Copyright © eContent Management Pty Ltd. Rural Society (2014) 23(3): 270–282.

A conceptual framework for investigating community

wellbeing and resilience

Rod McCrea, Andrea Walton and Rosemary Leonard*,+

CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences, Brisbane, QLD, Australia; *CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences, Wembley, WA,
Australia; +School of Social Sciences, University of Western Sydney, Nepean, NSW, Australia

Abstract:  This article presents the conceptual basis for empirically testing the relationship between community wellbe-
ing and resilience. Previous research has argued that rural communities facing rapid economic, social and environmental
change need to be resilient to maintain or enhance their community wellbeing. However, it is often not clear what is
meant by community wellbeing or resilience, and how they differ. Both concepts are often imprecise and seldom clearly
distinguished from each other when placed in a theoretical context. Further, wellbeing and resilience are often assumed to
be positively associated but this may not necessarily be the case (Amundsen, 2012; Armitage, Béné, Charles, Johnson, &
Allison, 2012; Coulthard, 2012). The present analysis suggests that community resilience is best conceptualised as a type
of functioning or process whereby community resources are mobilised in strategic ways by community agents in adaptive
responses to change (e.g., Norris, Stevens, Pfefferbaum, Wyche, & Pfefferbaum, 2008) and community wellbeing is best
conceptualised as a state, which is hopefully enhanced as a result of community resilience. Rather than a direct correlation,
the relationship might be iterative whereby poor wellbeing triggers a mobilising of resilience which in turn leads to future
wellbeing. The article outlines the main dimensions of community wellbeing and resilience that require valid and reliable
measurement to test the relationship. The implication of such a relationship is that communities might need to focus on
resilience rather than current wellbeing to achieve future wellbeing.

Keywords: coal seam gas, collective efficacy, community capitals, model, quality of life

R ural communities are striving to build both

wellbeing and resilience within their local
areas as evident in the strategic plans and visions
that community organisations and authorities
establish (e.g., Western Downs Regional Council,
2011). Governments and other organisations are
also seeking to measure wellbeing and resilience to
provide a base to evaluate progress and the impact
of their activities and programmes (White, 2010).
However, in practice this is problematic because
measures of wellbeing and resilience are often
overlapping. For example, measures of resilience
may include levels of community engagement
which are also commonly considered to be dimen-
sions of wellbeing. It is unclear in an applied sense
how the concepts of wellbeing and resilience differ
and in what aspects there is conceptual overlap.
We aim to address this problem by clarifying
the distinction between community wellbeing
and resilience as they relate to local communities
or ‘communities of place.’ We present community
wellbeing as a state and community resilience as a
process before presenting a conceptual model out-
lining their possible inter-relationships, which can
then be evaluated empirically in future research.
The article proceeds with an initial e­ xamination
of the literature relevant to community wellbeing,
its definition and dimensions, and some associ-
ated issues. Next, the article examines defini-
tions and dimensions of community resilience,
before outlining a conceptual model and describ-
ing relationships between community wellbeing
and community resilience over time. Finally, the
article discusses some strengths, weaknesses, and
potential applications of this model using the
example of the rural area of the Western Downs in
southern Queensland, before the final summary
of insights.
Literature review
What is community wellbeing?
Wellbeing has been extensively studied in a range
of research fields over many years. The notion of
wellbeing has been used interchangeably with
quality of life, happiness, and life satisfaction.
Research has focussed on understanding and
measuring wellbeing at individual, community,
regional, and national levels. Such research is
typically multi-disciplinary and uses both subjec-
tive and objective approaches to its assessment.

