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Organisations maintain our economy; they provide jobs, goods, services and a sense of community. The increasingly globalised nature of the modern world has lead to organisations facing threats that often are not recognise until the threat becomes a crisis. It is impossible for organisations, regardless of size, location or financial strength, to identify all possible hazards and their consequences; let alone plan for them. Therefore, the concept of increasing organisational resilience is gaining momentum. However, the term resilience has been used with abandon across a wide range of academic disciplines and in a great many situations. There is little consensus regarding what resilience is, what it means for organisations and, more importantly, how they may achieve greater resilience in the face of increasing threats. This study investigates 10 organisations from a range of industry sectors, sizes, localities and types within the New Zealand context to discover what are the common issues that foster or create barriers to increased resilience. Organisational resilience is defined in this study as a function of the overall situation awareness, keystone vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity of an organisation in a complex, dynamic and interrelated environment. A multiple case-study method has been used, and a facilitated 5-Step process for assessing and increasing resilience has been developed in conjunction with these organisations. Data was collected in the form of interviews, survey and participant observations in workshop environments. A set of 15 resilience indicators have been identified, and the organisations have been ranked according to their overall resilience relative to the other organisations in this study. Future work is likely to include further quantification of the methodology and the resilience indicators, resilience maturity models and work on understanding resilient leadership, communication of resilience concepts and international case studies to further determine the range of resilience for organisations.

In 1998, 12 students, aged 11-12 years, were identified by primary schools in a socially disadvantaged area of New Zealand as being at risk of negative life outcomes, as a consequence of known adversities in their lives. The students were interviewed, as were their parents and teachers, and they also completed learning assessments and measures of personal and social concerns. The purpose of these evaluations was to identify risk and protective factors in the young people’s lives, and to make estimations of personal resilience. In 2008, nine of the original study participants, who were now aged 21-22 years and in emerging adulthood, were located and were interviewed again. The assessments addressed the participant’s current circumstances, and what had happened for them over the last ten years. The interviews also asked the participants to reflect about 12 resilience dimensions that have been identified in the literature (Masten & Coatsworth, 1998) and whether they considered that they were personally resilient. The recent interview data were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith & Osborn, 2008). The individual analyses show a rich diversity of life paths and, as well, three sets of themes were identified across the case studies; and they are personal relationships, contexts of development (schooling and education, culture, religion, and jobs and careers), and personhood and identity. A resilience model was derived from the integration of the data from the first and second assessments with contemporary resilience studies and theorising. The central idea of the model is that resilient functioning is determined by the nature and quality of relationships within, and across, developmental settings. As a corollary, it is hypothesised that interpersonal relationships influence individual executive functioning, and emotional regulation in particular; and that these cognitive and affective capacities can translate into goal seeking and other constructive actions. The explanation of the resilience model leads onto recommendations for further research on relationships that enhance personal functioning. There are also suggestions for social policy that follow from the exposition, and some guidelines for professional practice with children and families.

