Resilience at work: a comparative analysis between functionalist and critical theories

Abstract Resilience is a term that began to be used in the organizational context in the late 1990s; however, today it is required as a competence or “profile” for particular openings in the job market. At the same time, a line of research emerged with the fundamental role of analyzing labor relations with focus on the individual and his subjective universe, as well as questioning the functionalist ideas that had prevailed for years in organizational contexts. From this idea, this paper has as an objective to interpret the concept of resilience in literature, focusing on the subjective universe of the worker. For this, an investigation was conducted on the internal and external factors and their influences on the way a worker thinks and acts (subjectivity), with a focus on the concept of resilience. The research was qualitative, exploratory and descriptive in regards to its purpose, and bibliographic in regards to its means, with 59 papers, published between 1999 and 2014, analyzed. The results revealed that the concept of resilience from a functionalist perspective continues to dominate the organizational discourse.