270 RURAL SOCIETY    Volume 23, Issue 3, October 2014

 Community wellbeing and resilience: a conceptual framework
Despite this extensive body of research, there is
no generally accepted definition of wellbeing
or quality of life, nor agreement on how best
to measure it (Andelman et al., 1998). Studies
and definitions may refer to wellbeing at the
individual level or at the national level but are
ambiguous when explaining wellbeing at the col-
lective level of a community. Thus, many studies
dedicated to investigating community wellbe-
ing only vaguely define community wellbeing
(e.g., Christakopoulou, Dawson, & Gari, 2001;
Morton & Edwards, 2012; Sirgy, Widgery, Lee,
& Yu, 2010), and instead refer to wellbeing in
terms of dimensions that comprise the notion of
wellbeing. It is in this regard that overlap with
resilience emerges with dimensions of wellbeing
echoed in dimensions of resilience.
Nonetheless, one study that proffers a defini-
tion of wellbeing at the community level refers to
wellbeing as, ‘the satisfaction with the local place
of residence taking into account the attachment
to it, the social and physical environment, and the
services and facilities’ (Forjaz et al., 2011, p. 734,
italics added). In this definition, evaluations of
satisfaction capture the idea of evaluating wellbe-
ing as a state, at a point in time, in relation to
some standard of comparison. An alternate defi-
nition of wellbeing describes wellbeing as both a
state and a process and refers to wellbeing as, ‘a
state of being with others and the natural envi-
ronment that arises where human needs are meet,
where individuals and groups can act meaning-
fully to pursue their goals, and where they are
satisfied with their way of life’ (Armitage et al.,
2012; Brown & Westaway, 2011). This type of
definition is founded in sustainable develop-
ment principles and aims to nest the individual
aspects of wellbeing within a wider social sphere
(Armitage et al., 2012; White, 2010). It has three
main components: (1) meeting more than one’s
basic needs through the transference of material
aspects such as income, physical health and the
physical environment; (2) having the agency and
resources to pursue one’s goals through effective
social and collective actions; and (3) recognis-
ing that notions of satisfaction are subjective and
reflect different values, norms and beliefs systems.
In this definition, the second element particularly
© eContent Management Pty Ltd Volume 23, Issue 3, October 2014    RURAL SOCIETY
suggests an agentic process, where purposive
action is exercised over time (Ainsworth, 2002;
Bandura, 2000).
However, we suggest that a useful perspective is
to more clearly distinguish between the state and
the process and we proffer the idea that wellbeing is
the state and resilience the process. Defining com-
munity wellbeing as a state is evaluating important
aspects of community at a point in time, whereas
community resilience is about processes of respond-
ing to change with a view to enhancing commu-
nity wellbeing over time. Such an approach helps
to clarify measurement and to deconstruct the
elements that comprise each concept, enabling
a richer understanding of each. For example, do
some elements of community participation, such
as feeling satisfied with the levels of participation,
relate more to positive evaluations of community
wellbeing while others, such as volunteering to
help local groups, relate more to processes of com-
munity resilience? Therefore, at its broadest level,
we take community wellbeing for a place to be an
evaluation of all the important aspects of that place
in relation to some expectations or standards at a
point in time. These standards are socially con-
structed and reflect the values and norms of those
comprising the community. When community is
considered as a community of place, these expecta-
tions are likely to be diverse reflecting the needs,
values, and norms of different community seg-
ments. We therefore suggest that measurement of
wellbeing needs to be broad and comprehensive to
cater for these differences, and not rely solely on
commonly used economic measures as indicators of
wellbeing. This need for broadening the measures
of wellbeing to more accurately represent wellbe-
ing is recognised at the national level (Stiglitz, Sen,
& Fitoussi, 2009) and identified in studies of rural
wellbeing (Hajkowicz, Heyenga, & Moffat, 2011).
The issues of scale are important for understand-
ing and measuring wellbeing. Community well-
being can be conceptualised as a point on a scale
continuum with individual wellbeing at one end
and national or global wellbeing at the other end.
Differences in spatial, temporal and quantitative
aspects are associated with each level of the contin-
uum (Armitage et al., 2012). Thus, decisions about
how wellbeing can be measured and understood
271
 Rod McCrea, Andrea Walton and Rosemary Leonard
reflect not only the objective aspects of scale at a
designated level, but also the social construction of
how wellbeing is perceived at that particular level,
reflecting the different values, norms, and expecta-
tions associated with that point of the continuum
(Armitage et al., 2012). For example, in Cummins’
(1996) review of life satisfaction domains, the unit
of analysis was the individual and so intimacy was
an important dimension, but this is not mentioned
as a domain in any of the categorisations at the
community level (Table 1). Community wellbeing
may be measured as the summation of individual
levels of satisfaction with community characteris-
tics (e.g., Sirgy et al., 2010). However, level-­specific
constructs should be included as important addi-
tional domains, such as community cohesion.
Thus, defining the level of scale is important when
seeking to understand wellbeing and choosing how
it should be measured.
Another basic distinction in conceptions of
wellbeing is between subjective and objective
wellbeing, which has resulted in two broad para-
digms in wellbeing or ‘quality of life’ research
which tend to use either objective or subjective
indicators (Andelman et al., 1998). The distinc-
tion between objective and subjective wellbeing is
perhaps most easily conceptualised and explored
at the individual level. Research in various life
domains, such as income and health, have shown
that relationships between an individual’s objec-
tive circumstances and their subjective satisfac-
tion are often weak, and this has generally been
explained in terms of intervening psychological
processes (Cummins, 2000; Diener, Lucas, &
Scollon, 2006; Evans & Huxley, 2002; Schwarz
& Strack, 1999). Differences in individual expec-
tations or standards of comparison are commonly
used to explain differences between objective and
subjective wellbeing. Michalos (1985) reviews a
range of theories which invoke standards of com-
parison in explaining subjective evaluations of
life circumstances (i.e., aspirations theory, equity
theory, cognitive dissonance theory, reference
group theory, and social comparison theory).
Individuals can also psychologically adapt or
habituate to their objective circumstances over
time, which has also been supported by a range of
empirical studies (see Diener et al., 2006).
272 RURAL SOCIETY    Volume 23, Issue 3, October 2014
However, people can also proactively change
their objective circumstances to become more
satisfied. In the context of communities of place,
people can be satisfied with where they live
because they have chosen where they live based
on attributes important to them, within the con-
straints they face (McCrea, Shyy, & Stimson,
2014). In the case of natural disasters, rapid
growth in boom towns, or rural decline, changes
which were not chosen by the local community,
and the threat to community wellbeing can stim-
ulate collective processes of community resilience
to restore community wellbeing (Norris et al.,
2008). Consequently, wellbeing and collective
actions may not be highly correlated.
Dimensions of community wellbeing
Typically, each definition and explanation of well-
being is evaluated along a set of domains or dimen-
sions. ‘Domains’ and ‘dimensions’ are often used
interchangeably. However, we view a ‘dimension’
as measuring a specific element of community
wellbeing using a range of items, while a ‘domain’
is a more generic term simply denoting an aspect
of community wellbeing. As such, domains can
easily encompass more than one dimension.
Using four studies as examples of a compre-
hensive approach to wellbeing that have appli-
cability across both urban and rural contexts, we
identify the most salient dimensions of commu-
nity wellbeing, and group them into seven broad
domains (see Table 1). We take Christakopoulou
et al. (2001) as our starting point because they
developed a set of nine community wellbeing
dimensions (from 45 items) which were tested
for reliability and validity across three countries
(Greece, Ireland and the UK). Christakopoulou
and colleagues took a holistic approach to their
examination of community wellbeing and devel-
oped items that reflected community as a place to
live, as a personal space, and also considered the
social, economic, and political aspects of the com-
munity. As a result they developed nine dimen-
sions and each of these was statistically distinct,
with three of them falling into the social domain
(Christakopoulou et al., 2001). Sirgy et al. (2010)
identified similar dimensions though they did not
include place attachment. However, in addition,
© eContent Management Pty Ltd
 Table 1: Dimensions of community wellbeing grouped by broad domain
Domains of community wellbeing (groups of dimensions)

