“We’re All Just Trying to Survive”: Tension,Contradiction,and Sensemaking in Workers’ Resilience Enactment During COVID-19

Abstract

This article examines the tensions and sustainability of resilience practices, particularly during geopolitical, social, and organizational precarity. Using Buzzanell’s (2010) Communication Theory of Resilience (CTR) and conceptualization of adaptive-transformative resilience, we seek to answer the question, “How did workers navigate and make sense of the competing resilience strategies they cultivated while working during an extended crisis?” Our findings revealed that participants used short-term efficiencies to manage work through the pandemic, resulting in embodied tensions, conviction paradoxes, and work-life sacrifices. Additionally, we discovered potential moments for transformation. Theoretically, we offer implications for resilience research, highlighting the unsustainability of short-term efficiencies in organizational life and (in)capacity for transformative change. Additionally, we complicate how backgrounding negative feelings while foregrounding productive action can impact the re-narrativization of resilience experiences. Finally, we offer practical suggestions for organizations to prepare for the well-being of future employees so that resilience can encourage thriving rather than just surviving.