field, leadership (TMT and middle managers), operational (in terms of HRM practices) and individual units, are investigated. Finally, we discuss our results, theoretical contributions, practical implications and the study's limitations.

Literature review

Similar to a research stream of other management fields (e.g. leadership), the research focus on resilience began by identifying its antecedents such as traits or attributes, gradually moved to developmental stages or emerging process and ultimately encompassed multi-level interactions among different agents (e.g. individual, group, or organization; Sutcliffe and Vogus, 2003). Only considering resilience to be predetermined attributes, managers have nothing to develop organizational resilience but selecting dispositional resilient applicants. Meanwhile, simply viewing resilience as something to emerge along a single-level process, researchers should necessarily overlook the fact that an organization is a constellation of members with different KSAOs, values and needs. Thus, the existing frameworks of organizational resilience should be integrated into one to clearly stipulate attributes and process across different levels. Drawing on its general definition we articulated earlier, we include three different approaches into our integrated framework and suggest following rationales.

The first approach, which was called the organizational resilience attribute approach, views that a resilient organization necessarily possesses, identifies and builds specific organizational qualities (or attributes) so that it can survive (e.g. Gittell et al., 2006; Linnenluecke et al., 2012; Markman and Venzin, 2014). The most frequently discussed organizational qualities encompass various attributes, including the ability and training to detect and sense-make (Burnard and Bhamra, 2011; Ciasullo et al., 2023; Sutcliffe and Vogus, 2003; Weick, 1993), realistic awareness and acceptance of the cold reality (Hamel and Valikangas, 2003; Teo et al., 2017), learning from prior disasters (Crichton et al., 2009), strategy (Wildavsky, 1988), the role of managing flexible resources—also called slack in terms of financial and relational resources (Gittell et al., 2006)—trained operational skills such as improvisation (or bricolage; La Sala, Fuller and Calabrese, 2022) to find alternative solutions (Coutu, 2002; Rerrup, 2001), a culture of HRO encompassing leadership and communication (Cantu et al., 2020) and individual-level resiliency (Lengnick-Hall et al., 2011). In particular, although the HRO literature have long highlighted the importance of organizational adaptability and survival under the dramatically and rapidly changing business environments (Waller and Roberts, 2003), most studies have merely identified hallmarks or characteristics of HRO (e.g. Cantu et al., 2020).

The second approach, which was labeled the organizational resilience process approach, describes organizational resilience as neither a momentary state in which an organization reaches (as a one-time response to a crisis) nor an attribute that it possesses of itself, but a process through which it develops and acquires incremental capacity by continuously anticipating, adjusting and learning (Hamel and Valikangas, 2003; Sutcliffe and Vous, 2003). While the first approach emphasizes effective precursors generating organizational resilience, the process models mainly discuss a series of stages through which organizational resilience successfully emerges and each stage in which a certain organizational quality (or attribute) is developed and acquired (Duchek, 2014). Particularly, compared to the first approach, the process approach suggests the importance of the anticipation stage of organizational resilience; that is, the detection of a crisis signal at the early stage is important, as it enables an organization to increase its ability to collect sufficient resources in advance and decrease reliance on resources that would be most negatively affected by a crisis. With its emphasis on anticipation, which constitutes efforts to detect and prepare before a crisis, the process models could differentiate the concept of resilience from that utilized in the risk management literature that primarily focused on the post-hoc coping activities only after a crisis has broken out (Williams et al., 2017).

The last approach, referred to as the organizational resilience multi-level approach, is a constellation of different-level attributes and processes; in other words, organizational resilience is constructed both separately and simultaneously at different levels (Hartmann et al., 2020). This approach was developed because resilience emerges not only at the individual level but at the collective level through group and organizational activities (Linnenluecke, 2017; Sutcliffe and Vogus, 2003). Not surprisingly, because early studies on resilience came from the psychology field, their initial focus was on an individual rather than an organization. As such, later studies have argued that organization-level capabilities are not simply added composites of individuals' capabilities (Ashmos and Huber, 1987); rather, they may be constituted through collective actions (Horne and Orr, 1998), reciprocal links among individuals (Riolli and Savicki, 2003), or dyadic, organizational and social/policy levels (La Sala et al., 2023). This view infers that although an individual's resilience can be a starting point for an organization's resilient, dynamic interactions among resilient individuals underpin the emergence of collective capacities for organizational resilience (Horne and Orr, 1998; Lengnick-Hall et al., 2011; Morgeson and Hofmann, 1999). Particularly, organizations have different-level units, such as TMT, middle managers and employees, where each unit with specific knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics (KSAOs) necessarily performs different activities in communicating, coordinating, formulating, implementing, or operating various strategies (Coutu, 2002; Horne and Orr, 1998; Mallak, 1998; Shin et al., 2012). Thus, researchers have suggested using multi-level analysis to integrate resilience activities performed by individual, group and organizational units (e.g. Gittell et al., 2006; Powley, 2013; Sutcliffe and Vogus, 2003).

