ABSTRACT
The social and behavioral sciences have recognized the importance of resiliency of an individual, community or organization to bounce back from external shocks or changes in their environment. For example, the ecological literature uses “resiliency” to mean systems’ ability to function and to absorb exogenous disturbances while maintaining the same relationship among populations (Holling 1973; Walker et al. 2004). In psychology, resiliency means “maintaining good functioning after exposure to stress,” which implies organizations’ ability to cope with adversity and retain control while positively accepting change and securing good relationships (Bonanno 2004; Bonanno et al. 2005; Fergus and Zimmerman 2005; Campbell-Sills and Stein 2007). In a public-administration context, resiliency broadly implies the capacity of organizations to adapt to, recover from or accept change.
