Thriving Through Turbulence: Exploring Team Resilience Through an Adversity-Centered Lens

Although adversity has been a central component of team resilience definitions (Fisher et al., 2022; Raetze et al., 2022), there is little known about how different characteristics of adversity influence team functioning. Drawing from Event System Theory (Morgeson et al., 2015), the dissertation examined the connections between adverse event characteristics (i.e., event novelty, criticality, disruption, duration), team processes (i.e., planning, collective sensemaking, strategy formulation, coordination, monitoring and backup behaviors), and team outcomes (i.e., team performance) in the context of a repeated measures research study. The results indicated that novelty and criticality of adverse events were significantly and positively related to the extent to which the event was disruptive to the team. There was no evidence found for the moderating role of planning on these relationships. Disruption was significantly and positively related to collective sensemaking, strategy formulation, coordination, and monitoring and backup behaviors. Event duration partially moderated the relationships between disruption and transition phase processes (i.e., collective sensemaking, strategy formulation). There was no support found for the interaction effect of disruption and duration on the relationships involving action phase processes (i.e., coordination, monitoring and backup behaviors). In terms of the connections between team processes and team performance, collective sensemaking was significantly and positively associated with team performance. This dissertation advances teams research by highlighting the critical role of adversity and its characteristics in the emergence of team resilience, offering practical recommendations to better equip teams to navigate through challenges.