Building on these viewpoints, we propose three research objectives on organizational resilience in the pandemic. First, three major approaches outlined above should be integrated. According to a system perspective (DesJardine et al., 2019), an organization comprises numerous interconnected elements, and thus, the accurate functions of each element can be better understood by assessing their interactions with other elements. For example, organizational qualities proposed by the first approach should be strategically repositioned and built at different stages of the resilience process via multi-level analysis. In particular, Raetze et al. (2021, p. 607) called for papers regarding “how resilience functions at different levels of analysis in organizations and how these various levels interact.” Recently recognizing this necessity, several scholars have attempted to develop an integrated model by combining the three approaches into a single model (Ducheck, 2020; Hillmann and Guenther, 2021). However, these efforts were mainly limited to conceptualization, leaving empirical validation a task for future research.

For example, we introduce two conceptual models from the latest studies (Ducheck, 2020; Hillmann and Guenther, 2021). Both models share similarities in that organizational resilience is treated not as constructed by one-time activities to cope with a singular crisis but by constant work spanning several stages. However, they are also different; Ducheck's (2020) model emphasized the role of different qualities at each stage, while Hillmann and Guenther (2021) highlighted the process itself. Furthermore, both models stopped short of articulating each unit's respective roles with multi-level analysis, although this integrative perspective can be informative (e.g. Sutcliffe and Vogus, 2003; Tasic et al., 2020). Thus, the development of an integrated model encompassing all three approaches is imperative to ensure that scholars and practitioners can deeply understand the qualities and processes of organizational resilience across business units at multiple levels.

Applying an integrated framework, the present study will analyze organizational resilience with a special emphasis on human resources (HR)-driven initiatives. First, what three approach have in common is that they all focus on people. For example, even when claiming the importance of preparing extra organizational resources, the primary emphasis was given to the importance of human capitals among the resources including financial reserves (Gittell, 2006). Second, HR-centered efforts are crucial to the development of organizational capacity not only because individual-level resilience is necessarily embedded in organizational resilience but also because human resources management (HRM) would be the most quickly and flexibly applicable managerial interventions TMT may adopt during a crisis (Lengnick-Hall et al., 2011). We witnessed some organizations which adopted several improvised changes in HR practices during the pandemic. Improving HR practices can improve organizational resilience quickly and effectively (Lengnick-Hall et al., 2011). Indeed, studies suggest that firms adopt certain HR practices in bundles in order to respond to a crisis (e.g. Teague and Roche, 2014) and the ability of leaders to develop agile and flexible HRM responses can be critical for crisis management (Malik and Sanders, 2021). Therefore, we will further deepen our knowledge of organizational resilience by examining such HRM efforts.

Finally, it is necessary to conduct resilience research specific to the pandemic. Resilience during the pandemic has both common and context-specific aspects. Specifically, there are common organizational qualities (e.g. resource availability and social resources) of resilience applicable to the pandemic; however, it is also important to identify other effective qualities specific to the pandemic because some qualities may be more effective than others at promoting resilience, depending on a crisis type (DesJardine et al., 2019). For example, Gittell's (2006) study on the airline industry's resilience after the September 11 terrorist attacks showed that relational reserves and viable business models are precursors to organizational resilience. Rerup's (2001) study on the Apollo 13 accident showed the importance of bricolage led by strict training programs and coordination among decentralized experts who are empowered. The pandemic represents one of the first global crises of this scale in the context of modern globalization, and it has resulted in many unfamiliar situations, such as social distancing. Thus, we have a limited understanding of what organizational qualities are effective in aiding an organization's strategic decision-making to ensure survival during the pandemic. In this given context, the pandemic necessitates the creation of an integrative theoretical model with rich empirical evidence.

In sum, organizational resilience is a people-centered concept that operates across various levels: individual, group and organizational. Therefore, the theoretical framework of organizational resilience should not only encompass three core clusters—attributes, processes and multi-level perspectives—but should also place a significant emphasis on HR practices. To this end, we raised a research question: what are the attributes and process of organizational resilience whereby members at different levels have coped with and overcome the on-going pandemic?

Method

The present study conducted a multi-level field analysis based on grounded theory by considering precursors to organizational resilience at all levels. Although the number of studies on resilience has grown over the last 2 decades, some were limited to theory building and others were empirical studies that focused on a single accident or disaster, leaving a gap in terms of rich empirical evidence (van der Vegt et al., 2015). Specifically, a qualitative methodology was adopted for three reasons. First, considering that the pandemic was an ongoing crisis at the time of writing, conventional quantitative research was difficult to conduct due to difficulties constituting or defining measures. Furthermore, a retrospective survey method has typically been utilized after a crisis ends. Second, organizational resilience is specific to the crisis type, but the pandemic posed an unprecedented impact. An inductive, qualitative methodology is widely recognized as the best approach for analyzing a new phenomenon. Finally, a qualitative approach provides a useful avenue for understanding how organizations are affected by crises and how they cope. As mentioned earlier, existing studies were categorized into three approaches: the attribute approach focusing on “a behavior or a characteristic of an object” (Mohr, 1982, p. 45), the process approach highlighting the “process by which organizing and organization unfold” (Gioia et al., 2013, p. 16) and the multi-level approach emphasizing the nature of organizational resilience constituted separately and simultaneously at different levels. A model incorporating all three approaches will better elucidate the mechanisms of organizational resilience during the pandemic through the “rearrangement of mutually autonomous objects” (Mohr, 1982, p. 46). In particular, grounded theory is the best qualitative methodology for “fresh understanding about [unrevealed] patterned relationships among social actors” (O'Reilly et al., 2012, p. 2) during the pandemic. To the end, we developed a new perspective of organizational resilience during the pandemic by adopting the grounded theory.