Study Services and Environmental Economic Social Political Health Attachment

facilities

© eContent Management Pty Ltd

*Christakopoukalis Built environment Environmental Income sufficiency Personal safety Decision making Place
et al. (2001), 9D Services and quality Informal interaction process attachment
facilities Community spirit

*Sirgy et al. (2010), Neighbourhood Appearance, Financial Neighbourhood Political leadership Health services
14D Education climate, parks Work safety and governance Spiritual
Leisure Social interaction
Transportation and Family & home
traffic
*Forjaz et al. (2011), Community Social, economic and environmental conditions Community
community wellbeing services attachment
index, 3D
Morton and Edwards Sustainable built and natural Dynamic resilient Culturally rich and Democratic Healthy, safe
(2012), 5D environment local economies vibrant communities and engaged and inclusive
communities communities
Summary of Services and Environmental Income sufficiency Personal safety Decision making Health Place
dimensions under facilities quality Employment Community spirit and citizen voice attachment
each domain Appearance of Environmental and business Community cohesion
built environment sustainability opportunities
Trust and reciprocity
Infrastructure, Community
including roads participation
Informal social
interactions
*Scale developed with corresponding items; D, dimensions.

Volume 23, Issue 3, October 2014    RURAL SOCIETY

Community wellbeing and resilience: a conceptual framework

273
 Rod McCrea, Andrea Walton and Rosemary Leonard
they included a health dimension and extra
dimensions in some domains. For example, they
highlighted the specific importance of a leisure
dimension in community services and facilities
and the importance of having work satisfaction
and opportunities, in addition to income, in the
economic domain. These are not often included
in measures of community wellbeing.
Another dimension not often included in
community wellbeing measures is attachment to
the community. It is arguable whether commu-
nity and place attachment are actually dimensions
contributing to community wellbeing or whether
they are more consequents of community well-
being. Nevertheless, they are at least related to
community wellbeing. Forjaz et al. (2011) devel-
oped a community wellbeing index and derived
three broad dimensions of community wellbeing,
one of which was community attachment. This
incorporated a sense of belonging, as does place
attachment, though their concept of community
attachment also included elements of trust and
security. We include both community and place
attachment domains in Table 1, as part of a com-
prehensive list of community wellbeing dimen-
sions, because they are potentially important
in rural contexts (Albrecht et al., 2007; Brehm,
Eisenhauer, & Krannich, 2004).
A final example of a comprehensive approach
to wellbeing is a measure used by local council
authorities in Australia to assess either urban or
rural wellbeing (Morton & Edwards, 2012). This
measure takes an indicator approach to evaluating
community wellbeing and groups indicators into
five ‘themes,’ which reflect the main domains of
community wellbeing in an Australian context.
However, the themes are very broad and not sta-
tistically tested to avoid overlap. For example, the
theme of ‘healthy, safe and inclusive communities’
overlaps with dimensions in both the health and
social domains of community wellbeing, and the
theme of sustainable built and natural environ-
ment’ includes satisfaction with various services,
facilities, as well as the natural environment.
The last line in Table 1 summarises the main
dimensions of community wellbeing, grouped
within the seven broad domains: Physical (e.g.,
services and facilities), environmental, economic,
274 RURAL SOCIETY    Volume 23, Issue 3, October 2014
social, political, health, and attachment. We con-
sider these seven domains as important for con-
ceptualising wellbeing at the community level
and suggest that to operationalise these domains
they need to be underpinned by dimensions and
items that are important to a specific community
as grounded in qualitative findings. For example,
understanding which items to use to assess the
economic domain may require prioritising the
possible dimensions important to the community,
best understood through qualitative methods.
Even though more studies could be listed in this
table, these four studies exemplify a comprehensive
approach. Although some aspects of rural commu-
nity wellbeing have been described in the litera-
ture (Hajkowicz et al., 2011; Tonts, Plummer, &
Lawrie, 2012) these mainly pertain to economic
or social wellbeing, for example unemployment
rates, income levels or life expectancy, and lack the
comprehensiveness that we believe is necessary to
represent wellbeing across a community.
What is community resilience?
Rural communities throughout the world strive to
build wellbeing and resilience within their bound-
aries to achieve both a desirable quality of life for
its citizens and an appropriate level of response to
change (e.g., Western Downs Regional Council,
2011). Many rural communities are facing change,
and this may take many forms. A sudden and
unplanned change, such as a natural disaster, or an
uncertain and unpredictable change, such as rapid
economic development, or a change that is slower
and more protracted, such as prolonged drought or
a declining economy, are all types of change experi-
enced in rural settings. In each of these situations,
community resilience can be seen as responding to
such changes with a view to reinstating, maintain-
ing, or enhancing community wellbeing.
A community that adapts or transforms
itself to deal with changes is resilient (Brown &
Westaway, 2011; Carpenter et al., 2012; Folke
et al., 2010). In this way, resilience distinguishes
itself from wellbeing, in that resilience is a type
of community functioning in response to change,
and occurs over time, whereas wellbeing is a state,
at a moment in time, and is often the aim of resil-
ience actions (Norris et al., 2008). Put simply,
© eContent Management Pty Ltd
 Community wellbeing and resilience: a conceptual framework
resilience is ‘doing’ and wellbeing is ‘being.’ It is
worth noting that community resilience includes
a community’s ability to resist change. We would
argue that resistance is one response which could
be advantageous or disadvantageous to a commu-
nity’s future wellbeing. However, we have con-
ceptualised community resilience as a process of
responding to change with the aim of maintaining
or enhancing community wellbeing, in line with
community psychology and development litera-
tures, which means community resilience is pro-
active. As such, resisting as a strategy in a larger
resilience plan needs to be distinguished from an
inert ‘response’ of passively resisting without any
aim to benefit future wellbeing, which is not seen
as community resilience.
In research dedicated to understanding the
meaning of resilience, Magis (2010, p. 402)
described community resilience as, ‘the existence,
development, and engagement of community
resources by community members to thrive in an
environment characterised by change, uncertainty,
unpredictability, and surprise.’ The ­ engagement
of community resources captures the active ele-
ment of community resilience. To thrive captures
the aim of enhancing community wellbeing. This
definition also highlights that the changes faced
are often complex, uncertain, unpredictable, mul-
tifaceted, and non-linear.
Time features as an important construct in
resilience (Kulig, Edge, Townshend, Lightfoot,
& Reimer, 2013). In some situations, where the
change is slow to emerge and there is no clear
time delineation as to when things are differ-
ent, resilience responses may require adaptation
over time which involves different types of deci-
sion making, learning and engagement processes.
This may differ to a natural disaster with a sudden
change. The former may require a more general
resilience (Carpenter et al., 2012) while the latter
may require a more disaster specific resilience. For
example, with natural disasters the focus may be
on specific actions to rebuild the area to its former
state, whereas for a town facing a resources boom,
a more general resilience may be needed for a
community to develop into something different.
In both cases, the aim is to restore or enhance
community wellbeing over time.
© eContent Management Pty Ltd Volume 23, Issue 3, October 2014    RURAL SOCIETY
However, community resilience should not be
viewed uncritically. One tension exists between
the way the term resilience is used in the ‘grey
literature’ of government reports and the idea of
resilience as something that is owned by commu-
nities, which can provide them with an avenue for
self-determination in a situation of change that
is potentially disempowering. As MacKinnon and
Derickson (2013) argue, the discourse of resil-
ience can leave local communities responsible for
managing the changes due to climate change or
economic development, especially when the cri-
teria for resilience are defined externally by gov-
ernment bodies and experts. Although they prefer
to use the word ‘resourcefulness’ for community
agency and self-determination, we have found
that a number of definitions of resilience from the
research literature emphasise community action
and self-determination in one way or another (see
Table 2) and that these are essential elements of
resilience. The degree to which a community is
able to exercise its self-determination in practice
is likely to depend on their human, cultural and
social capital (Flora & Flora, 2013).
Another tension is the recognition that a com-
munity is unlikely to be totally unified in their
assessment of the state of wellbeing to which they
should aspire and whether the aspirations are real-
istic. One point of unity might be the idea that
they want to regain more control of their situation.
However, it should not be assumed that unity is
the ideal and the alternative is conflict. As Walton,
McCrea, Leonard, and Williams (2013) found in
the Western Downs in southern Queensland, the
diverse responses of different community groups
to the coal seam gas (CSG) industry allowed for a
variety of local issues to be addressed with initia-
tives to influence local, regional, and state levels.
The diversity allowed for strategic identity forma-
tion so that the presence of the activist group who
were resisting change allowed the more moderate
alliances to negotiate with authorities. It would
appear that communities need sufficient social
capital to trust groups to respond in differing ways
without creating conflict.
A third tension is between the aspirations and
strategies for wellbeing and the physical, economic,
and socio-political constraints of their present
275
 Rod McCrea, Andrea Walton and Rosemary Leonard

