Team Resilience in Organizations: An Analysis of Influential Factors and Practical Implications

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 PhD student in Public Administration, Human Resources Management, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

2 Professor of Management and Accounting/ Public Administration, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

3 Associate Professor of Management and Accounting/ Public Administration, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Purpose: The primary objective of this article is to identify and analyze the key factors influencing team resilience in organizational settings, thereby providing a deeper understanding of how this attribute is formed and strengthened within work groups. Team resilience is defined as the ability of groups to adapt to crisis conditions, maintain cohesion, and deliver effective performance in the face of challenges. This study seeks to assist organizations in enhancing their sustainability and competitive capacity in dynamic, uncertain environments by strengthening their work teams. Indeed, this research aims to address a gap in the team management literature, which has predominantly focused on individual or organizational resilience rather than on team-level resilience.
Design/ methodology/ approach:  This research, aimed at identifying factors affecting team resilience and proposing a framework to enhance it in organizational contexts, adopts a mixed qualitative and quantitative approach. The study design is grounded in a systematic review of scientific articles and research published up to 2025, conducted using reputable databases such as Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. Inclusion criteria encompassed theoretical, empirical, and analytical studies on team resilience, while articles solely focused on individual or organizational resilience were excluded.
Research Findings: This study's findings were derived from a systematic literature review that summarized research on the dimensions of team resilience. This review examines studies by various authors, each addressing distinct dimensions, components, and aspects of team resilience. The results of this analysis highlight a broad range of factors influencing team resilience and their critical role in enhancing group cohesion, flexibility, and performance under challenging conditions. Subsequently, the findings are presented in a structured manner based on the primary dimensions identified in the table.
Limitations & Consequences: This study provides a theoretical framework for better understanding team resilience by identifying its key factors and offers practical strategies, such as fostering trust, psychological safety, and improvisation, to improve team and organizational performance during crises. However, reliance on secondary data up to 2025, the absence of practical testing of findings in real-world settings, and the methodological diversity of reviewed studies limit the generalizability and depth of the analysis, underscoring the need for future longitudinal and field research.
Practical Consequences: This research, by identifying key factors of team resilience, offers numerous practical implications for organizations. Managers can enhance team cohesion by strengthening social support, mutual trust, and effective leadership, improve interactions through training in transparent communication and conflict resolution, facilitate innovation and crisis decision-making by promoting psychological safety, leverage improvisation capacity and skill diversity for creativity in challenges, boost team efficacy with motivational programs, empower teams using transformational leadership and resource provision, reinforce a sense of belonging through shared goals, accelerate recovery and learning via post-crisis reviews and documentation, and enhance preparedness for adversities through environmental monitoring and preventive strategies. These actions ultimately improve organizational performance, sustainability, and competitive advantage in difficult conditions.
Innovation or value of the Article: This article introduces a novel contribution to management literature by specifically focusing on identifying factors affecting team resilience, an area often overshadowed by studies on individual or organizational resilience. Through a systematic review of studies up to 2025 and the integration of diverse dimensions such as psychological safety, improvisation, and team efficacy, it establishes a comprehensive and innovative framework that bridges the gap in understanding dynamic team interactions. Its value lies in offering practical solutions for managers to enhance team cohesion, flexibility, and innovation, enabling organizations to operate more resiliently and competitively amidst complex challenges while laying the groundwork for future research to model these factors more precisely.
Paper Type: Original Paper
 

