Shaping resilience: how work team characteristics affect occupational commitment in health care interns during a pandemic

Abstract

The covid-19 pandemic has strained organizational systems, with the health care field particularly affected given sudden surges of demand and changes of policy. The pandemic showcases the need to understand how social systems can be resilient to such external shocks. Drawing on ‘joint production motivation' theory, this article offers a theoretical framework linking a social system’s resilience with individual behavior. We examine a population strongly affected by the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic: nursing students participating in internship programs before and during the crisis. Of the 141 nursing students in our sample, 23% opted to continue their internship. Four characteristics of work teams (collaborative contact, shared understanding, task interdependence, and collaborative organizational cultures) are hypothesized to explain students’ continued occupational commitment during the crisis. Results from binomial logistic regression analyses show task interdependence and intrinsic motivation positively affect the decision for continued participation in internship programs during the pandemic.