Britt, Shen, Sinclair, Grossman, and Klieger (2016) provide a summary of the conceptual confusion surrounding the construct of resilience as well as several key recommendations for spurring future organizational research on resilience. However, we feel that two key points were not adequately addressed in the focal article. First, we argue that we cannot fully understand the concept of resilience or apply it in our field of organizational studies without first understanding its fundamental theoretical groundings. Many of these underlying theoretical foundations on resilience were founded in and advanced through 50+ years of theory and research on family resilience literature; however, many of these perspectives were not addressed in the focal article. In this commentary, we outline and provide contextualized examples of how to apply one of the most widely used and empirically supported theoretical models of resilience—the ABC-X model (Hill, 1958)—to the work domain. Using the ABC-X model as a starting framework, we then highlight several additional theoretical perspectives that can inform research on employee resilience: Masten's (2001) ordinary magic, Antonovsky's (1979) sense of coherence, and Walsh's (2003) focus on strengths.

The term resilience has grown in popularity among the general public and within the scientific community. Unfortunately, the rise in popularity has advanced neither our theoretical understanding of this construct nor the methodological approaches to study this topic. Britt, Shen, Sinclair, Grossman, and Klieger (2016) highlighted important conceptual, methodological, and practical advances and shortcomings within the literature on employee resilience. However, critical conceptual issues remain unaddressed within the focal article. Specifically, in our commentary, we differentiate between resiliency and resilience, identify key dimensions of each construct, and explicate the role of adversity and context to further advance our theoretical understanding of this construct. We conclude by discussing the implications of our proposed conceptualization and refinement of resilience for theory, research, and practice.

Britt, Shen, Sinclair, Grossman, and Klieger (2016) discuss employee resilience trajectories, noting that only a few studies taking this approach have been conducted in the workplace. They recommend that with such an approach it is essential to assess baseline functioning, document adversity, and gather longitudinal data. They also point out the need to clarify what variables should be measured in the demonstration of resilience and suggest that resilience trajectories across different outcomes may or may not converge. We agree that trajectories are a promising approach to studying employee resilience. However, conceptualizing trajectories as profiles provides additional meaningful concepts for describing the demonstration of resilience. These concepts have the potential for moving theory and research beyond the work on trajectories described by Britt et al.

Research on resilience in the workplace is currently limited by at least two issues: an inconsistent documentation and choice of the stress-producing events and a singular construct of what constitutes resilience (Britt, Shen, Sinclair, Grossman, & Klieger, 2016). This commentary summarizes some recent experimental research that was possibly too new to have been included in the review and that offers some insights to both concerns. The research is predicated on a theoretical model that explains the role of resilience in either work-related or clinical outcomes and the temporal dynamics of work performance.

Britt, Shen, Sinclair, Grossman, and Klieger (2016) recommend that our understanding of resilience would be advanced by making its temporal nature explicit. As a dynamic process, resilience is historical and temporal. The animating adverse event(s) and the resilient response(s) are dynamic and unfold over time; they often unfold as trajectories. This notion of trajectories implies a dynamic process, one progressing from one response or adaptation to another. These “temporal processes are a bit of a black box in I-O research” (Britt et al., p. 394). What would an extension of Britt et al.’s recommendation that researchers explicitly integrate time or temporality look like? Fully acknowledging the importance of time in this model may suggest worthwhile future research and potential interventions.