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Relationships, Layoffs, and Organizational Resilience: Airline Industry Responses to September 11
01 Jan 2005-
TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify the reasons why some airline companies recovered successfully after the attacks while others struggled, and they find that having a viable business model itself depended on the extent to which positive employee relationships had been achieved and maintained over the long term.
Abstract: The terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 affected the U.S. airline industry more than almost any other industry. Certain of these companies emerged successful, however, and demonstrated remarkable resilience while others languished. This investigation identifies the reasons why some airline companies recovered successfully after the attacks while others struggled. Evidence is provided that layoffs after the crisis, while intended to foster recovery, instead inhibited recovery throughout the four years after the crisis. But layoffs after the crisis were strongly correlated with the lack of financial reserves and the lack of a viable business model prior to the crisis. Digging deeper, we find that having a viable business model itself depended on the extent to which positive employee relationships had been achieved and maintained over the long term. One implication of our findings is that layoffs, while reducing costs in the short term, may also undermine the positive relationships that are critical for achieving lasting recovery.
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose that an organization's capacity for resilience is developed through strategically managing human resources to create competencies among core employees, that when aggregated at the organizational level, make it possible for organizations to achieve the ability to respond in a resilient manner when they experience severe shocks.
970 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify and discuss theoretical and methodological concerns related to the extant literature and provide recommendations for future research aimed at developing a better understanding of employee downsizing, and develop an integrative framework that incorporates environmental and organizational antecedents as well as the implications of downsizing.
425 citations
Journal Article•
386 citations
30 Jul 2020
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors assess the impact of COVID-19 outbreak on micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and provide policy recommendations to help MSMEs in reducing business losses and survive through the crisis.
Abstract: The outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has severely affected the global and Pakistani economy. Major victims of the COVID-19 outbreak are micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). This article aims to assess the impact of COVID-19 outbreak on these businesses and provide policy recommendations to help MSMEs in reducing business losses and survive through the crisis. We adopted an exploratory methodology with comprehensively reviewing the available literature, including policy documents, research papers, and reports in the relevant field. Further, to add empirical evidence, we collected data from 184 Pakistani MSMEs by administering an online questionnaire. The data were analyzed through descriptive statistics. The results indicate that most of the participating enterprises have been severely affected and they are facing several issues such as financial, supply chain disruption, decrease in demand, reduction in sales and profit, among others. Besides, over 83% of enterprises were neither prepared nor have any plan to handle such a situation. Further, more than two-thirds of participating enterprises reported that they could not survive if the lockdown lasts more than two months. The findings of our study are consistent with previous studies. Based on the results of the research, different policy recommendations were proposed to ease the adverse effects of the outbreak on MSMEs. Although our suggested policy recommendations may not be sufficient to help MSMEs go through the ongoing crisis, these measures will help them weather the storm.
371 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines an organizational crisis (a shooting and standoff in a business school) and presents a model for how resilience becomes activated in such situations, and three social mechanisms describe resilience activation.
Abstract: When external events disrupt the normal flow of organizational and relational routines and practices, an organization’s latent capacity to rebound activates to enable positive adaptation and bounce back. This article examines an unexpected organizational crisis (a shooting and standoff in a business school) and presents a model for how resilience becomes activated in such situations. Three social mechanisms describe resilience activation. Liminal suspension describes how crisis temporarily undoes and alters formal relational structures and opens a temporal space for organization members to form and renew relationships. Compassionate witnessing describes how organization members’ interpersonal connections and opportunities for engagement respond to individuals’ needs. And relational redundancy describes how organization members’ social capital and connections across organizational and functional boundaries activate relational networks that enable resilience. Narrative accounts from the incident support the...
303 citations
Cites background from "Relationships, Layoffs, and Organiz..."
...…the variance in explaining organizational resilience: ‘Positive relationships tend to produce lower costs and lower debt levels over time, making it easier to sustain external shocks without breaking commitments, thus further strengthening relationships and performance’ (Gittell et al., 2006: 325)....
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...…or as a trait (Fredrickson et al., 2003; Tugade & Fredrickson, 2004), resilience has also been conceptualized as an organizational level phenomenon (Gittell et al., 2006; Sutcliffe & Vogus, 2003) as the power of organizational units to resume, rebound, bounce back, or positively adjust to untoward…...
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...As a latent capacity or relational ‘reserve’ (Gittell et al., 2006), resilience is banked in the social relationships and ties of organization members and is employed when needed, like Khan’s (1993) notion of a caregiver system....
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...Organizational resilience has been examined in the context of learning (Smith & Elliott, 2007; Sutcliffe & Vogus, 2003) and positive social relationships (Gittell et al., 2006)....
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...Research suggests that positive interpersonal connections enable organizations to weather difficulty and resume operations more easily (Gittell et al., 2006)....