Sampling and participants

The authors considered healthcare institutions to be the best sample organizations because they had to utilize their resilience to manage emerging challenges and prepare for potential future crises. In particular, Ohio hospitals faced distinct challenges during this period (Filby, 2020a, 2020b; Holmes, 2021; Ohio Department of Health, 2020). Many were overwhelmed by the influx of COVID-19 patients, causing intensive care units (ICUs) and general wards to exceed capacity. To manage this surge and secure crucial personal protective equipment (PPE), many hospitals in Ohio had to postpone or cancel elective surgeries and non-urgent procedures. Staff shortages also became a significant issue. Many healthcare professionals were either sick, quarantining, or burnt out from the continuous pressures of the pandemic. The extended duration of the pandemic also took a toll on the mental health of healthcare workers. Hospitals had to create support systems for their staff, who were constantly under immense stress. Financially, Ohio hospitals faced challenges associated with increased costs of acquiring necessary equipment as well as reduced revenues due to the suspension of elective procedures and non-COVID-related care. In summary, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the critical need for organizational resilience when facing unprecedented challenges, especially in Ohio hospitals.

We collected essays from 30 participants who were working in hospitals and were simultaneously enrolled in a part-time master of business administration (MBA) program at a university in the Midwest, USA (in the spring – February through March – of 2021). Of the 30 participants, 21 (70% of participants) were from a single university hospital (UH) and the remaining 9 participants were from other hospitals (non-UH). We confirmed that participant diversity in terms of job (physician, nurse and staff), hierarchical level and organizational tenure would show sufficient variation in individual perceptions of the pandemic and precursors to organizational resilience (Easterby-Smith et al., 2008). Specifically, the cohort of 30 participants comprised 11 males and 19 females; 10 held managerial position; 7 had PhDs, 8 had master's degrees and the others had bachelor's degree; 13 were healthcare professionals, such as physicians and nurses; and the remaining 17 were general staff in such departments as accounting, finance, marketing, legal affairs and information technology (IT). Finally, on average, these participants were approximately 32 years old (standard deviation [SD] = 6.5) with nearly 4.4 years of organizational tenure (SD = 3.6).

The UH was the primary target organization and is a multidisciplinary academic medical center located in Columbus, Ohio. It includes seven hospitals and seven health sciences colleges and employs over 10,000 individuals. It is a major referral center for patients throughout Ohio and the Midwest, and its mission is to improve people's lives through innovation in research, education and patient care. Each year, it provides care for more than 1.5 million people and covers over 62,000 hospitalizations and over 1.87 million outpatient visits with a wide ambulatory care network throughout Ohio. Since the pandemic, it has devoted time and resources to fighting against the spread of the coronavirus and improving public health.

Data collection

The present study adopted a qualitative research approach that involved the systematic collection, organization and interpretation of written text (Malterud, 2001). Writings (essays) from healthcare employees working at the UH and non-UHs, including physicians, nurses and staff, were included in the dataset. These essays provide valuable information about how participants experienced and evaluated their social environments (Malterud, 2001). Once the purpose of the study had been explained, healthcare employees volunteered to share their experiences with the research team. To ensure confidentiality, anonymity was promised to all participants. In an open-ended format, the main questions asked were as follows: (1) how has COVID-19 impacted their organization, (2) what changes have they observed with regard to HR practices, (3) how have they and others (e.g. top and middle managers as well as their colleagues) responded to the pandemic and (4) how do individual characteristics relate to their and others' responses to the pandemic? As such, the voiced experiences of those with first-hand knowledge of how healthcare employees and their organizations have responded to the pandemic were utilized for analysis. The authors disclose that the present study obtained an approval of The Ohio State University that human subjects participating in this study was treated in accordance with ethical guidelines (“Managers' responses to crisis”; IRB # 2021E0075).

Data analysis

An analytic strategy was formed to ensure methodological rigor (Berg et al., 2010; Yin, 2011). The systematic analysis followed a four-stage procedure by including samples stage by stage, from the narrower-level units within similar organizational contexts (from participants with a similar job family to those with a different job family in a single organization) to the wider-level units between similar organizational contexts (from participants with a similar job family to those with a different job family in different organizations in the same industry). Specifically, in the first stage, we analyzed (1) the cases of 11 healthcare professionals working in the UH. Then, we included (2) 10 cases of staff in the UH in the second stage, (3) 2 cases of non-UH health professionals in the third stage and finally (4) 7 cases of non-UH staff in the last stage.

Our systematic analysis procedure enabled us to identify mutually exclusive major themes from the narrower-level units and then compare all cases collectively exhaustively from wider-level units. This analytic strategy for maximal within-unit similarities combined with minimal between-unit differences enriched “the variety and comprehensiveness of concepts,” increased “the possibility of categorizing similar concepts and facilitates theoretical predictions,” and ensured higher robustness and the credibility of evidence (Chung and Choi, 2018, p. 1005; Gioia et al., 2013; Pratt, 2008).

