No abstract

Small business and crisis management research are two established but largely uncoupled domains of study. Given the economic importance and vulnerability of a small businesses, closer attention is needed to understand how their owners think and act in relation to crisis management efforts in the event of business interruptions. This study highlights the relative absence of crisis management research in the small business literature and the absence of a small business focus in the crisis management literature, despite a rising tide of regulation and legislation that requires companies to have crisis/business continuity management arrangements in place. The study examines the understanding of, and resourcing and support for, crisis management using case studies from four UK small businesses. The resulting analysis illuminates four themes; understanding risks, threedimensional crisis, learning from crisis, and stifled support systems. Furthermore, data suggest that owner-managers may frame risks in two ways -a 'growth vulnerability paradox' and the 'risk elastic' -while their understanding of crisis is conceptualized using a chronological approach to identify three key areas: crisis threat, crisis response, and crisis impact. The study concludes by asserting the need for a crisis-based view of small business research and proposes an agenda for future study.

Against a background of increasing threats, business continuity management (BCM) has emerged in many industries as a systematic process to counter the effects of crises and interruptions, although its potential to play a more strategic role is still largely underexplored. This article examines the organisational antecedents of BCM and develops a conceptual approach to posit that BCM, in actively ensuring operational continuity, has a role in preserving competitive advantage. Such value preservation is central to the business continuity/business strategy relationship, and gives rise to the central purpose of the paper; to discuss whether firms' BCM can be seen as strategic rather than purely functional. If so, what form does such provision take in terms of planning, organisation and culture? Evidence from six UK-based financial services firms illustrates differing approaches to business continuity, with two firms showing BCM provision more clearly aligned towards a missioncritical strategic role. Practical precepts for implementation are presented, together with a diagnostic drawing attention to the key determinants of enhanced value preservation.

As a form of crisis management, business continuity management (BCM) has evolved since the 1970s in response to the technical and operational risks that threaten an organisation's recovery from hazards and interruptions. This paper examines the development of business practices related to crisis management alongside the emergence of legislation, regulations and standards (drivers) requiring organisations to implement specific business continuity activities. From the resulting historical review, three distinct phases of management practice and four phases in the development of drivers are identified, revealing the influence of events over governance, the internationalisation of influence, and organisational resilience as a meta-institution.business continuity management, disaster recovery planning, international standards, organisational resilience, crisis management,

Despite a long-established crisis management literature that focuses on large enterprises, crisis management planning in the context of small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is less extensively researched. Using data collected from 215 SMEs in the United Kingdom, this paper explores the perceptions and experiences of SMEs' managing directors in relation to crisis management planning. Furthermore, the paper examines differences in perceptions between planning and non-planning SMEs. Analysis reveals six factors that correspond to resilience through planning, financial impact, operational crisis management, the perfect storm, the aftermath of survival and atrophy. Results indicate how the experience of crisis and the type of crisis of type encountered affect managers' assessment of whether planning can be used to address crisis prevention and lower impact.