In 1998, 12 students, aged 11-12 years, were identified by primary schools in a socially disadvantaged area of New Zealand as being at risk of negative life outcomes, as a consequence of known adversities in their lives. The students were interviewed, as were their parents and teachers, and they also completed learning assessments and measures of personal and social concerns. The purpose of these evaluations was to identify risk and protective factors in the young people’s lives, and to make estimations of personal resilience. In 2008, nine of the original study participants, who were now aged 21-22 years and in emerging adulthood, were located and were interviewed again. The assessments addressed the participant’s current circumstances, and what had happened for them over the last ten years. The interviews also asked the participants to reflect about 12 resilience dimensions that have been identified in the literature (Masten & Coatsworth, 1998) and whether they considered that they were personally resilient. The recent interview data were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith & Osborn, 2008). The individual analyses show a rich diversity of life paths and, as well, three sets of themes were identified across the case studies; and they are personal relationships, contexts of development (schooling and education, culture, religion, and jobs and careers), and personhood and identity. A resilience model was derived from the integration of the data from the first and second assessments with contemporary resilience studies and theorising. The central idea of the model is that resilient functioning is determined by the nature and quality of relationships within, and across, developmental settings. As a corollary, it is hypothesised that interpersonal relationships influence individual executive functioning, and emotional regulation in particular; and that these cognitive and affective capacities can translate into goal seeking and other constructive actions. The explanation of the resilience model leads onto recommendations for further research on relationships that enhance personal functioning. There are also suggestions for social policy that follow from the exposition, and some guidelines for professional practice with children and families.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / The alarming rates of ill-health and social disadvantage amongst Australian Indigenous peoples has continued despite improved understanding of the determinants behind these conditions. There appears to be an urgent need to review and re-orientate health and social programs, from a deficit-focused to a strengths-based model, whereby a community’s capacity and resilience is enhanced utilising, and building on, existing strengths and resources. The current study set out to investigate the meaning and role of resilience in the wellbeing of Indigenous Australians. The aim of the study was to examine resilience within an Indigenous context, its potential role in strengthening the Indigenous response to adversity, and the prospective ways in which this may be used in initiatives aimed at boosting health and wellbeing in Indigenous communities. The study involved qualitative in-depth interviews and focus groups within the Indigenous Yaegl community of north-eastern New South Wales. This was achieved through extensive consultation with the community, and a strong commitment to upholding cultural sensitivities and ethical considerations. The data was analysed using a phenomenological framework, involving objective and in-depth thematic analysis, with specific focus on the relationships within the data and their associations with the research questions posed. The study indicates the resilience of the Yaegl community, involving individual, family and community level resilience, involves interdependent protective factors and support structures. The experience of hardship itself, and the ability to employ positive adaptational/coping skills and recruit a variety of protective resources are key to the development of resilience throughout the life continuum. The study demonstrates the importance of these mechanisms not only at the individual level, but also in the resilience of family units and the community. This appears particularly important within the Indigenous context where these levels of functioning are interdependently connected. The study has implications for health and social practitioners looking to broaden their understanding of the Indigenous experience, to one that acknowledges the many existing strengths and protective factors present in Indigenous communities. Practitioners and program developers would benefit from utilising this holistic model of resilience, in which individual, family and community based protective factors play important roles in the prevention of risk and the development of resilience. Programs incorporating this understanding are expected to be more effective in both service delivery and outcomes, because all levels of functioning would be viewed and addressed as interdependent elements in the development of resilience and response to adversity.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / The alarming rates of ill-health and social disadvantage amongst Australian Indigenous peoples has continued despite improved understanding of the determinants behind these conditions. There appears to be an urgent need to review and re-orientate health and social programs, from a deficit-focused to a strengths-based model, whereby a community’s capacity and resilience is enhanced utilising, and building on, existing strengths and resources. The current study set out to investigate the meaning and role of resilience in the wellbeing of Indigenous Australians. The aim of the study was to examine resilience within an Indigenous context, its potential role in strengthening the Indigenous response to adversity, and the prospective ways in which this may be used in initiatives aimed at boosting health and wellbeing in Indigenous communities. The study involved qualitative in-depth interviews and focus groups within the Indigenous Yaegl community of north-eastern New South Wales. This was achieved through extensive consultation with the community, and a strong commitment to upholding cultural sensitivities and ethical considerations. The data was analysed using a phenomenological framework, involving objective and in-depth thematic analysis, with specific focus on the relationships within the data and their associations with the research questions posed. The study indicates the resilience of the Yaegl community, involving individual, family and community level resilience, involves interdependent protective factors and support structures. The experience of hardship itself, and the ability to employ positive adaptational/coping skills and recruit a variety of protective resources are key to the development of resilience throughout the life continuum. The study demonstrates the importance of these mechanisms not only at the individual level, but also in the resilience of family units and the community. This appears particularly important within the Indigenous context where these levels of functioning are interdependently connected. The study has implications for health and social practitioners looking to broaden their understanding of the Indigenous experience, to one that acknowledges the many existing strengths and protective factors present in Indigenous communities. Practitioners and program developers would benefit from utilising this holistic model of resilience, in which individual, family and community based protective factors play important roles in the prevention of risk and the development of resilience. Programs incorporating this understanding are expected to be more effective in both service delivery and outcomes, because all levels of functioning would be viewed and addressed as interdependent elements in the development of resilience and response to adversity.

Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (MEd (Opvoedkundige Sielkunde))-Universiteit van Pretoria, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Agricultural Economics / Vincent Amanor-Boadu / The drop in average U.S. net farm income from 2014 through 2016 has indicated that current risk management options available to farmers have not fully mitigated the risks associated with farming. Although there are more risk management tools available to farmers today than there have been in the past, there is still a need to improve upon the available options and create new ways of securing agricultural production into the future. In an effort to improve how farmers cope with risk and uncertainty, system resilience concepts have started to find applications in production agricultural research. Agricultural resilience can generally be defined as the ability of an agricultural production system to return to normal (or improved) operations after having experienced an unexpected economic or environmental shock. The contribution of this research was to conduct an empirical analysis of farm resilience based on existing theories in system and agricultural resilience. A conceptual model was developed to apply an existing resilience measure, the resilience triangle, to a production agriculture setting and a model of farm resilience was constructed based on the existing literature in agricultural resilience. In this model, farm resilience is driven by three defining capabilities: buffering capability, adaptive capability, and transformative capability. The data for this analysis was obtained from the Kansas Farm Management Association (KFMA). Based on the literature review and the conceptual framework, resilience triangle areas were computed for individual farms during two distinct periods of economic shock, 1980 and 1998. An index of farm resilience was generated from the resilience triangle areas, which were then used as dependent variables in the econometric analysis. A fractional response logit model was estimated to test hypotheses about the impact of the different resilience capabilities on overall resilience index values. The results of the analysis indicated that there are differences in the ways that buffering and adaptive capabilities impact overall farm resilience, however there were not conclusive findings that buffering capabilities were stronger among the resilient farms as compared to the non-resilient farms. These results indicate that farm resilience is driven by both buffering and adaptive capabilities jointly. Even though buffering capabilities are important at the outset of a shock, the farm will then need adaptive capabilities to recover from the initial impact of the shock.