The RESTORE Framework: An Integrative Theory of Resilience and Sustainable Thriving in Nursing Academia.

AIM: To introduce and theoretically articulate the RESTORE framework, a multi-level model explaining how leadership, organisational conditions, and relational processes interact to support workforce resilience and sustainable thriving in nursing academia. Nursing academia faces growing strain from workforce shortages, escalating role demands and limited clinical education capacity. Current resilience models emphasise individual coping and overlook organisational and relational influences on well-being. System-level approaches that reconceptualise resilience as a pathway to thriving are required.

DESIGN

Theoretical and conceptual analysis.

METHODS

The RESTORE framework was developed using abductive reasoning and iterative synthesis across organisational resilience, leadership, empowerment, trauma-informed, and sustainability literatures. Key theories were comparatively analysed and integrated to identify core mechanisms operating across individual, relational, and organisational levels. The framework was refined using established criteria for conceptual clarity, parsimony, explanatory adequacy and applied relevance.

DATA SOURCES: Relevant scholarship from multiple disciplines was reviewed to support and advance the theoretical development.

RESULTS

RESTORE conceptualises resilience as an emergent, thriving-oriented capability produced through interacting relational (empathy, strength-based leadership), regulatory (thinking/timing, emotional and cognitive regulation), and structural (capacity optimisation, empowerment) mechanisms. These mechanisms are theorised to support psychological safety, engagement, learning, adaptive performance, and workforce sustainability within nursing academic systems.

CONCLUSION

RESTORE reframes resilience from individual recovery to sustainable thriving and provides a foundation for leadership development, organisational policy, and future empirical research.

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PROFESSION AND PATIENT CARE: The framework informs leadership and workforce sustainability across nursing education and academic-clinical partnership contexts.

IMPACT: The RESTORE framework integrates relational, regulatory, and structural perspectives to enhance leadership and sustainability. It shows how empathy, sense-making, capacity optimisation and empowerment support adaptive performance, positioning resilience as a systemic process shaped by organisational conditions.

PATIENT AND PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: This study did not include patient or public involvement in its design, conduct or reporting.