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Abstract
Organizations want employees who demonstrate resilience by positively adapting to challenging conditions. Yet, harnessing resilience becomes complicated by the reality that employees who find themselves bouncing back from difficulties on one day, may succumb to similar challenges on a different day. Although the literature acknowledges this dynamic nature of resilience, examinations of such day-to-day fluctuations in resilience are sparse. This begs the question, what is it exactly that drives these daily changes in employees’ resilience? And relatedly, what can organizations do to help employees demonstrate resilience on a daily basis? To answer these questions, I draw on the cognitive-motivational-relational theory of emotions to develop and test a theoretical model that posits employees’ daily awareness of their purpose in life – and the emotions it elicits – as one potential predictor of daily resilient behaviors. Moreover, my model also speaks to the factors that may influence a person’s daily purpose awareness. To do so, I leverage research on physical symbols to explain how interactions with value triggers – physical objects that symbolize life’s inherent value and significance (i.e., tattoos, photographs, jewelry) – can increase a person’s daily awareness of their purpose. Results from a within-person experiment and an experimental experience sampling field study demonstrate that value triggers increase purpose awareness and that purpose awareness elicits emotions of hope and anxiety, conditional upon a person’s achievement motivations. In turn, those feelings of hope, but not anxiety, have an impact on daily resilience. I conclude by discussing the implications and future directions based on this research.