Resilience in Organizations: An Integrative Multilevel Review and Editorial Introduction

Abstract

The interest of organization and management researchers in the resilience concept has steadily grown in recent years. Although there is consensus about the importance of resilience in organizational contexts, many important research questions remain. For example, it is still largely unclear how resilience functions at different levels of analysis in organizations and how these various levels interact. In this special issue, we seek to advance knowledge about the complex resilience construct. For laying a foundation, in this editorial introduction we offer an integrative literature review of previous resilience research at three different levels of analysis (i.e., individual, team, and organization). Furthermore, we demonstrate what is already known about resilience as a multilevel construct and interactions among different resilience levels. Based on the results of our literature review, we identify salient research gaps and highlight some of the more promising areas for future research on resilience. Finally, we present an overview of the articles in this special issue and highlight their contributions in light of the gaps identified herein.