Resilience in motion: tracing the path from individual to organizational resilience

Purpose This paper aims to explore how individual resilience contributes to organizational resilience through a processual perspective. While resilience is widely recognized as a multi-level construct, limited research has examined how personal experiences of individuals influence the resilience of organizations they lead. Design/methodology/approach The study employs a qualitative analysis of secondary data, focusing on the life trajectory of Steve Jobs, widely regarded as a resilient individual who led a resilient organization. This biographical case study approach allows for the identification of individual and entrepreneurial resilience factors and traces how these factors are transferred and adapted at the organizational level. Findings Our analysis suggests that resilience developed in personal life can be transferred to the entrepreneurial context and subsequently integrated into organizational dynamics. This transfer occurs through the adaptation and transposition of individual resilience behaviors into organizational practices. The study highlights the critical role of personal experiences in shaping durable organizational resilience. Originality/value The paper contributes to resilience literature by proposing a dynamic approach that explicitly links individual and organizational resilience. It offers a conceptual framework demonstrating how personal and entrepreneurial resilience factors can be mobilized to enhance an organization’s adaptive capacity and performance. By bridging the gap between individual and organizational resilience, this research provides novel insights into the mechanisms through which personal resilience informs and strengthens organizational resilience.