Communicating for resilience: a longitudinal study of processes and principles for managing organizational disruption

Abstract

This project explored how individuals and teams employ specific communication processes and principles to cultivate, sustain, and strengthen resilience after organizational disruption. A longitudinal study of working adults revealed high-reliability team organizing, as well as communicative resilience, significantly predicted resilience, as measured by disruption management outcomes. This study used two theoretical perspectives of resilience in organizational communication—the communicative theory of resilience (CTR) and high-reliability organizing theory (HRO)—as frameworks to investigate how the presence and enactment of resilience processes influence three disruption management outcomes at both the individual and team levels: stress, efficacy, and performance. Perceptions of individual and team stress, efficacy, and performance were examined at two times in a field survey with hundreds of working adults from various organizations across the United States. Results indicated (a) highly-reliable organizing was significantly related to improved levels of most disruption management outcomes at both data collection points, and for both individuals and teams, and (b) communicative resilience was significantly related to more positive levels of all disruption management outcomes at Time 1 for individuals and teams. Furthermore, comparative analyses revealed that (c) high-reliability organizing practices were generally more predictive of positive disruption management outcomes than communicative resilience, however, the two forms of resilience are likely compatible and complementary. Implications for resilience theorizing in organizational communication research conclude the dissertation.