Table 2: Dimensions of community resilience

Magis (2010) Kulig et al. (2013) Berkes and Ross (2013) Walton et al. (2013)

1. Community resources 1. Leadership and 1. Social networks 1. Strategic thinking (planning,

2. Development of empowerment 2. Community infrastructure visioning, leadership,
community resources 2. Community positioning, learning,
3. Diverse & innovative
engagement harnessing and using
3. Engagement of economy
information, succession
community resources 3. Non-adverse 4. Leadership planning)
4. Active agents geography
5. Knowledge, skills, & 2. Links within communities and
(ecological
5. Strategic action learning bridging links to the wider
resilience)
6. Collective action 6. Engaged governance community
7. Equity 7. People place relationships 3. Effective use of resources
8. Impact 8. Positive outlook 4. Commitment and
9. Values & beliefs perseverance
  Agency 5. Trusting and respectful
relationships (trust, openness,
  Self-organising transparency, mutual respect)
Those dimensions emphasising community processes are italicised.

situation. However, these aspirations and strategies
may be tempered to some extent by both perceived
and real constraints faced by communities. How
each of these tensions is resolved is likely to depend
on the community resources discussed below.
Dimensions of community resilience
Like wellbeing, various researchers have identi-
fied dimensions that are important to a resilient
response within a community, although they
often seem to overlap with dimensions of well-
being. For example, elements of social capital
are often included in community wellbeing and
resilience dimensions (see Tables 1 and 2). In this
section we identify the main dimensions of com-
munity resilience found in the literature.
Table 2 shows four studies identifying broad
dimensions of community resilience. Magis’
(2010) first dimension is community resources,
but the next five dimensions relate to resilient
community processes. The last two are akin to
desirable outcomes. Kulig et al.’s (2013) two main
dimensions relate to community processes while
his third dimension ‘non-adverse geography’ is a
vague dimension which seems to relate locational
advantages of place. Berkes and Ross (2013, p. 10)
list nine dimensions or strengths, though make
clear that community processes are central by say-
ing that, ‘these strengths are drawn into combined
influence through agency and self-organizing’ and
by placing agency and self-organising centrally in
their diagram of community resilience. Finally,
Walton et al. (2013) focus almost exclusively on
community processes when identifying important
dimensions of community resilience in the con-
text of responding to a resources boom.
A number of definitions of community resil-
ience (e.g., Berkes & Ross, 2013; Magis, 2010)
include both community resources and community
resilience processes. However, we argue that com-
munity resources facilitate community resilience
but are distinct from community resilience pro-
cesses. Identifying community resources as states
that are distinct from both community wellbeing
and resilience helps us to disentangle overlapping
dimensions between these concepts and allows us to
focus on community resilience in terms of processes.
Community resilience centres on leadership, strate-
gic thinking, planning, agency, community engage-
ment, collective action and linking relationships
when mobilising community resources in respond-
ing to sudden or rapid change. Collective efficacy
has not been listed in the studies of resilience in
Table 2, but we include it in our conceptual model
below because it has been found to be important
in successful community actions (Sampson, 2012;
Stajkovic, Lee, & Nyberg, 2009). We need to mea-
sure processes to be measuring community resil-
ience, though community resources or capacities
support these community resilience processes.

