Strategic resource bundling for wellbeing capability in healthcare organizations: insights from resource-based theory

PURPOSE: This study aims to understand how public healthcare organizations build a sustainable wellbeing capability under resource constraints. It examines how organizational, human, social and temporal resources are bundled, how compassionate leadership translates formal wellbeing intent into everyday practice, and how repeated routines become credible under pressure. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: An embedded qualitative case study was conducted in a regional Australian health district comprising eight hospitals. Data were collected between 2019 and 2021 through semi-structured interviews with 51 clinical, managerial, and administrative participants, observations, field notes, and internal documents. Analysis followed an abductive and comparative approach informed by Resource-Based Theory, process theorizing and qualitative case-study principles. FINDINGS: Wellbeing capability emerged not from isolated wellbeing programs but from repeated alignment among HR systems, workforce planning, compassionate leadership and relational routines. Organizational capital mattered when rostering, behavioral expectations and recognition processes were experienced as fair and operationally realistic. Human capital mattered when compassionate leaders noticed strain, practiced gratitude and legitimized reflection. Social capital mattered when debriefing, mentoring and shared problem-solving became routine. Temporality mattered because repeated practices accumulated credibility and were stress-tested during COVID-19 disruption. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The paper distinguishes employee wellbeing from organization-level wellbeing capability and extends Resource-Based Theory by showing how resource orchestration works in public healthcare through role-modeling, routine embedding, procedural scaffolding, reciprocity loops and temporal accumulation. It positions compassionate leadership as a capability-building translation mechanism and clarifies how time, repetition and disruption shape whether wellbeing routines become credible organizational capability.