Toward a resilient organization: analysis of employee skills and organization adaptive traits

Abstract

The concept of resilience is complex, and research on what contributes to public sector organizational resilience outcomes and how to effectively model resilient organization is still in its infancy. The purpose of this study is to apply the Employee–Organization Relationship (E-O-R) framework to understand the relationship between employees’ skillsets, organizational traits and organizational resilience. Data for this study was obtained from a survey of 312 employees of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the largest public land management agency in the US that plays a critical role in serving millions of tourists. The findings indicate that although employees perceived themselves as having skills that are adaptive, they had very low confidence in the organization’s ability to adapt, thus perceiving the organization to have low resilience. Findings suggest that organizational traits such as safe/secure working environment, thinking beyond the status quo, including the right people in decisions, and effective long-term planning are perceived by employees as critical for organizational resilience. The findings also suggest that employees’ perceived organizational resilience differs by generational cohorts. Theoretical and practical implications in building resilient public land/protected area management organizations are discussed.

Keywords:

• Organizational resilience
• employee skills
• organizational traits
• adaptability
• vulnerability
• uncertainty
• human resource
• protected areas

Acknowledgements

Funding support for this study was provided by the Arizona Bureau of Land Management. This study was conducted as a part of the Northstar 2025 project. The author would like to thank the BLM Northstar research team, including Matt Thorburn, Adam Milnor, and Sharisse Fisher, for their support throughout the project. Any errors remain the sole responsibility of the authors.

The conceptualization and considerable writing of the paper was done during the primary author, Gyan P Nyaupane's Erskine Fellowship in the Department of Management, Marketing and Entrepreneurship at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gyan P. Nyaupane

Gyan P. Nyaupane is a professor and interim associate dean of Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions at Arizona State University. [email protected]. He has research interest in understanding human-environment interactions, tourism, public lands, sustainability, resilience, indigeneity, and policy and planning.

Girish Prayag

Girish Prayag is a professor of marketing at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. He has research interests in organizational resilience, tourist emotions and place attachment.

Josephine Godwyll

Josephine Godwyll is a PhD student at Arizona State University. She has research interests in resource management and modeling decision support systems.

Dave White

Dave D. White is professor at Arizona State University, where he also serves as deputy director of the Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, and director of the Decision Center for a Desert City. He has research interest in decision science, science and technology studies, sustainability science, and natural resources management.