276 RURAL SOCIETY    Volume 23, Issue 3, October 2014 © eContent Management Pty Ltd
 Community wellbeing and resilience: a conceptual framework
Community resources
Community resources are not conceptualised
as part of wellbeing or resilience but they can
be understood as different types of community
capital or capacities at a point in time which
underlie both community wellbeing and resil-
ience. Thus, it is necessary to outline the dif-
ferent types of community resources, which
facilitate both community wellbeing and resil-
ience (Mulder, Costanza, & Erickson, 2006).
Although a range of frameworks could be used
(e.g., the basic four capitals framework of built,
natural, human and social capital), we adopt
the community capitals framework of Flora
and Flora (2013) for its comprehensiveness and
focus on change in rural communities. They put
forth the following seven ‘community capitals’
relating to communities of place:
1. Natural capital relates to, ‘the air, water, soil,
biodiversity, and weather’ (p. 22) that pro-
vide, but also limit, community possibilities.
This capital includes resources associated
with resource booms and is perhaps more rel-
evant in rural communities than urban areas.
2. Cultural capital relates to the different world-
views embodied in different social classes
that reflect their values, the way they think,
and the perceived possibilities for change
(reference).
3. Human capital not only includes education
and training, but other, ‘personal attributes
of individuals that contribute to their ability
to earn a living; strengthen community; and
otherwise contribute to community organ-
isations, family and self-improvement’ (Flora
& Flora, 2013, p. 111).
4. Social capital includes both bonding and
bridging social capital. The former relates
to links between community members with
similar backgrounds or a shared group iden-
tity, such as residents of a rural town, often
imbued with positive affect for that reason,
while the latter refers to links either between
community members from different groups
within the same geographical area or across a
geographical divide. Often these connections
are for particular instrumental reasons, such as
neighbouring communities working together
© eContent Management Pty Ltd Volume 23, Issue 3, October 2014    RURAL SOCIETY
to manage the problems associated with CSG
developments (Walton et al., 2013). It may be
that bonding social capital is more important
for some dimensions of wellbeing, like com-
munity cohesion, while bridging capital may
be more important for community resilience
when responding to complex change.
5. Political capital refers to the ability to influ-
ence the decision making about the distribu-
tion of costs and benefits in a community,
often concentrated in groups of local elites
(and excluded community groups).
6. Financial capital essentially refers to the
income, savings and other financial resources
available to the community, such as public
and private sector grants. This is a flexible
and mobile resource, though it may not be
in great abundance in communities, particu-
larly declining rural communities. And lastly,
7. Built capital is human built infrastructure
which supports productive activities in the
community (e.g., roads and bridges, day care
centres, water and sewage treatment and dis-
tribution, telephone and internet infrastruc-
ture, community attractions, etc.). Like the
other community capitals, built capital can
contribute to both community wellbeing and
community resilience (e.g., poor roads or
telecommunications).
Not all the resources or capitals in a commu-
nity are available to a community as a group. Some
are in private hands. However, the capitals that are
available to a community can mutually support
and enhance each other, and social capital has a
particular role to play in this regard. For exam-
ple, Cocklin (2005) described the way Natural
Resource Management boards provide a site for
the positive interaction of social capital and natu-
ral capital as farmers formed local groups to pro-
tect the natural environment and the viability of
their farmland. Also, Onyx and Leonard (2010)
described an intervention in rural areas whereby
social capital was used to augment human capi-
tal by capitalising on the large numbers of skilled
retired persons travelling in rural Australia on
extended camping holidays (‘grey nomads’) that
visit rural towns. The availability of resources will
277
 Rod McCrea, Andrea Walton and Rosemary Leonard
Figure 1: A conceptual model for community wellbeing and resilience
also be affected by the change that the community
is experiencing. Sudden and dramatic changes,
such as floods, destroy built capital, but can
improve natural capital, and are likely to attract
an influx of financial capital for rebuilding from
governments and public donations. In contrast,
slow changes, such as drought, gradually eat into
the financial capital of a rural community but do
not attract attention and support for several years.
A conceptual model of community wellbeing
and resilience
From our discussion of community wellbeing
and resilience, it is important to now conceptual-
ise how these concepts interact, and the potential
relationships between them. In Figure 1 we out-
line a broad conceptual model of community well-
being and resilience showing the main constructs,
their dimensions and the expected direction of
relationships. This conceptual framework is set in
the context of communities experiencing changes
that may impact on various community resources,
community resources from which communities
derive their wellbeing and use to mobilise resil-
ient responses. The arrow between community
resources and wellbeing is shown as a dashed
arrow to reflect the complexity and potentially
multi-layered relationships between the different
types of resources and the different dimensions
of wellbeing. Perceptions of these constructs may
involve subjective or objective judgements or a
combination of both. The impacts of change on
community resources and wellbeing can act to
trigger community resilience processes.
278 RURAL SOCIETY    Volume 23, Issue 3, October 2014
The relationship between community resources
and resilience is also not a direct one and poten-
tially can be positive or negative. It is possible
that a resource-rich community does not engage
in resilience processes in the face of change, par-
ticularly if the change is judged as inconsequential
to its wellbeing. In contrast, another community
might engage in effective responses but have few
resources, or only mobilise a few of its resources.
For example, the local coordination of licenced
premises to ban particular patrons with problem
drinking behaviours was an effective response
requiring relatively few resources in Chinchilla in
