Relationships and Resilience in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Society, organizations, and individuals inevitably face crises that threaten their functioning and even survival. As a result, crisis management scholars have sought to explain both the nature and impact of crises and how organizations effectively prepare for, respond to, and overcome various forms and degrees of challenges (Williams, Gruber, Sutcliffe, Shepherd, & Zhao, 2017). In response to a rise of grand challenges (e.g., Covid-19 pandemic), there have been a number of calls for management research to further explore the crisis-organization interaction, including how to develop resilience not only to respond to adversity but also to use it as an opportunity for future growth (van der Vegt, Essens, Wahlström, & George, 2015; Williams & Shepherd, 2016). Following this, our symposium aims to provide a unique and critical perspective that focuses on relational practices as the approach to address grand challenges as well as the relational capability to respond to and recover from adversity. In the context of crisis management, relational practice has been considered an important approach to shape immediate response to disturbances and ultimately enhance reliability to challenging events (Williams et al., 2017). For example, Gittell (2008) found that relational coordination—communicating and relating for the purpose of task integration—is critical in overcoming challenges. The coordinated collective response across multiple functions or roles create a relational system that enables and strengthens resilient responses to external pressures. Similarly, Shepherd and Williams (2014) and Colquitt et al. (2011) found that trust is an elemental capability to enable a more effective response to a disaster. Use of Incident Command System to Improve Relational Capacity Among Providers Presenter: Lauren Hajjar; Suffolk U. Presenter: Julius Yang; Beth Israel Lahey Telehealth for Coordinating Between Patients, Families, and Care Providers during COVID-19 Presenter: Ben Kragen; Brandeis U. Clinician Resilience During COVID: The Role of Work-Life Balance and Relational Coordination Presenter: Heba Naim Ali; Brandeis U. Presenter: Jody Hoffer Gittell; Brandeis U. Presenter: Sien Deng; Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute Presenter: Cheryl Stults; Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute Presenter: Meghan Martinez; Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute Presenter: Suzanne Pertsch; Palo Alto Foundation Medical Group Presenter: Lauren Weger; Palo Alto Foundation Medical Group Presenter: Ellis Dillon; Palo Alto Medical Foundation Relationships and Resilience: How a Major Canadian Tertiary Care Center Responded to the Pandemic Presenter: Samer Faraj; McGill U. Presenter: Anand Bhardwaj; McGill U. - Desautels Faculty of Management Presenter: Kathy Malas; CHUM Research Centre