Positive Psychology - A Catalyst Factor to Foster Employee Resilience

Abstract

This paper delineates workplace resilience framework that grew out of the review of number of past researches mainly on resilience by children, individuals, and communities and though increasing in recent years, less numbers of research was found on organizational resilience up to the past couple of decades. Specifically, our research aims to explore the empirical literature on different dimensions and approaches to study workplace resilience and hypothesising that positive psychology can be a catalyst factor to foster employee resilience against specific adverse market conditions and challenging industry environments, and bring cumulative, incremental, and revolutionary change in organisations’ performances. Considering the divergent literature on resilience, we build an integrative comprehensive resilience framework, resilience model, resilience framework for competitive advantage, strategic thinking framework for resilience, and resilience consistency framework, which are the synthesis of psychological and management aspects for resilience. We state that positive psychology can definitely be a catalyst factor to foster employee resilience. Positive emotional resilience can definitely help to prevent negative outcomes and positive workplace relationships and can certainly achieve employee group success, thus optimising employees’ health, well-being, and achievement of their best, and also to achieve organisational goals. We say that strategic resilience acts as a quintessential change maker for the organisation and our propositions highlight the development of organisational resilience, identify key considerations for organisations, as well as future research. We tried to find out what type and what level of resilience is needed under the adverse market conditions and challenging environments, and take a first step and develop a conceptual framework and propose a resilience model. This paper offers a new insight into the adoption of positive psychology to raise the positive construct (organisational and psychological resilience) as a competitive strategy for adverse challenges and gain the competitive advantage as an industry leader over a period. Our proposed workplace resilience framework and workplace resilience model consists of a set of indicators involving the two dimensions, management and psychology (Psyco-Management) for understanding the form and function of positive psychology as the effective catalyst factor to influence effective resilience under adverse environments at the workplace. This research provides a foundation for future empirical research on the impact of positive psychology on facets covering management and psychology of proposed workplace resilience models, that can give further scope of engagement and advancement ways for new empirical research on measuring the positive adoption as well as adaptation impact on mental and physical strength and adversity managing abilities of the employees to increase the level of organizational resilience.