rural Queensland (Walton et al., 2013). Although
the type of resilience processes that a community
can demonstrate may depend on its resources,
integral to resilience is the activation of these
resources. Thus, the relationship between resources
and resilience is also shown as a dashed arrow.
The community wellbeing dimensions in
Figure 1 are derived from the summary at the bot-
tom of Table 1. The community resilience dimen-
sions come from Walton et al. (2013) because of
their focus on processes of community resilience.
To this we add collective efficacy which is a shared
belief in the power to bring about change with col-
lective action (Bandura, 2000), and which facili-
tates community action (Sampson, 2006, 2012).
Thus, community resilient processes combine
collective beliefs with collective action to mobilise
community resources in response to change.
Wellbeing and resilience are presented as distinct
constructs, and we argue that they can be related in
different ways in different situations. For example,
© eContent Management Pty Ltd
 Community wellbeing and resilience: a conceptual framework
good resilience processes might be triggered by a
sense of poor wellbeing – ‘we can’t go on like this;
something needs to be done’ – or alternatively, poor
wellbeing might trigger a sense of futility – ‘what’s
the use of trying.’ Good wellbeing might signal
complacency and no need for resilience processes
or, alternatively, a sense of community potential and
thus trigger active resilience processes. The associa-
tion between community wellbeing and resilience
depends on how well the community resources are
mobilised to maintain or enhance community well-
being in the context of change.
By conceptualising community resilience as a
process distinct from community wellbeing, its
relationship with both current and future com-
munity wellbeing can be examined empirically.
As the conceptual model suggests, it may be that
community resilience is more strongly related to
future wellbeing than to current community well-
being because the goal of resilience processes is to
improve the future wellbeing of the community,
or reinstate wellbeing at a future point in time.
An example of community wellbeing and
resilience in southern Queensland
This section discusses findings from Walton et al.
(2013) to exemplify community wellbeing and
resilience in the context of rapid change. These
changes associated with CSG development in the
Western Downs region of southern Queensland are
useful for demonstrating some of the complexity
of relationships between wellbeing and resilience.
CSG is expected to account for half of Australia’s
gas output by the mid-2020s, with approximately
40,000 producing wells in Queensland by 2040,
predominantly in southern Queensland (Carlisle,
2012 cited in Chen & Randall, 2013, p. 1). CSG
activities have brought widespread and rapid
change to communities in southern Queensland
with associated impacts on community resources.
Examples include concerns about water quality
and farming land, new residents with different
values and lifestyles, new local business opportu-
nities and challenges, and new demands on roads,
housing, sewerage and other infrastructure. These
changes have impacted on community resources
and acted as triggers for a variety of community
responses (Walton et al., 2013).
© eContent Management Pty Ltd Volume 23, Issue 3, October 2014    RURAL SOCIETY
The study by Walton and colleagues identified
impacts on community resources that affected
community wellbeing, and that also affected dif-
ferent segments of the community differently. For
example, in the Western Downs region, farmers
were very concerned about maintaining the natu-
ral capital of agricultural land and water resources
for current and future wellbeing and had formed
groups to represent, advocate, and engage with gov-
ernment and the CSG industry in resolving their
issues, drawing on their social, human, political
and financial capital. Other landholders had joined
with environmentalists in a more outspoken politi-
cal campaign. However, other segments may have
had fewer community resources to draw upon, like
low income renters facing immediate threats to
their wellbeing from increases in housing costs to
levels akin to the capital city prices. Community
services groups such as neighbourhood centres
and church support services mobilised to advocate
and support disadvantaged segments impacted by
change, again drawing from their social, human
and, limited, financial capital. On the other hand,
housing development companies and trades busi-
nesses had opportunities to increase their wellbe-
ing from the economic growth. Developers were
drawing on their financial, human and social capi-
tal, and political resources to obtain approvals for
increased housing stocks. Tradespeople were in
great demand but needed to increase their human
capital to be compliant with stringent quality assur-
ance and workplace health and safety requirements
of the CSG companies, which placed considerable
financial burden and risk on the local trade busi-
ness’s financial capital. The mix between opportu-
nities and challenges complicates the relationships
between community wellbeing and resilience
processes, with some segments of the community
focussing on reducing negative impacts and oth-
ers focussing on taking advantage of opportunities.
However, all were resilience processes focussing
on maintaining or enhancing future community
wellbeing, but lacking integration, with coordi-
nated planning and collaboration in its early stages
(Walton et al., 2013; Williams & Walton, 2014).
The extent to which a community as a whole is
resilient depends on how well different segments
of the community can develop and mobilise
279
 Rod McCrea, Andrea Walton and Rosemary Leonard
community resources, whether for themselves or
others, in responding to change. Moreover, resil-
ient responses that work collaboratively on issues
would ensure that resilience extends throughout
the community and is not confined to subgroups.
Such responses will more likely be realised when
they are integrated and enhanced by links within
communities and beyond to enable sharing of
resources, information, learning, and skills in
responding to change (Emery & Flora, 2006).
Discussion
Strengths and weaknesses of the model
The main strength of this model is in distinguish-
ing between community wellbeing and resilience,
questioning whether present community well-
being implies community resilience, and relat-
ing community resilience to future community
wellbeing. It also unpacks community resilience
by distinguishing between community resources
and community resilience processes. By focussing
on community resilience as processes, it high-
lights the need to proactively mobilise available
