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This study examined organizational change in universities as it relates to discomfort among the organization's members.

Using the critical incident technique (CIT), data was collected from the informants in an Indonesian public university that had been mandated by the government to enter the top 500 world university ranking. This would make it a “World-Class” university.

The findings describe the causes, courses and consequences of the discomfort felt in response to the organizational change in the university context. The causes of discomfort were categorized as a fear of loss, organizational culture, systems and policies, work overload and a lack of resources. Discomfort can manifest through negative affective, cognition and behavioral tendencies. Meanwhile, the consequences result in active and passive participation in the process of the organizational change itself.

Discomfort with organizational change is a new variable that has rarely been explored, thus it requires testing and validation using different methods and contexts, as offered by this study. We have also shown that in the initial stage of organizational change (unfreezing), discomfort will always emerge that must be immediately managed in order not to trigger resistance to change. Furthermore, this study exhibits the use of the critical incident technique in the context of organizational change. Finally, we offer comprehensive views by exhibiting the causes, the reactions shown and the consequences of discomfort with the change.

Resilient higher education institutions can endure, develop and compete in the face of ambiguous, challenging and pandemic situations. In a world of digital transformation, organizational resilience is crucial. Prior research has paid less attention to achieving organizational resilience. This study aims to use the digital capability theory to address this research gap and determine adaptive culture’s direct and indirect influence on organizational resilience. The impact of adaptive culture on organizational resilience is being investigated via the underlying mechanism of digital transformation.

The data was gathered using a cross-sectional, self-administered questionnaire with convenience sampling techniques from higher educational institutions in South Asia’s context. The direct and indirect effects were analyzed using SEM from 294 teaching faculty members.

The findings show a significant positive association between the study’s constructs. The association between adaptive culture and organizational resilience was partially mediated by digital transformation. The findings provide important insights for policymakers, academics and higher education institutions in developing adaptable cultures to achieve organizational resilience, primarily through digital transformation.

Few research studies have investigated a direct relationship among the constructs of the study to the best of the authors’ knowledge. It is the first study to investigate the role of digital transformation as the underlying mechanism between adaptive culture and organizational resilience. Theoretical contributions, practical implications and future research directions have all been presented.