A multilevel approach to team resilience process in action: Lessons from mountain rescue teams

This research aims to answer the following question: How and when do the different mechanisms connect across levels (individual, organizational, and team) to enable team resilience in action while coping with adversity during their risky operations? We draw on an ethnographic study of a French mountain rescue teams in the ‘Peloton de Gendarmerie de Haute Montagne' (PGHM) in Chamonix. We explore how those cross-functional and multi-organizational teams combine their multilevel resilience mechanisms to perform successfully under strong time constraint, while embedding in risks with limited material resources. Our main contribution to the literature about team resilience is threefold. First, we offer a novel perspective on adversity in team resilience through a multilevel and qualitative approach that sheds light on the functions of the mechanisms of resilience at different levels. Second, we suggest that team resilience is multifacetted as it entails adressing different forms of disconnected adversities simultaneously. Third, this approach also challenges the dominant conception according to which team resilience is built and maintained by the very occurrence of adversity (Barton & Sutcliffe, 2023). Moreover, we offer managerial insights by nuancing the importance of formal reflections as feedback loops in resilience (Williams et al., 2017). Instead, we argue that informal togetherness rituals are moments for sharing and learning.