Resilience In Times Of Crisis Research Articles

Great Places to Work®: Resilience in Times of Crisis

We study the resilience of the “100 Best Companies to Work for in America” in times of financial crisis by analyzing their long‐term financial performance. Apart from implementing methods that tackle the statistical problems of stock returns, we use a conditional model to measure financial performance in periods of market growth (bull markets) and market downturn (bear markets). We find that best places to work are indeed resilient in times of crisis since neither their financial performance nor their systematic risk are affected during bear markets: top companies continue to outperform the market during periods of crisis, and the performance of lower‐ranked great workplaces does not deteriorate. Moreover, we find that previous studies were overestimating performance, and only great workplaces on the top half of the rankings exhibit positive excessive returns. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Personal Resilience in Times of Crisis: The Implications of SWB Homeostasis and Set-Points

Our companion paper (Cummins et al. in J Happiness Stud, 2013) describes the statistical process used to demonstrate set-points and set-point-ranges for subjective wellbeing. The implications of set-points and homeostasis are now considered in the context of resilience. This discussion leads with a brief overview of resilience definitions and is followed by a description of subjective wellbeing (SWB) homeostasis. This addresses, in particular, the issue of SWB malleability under homeostatic control. The link between resources and resilience is then considered, in terms of predictions made by homeostasis theory. Finally, discussion focuses on the implications of such understanding for future directions in SWB research. It is concluded that an understanding of set-points and homeostasis allows new insights into the resilience construct.

Emergency Response to Mass Casualty Incidents in Lebanon

The emergency response to mass casualty incidents in Lebanon lacks uniformity. Three recent large-scale incidents have challenged the existing emergency response process and have raised the need to improve and develop incident management for better resilience in times of crisis. We describe some simple emergency management principles that are currently applied in the United States. These principles can be easily adopted by Lebanon and other developing countries to standardize and improve their emergency response systems using existing infrastructure.

Great Places to Work®: Resilience in Times of Crisis

We study the resilience of the “100 Best Companies to Work for in America” in times of financial crises by analyzing their long-term financial performance. Apart from implementing methods that tackle the statistical problems of stock returns, we use a conditional model to measure financial performance in periods of market growth (bull markets) and market downturn (bear markets). Our results sustain the proposition that best companies to work for are resilient in times of crisis since neither their financial performance nor their systematic risk are affected during bear markets: top companies continue to outperform the market during periods of crises, and the performance of lower-ranked great workplaces does not deteriorate. Moreover, we find that previous studies were overestimating performance, and only great workplaces on the top half of the rankings exhibit positive excessive returns. We conclude that, in general, this award has an impact on these firms’ reputations that allows investors to acknowledge the value of outstanding employee relations and correctly incorporate it into stock prices. They fail to do so for the top ranking companies, however, reinforcing the notion that outstanding people management entails intrinsic benefits with financial value that are difficult to discern due to its intangible nature.

Relationships, Layoffs, and Organizational Resilience

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, affected the U.S. airline industry more than almost any other industry. Certain airlines emerged successful and demonstrated remarkable resilience while others languished. This investigation identifies reasons why some airline companies recovered successfully after the attacks while others struggled. Evidence is provided that layoffs after the crisis, although intended to foster recovery, instead inhibited recovery throughout the 4 years after the crisis. But, layoffs after the crisis were strongly correlated with lack of financial reserves and lack of a viable business model prior to the crisis. Digging deeper, the authors find that having a viable business model itself depended on the development and preservation of relational reserves over time. Our model shows that the maintenance of adequate financial reserves enables the preservation of relational reserves and vice versa, contributing to organizational resilience in times of crisis.