Research on resilience in the workplace is currently limited by at least two issues: an inconsistent documentation and choice of the stress-producing events and a singular construct of what constitutes resilience (Britt, Shen, Sinclair, Grossman, & Klieger, 2016). This commentary summarizes some recent experimental research that was possibly too new to have been included in the review and that offers some insights to both concerns. The research is predicated on a theoretical model that explains the role of resilience in either work-related or clinical outcomes and the temporal dynamics of work performance.

Britt, Shen, Sinclair, Grossman, and Klieger (2016) recommend that our understanding of resilience would be advanced by making its temporal nature explicit. As a dynamic process, resilience is historical and temporal. The animating adverse event(s) and the resilient response(s) are dynamic and unfold over time; they often unfold as trajectories. This notion of trajectories implies a dynamic process, one progressing from one response or adaptation to another. These “temporal processes are a bit of a black box in I-O research” (Britt et al., p. 394). What would an extension of Britt et al.’s recommendation that researchers explicitly integrate time or temporality look like? Fully acknowledging the importance of time in this model may suggest worthwhile future research and potential interventions.