Subsequently, drawing on the principles of grounded theory (Strauss and Corbin, 1998), we analyzed data with NVivo, a software program for qualitative research, following three steps. First, we performed open coding for early conceptualization and later categorization. Specifically, we coded features of organizational resilience or its precursors by closely paying attention to dispositional traits, perceptions, attitudes, behaviors, situations, contexts and managerial practices frequently mentioned in participants' essays. Second, while reading all cases repeatedly, we conducted axial coding to isolate “all relevant data-to-theory” recurring relationships among the concepts (Gioia et al., 2013, p. 22) so that we could relate each concept to a relevant upper-level category (Strauss and Corbin, 1998). Third, we utilized selective coding by maintaining maximal variability and refining relationships. Iteratively, we re-examined first-order concepts, second-order themes and aggregate dimensions observed across the 30 cases until we reached theoretical saturation, which refers to a state in which new concepts or relationships can no longer be identified (Berg et al., 2010).

In each step, we followed the aforementioned four-stage procedure by including four different data sources. We first analyzed the first data sources (i.e. healthcare professionals working at the UH) so that within-group comparisons could facilitate the categorization of similar first-order concepts. Then, we iteratively confirmed the concepts identified from the first data sources, picked out second-order themes and categorized them into aggregate dimensions by including the second, third and fourth sources in sequence. Drawn on the comparative method and grounded theory, our analytic strategy secured the methodological features (i.e. theoretical coding, saturation and sensitivity) of a high-quality qualitative study (Easterby-Smith et al., 2008; O'Reilly et al., 2012).

As such, we identified several concepts and themes, classified them into categories that refer to “more abstract explanatory terms,” and repeated this process until “the point in category development at which no new properties, dimensions, or relationships emerge during analysis” (Strauss and Corbin, 1998, pp. 114-143). For example, while coding participants' descriptions, we identified recruitment and promotion freeze, reorganization of the physical environment and job rearrangement and impromptu training as first-order concepts (see Table 3). Then, we categorized them into the same second-order theme labeled improvised change in HRM because the three first-order concepts connoted prompt HRM interventions. When we discovered other first-order concepts in a similar way, we classified them into another second-order theme named deliberate change in HRM and finally grouped these two second-order themes into the same aggregate dimension called operational resilience. In these ways, we constructed a data structure, as shown in Figure 1 (Gioia et al., 2013; O'Reilly et al., 2012).

Findings: first-order concepts, second-order themes and aggregate dimensions

We identified 25 first-order concepts, 8 second-order themes and 4 aggregate dimensions. We present a detailed description with a rich illustration of these concepts, themes and aggregate dimensions in the following subsections and as shown in Tables 1 and 4.

Resilience manifestation

We first identified crisis emergence, which reflects an initial drop in revenue and productivity, as the first second-order theme of resilience manifestation (see Table 1). Considering that hospitals were frontline organizations and the pandemic generated a large number of patients, we did not expect an initial drop in their productivity before analyzing the data. However, we found that the pandemic led to an initial drop in productivity, presumably because organizations were not prepared to deal with the highly infectious virus and sudden changes in work procedures. The following illustrates hospital employees' perceptions of crisis emergence in terms of revenue and productivity.

After a month or so, radiology as a whole was losing a lot of money and the backlog for MRI and CT patients was around 2 months out (Participant #C02N18).

When the pandemic hit, we had a significant decrease in productivity in our unit. Per state order, we were only allowed to complete emergent cases, and all elective cases were cancelled for about two months … Our employee productivity also went down as there was not enough work for our regularly scheduled staffing model, so we were sending people home early or having some APP’S (advanced practice providers, i.e. PA/NP) not come in at all and take vacation (Participant #C01N28).

The second second-order theme of resilience manifestation is performance recovery, which denotes substantial rebound in revenue and productivity, as listed in Table 1. Several months after the outbreak of the pandemic, reduced productivity recovered following updates in work procedures and a growing number of patients; as a result, initially decreased revenue also rebounded because of increases in productivity or external (federal) funding.

I think we were able to increase our productivity. Barriers were removed to get work done quickly to solve COVID-19 related projects. Innovative ideas went from conception to actualization in the blink of an eye. Our leaders helped facilitated this progress by supporting our work and stepping back to let the people do what they do best. It has been an unprecedented time of progress (Participant #C02N07).

After the fall and rise of revenue and productivity in 2020, the UH ultimately recorded a higher revenue compared to the previous fiscal year of 2019, showing (financial) prosperity beyond recovery (Duchek, 2020; Hillmann and Guenther, 2021). The following quote indicates resilience manifestation, which we identified as the first aggregate dimension.

My organization’s revenue and productivity were impacted by COVID-19. Interestingly, though, when I looked at the figures comparing fiscal year (FY) 2020 to FY19, FY20 was not as financially impacted as I believed or as I heard in some of the messaging from [UH] leadership. In FY19, [UH]’s revenue was over $4 billion with an operating income of $402 million. Comparatively, [UH]’s FY20 revenue was $4.3 billion with a net income of $331 million (Participant #C01N25).

