Using masks amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in a Swiss hospital: a process study on the coping stage of organizational resilience

In this paper, we aim to advance a processual understanding of organizational resilience. We focus on the stage of coping with an adversity and explore the processes of an organization generating and implementing a response. Situated in a Swiss hospital during the
COVID-19 pandemic, we use real-time qualitative data on developing and implementing a guideline for face masks, that we analysed with a contextualist framework. The resulting model depicts and distinguishes the two-interrelated processes of generating and implementing the response. In each process, understanding and acting occur in parallel and not as a sequence. Facing the same uncertainty, we explain the process dynamics and inter-relations with the different situations the involved actors find themselves in. These insights suggest for a processualunderstanding of organizational resilience that understanding and acting on an adversity occur in parallel and involve different processes due to the actors and their specific coping situations.