Resilience in Organizations: An Editorial

At the turn of the 21st century, organisations are facing growing uncertainty and formidable challenges which requires flexibility and adaptability to deal with this growing uncertainty. Events taking place in one part of the world, such as financial crisis, Brexit, terrorism as well as natural disasters, are affecting organisations in other countries. Some organisations are quite successful in dealing with these unexpected events, whereas other organisations struggle to cope with these unexpected challenges and fail to respond timely to such challenges (Fiksel, Polyviou, Croxton, & Pettit, 2015). What is so special about the organisations that deal successfully with these unexpected challenges? Perhaps these organisations have developed resiliency that enable them to overcome and respond to such challenges (Sutcliffe & Vogus, 2003). Both individuals and organisations might experience failure during their respective lifecycles. Yet, people’s reaction to failure and emergencies can vary (Hobfoll, Hall, Canetti‐Nisim, Galea, Johnson, & Palmieri, 2007; Kellezi, Reicher, & Cassidy, 2009). Some bounce back after a relatively short period of time while others plunge into depression. Getting insights from failure necessitates positive approach, and the emotional capability, that may eventually contribute to the organisational well‐being (Cartwright & Cooper, 2009; Clark & Nicholson, 2010; Neenan, 2009). From the psychological standpoint, resilience is the skill to successfully cope with adversity (Fredrickson, 2001). In the realm of management, resilience refers to the capacity to bounce back under extremely volatile conditions (Coutu, 2002). Prior research indicates that resilience is associated with positive emotions and the capability to deal with stressful situations (Cooper, Flint‐Taylor, & Pearn, 2013; Tugade & Fredrickson, 2004). Despite the steadily increasing scholarly interest in this topic, our understanding about the origin, conceptualisation, and operationalisation of resilience is still quite fragmented and varied across different domains (e.g., Linnenluecke, 2017; Manyena, 2006).