In the middle of the information age, the world presents an impressive and competitive development for man. It has been visualized in evolutionary history that the human being faces constant changes and is capable of adjusting to the environment in which it operates. The ability to adapt is something peculiar to people found internally with a different level for each one. However, the handling of circumstances depends on the flexibility and ability that is individually assumed before the response that is going to be given for the precise control of the situation.
From the organizational point of view, companies undergo constant changes at a high speed, where the preparation of each member that is part of it is not equitable. The updating in organizations is pending and interest arises in the face of the evolutionary scenario, but not all of them are capable of assuming the change with positive responses. It requires a cultural and mental transformation that must be sown in each and every one of the people who are part of the company.
In this context, adaptation and the ability to overcome changes in the work and social environment takes the name of resilience, a term that has been defined in different areas from psychology to physics. This topic will be addressed within this article, providing the reader with knowledge of the concept, the organizational landscape where it is applied and acquired with great importance, as well as the impact it adds within organizations.
The potential reason why this conceptualization has marked the organizations to start the process of change is the current economic crisis. For (Chiavenato, 2011) “Information technology caused the emergence of the globalization of the economy: the international economy was transformed into a world economy and global. Competitiveness among organizations was intensi fi ed, ”thus stimulating instability in companies.
However, the development of many companies intensified, achieving their application among the first before their competition, although for others the same result was not obtained in order to reach the end of their cycle before the market. The reason for this event is the efforts to overcome the contingency that they experience: adopt a resilient attitude. Defined in different perspectives, it is necessary to frame its conception in the first place.
OR
The conceptualization of resilience has not been seen only from the social point of view, the term was also involved in different disciplines, even medicine. As mentioned by the author (Vega Zambrano, 2012) “In 1973 Crawford Holling in his work: Resilience of Ecological Systems (as cited in Calvente 2007) introduces the term resilience in ecology, as a way to understand non-linear dynamics as well as the processes through which ecosystems are self-sustaining and persist in the face of disturbances and changes ”.
Through this perspective, it can be observed in the different schemes where the subject is mentioned, the field of application that addresses this concept will be set towards its own meaning. Many authors make sense of the symbolism that this represents in different ways, which is presented below the first mentions of this word, as well as its types of meaning.
As the authors indicate (Turienzo & Sala, 2011) “The term resilience comes from the Latin resilio, that is, to go back, take a jump or bounce. The concept began to be used in physics and it was Michael Rutter who coined it in 1972 for the social sciences ”. From the area of physics, the concept is used to highlight the ability of a material to resist unforeseen shocks without undergoing a change.
Inspired by this terminology, as mentioned (Medina Salgado, 2012) “this child psychiatrist Michael Rutter and the French neurologist, psychiatrist and ethologist Boris Cyrulnik, introduced the term in psychology to denote the ability of people to overcome tragedies or events strongly traumatic ”. Starting what today is conceived as a set of skills that a person exploits to face the negative environment and turn it into an effective reality for their development.
It is interesting the way in which the first research on resilience was applied, one of the most significant is that carried out by Emmy Werner and Ruth Smith for more than thirty years. Starting in the year 1955, where they took a certain population of 800 newborn children in risk environments on the island of kavai in Hawaii. When these little ones reached maturity, they observed that eighty percent had overcome their childhood problems, taking this phenomenon as the recovery of plasticity, which today is known as resilience. (Sanza, 2015)
There are a number of meanings for this term. It was mentioned earlier that this concept gives its beginnings of integration for use through the physical area. Later it is adopted towards psychology - specifically infantile - where deep studies were established in cases of children who presented a dramatic picture in their short life, they responded to this situation with optimism having a positive "rehabilitation".
This is how, years later, conceptualization spreads in the organizational environment, as mentioned by the author (Andrade, 2011) “Organizational resilience is understood as the ability of a company to respond quickly, decisively and effectively to unforeseen forces. and unpredictable ”and in the same way he tells us that based on the terrorist events that occurred in New York, a variety of articles were written about this skill.
Starting from a crisis, the need arises to implement a change at a personal, professional and business level that encourages the progress of schemes with difficulties. Where the outlining of this word taken up by psychologists and entrepreneurs who seek improvement in their organization will be addressed.
