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.

摘要 韧性（Resilience）这一术语于20世纪90年代末开始在组织语境中得到应用；而如今，它已成为就业市场特定岗位招聘所需的能力或“特质画像”。与此同时，一条研究脉络应运而生，其核心在于聚焦个体及其主观世界展开劳动关系分析，并对多年来在组织语境中占据主导地位的功能主义思潮提出质疑。基于上述思路，本研究旨在阐释学界文献中的韧性概念，重点聚焦劳动者的主观世界。为此，本研究围绕影响劳动者思维与行为模式（即其主观性）的内外部因素展开调研，核心围绕韧性概念展开。本研究在研究目的上属于质性、探索性与描述性研究，在研究方法上属于文献研究，共分析了1999年至2014年间发表的59篇学术论文。研究结果显示，功能主义视角下的韧性概念仍在组织话语体系中占据主导地位。