Organizational resilience in turbulent times—social capital as a mechanism for successfully adapting human resources practices that lead to resilience

Abstract

Turbulent times and crises force many human resource (HR) managers to adapt human resource practices (HRP) to a rapidly changing reality. The modification of HRP in a very stressful environment poses enormous challenges for HR managers. This study looks at the mechanisms through which HRP was adapted to unexpected changes to attain resilience during worldwide crises. Based on qualitative data collected from 72 Israeli HR managers, the findings reveal that HR managers’ social capital (SC) serves as a mechanism for adapting HRP to attain resilience. HR managers employed personal, intra-organizational, and extra-organizational levels of SC that lead to compatible types of resilience: employee, organizational, and interface resilience. Although personal and intra-organizational SC were used frequently, the HR managers used extra-organizational SC to cope with the upheavals caused by the crises to a lesser extent, and, therefore, less interface resilience was attained through HRP. The findings contribute to the literature by suggesting that HR manager SC serves as a mechanism fueling the adaptation of HRP during crises and leads to resilience. It also extends the resilience literature by suggesting that the adaptation of HRP through HR manager SC influences different types of organizational resilience.