D e f i n i c i ng
As has been well described, the word resilient is approached by different authors who give rise to a different meaning. Therefore, each of the approaches that have been addressed for this issue are described below.
According to the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE, 2014):
From this point of view mechanically, yet another definition is mentioned. For the authors (Miravalles & Ortega, 2012):
This conception reflects the part where before a certain pressure or structural change the object is elastic and flexible which allows it to return to its natural shape after having undergone a change. For what has total relation in the human field. But continuing with the conceptualization of this term, more meanings are shown.
From the educational point of view, there are perceptions towards this term as an achievement of persistence and commitment, such is the case of the authors (Day & Gu, 2015) who refer to the psychological derivation of resilience as “the ability to do clean slate in adverse circumstances ”.
On the other hand, the American Pychological Association defines resilience as “an interactive product of beliefs, attitudes, approaches, behaviors and, perhaps also psychology, that helps people to move better in adversity and recover more quickly afterwards (Herrera, 2011). Up to this point, resilience has been mentioned as a fundamental part of psychology based on the disturbances that man faces. Now, it will be applied to organizations.
As mentioned (Siebert, 2007):
Another author such as it is (Ortega, 2011) defines it as follows:
In general terms, from the physical, psychological, educational, social and business point of view, the approaches that have been provided to this word end up ending with a change, a positive evolution from going from an unfortunate moment to a progressive improvement through the application of certain characteristics of a person.
R
Starting from a business vision, there are different factors by which an organization tends to decline in its life cycle. Moments of economic crisis, competitiveness, innovation and technology exceeding, constant updates, are elements that destabilize the integrating group and create a precarious environment in response to this environment. However, the mentality of some people, take advantage of such a situation to turn it into an area of opportunity and competitive advantage.
This also depends on the organizational culture and the management that the company takes. Indicating initially that the culture of an organization is formed by thoughts, actions, the essence that represents an entire company. Which should be defined if business resilience and its meaning.
The authors (Gómez-Acebo, Bravo, Carmena, Viu, & Álvarez, 2013) find two different meanings of the resilience of an organization:
- First definition: The ability of the company to continue operating, to continue providing services or delivering products, even in situations of crisis or catastrophe; In this case, we speak of the operational resilience of the company as a way of ensuring business continuity.
- Second definition: Strategic or business resilience would be the ability of the company to strengthen itself in adversity and opportunities (both those it takes advantage of and the others) seeking to ensure long-term success.
As it could be seen, the first definition complements what the second refers to, since the part of ensuring the organization through the use of opportunities is reflected, touching an important term: success. Where the positivism that is initially sought is reflected in the face of adversities that may arise.
OR
Today many of the organizations are trying to change the mindset of their members towards achieving equitable goals. Recalling a little about the American economist Douglas McGregor with his theory X and Y, this figure in the humanist field pointed out that man on the one hand (theory X) was economically motivated and organizations should pressure and control workers, while on the other hand the other approach (theory Y), people are considered a fundamental asset within the company, workers are capable of solving any problem and there is an unmatched talent in their thinking.
Within this context, organizations today are wanting to implement this change from a theory X to a theory Y. For an organization to function with this evolution, it is necessary to infer in the thinking of each and every one of the workers. Psychological influence is an essential power for radical change, this brings with it the resilient thinking that it must exercise on companies.
The concept of Healthy Organization is chosen to refer to an organization that maintains its balance. The author (Salanova Soria, 2009), indicates in her article Healthy organizations, resilient organizations that this term can be defined as those that “make systematic, planned and proactive efforts to improve the health of employees through good practices related to the improvement of the tasks (for example, with the design and redesign of positions), the social environment (open communication channels, for example) and the organization (work / life balance strategies) ”.
This conception is identified as mental and psychological health in order to sow a thought of changes and opportunities. The creativity and ability to discover and innovate in the face of non-positive situations emerges a promising future even for the personal lives of the members of the organization. Within the work of this author, she mentions some optimization strategies for the achievement of a Healthy Organization.
