Thriving Amid Creeping Disruption: A Study of IT-Enabled Transformation Program Team Resilience

IT-enabled transformation (ITT) programs are increasingly vulnerable to creeping disruptions. Previous studies have proposed a range of project team resilience activities to address types of disruption, suggesting that different team resilience capacities require different resources. Drawing on the capacity view of team resilience, this study adopts a mixed-methods research approach. The qualitative phase reveals that (1) goal volatility is the most common creeping disruption, while anticipating change, planning adjustment, and adapting to new practices are the three components of ITT program team resilience; and (2) change potency, program psychological safety, business understanding, and IT improvisation are key resources in fostering ITT program resilience capacity. A quantitative survey of 177 ITT programs was used to externally validate and extend the qualitative findings. Results confirmed that ITT program team resilience significantly enhances program performance, particularly under conditions of high program goal volatility, and four identified resources are positively associated with ITT program resilience capacity. This study extends the literature on IT project management by distinguishing program team resilience in the ITT program context from project team resilience.