The Resilience of a Firm - Effect of Hope, Stress and Adaptive Humour Research Paper

The Resilience of a Firm - Effect of Hope, Stress and Adaptive Humour - Research Paper Example Various studies indicate that people have three main reactions to shortcomings depending on their levels of resilience; first, they make breakdown psychologically, physically and emotionally, and lose their capacity to move ahead by accepting their poor predicament. Secondly, they may suffer a temporary setback, but recover later after a short period and continue as they were before the setback. In the last group and the most favourable, people suffer temporary setback, and use the lessons learnt from the shortcoming to advance in the area that was hit by the setback. It is this last group that benefits individuals, companies, communities and countries since not only does it recover from setbacks, but does so in a better state than the previous one. Studies have shown that this group uses various combinations of hope and adaptive humour to deal with stress, boost resilience and overcome any setbacks (Luthans, 2002; Abel, 2002; Zellars, Justice and Beck, 2011). Luthans (2002: 701) ass erts that though confidence has been widely acclaimed as having a positive effect on resilience, hope also plays a central role in employee behavior towards challenges at the workplace. In the quest to achieve and sustain a competitive edge in a volatile market, the management of firms should cultivate positivity at both micro and macro levels, to ensure that employee perceptions are in line with the general perceptions in the firm. The only way to encourage the adoption of positive organizational behavior in the firm is by instilling positive psychological approaches to employees and their supervisors. According to Luthans (2002), hope keeps the firm going even when market conditions seem so bleak that the firm is more likely to collapse than survive. This hope is what enables companies to carry on despite poor economic conditions, and the firms survive to thrive in times when the economy takes a turn for the better. According to Abel (2002), a person’s sense of humour plays a central role in determining one’s choice of coping strategies in response to stressful situations; a higher sense of humour recuses the perception of stress, and a person has the capacity to take a better approach to handle stress. Abel’s study (2002: 373) revealed that high humour individuals adopt constructive approaches to stressful situations including comforting coping, distancing, seeking social support, self-control, planful problem solving and positive reappraisal. On the other hand, low humour individuals adopt destructive approaches that may end up aggravating the problem and its effects; these approaches include avoidance and escapism. Therefore, the writer illustrates that a high sense of humour is a preferable trait in employees since it gives them a higher resilience to stressful situations and gives the firm better chances of bouncing back. Zellars, Justice and Beck (2011: 21) recommend that management should stop ignoring the research that links humo ur to the development and sustenance of individual and group resilience.