These strategies are assimilated into a heuristic model, indicating the development of three important concepts: healthy practices to structure and manage work processes, which influence the development of healthy employees and are reflected in healthy organizational results.
In the same way, it indicates that to reduce a moment of crisis within an organization “there are no magic recipes”, however, excessive efforts should be made towards respect for jobs since the staff is considered an asset for the company. In turn, prevention against work units that do not generate any value, product innovation and reduction of personnel, are elements of which it is necessary to be aware for a critical recovery.
As indicated by the author (Madariaga, 2014) “A resilient organization is one that knows how to build and recreate opportunities where to thread: An attractive sense or purpose, Positive expectations and a hopeful vision of the future, A systemic and intelligent vision, a network of be the conversations, stories and questions. "
AND
Before the movement of a social or work group, there is always the representative or head of the team formed. This person is appointed as a leader, who not only acts as a representative of this group of people, but is also in charge of being able to direct, control and even motivate the people with whom he is working.
Within an organization it is clear that the business owner has a representative figure, but this does not mean that he functions as the leader of the organization, the leader is not exactly the superior person in a hierarchical way, the leader is within the same level And it is important that whoever wants to make changes in an entire company, must detect in a group of workers the person who assimilates it and continues without knowing that they have an important role among them.
The business leader, as mentioned (Herrera, 2013) “must have resilience, that is, the ability to rebound in the face of difficulties and not be sunk by failures. The leader will not let himself sink into the swamp of failure, understood as the ability of man to achieve his goals in life. "
This author reflects personal resilience as an opportunity to learn through failure, creating the satisfaction of growing as a human being. Failure must be viewed from a point where you have a drive to create new perceptions of areas for improvement both personally and professionally.
TO
After going through a critical moment, most organizations become vulnerable to the situation, which makes them bow to any “remedy” that they can acquire for their speedy recovery. However, not all solution proposals are the most effective, many times they can deviate from the objectives that are being set and usually do not get out of the hole until they reach their final stage. Disruption
The author (Medina Salgado, 2012) points out through the model of Professor Yossi Sheffi, that in the face of a critical situation in companies, it is divided into eight stages. Said steps will be described below.
- The preparation. - This stage is important since it indicates that every company must be prepared through prevention and detection of problems and thus reduce the effects after the disruption. - It is the part where there is a serious problem that causes destabilization, an event for which it has little probability of happening. The first answer. - Within this part the vision of two different perspectives is placed: physical (material damage, personal) and information technology. This depends on the event that occurs, if the damage is physical, the support center that helps to eliminate the problem should be called immediately and this depends on the impact that was had. The delay on impact. - In some cases, the impact is usually immediate,but for others the sequelae are postponed and usually take effect later. The total impact. - As mentioned in the previous point, the impact usually arrives in its entirety immediately and in others it is usually delayed some time later. Preparing for recovery. - In the business sphere, this can be exemplified with the evaluation of new suppliers or the redirection of the resources destined to the old ones if the latter suffered any damage or accident. The recuperation. - Reestablishing production or distribution by suppliers or getting products back to customers, repairing damaged infrastructure, or correcting damage to information technology can be time consuming. The long-term impact.- It will generally take some time to recover from the effects of a disruption. But this circumstance will be exacerbated if the relationship with customers was affected in the process, in this case the impact will be long-lasting and difficult to amend.
M
It is important to mention that a strong theme within the critical recovery of a company is fundamentally that of SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises). Research carried out by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI, 2015) on Economic Demography made known the results that showed the life expectancy of businesses in three different sectors (manufacturing, commerce and private services), concluding that the general average of the three sectors together is estimated at 7.7 years of life at birth.
Within this context, investigations are being carried out on the situations that these types of companies go through, which is a clear example of application to Resilience, linking it to a model known as “Working With People”. This model, as indicated by the (Spanish Association of Project Management and Engineering, 2014) “is focused on the planning, direction and evaluation of rural development projects from the integration of three dimensions: technical-business, ethical-social and political contextual".
