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Multilevel perspective 11
functioning following routine adversity/disruption. The chapter will then consider multilevel
issues in the study of resilience, including both the bottom-up processes by which resilience
capacity, demonstration, and processes at lower levels influence higher-level resilience, as
well as the top-down contextual processes regarding how higher-level components influence
resilience processes at lower levels. The overall goal of the present chapter is to highlight the
theoretical distinctions and multilevel implications of resilience capacity, demonstration and
processes at the employee, team and organization levels, rather than to exhaustively review
research conducted at the different levels of analysis.
KEY DISTINCTIONS AT EMPLOYEE, TEAM AND
ORGANIZATION LEVELS
Prior researchers have noted the large number of definitions characterizing individual
(Meredith et al., 2011), team (Chapman et al., 2020), and organization (Bruneau et al., 2003)
resilience. Importantly, Masten and Narayan (2012) argued that the same core elements of
resilience can be applied to systems at multiple levels of analysis. These authors argued that
“resilience can be defined as the capacity of a dynamic system to withstand or recover from
significant challenges that threaten its stability, viability, or development” (p. 231). We believe
that the diversity in definitions at the employee, team and organization levels of analysis can
be explained in part as a function of whether they address a system’s capacity for resilience,
demonstration of resilience on outcomes, or processes occurring during an episode of a system
responding to significant adversity.
Before addressing the distinctions in these definitions, it is first worth emphasizing that
one of the distinguishing factors in the study of resilience as a construct is that the system
under examination is exposed to a level of adversity that has the potential to severely disrupt
its functioning or development (Masten and Narayan, 2012). Alliger et al. (2015) emphasized
the importance of characterizing the nature of the adversity encountered when studying team
resilience, including an analysis of whether the adversity is acute and time-limited or chronic
and persistent throughout the team’s response to the adversity.
The presence of high levels of adversity has implications not only for distinguishing defini-
tions of resilience from related constructs (e.g. resilience versus coping at the individual level,
team resilience vs team adaptation), but also for the identification of factors hypothesized to
promote resilience in the face of such adversity (Gucciardi et al., 2018). For example, avoid-
ance coping is typically a maladaptive coping strategy for employees (Britt et al., 2016a),
but can be effective in the initial aftermath of exposure to a traumatic event (Bonanno et al.,
2011). At the organizational level, psychological safety may be especially important when an
organization is going through a significant challenge (Edmondson, 1999; Lengnick-Hall et
al., 2011). Although researchers agree with the importance of studying resilience within the
context of significant adversity, such adversity is often not documented or operationalized in
most research (Britt et al., 2016b).
Distinctions at the Employee Level
Definitions and approaches to resilience can be categorized according to whether they address
a capacity for resilience, the demonstration of resilience in different domains, or the pro-