Sustaining Well-Being in the Post-Crisis Era: Minimizing Conflict Through Autonomy, Resilience, and Informational Support Among SME Employees

Enhancing employee well-being and performance has become a top priority for SMEs as a result of both economic and sociopolitical turmoil. This study investigates the effect of job autonomy on employee resilience while also evaluating how the outcomes of this study relate back to employee well-being and performance. In addition, it investigates whether sustainable leaders and providing informational support will moderate these associations in the context of the current crisis impacting Lebanese SMEs. A questionnaire was designed to collect the data. The sample comprised 204 employees representing 10 SMEs in Lebanon. PLS-SEM was used to analyse the collected data. The results of this study demonstrate that when SMEs provide employees with job autonomy, it increases employee resilience, which, in turn, positively impacts employee well-being and performance within a crisis recovery culture. Further, sustainable leadership and providing informational support to employees are important factors to strengthen the aforementioned associations. As such, this study will aid in building on the literature about resilience and sustainable management in post-conflict environments, as well as providing useful insights for SME leaders who wish to build healthy, sustainable, high-performing workforces within fragile economic systems.