Keywords

  1. Alliger, G. M., Cerasoli, C. P., Tannenbaum, S. I., & Vessey, W. B. (2015). Team resilience: How teams flourish under pressure. Organizational Dynamics, 44(3), 176–184.
  2. Alliger, G. M., Cerasoli, C. P., Tannenbaum, S. I., & Vessey, W. B. (2021). Team resilience: Building adaptive capabilities in organizations. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 42(3), 250–268.
  3. Barton, M. A., & Kahn, W. A. (2019). Group resilience: The place and meaning of relational pauses. Organization Studies, 40(9), 1409–1429.
  4. Bowers, C., Kreutzer, C., Cannon-Bowers, J., & Lamb, J. (2017). Team resilience as a second-order emergent state: A theoretical review. Journal of Business and Psychology, 32(5), 589–604.
  5. Carmeli, A., & Schaubroeck, J. (2019). Organizational resilience: The role of leadership and psychological safety. Academy of Management Journal, 62(4), 1341–1365.
  6. Chen, Y., & Zhang, Y. (2021). Fostering resilience in new venture teams: The role of behavioral and affective integration. Group & Organization Management, 46(4), 773–816.
  7. Driskell, J. E., & Salas, E. (2019). Cognitive flexibility and team adaptability: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 104(4), 510–528.
  8. Edmondson, A. C., Kramer, R. M., & Cook, K. S. (2021). Psychological safety and team resilience in organizations. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 162, 1–15.
  9. Gucciardi, D. F., Crane, M., & Ntoumanis, N. (2017). Team resilience in high-pressure environments: A conceptual framework. Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology, 6(4), 345–362.
  10. Gucciardi, D. F., Crane, M., Ntoumanis, N., Parker, S. K., Thøgersen-Ntoumani, C., Ducker, K. J., Peeling, P., Chapman, M. T., Quested, E., & Temby, P. (2018). The emergence of team resilience: A multilevel conceptual model of facilitating factors. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 91(4), 729–768.
  11. Hartmann, S., Weiss, M., Newman, A., & Hoegl, M. (2020). Resilience in the workplace: A multilevel review and synthesis. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 69(3), 913–959.
  12. Hartwig, E. K., Clarke, S., Johnson, S., & Willis, S. (2020). Workplace team resilience: A systematic review and conceptual development. Organizational Psychology Review, 10(3-4), 169–200.
  13. Lengnick-Hall, C. A., Beck, T. E., & Lengnick-Hall, M. L. (2011). Developing a capacity for organizational resilience through strategic human resource management. Human Resource Management Review, 21(3), 243–255.
  14. Lengnick-Hall, C. A., Beck, T. E., & Lengnick-Hall, M. L. (2020). Adaptive performance and team resilience: A longitudinal perspective. Human Resource Management Journal, 30(2), 278–293.
  15. Maynard, M. T., & Kennedy, D. M. (2016). Team adaptation and resilience: A review and integration. Organizational Psychology Review, 6(3), 201–229.
  16. Morgan, P. B., Fletcher, D., & Sarkar, M. (2013). Defining and characterizing team resilience in elite sport. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 14(4), 549–559.
  17. Shuffler, M. L., Pavlas, D., & Salas, E. (2022). Dynamic team resilience: Navigating uncertainty in organizations. Human Factors, 64(1), 79–95.
  18. Sandelowski, M., & Barroso, J. (2007). Writing the proposal for a qualitative research methodology project. Qualitative Health Research, 17(1), 112-121. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732306296113.
  19. Si-hua Chen. (2016). Construction of an early risk warning model of organizational resilience: An empirical study based on samples of R&D teams. Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society, 2016, 1–9.
  20. Stoverink, A. C., Kirkman, B. L., Mistry, S., & Rosen, B. (2018). Resilient teams: Understanding team-level adaptability and performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 103(6), 858–878.
  21. Stoverink, A. C., Kirkman, B. L., Mistry, S., & Rosen, B. (2020). Bouncing back together: Toward a theoretical model of work team resilience. Academy of Management Review, 45(2), 395–422.
  22. Stuart, H. C., & Moore, C. (2017). Shady characters: The implications of illicit organizational roles for resilient team performance. Academy of Management Journal, 60(5), 1963–1985.
  23. Su, J., & Jung, K. (2023). Team resilience and collective efficacy: Exploring group dynamics in crisis. Journal of Organizational Psychology, 23(4), 345–360.
  24. Sutcliffe, K. M., & Vogus, T. J. (2022). High-reliability teams and organizational resilience. Administrative Science Quarterly, 67(1), 59–97.
  25. Van der Vegt, G. S., Essens, P., Wahlstrom, M., & George, G. (2018). Transformational leadership and resilient teams: The role of social resources. Leadership Quarterly, 29(3), 303–316.
  26. Vera, D., & Rodriguez-Lopez, A. (2015). Building resilient teams through diversity and learning. European Management Journal, 33(4), 275–286.
  27. West, M. A., Dawson, J. F., & Admasachew, L. (2020). Learning organizations and team resilience: An empirical study. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 56(2), 215–239.
  28. West, M. A., Patera, J. L., & Carsten, M. K. (2009). Team level positivity: Investigating positive psychological capacities and team level outcomes. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 30(2), 249–267.
  29. West, M. A., & Sacramento, C. A. (2012). Building team resilience: The role of creativity and positivity. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 33(6), 805–824.
  30. Parsa, M., Hasanpour, A., Vakili, Y., & Jafarinea, S. (2021). Dimensions and components of organizational resilience using thematic analysis method. National Conference on Management and Industrial Engineering, 1–15. [In Persian]
  31. Zarrinfar, S., & Balooti, A. (2019). The effectiveness of resilience-based group counseling on stress and aggression in female nurses of Ganjavian Hospital. Nursing Education, 8(1), 45–52. [In Persian]