Communicating for business resilience

Abstract

Defining resilience has remained a challenge despite decades of research across multiple disciplines. This paper proposes that resilience can be better understood when examined through the framework of communication. Resilience is proposed to have three interconnected domains (community, organisation and individual) and two dimensions (physical and social-emotional). This work focuses on the social-emotional components of enacted organisational resilience. The impact of organisational culture on sensemaking, organisational narrative and resilience strategies is explored. Communication-based interventions that organisations can make to improve resilience are identified.