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Human Relations
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Reclaiming resilience and safety: Resilience activation in the critical period of crisis

Edward H. Powley

Graduate School of Business and Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, ehpowley{at}nps.edu

When external events disrupt the normal flow of organizational and relational routines and practices, an organization’s latent capacity to rebound activates to enable positive adaptation and bounce back. This article examines an unexpected organizational crisis (a shooting and standoff in a business school) and presents a model for how resilience becomes activated in such situations. Three social mechanisms describe resilience activation. Liminal suspension describes how crisis temporarily undoes and alters formal relational structures and opens a temporal space for organization members to form and renew relationships. Compassionate witnessing describes how organization members’ interpersonal connections and opportunities for engagement respond to individuals’ needs. And relational redundancy describes how organization members’ social capital and connections across organizational and functional boundaries activate relational networks that enable resilience. Narrative accounts from the incident support the induced model.

Key Words: liminality • organizational crisis • organizational healing • organizational theory • resilience • social mechanisms

Human Relations, Vol. 62, No. 9, 1289-1326 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0018726709334881
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