Collective rumination: When “problem talk” impairs organizational resilience

Abstract

When adversity strikes, organization members often turn to others in order to vent their negative emotions and receive social support. While social interaction is commonly seen as a major resource for organizational resilience, dysfunctional social interactions and their negative effects on coping with and overcoming adversity are less well understood. This conceptual article develops theory on collective rumination-defined as repetitive and prolonged discussions of adverse events that center on the negative and uncontrollable aspects of the situation-and its detrimental effects on organizational resilience. We elaborate that collective rumination emerges through a vicious circle of a shared negative situational assessment and mutual contagion with highly negative emotions. Based on our theorizing, we propose that collective rumination is negatively related to three core dimensions of organizational resilience: perceptions of control, commitment to joint action, and the acceptance of adversity as a challenge. With our conceptual article, we answer earlier calls to theorize about forms of social interactions that are not valuable but destructive for organizational resilience and elucidate previously neglected social dynamics that are dysfunctional for recovering from adversity.

The social process of coping with work‐related stressors online: A machine learning and interpretive data science approach

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Custom Solutions for Diverse Needs: Laying the Foundation for Tailored SETA Programs in the Healthcare Domain

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“…Third, we argue that while knowledge and skills are important success factors, people's attitudes leverage their commitment to action and decisions in favor of sustainability and resilience. For instance, sustainability is often considered as a threat or constraint rather than as an opportunity (Negri et al, 2021), and organizations often fail to learn from disruptionsboth of which hinders the development of resilience (Knipfer & Kump, 2022). People's external motivation can be influenced by goals, objectives, and performance measurement.…”

Exploring the Intellectual Structure of Research in Organizational Resilience through a Bibliometric Approach

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