Leadership resilience

In situations of organizational crisis, effective leaders usually play critical roles in helping employees overcome threats and decrease anxiety and fear. Leadership during the pandemic was frequently observed to come from the TMT or managerial levels, but their operational patterns were different. For example, TMTs act like military officers who dole out commands via verbal communication. In contrast, managers behave as non-commissioned officers; they closely engage with an operation and maintain direct contact with subordinates. In this light, we identified TMTs' visibility (Pak et al., 2016) as the first second-order theme, which reflects TMTs' efforts to maintain communication channels, more frequently communicate with employees and share organizational directions (Waldman et al., 2001), as described in Table 2. Two quotes below represent TMTs' visibility.

One big change from the top management team is they are now communicating much more with the entire hospital system as a result of the COVID pandemic (Participant #C02N09).

Top managers (or their “behind the scenes” delegates) dramatically increased the amount of information shared with the entire Medical Center. [Dr. A – anonymized name] sends a daily COVID update to all Medical Center employees. The University also sends out a daily emailed newsletter. There was also increased transparency in inpatient numbers, the amount of cases, testing numbers, etc. (Participant #C02N31).

In addition to TMTs' visibility, we identified managers' visibility as the next second-order theme, which involves the managers' endeavors to consider individualized needs (Huy, 2002; Jansen et al., 2014), develop group cohesiveness and work in a hard but smart manner, as illustrated in Table 2. The following quote reflects managers' visibility.

Middle management had a change in their overall approach during the pandemic. It was more common to see a middle manager on the units 7 days a week where this was not common before (Participant #C02N20).

Incorporated in leadership resilience, which we identified as the second aggregate dimension, TMTs' and managers' visibility helped employees reduce their fear, feelings of being threatened and anxiety regarding uncertainty as a result of the pandemic. In doing so, TMTs tried to frequently and transparently communicate with employees while frontline managers attempted to empathize with subordinates, contribute to the building of “one team” and take the lead as below:

The chief of surgery began having biweekly “All Hands Meetings” and invited infectious disease experts and supply chain managers to give the surgical providers, residents, attendings and staff updates on the current findings by the CDC [Centers for Disease Control] and adopted policies by the medical center in response to the pandemic … The team members I manage also tuned into the virtual department of surgery “All Hands Meetings” and overall found the meetings to be very informative and alleviated a lot of fears regarding the PPE [personal protective equipment] supply chain (Participant #C01N23).

My primary observations during COVID are that top leaders are more visible, new leaders have emerged from the middle management level, my colleagues are resilient, and I have grown exponentially in experience and confidence (Participant #C01N25).

Operational resilience

The third dimension we identified was operational resilience. In confronting the pandemic, one of the managerial interventions an organization could take is prompt change in HRM practices (Bardoel et al., 2014; Coutu, 2002; Kendra and Wachtendorf, 2003; Weick, 1993). Specifically, hospitals immediately froze recruitment and promotions planned even before the pandemic, reorganized the physical environment to prevent employees and patients from being infected and adopted job rearrangement and impromptu training programs. We classified these activities into improvised changes in HRM, the first second-order theme (see Table 3), as illustrated below.

There was an immediate rush to push out new policies/procedures for how to deal with the pandemic (Participant #C02N09).

As the pandemic lasted longer than previously expected, long-run targeted changes in HRM practices were adopted. Specifically, hospitals implemented new compensation and benefit programs, such as “pandemic pay or leave,” ensured job security so that employees could fully devote themselves to their jobs and created or tailored HR policies by adopting a new timekeeping system or by lowering graduation requirements for medical students. We categorized these changes into deliberate change in HRM as the second second-order theme. The quote below describes this:

The HR department initiated different methods to document the changes as a result the pandemic … One primary focus of communication from HR revolved around accountability and documentation for required quarantine related leave, virtual caretaking of patients while employees worked from home and the need for employees to work from home with the closure of schools for dependent children. Different codes were created for documentation through our timekeeping system and surveys were sent to service line leaders to document the current status of the workforce whether in-person or virtually from home via HR and in conjunction with hospital administration (Participant #C01N23).

Two second-order themes, improvised and deliberate change in HRM, were grouped into the third aggregate dimension of operational resilience. Operational resilience as a managerial intervention often creates slack resources and promotes employee trust so that employees can be fully committed to their jobs. The following quote illustrates the creation of organizational slack.

The schedule change was a suggestion by one of the surgical line chief attendings as a means to create a “bullpen.” If teammates were to fall ill we would have backup healthy individuals who could trade rotations and continue to provide staff for the surgical service line (Participant #C01N23).

Individual resilience

The last aggregate dimension we identified was individual resilience. Its first second-order theme is individual-level dispositional readiness, which includes the Big Five personality traits and emotional intelligence. As illustrated in Table 4, five personality attributes may help an individual form individual resilience against the pandemic: conscientiousness and openness to experience allows an individual to maintain their routine and to find creative solutions; agreeableness and emotional stability help maintain strong social relationships with colleagues; and finally, introversion increases productivity for those working from home (Kahnweiler, 2009), but extroversion would be more helpful for productivity in the workplace (Watson et al., 1992). Not surprisingly, a high level of emotional intelligence helps an individual maintain good interpersonal relationships. Three representative illustrations indicating dispositional readiness are presented below:

One characteristic that these individuals possessed was conscientious … They put their heart and soul into the COVID testing site making sure the process and employees were properly managed (Participant #C02N19).

Openness to experience and emotional stability obviously would have been extremely successful during the pandemic because of their creative ideas and flexibility to change as well as their calm, well-adjusted personalities (Participant #C02N09).

