Surviving organizational disasters

W. Jack Duncan, Valerie A. Yeager, Andrew C. Rucks and Peter M. Ginter

Business Horizons, 2011, vol. 54, issue 2, 135-142

Abstract: Man-made and natural disasters are becoming increasingly common in today's world. Among other entities, companies should be concerned because these impact organizational survival, disrupting the lives and functioning of employees, suppliers, customers, and organizational infrastructure. If the present trend continues, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is on track to declare 30% more disasters in 2010 than in 2009. Organizational disasters are crises in the extreme. While the crisis management literature provides a useful foundation for planning for internal organizational threats, it does not adequately address larger external threats brought about by disasters. With this gap in mind, we herein present a framework for planning for man-made or natural disasters: continuity of operations planning (COOP). Continuity of operations planning is a tool that aids organizations in staying in business under extreme circumstances. Although continuity of operations planning is not an entirely new practice, many small and medium-sized firms are reluctant to engage in this type of planning. To highlight the value of the process, this article provides examples of organizational disasters, alongside a simplified method for developing an effective continuity of operations plan.

Keywords: Continuity; Planning; Business; Disaster; Emergency; preparedness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007-6813(10)00151-5
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:bushor:v:54:y::i:2:p:135-142

Access Statistics for this article

Business Horizons is currently edited by C. M. Dalton

More articles in Business Horizons from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().