community resources. Moreover, by distinguish-
ing between resources, resilience and community
wellbeing, this conceptual model allows testing of
relationships between them in future research.
A weakness of the model is that it does not
show how these impacts, processes and states may
vary between different segments of the commu-
nity. It also does not show how different com-
munity segments or groups may link together in
responding to change. However, the conceptual
model can be used as a way of thinking about
community wellbeing and resilience for the com-
munity as a whole or it may equally be applied to
thinking about various community segments.
The model has the potential to be applied in
both qualitative and quantitative social research.
Given the importance of grounding studies of
communities facing change, consideration should
be given to an initial qualitative study to assist in
identifying important aspects of community well-
being and resilience in that context. Such research
can be used to tease out perceived interactions
between aspects of community wellbeing and
resilience, which may be quite complex and vari-
able in a context of change. For example, in the
280 RURAL SOCIETY    Volume 23, Issue 3, October 2014
context of CSG, trust, mutual respect, and under-
standing first needs to be developed to enable
collaborative relationships between community
groups and CSG companies to enhance commu-
nity wellbeing (Walton et al., 2013).
Quantitative studies may be better positioned
to test relationships between community wellbeing
and resilience over time, especially testing whether
community resilience is related to present or future
wellbeing in rural areas facing change. However,
because community resilience is conceptualised
in terms of processes, it may be harder to identify
existing and publicly available items to measure
them given their dynamic nature. Thus, measures
and methods may need to be developed or adapted
from other studies of community processes.
Conclusions
The article suggests that existing definitions of
community wellbeing and resilience often have
overlapping dimensions, which do not allow for
testing relationships between them. This is prob-
lematic because community resilience is often
theorised to maintain or enhance future wellbeing.
We have defined community wellbeing and resil-
ience so they are conceptually distinct by describ-
ing community wellbeing as the evaluation of the
state of important aspects of community in rela-
tion to expectations or standards of comparison.
In contrast, we describe community resilience as
processes involving collective efficacy and agency in
response to change faced by a community. In our
definition, these community resilience processes
employ community resources but are distinct from
community resources, whereas in other definitions
of community resilience, community resources are
often included within community resilience and
lead to overlapping dimensions with community
wellbeing. Separating community resources from
community resilience also allows researchers to
ask how various community resources contrib-
ute to both community wellbeing and resilience.
Drawing from these insights, a conceptual model
relating community wellbeing and resilience was
presented which hypothesises that community
resilience might be related to future community
wellbeing rather than current wellbeing, in the
context of communities facing change.
© eContent Management Pty Ltd
 Community wellbeing and resilience: a conceptual framework
Our broad conceptual model creates an agenda
for future research. In future research the model
needs to be operationalised by defining each
dimension with specific variables in the context of
a particular study context. Another consideration is
that a cohesive and uniform community of place
should not be assumed. Perceptions of community
­wellbeing and resilience are likely to vary among
diverse groups or segments within a community
of place so that potential differences and inequities
among groups should be investigated. Testing our
conceptual model over time would also need either
longitudinal or time series data, or perhaps subjec-
tive perceptions about future community wellbeing.
This article has taken the first steps in conceptu-
alising the relationship between community well-
being and resilience by first conceptualising each in
a distinct way, identifying their main dimensions,
placing them in theoretical relation to each other,
and outlining these relationships in a conceptual
model. These first steps are essential before relation-
ships between community wellbeing and resilience
can be empirically investigated in future research.
Acknowledgements
This report was supported by the Gas Industry
Social and Environmental Research Alliance
(GISERA). GISERA is a collaborative vehicle
established by CSIRO and Australia Pacific LNG
to undertake publicly reported research addressing
the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of
Australia’s natural gas industries. For more details
about GISERA visit www.gisera.org.au.
References
Ainsworth, J. W. (2002). Why does it take a village? The
mediation of neighborhood effects on educational
achievement. Social Forces, 81(1), 117–152.
Albrecht, G., Sartore, G. M., Connor, L., Higginbotham,
N., Freeman, S., Kelly, B., & Pollard, G. (2007).
Solastalgia: The distress caused by environmental
change. Australasian Psychiatry, 15(S1), S95–S98.
Amundsen, H. (2012). Illusions of resilience? An analysis
of community responses to change in northern
Norway. Ecology and Society, 17(4), 46.
Andelman, R., Board, R., Carman, L., Cummins,
R., Ferriss, A., Friedman, P., … Veenhoven, R.
(1998). Quality of life definition and terminology: A
© eContent Management Pty Ltd Volume 23, Issue 3, October 2014    RURAL SOCIETY
discussion document from the International Society of
quality of life studies. In R. Cummins (ed.), (p. 43).
Retrieved from http://www.isqols.org/resource/
quality-of-life-definition-and-terminology/
Armitage, D., Béné, C., Charles, A. T., Johnson, D., &
Allison, E. H. (2012). The interplay of well-being
and resilience in applying a social–ecological perspec-
tive. Ecology and Society, 17(4), 15.
Bandura, A. (2000). Exercise of human agency through
collecive efficacy. Current Directions in Psychological
Science, 9(3), 75–78. doi: 10.1111/1467-8721.00064
Berkes, F., & Ross, H. (2013). Community resilience:
Toward an integrated approach. Society & Natural
Resources, 26(1), 5–20.
Brehm, J. M., Eisenhauer, B. W., & Krannich, R. S.
(2004). Dimensions of community attachment and
their relationship to well-being in the amenity-rich
rural west. Rural Sociology, 69(3), 405–429.
Brown, K., & Westaway, E. (2011). Agency, capacity,