The purpose of this research frames rural resilience, where the authors (Portillo & De los Ríos, 2014) state that “the WWP model has a four-dimensional structure, related through social learning processes, which encompass the four areas that synthesize the model of society proposed by Friedman in 1987: political; of public administration; private and business; and civil society. ”Remarking that one of the main four areas is the technical-business dimension, integrating key elements that allow the WWP project to be considered a tool capable of generating a flow of goods and services, and meeting the required quality standards.
The results that were handled in the business technical part were the acquisition of sufficient experience, where work in multidisciplinary teams is essential, since resilience is similar to a multidimensional property, and therefore requires to be strengthened from an integrating perspective of diverse technical capabilities.
C o n c l u s i o n e s
Through the extensive research that was carried out for the preparation of this article, the different consultations that were made from different authors about resilience, in its different fields of application from physical to psychological, it was possible to observe that the meaning always came to the same end. The main elements of moving from a negative state towards the transformation of overcoming and strengthening before unfavorable events are characteristic of the conception of a resilient object, person or organization.
In the same way, the characteristics of this terminology is the broad vision, the breaking of schemes, the search for what is different, progress and flexibility. The attitude with which problems are faced and the drive for improvement are facts that are emitted from an internal change. Since, after the application of all this conception, they bear fruits that emerge to a better environment.
A g r ad ec i m i e n t o s
P r opposite of Thesis: Implementation of an organizational resilience model in a SME in the region.
O b j e t i vo: Develop a resilience model within a SME for its growth and development in the national market.
R e fe r e n c i a s
- Andrade, H. (2011). CHANGE OR OUT: Lead in the 21st century. Palibrio. Spanish Association of Project Management and Engineering. (2014). 18th International Congress on Project Management and Engineering: Book of Abstracts / Book of Abstracts. Spanish Association of Project Management and Engineering (AEIPRO). Chiavenato, I. (2011). Human resources administration: the human capital of organizations. Mexico: McGraw-Hill.Day, C., & Gu, Q. (2015). Resilient Educators, Resilient Schools: Building and Sustaining Educational Quality in Difficult Times. Narcea Ediciones. Gómez-Acebo, P., Bravo, C., Carmena, FF, Viu, CM de, & Álvarez, IN (2013). R is illicit, shipwreck management. LID Editorial Herrera, HM (2011). Responsible leadership. ECOE EDITIONS. Herrera, HM (2013). Live with happiness.ECOE EDICIONES.INEGI. (2015, February 18). Life expectancy of businesses. Recovered from: https://www.inegi.org.mx/temas/evnm/Madariaga, JM (2014). New looks on resilience. Editorial GEDISA.Medina Salgado, C. (2012). Resilience and its use in organizations. Retrieved from http://zaloamati.azc.uam.mx/handle/11191/2968 Miravalles, AF i, & Ortega, JG (2012). Resilience in socio-educational environments. Narcea Ediciones. Ortega, PM (2011). Innovating By Naturales, The Pass Says It All. Editorial Vision Libros.Portillo, FR, & De los Ríos, I. (2014). Resilience, Rural Development and Sustainable Management: An approach from the 'Working With People. Recovered from: http://www.aeipro.com/index.php / en / repository / congresses / congresos_alcaniz2014 / congresos_alcaniz2014_01 / RESILIENCIA-DESARROLLO-RURAL-Y-GESTI% C3% 93N-SOSTENIBLE-UN-ENFOQUE-DESDE-EL-MODELO-% E2% 80% 98WORKLEING-WITH-PEOPLEING-WITH-PEOPLEING% % 80% 99 / RAE, A. (2014). Dictionary of the Spanish language - Tricentennial Edition. Retrieved on February 14, 2017, from: http://dle.rae.es/?id=WA5onlwSalanova Soria, M. (2009). Healthy organizations, resilient organizations. Retrieved from http://repositori.uji.es/xmlui/handle/10234/73232Sanza, JE (2015). Paradoxes of creativity: The fly coming out of the bottle. Red Point Books, Siebert, A. (2007). Resilience: Building in adversity. Planeta Group (GBS). Turienzo, R., & Sala, P. (2011). Earn resilience. LID Editorial.Vega Zambrano, R. (2012). Resilient organizations: a look at their formation.Recovered from