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References
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a model that incorporates this overall argument in the form of a series of hypothesized relationships between different dimensions of social capital and the main mechanisms and proces.
Abstract: Scholars of the theory of the firm have begun to emphasize the sources and conditions of what has been described as “the organizational advantage,” rather than focus on the causes and consequences of market failure. Typically, researchers see such organizational advantage as accruing from the particular capabilities organizations have for creating and sharing knowledge. In this article we seek to contribute to this body of work by developing the following arguments: (1) social capital facilitates the creation of new intellectual capital; (2) organizations, as institutional settings, are conducive to the development of high levels of social capital; and (3) it is because of their more dense social capital that firms, within certain limits, have an advantage over markets in creating and sharing intellectual capital. We present a model that incorporates this overall argument in the form of a series of hypothesized relationships between different dimensions of social capital and the main mechanisms and proces...
15,365 citations
"Relationships, Layoffs, and Organiz..." refers background in this paper
...In organizations, social capital facilitates the transfer of knowledge (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998; Levin & Cross, 2006) and the achievement of coordinated action (Leana & Van Buren, 1999; Crowston, & Cammerer, 1998; Faraj & Sproull, 2000) among organizational members....
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TL;DR: A multidimensional coping inventory to assess the different ways in which people respond to stress was developed and an initial examination of associations between dispositional and situational coping tendencies was allowed.
Abstract: We developed a multidimensional coping inventory to assess the different ways in which people respond to stress. Five scales (of four items each) measure conceptually distinct aspects of problem-focused coping (active coping, planning, suppression of competing activities, restraint coping, seeking of instrumental social support); five scales measure aspects of what might be viewed as emotional-focused coping (seeking of emotional social support, positive reinterpretation, acceptance, denial, turning to religion); and three scales measure coping responses that arguably are less useful (focus on and venting of emotions, behavioral disengagement, mental disengagement). Study 1 reports the development of scale items. Study 2 reports correlations between the various coping scales and several theoretically relevant personality measures in an effort to provide preliminary information about the inventory's convergent and discriminant validity. Study 3 uses the inventory to assess coping responses among a group of undergraduates who were attempting to cope with a specific stressful episode. This study also allowed an initial examination of associations between dispositional and situational coping tendencies.
10,143 citations
01 Jan 2007
TL;DR: When I hear businessmen speak eloquently about the social responsibilities of business in a free-enterprise system, I am reminded of the wonderful line about the Frenchman who discovered at the age of 70 that he had been speaking prose all his life as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: When I hear businessmen speak eloquently about the “social responsibilities of business in a free-enterprise system”, I am reminded of the wonderful line about the Frenchman who discovered at the age of 70 that he had been speaking prose all his life. The businessmen believe that they are defending free enterprise when they declaim that business is not concerned “merely” with profit but also with promoting desirable “social” ends; that business has a “social conscience” and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoiding pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of reformers. In fact they are — or would be if they or anyone else took them seriously -preaching pure and unadulterated socialism. Businessmen who talk this way are unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades.
9,875 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors introduce the construct of team psychological safety, a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking, and test it in a multimethod field study.
Abstract: This paper presents a model of team learning and tests it in a multimethod field study. It introduces the construct of team psychological safety—a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking—and models the effects of team psychological safety and team efficacy together on learning and performance in organizational work teams. Results of a study of 51 work teams in a manufacturing company, measuring antecedent, process, and outcome variables, show that team psychological safety is associated with learning behavior, but team efficacy is not, when controlling for team psychological safety. As predicted, learning behavior mediates between team psychological safety and team performance. The results support an integrative perspective in which both team structures, such as context support and team leader coaching, and shared beliefs shape team outcomes.
6,953 citations
"Relationships, Layoffs, and Organiz..." refers background in this paper
...…conditions (Worline, et al, 2004; Weick, 6 Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 1999), (b) the ability to bounce back from untoward events (Sutcliffe & Vogus, 2003), and (c) the capacity to maintain desirable functions and outcomes in the midst of strain (Edmondson, 1999; Bunderson & Sutcliffe, 2002)....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the case for a general threat-rigidity effect in individual, group, and organizational behavior, showing a restriction in information processing and constriction of control under threat conditions.
Abstract: The authors wish to thank Jeanne Brett, Larry Cummings, Joanne Martin, J. P. Miller, and the anonymousASQ reviewers for their insightful comments on an earlier version of this paper. This paper explores the case for a general threat-rigidity effect in individual, group, and organizational behavior. Evidence from multiple levels of analysis is summarized, showing a restriction in information processing and constriction of control under threat conditions. Possible mechanisms underlying such a multiple-level effect are explored, as are its possible functional and dysfunctional consequences.
3,135 citations