In today's turbulent environment, work teams often experience adverse events, but how and when teams cope with such events and demonstrate resilience largely remains unknown. To address this concern, we adopted the two-stage resilience model that depicts resilient teams as experiencing fewer performance losses during the disruption stage and more gains in the recovery stage. Further, drawing on regulatory focus theory, we propose that team prevention and promotion focus play unique roles in each stage and their effectiveness is determined by team structure (i.e., bureaucracy). We further identify one key antecedent for the above processes (i.e., ambidextrous leadership). We conducted a time-lagged survey of 108 teams undergoing a business transformation. In the disruption stage, a team prevention focus triggered by leader closing behaviors mitigated performance losses. In the recovery stage, a promotion focus evoked by leader opening behaviors promoted performance gains. Team bureaucracy weakened the positive role of a team promotion focus but amplified the beneficial effect of a prevention focus. Theoretical and managerial implications were discussed.