[Her] leadership style includes emotional stability. Even when things at work are changing and spiraling out of control, [she] remains calm and level headed. She doesn't act rash or panicked. She takes her time, thinks about the situation, considers all possible outcomes, seeks advice from the team, and acts professionally. For example, when my coworkers and I were being asked to work at a different facility, there was a lot of stress and anxiety. There were so many uncertainties and rumors were starting to spread. She remained calm and talked to each individual coworker about their thoughts regarding the situation and the best way to handle it. She brought a sense of peace to the department and ensured everyone that everything would be okay and she would work to find a way to ease the situation (Participant #C02N18).

Although resilient individuals inherently possess the dispositional readiness to cope with crises, they could develop a strong attachment to their jobs or themselves during the pandemic. We identified work meaningfulness as the second second-order theme of the last aggregate dimension of individual resilience. We categorized occupational calling, persistence, pride and efficacy into work meaningfulness. Two quotes describe this:

COVID-19 has provided me an opportunity to learn a great deal about myself, including my passion for medicine, my devotion to my community, and my ability to be resilient in the face of uncertainty. On weeks when I work over 100 hours, I have learned to step back and instead of reflect on how tired I am, I have learned to be thankful for the opportunities I have and for the impact I am able to have on the patient’s I am lucky enough to serve (Participant #C01N36).

Each day I came into work, I was proud to be a nurse and proud to be on the frontline in a fight against an invisible enemy. I was terrified every time I had to enter a room that this time would be the time I got infected but it didn't deter me from my mission (Participant #C02N20).

In sum, we identified individual resilience as the last aggregate dimension by grouping dispositional readiness and work meaningfulness into the same dimension at the individual level; the first second-order theme indicates an individual's inherent characteristics before the pandemic, whereas the second denotes their efforts to develop positive sense-making (Ciasullo et al., 2023) or acquired capabilities during the pandemic.

Theoretical integration: an emerging process of organizational resilience

Based on several attributes around organizational resilience (i.e. first-order concepts, second-order themes and the aggregate dimensions we identified above), we developed a process model with multi-level analysis. As depicted in Figure 2, we propose a theoretical model with two dimensions: time and unit levels. Time denotes an emerging process of organizational resilience, whereas unit levels indicate the analysis level in which a specific precursor (attribute) affects the development of organization resilience.

Specifically, an individual's dispositional readiness toward organizational resilience already existed before the pandemic. When the pandemic broke out, employees and organizations perceived crisis emergence in terms of financial performance and productivity. Once organizations detected the pandemic, TMTs attempted to maintain communication channels by replacing face-to-face meetings with virtual ones, increasing the frequency of communication with employees and sharing information about the pandemic as well as organizational directions so that they could prevent themselves from generating excessively negative perceptions, attitudes and behaviors. Along with the TMTs' visibility, managers also tried to closely consider the needs of every subordinate and actively develop group cohesiveness. In doing so, some future senior leaders might emerge.

Most of prior studies have suggested that leaders' communication consistently performs pivotal functions of assessing risk, correcting misinformation about the disaster, connecting with individuals to let them know they are safe and confirming the status of the disaster (Spialeck and Houston, 2018). In our multi-level framework, however, two different-level leaders fulfilled paradox aspects of organizational resilience (Giustiniano et al., 2020). Resilient organizations including resilient leadership should have a paradox capability (e.g. optimistic but realistic at the same time) like ambidextrous organizations that pursue both exploration and exploitation simultaneously. In our analysis, TMT and middle managers share roles of different sides required in paradox leadership.

TMT typically maintains communication channel and increases its frequency in terms of the cognitive aspect, demonstrating organizational capacity to successfully cope with the crisis and providing constructive sense-making (Weick, 1988). In contrast, a middle manager usually takes an affective role of communication, helping employees keep their emotion stable and feel safe. Once both TMT's and managers' visibility were combined, leadership resilience might emerge and operational resilience such as changes in HRM practices will follow, in turn.

Organizations adopted several improvised HRM practices by changing the existing ones just after the outbreak of the pandemic. Later, as the pandemic lasted longer than their initial expectations, organizational leaders implemented more deliberate changes to HR practices. The organizational initiative to increase TMTs' and managers' visibility and to promote changes in HRM practices could render an individual's perceptions of work itself, which can facilitate readiness to cope with the pandemic, meaningful. Ultimately, as a whole, performance recovered and organizational resilience finally emerged.

Discussion

The present study investigated the emergence of organizational resilience during the pandemic. Adopting a qualitative methodology with grounded theory, this work analyzed the experiences of hospital employees who responded to the pandemic. We identified 25 first-order concepts and 8 second-order themes and categorized them into 4 aggregate dimensions at different unit levels: organizational field, leadership, operation and individual units. The conceptualization showed how organizational resilience emerged and what organizational qualities contributed to their emergence during the pandemic.

Aggregate dimensions of organizational resilience

The first aggregate dimension, manifestation of resilience, showed that regardless of threat, there were drops, recovery and increases in revenue and productivity. This dimension resonates with the expanded concept of resilience that an organization is able to not only cope with a crisis but also prosper beyond recovery (Duchek, 2020; Hillmann and Guenther, 2021). Thus, this finding confirms that our target organizations are representative cases of organizational resilience, providing a grounded rationale that other aggregate dimensions can be considered qualities (or attributes) leading to organizational resilience.