and resilience to environmental change: Lessons
from human development, well-being, and disasters.
Annual review of environment and resources 36, 321–
342. doi: 10.1146/annurev-environ-052610-092905
Carpenter, S. R., Arrow, K. J., Barrett, S., Biggs, R.,
Brock, W. A., Crepin, A. S., … de Zeeuw, A. (2012).
General resilience to cope with extreme events.
Sustainability, 4(12), 3248–3259.
Chen, C., & Randall, A. (2013). The economic contest
between coal seam gas mining and agriculture on
prime farmland: It may be closer than we thought.
Journal of Economic and Social Policy, 15(3), 5.
Christakopoulou, S., Dawson, J., & Gari, A. (2001). The
community well-being questionnaire: Theoretical
context and initial assessment of its reliability and
validity. Social Indicators Research, 56(3), 321–351.
Cocklin, C. (2005). Natural capital and the sustainability
of rural communities. In C. Cocklin. & J. Dibden
(Eds.), Sustainability and change in rural Australia (pp.
171–191). Sydney, NSW: UNSW Press.
Coulthard, S. (2012). Can we be both resilient and well,
and what choices do people have? Incorporating
agency into the resilience debate from a fisheries
perspective. Ecology and Society, 17(1), 4.
Cummins, R. (1996). The domains of life satisfaction: An attempt
to order chaos. Social Indicators Research, 38(3), 303–328.
Cummins, R. (2000). Objective and subjective quality of
life: An interactive model. Social Indicators Research,
52(1), 55–72.
Diener, E., Lucas, R. E., & Scollon, C. N. (2006).
Beyond the hedonic treadmill: Revising the adapta-
tion theory of well-being. American Psychologist,
61(4), 305–314.
281
 Rod McCrea, Andrea Walton and Rosemary Leonard
Emery, M., & Flora, C. (2006). Spiraling-up: Mapping
community transformation with community capitals
framework. Community Development, 37(1), 19–35.
Evans, S., & Huxley, P. (2002). Studies of quality of life
in the general population. International Review of
Psychiatry, 14(3), 203–211.
Flora, C. B., & Flora, J. L. (2013). Rural communities:
Legacy and change. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Folke, C., Carpenter, S. R., Walker, B., Scheffer, M.,
Chapin, T., & Rockstrom, J. (2010). Resilience
thinking: Integrating resilience, adaptability and
transformability. Ecology and Society, 15(4), 20.
Forjaz, M. J., Prieto-Flores, M. E., Ayala, A., Rodriguez-
Blazquez, C., Fernandez-Mayoralas, G., Rojo-
Perez, F., & Martinez-Martin, P. (2011). Measurement
properties of the community wellbeing index in older
adults. Quality of Life Research, 20, 733–743.
Hajkowicz, S., Heyenga, S., & Moffat, K. (2011). The rela-
tionship between mining and socio-economic well being
in Australia’s regions. Resources Policy, 36(1), 30–38.
Kulig, J. C., Edge, D. S., Townshend, I., Lightfoot, N.,
& Reimer, W. (2013). Community resiliency:
Emerging theoretical insights. Journal of Community
Psychology, 41(6), 758–775.
MacKinnon, D., & Derickson, K. D. (2013). From
resilience to resourcefulness: A critique of resilience
policy and activism. Progress in Human Geography,
37(2), 253–270.
Magis, K. (2010). Community resilience: An indicator
of social sustainability. Society & Natural Resources,
23(5), 401–416.
McCrea, R., Shyy, T. K., & Stimson, R. (2014). Satisfied
residents in different types of local areas: Measuring
what’s most important. Social Indicators Research,
118(1), 87–101. doi: 10.1007/s11205-013-0406-8.
Michalos, A. C. (1985). Multiple discrepancies theory
(MDT). Social Indicators Research, 16(4), 347–413.
Morton, A., & Edwards, L. (2012). Community wellbe-
ing indicators: Survey template for local government.
Sydney, NSW: Australian Centre of Excellence for
Local Government, University of Technology.
Mulder, K., Costanza, R., & Erickson, J. (2006). The
contribution of built, human, social and natural capi-
tal to quality of life in intentional and unintentional
communities. Ecological Economics, 59, 13–23.
Norris, F. H., Stevens, S. P., Pfefferbaum, B., Wyche,
K. F., & Pfefferbaum, R. L. (2008). Community
resilience as a metaphor, theory, set of capacities, and
strategy for disaster readiness. American Journal of
Community Psychology, 41(1–2), 127–150.
Onyx, J., & Leonard, R. (2010). The conversion of
social capital into community development: An
282 RURAL SOCIETY    Volume 23, Issue 3, October 2014
intervention in Australia’s outback. International
Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 34(2),
381–397.
Sampson, R. J. (2006). Collective efficacy theory:
Lessons learned. In F. Cullen (Ed.), Taking stock: The
status of criminological theory (pp. 149–168). New
Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Sampson, R. J. (2012). The theory of collective efficacy
great American city (pp. 149–178). Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
Schwarz, N., & Strack, F. (1999). Reports of subjective
well-being: Judgmental processes and their method-
ological implications. In D. Kahneman, E. Diener,
& N. Schawrz (Eds.), Well-being: The foundations
of hedonic psychology (pp. 61–84). New York, NY:
Russell Sage Foundation.
Sirgy, M. J., Widgery, R. N., Lee, D. J., & Yu, G. B.
(2010). Developing a measure of community well-
being based on perceptions of impact in various life
domains. Social Indicators Research, 96(2), 295–311.
Stajkovic, A. D., Lee, D., & Nyberg, A. J. (2009).
Collective efficacy, group potency, and group per-
formance: Meta-analyses of their relationships, and
test of a mediation model. The Journal of Applied
Psychology, 94(3), 814–828.
Stiglitz, J., Sen, A., & Fitoussi, J.-P. (2009). Report of the
commission on the measurement of economic perfor-
mance and social progress. Retrieved from http://www.
stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.fr/documents/rapport_anglais.pdf
Tonts, M., Plummer, P., & Lawrie, M. (2012). Socio-
economic wellbeing in Australian mining towns: A
comparative analysis. Journal of Rural Studies, 28(3),
288–301.
Walton, A., McCrea, R., Leonard, R., & Williams, R.
(2013). Resilience in a changing community
landscape of coal seam gas: Chinchilla in southern
Queensland. Journal of Economic and Social Policy,
15(3), Article 2.
Western Downs Regional Council. (2011). Western
Downs 2050 Community Plan (Western Downs
Regional Council community planning document).
Retrievd from WDRC website: http://www.wdrc.qld.
gov.au/wd2050-documents
White, S. C. (2010). Analysing wellbeing: A framework
for development practice. Development in Practice,
20(2), 158–172.
Williams, R., & Walton, A. (2014, January). Community
Expectations and Coal Seam Gas Development. A report
to the Gas Industry Social and Environmental
Research Alliance (GISERA). Canberra, ACT: CSIRO.
Received 19 May 2013 Accepted 20 February 2014
© eContent Management Pty Ltd
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without
permission.