The second dimension we identified was leadership resilience. The important role of leadership has been widely discussed in resilience research (e.g. Boin et al., 2013; Luthans and Avolio, 2003; Southwick et al., 2017; Teo et al., 2017; Valero et al., 2015), but existing studies failed to identify the different activities conducted by various leaders of organizations. Dominant activities commonly revealed in both TMTs' and managers' visibility themes were related to communication, which is considered one of the core activities in performing organizational leadership (Ruben and Gigliotti, 2016) and one of pivotal elements constituting a culture of HRO (Cantu et al., 2020). However, the two forms of visibility played somewhat different roles in the emergence of leadership resilience. TMT leadership was primarily observed when it attempted to present organizational purposes, strategic directions, values, mission and vision, especially in a crisis characterized by high uncertainty (Waldman et al., 2001). Compared to TMTs' visibility, middle managers' visibility was found when they tried to interpret TMTs' strategic decisions and take the role of counselors or coaches who pay close attention to employees' emotional well-being (Huy, 2002; Jansen et al., 2014) through consideration of the individual and the development of group cohesiveness.

Considering the nature of resilience, the commonly shared but separately divided roles of leadership between TMTs and middle managers were effective. Organizational resilience often requires different managerial practices and roles; it has to anticipate future further dynamic changes and prepare to respond to them while absorbing existing external threats (De La Garza and Lot, 2022; Giustiniano et al., 2020; Välikangas, 2010). In this light, Giustiniano et al. (2020) called resilient leadership in the pandemic paradox work, which refers to a contradictory task encompassing both preparation and reaction, stability and flexibility, present and future, or autonomy and control. Although the balanced fulfillment of both forms of visibility may be observed in a single resilient leader, TMTs and middle managers in our sample struck a balance in their fulfillment of different leadership roles.

The third dimension, operational resilience, consists of two second-order themes: improvised and deliberate changes in HRM, such as job rearrangement and the provision of new compensation and benefits. These resilience-enhancing HRM practices may increase employees' psychological capital and thus improve organizational performance (Bardoel et al., 2014). Not surprisingly, although some changes in HRM (e.g. recruitment freeze) could be observed as a result of other crises, other changes (e.g. reorganization of the physical environment) were newly adopted interventions as a result of the pandemic. In particular, improvised change in HRM is very similar to the concept of improvisation, which has been repeatedly emphasized in resilience research (Coutu, 2002; Kendra and Wachtendorf, 2003; Weick, 1993). Therefore, operational resilience suggests that improvised and deliberate changes in HRM practices are effective ways to cope with abrupt crises, such as pandemics. Although there have been several calls for paper to reveal the roles of HR intervention overcoming environmental disruptions or capitalizing resilience (e.g. Cooper et al., 2014), none of studies responding to those demands (e.g. Jóhannsdóttir et al., 2022; Kim et al., 2022; Kwong et al., 2021; Minbaeva and Navrbjerg, 2023) have suggested two time-lagged – either improvised or deliberate – categories of HRM practices with regard to the pandemic as a target phenomenon, to our knowledge.

The last aggregate dimension, individual resilience, involves individual differences in terms of disposition (Big Five personality traits) and work attitude (work meaningfulness). Interestingly, our results showed that highly introverted employees experienced increases in productivity, but highly extroverted employees experienced decreases in productivity when they worked from home. A higher extroversion score is generally associated with a strong perception of well-being and high resilience (Oshio et al., 2018); in other words, extroverted employees can benefit from working in the workplace because they are energized through social interactions with others (Watson et al., 1992). Although the pandemic diminished interpersonal contact and exacerbated feelings of loneliness and depression to a certain degree, relatively introverted employees adapted well to the work-from-home situation. This finding also implies that introversion is not necessarily a counterproductive disposition; rather, it may be a dispositional strength that can help people overcome the pandemic. Introverts have a tendency to develop their thoughts internally and prefer forming solid ideas before sharing them with others (Kahnweiler, 2009). Many respondents with relatively high introversion reported that they had a good time with family and personally developing themselves while working from home.

The other second-order theme, work meaningfulness, also confirmed the previous findings; an individual can become resilient by accepting harsh reality (Cotu, 2002; Mallack, 1998) and overcoming denial (Hamel and Välikangas, 2003). A sense of meaningfulness accompanies not only a perception of identity and purpose (Ishak and Williams, 2018; McCann et al., 2009) but also learning experience and an increased ability to thrive, grow and flourish despite adversity (Teo et al., 2017; Wildavsky, 1988; Williams et al., 2017). The individual resilience dimension resonates with the previous findings that individual resilience is an important part of psychological capital along with hope and optimism (Luthans and Avolio, 2003) and works effectively during crises. Given that an individual is an ultimate executor of organizational strategy, individual resilience is an important component of organizational resilience, especially during the pandemic.

Theoretical contributions

The present study has the following theoretical contributions. First, with a large body of rich, real-life illustrations from hospital employees, our inductive study is the first (to the best of our knowledge) to reveal the emerging process of organizational resilience during the pandemic. Considering that hospitals were the organizations most severely confronted by the turmoil brought by the pandemic, our study could find important organizational resilience factors specific to the pandemic. Although some resilience studies with regard to healthcare institutions have been published during the pandemic, none of them delved into the emerging process across the levels. For instance, Gröschke et al. (2022) highlighted the interdependence between individual resilience and healthcare organizational resilience but overlooked cross-level interactions. Denis et al. (2021) considered healthcare HRM as a multi-level governance effort but didn't investigate how to develop organizational resilience along different stages.

Second, this study makes a unique contribution to the resilience literature by proposing an integrated theoretical model. As mentioned earlier, every extant study on organizational resilience adopted one or two of the three perspectives of attribute, process, or multi-level approaches. Isolating specific precursors to resilience at a certain level unit from those at other units across time, we proposed a theoretical model incorporating all three views. Furthermore, our study provides empirically vivid and rich evidence of the applicability of the theoretical model of organizational resilience.

Finally, this study is the first to highlight the important roles of the HRM practices adopted during the pandemic with empirical evidence. Employees are often psychologically vulnerable to external disturbances. The most significant characteristic of the pandemic is future uncertainty; we do not know when it will end or where it will direct us. Defined as a lack of information or knowledge about a situation, uncertainty is considered a major cognitive and psychological stressor that renders an individual helpless (Greco and Roger, 2003). Although organizational resilience emerges through the collective interactions among multiple factors, ultimately, the actions necessary to keep an organization alive must be performed by employees who are motivated by effective HRM practices (Lengnick-Hall et al., 2011). Additionally, even though some prior studies highlighted the importance of HRM practices in a crisis (e.g. Bardoel et al., 2014; Näswall et al., 2019), they presented little empirical evidence. Conversely, the current study is the first to provide empirical evidence that improvised and deliberate changes in HRM might be effective in overcoming the pandemic.

Practical implications

This study has some practical implications. First, the results indicate that individuals in their respective units should keep their own role perceptions and expectations in mind (Robbins and Judge, 2021). In a broad context, this study supports Linnenluecke's (2017) claim that a resilient organization is a system where different-level entities (i.e. individuals, teams and organizations) coordinate with each other to build a resilient organization. Thus, coordination among different players is considered essential. Specifically, our results suggest that TMTs should persistently communicate with employees to provide information about the current crisis state and clear strategic directions to reduce employees' fear and prevent anomie stemming from future uncertainty. In addition, middle managers should not only be concerned about employees' physical safety from infection and psychological safety from isolation, but they should also encourage employees to elicit meaningfulness from their work.

More importantly, TMTs and HR staff must revise HRM practices so that employees can perform their roles in more flexible ways and develop optimistic attitudes. At the beginning of the pandemic, TMTs' and managers' visibility may help employees maintain their routine. However, if a pandemic lasts longer than expected, employees may become psychologically exhausted and TMTs' and managers' efforts can become less effective. If an organization provides improvised HR practices in the early stages of a crisis and more deliberate HR practices later, employee motivation may persist consistently longer.

Limitations

Despite several theoretical contributions and practical implications, the present study has several limitations. First, the present study could not elucidate the ultimate effects of organizational resilience because the pandemic is ongoing. Future post-pandemic studies may be able to confirm our findings, as most previous studies were conducted in a retrospective way. However, we believe that this study provides many valuable insights that can help organizations prepare and cope timely with an imminent crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Second, our samples were limited in terms of numbers and scope because we focused on the hospitals. Yet, the use of a hospital sample can be evaluated as a valuable contribution to the resilience literature. People working in the medical sector are most keenly exposed to threats from the pandemic, as their jobs deal with life and death. Thus, responses from those working in hospitals provide valuable data for resilience research on the pandemic. However, future research on other organizational fields, such as the manufacturing and service industries, can reconfirm our theoretical model with higher generalizability.

Finally, we witnessed that introversion, often perceived as less advantageous in certain work environments, can paradoxically be a good asset in the pandemic. Due to the small number of cases, we did not further analyze this phenomenon. However, our findings imply that the pandemic should be considered neither solely a threat nor an opportunity. Instead, scholars and practitioners can develop an open attitude toward “destructive innovation” (Christensen et al., 2006) during a pandemic. This finding calls for future research that can further highlight the importance of a fit between some individual factors and a specific crisis type.

Conclusions

The COVID-19 pandemic, an ongoing and unpredictable crisis, has posed unprecedented challenges globally. However, throughout history, humans have consistently showcased remarkable resilience, successfully navigating through countless crises and disasters. This enduring ability to overcome adversity serves as the most compelling and tangible proof of human resilience. Our study presented vivid cases in which both individuals and organizations are resilient agents who can survive and even find various ways to prosper regardless of detrimental challenges. Resilience research fundamentally seeks to uncover and highlight human strengths. We believe that the present study can offer valuable insights for both researchers and practitioners in understanding and reinforcing the innate resilience of humans.

Figures

Figure 1

Data structure

Figure 2

A theoretical model of organizational resilience: integration of attribute, process and multi-level perspectives

Table 1

Representative quotes: resilience manifestation

Table 2

Representative quotes: leadership resilience

Table 3

Representative quotes: operational resilience (to be cont'd)

Table 4

Representative quotes: individual resilience (to be cont'd)