Business continuity for times of vulnerability: Empirical evidence

Abstract

Organizations operate in environments of vulnerability. While there are methodologies that guide business continuity management, it is evident that organizations remain vulnerable to disruptions emerging in times of transformation and systemic change. This work aims to compile and analyze the disruptions and related risk management strategies or activities described in the literature, and explore which disruptions are creating concern in companies and how they approach them. The methodology is based on a review of the literature and from the review we define a questionnaire to guide semi‐structured interviews to managers from companies all located in a highly volatile macroeconomic context. The literature describes disruptions related with governance, cyberattacks, technology, supply chain, internal processes, and shock events and both precrises and postcrises strategies. The empirical analysis using data from companies reveals that (a) the most stressful disruptions are the currency devaluation, the high inflation rate, and government interventions and (b) managers rely on collaborative work, effective communication between stakeholders, supportive leadership, and constant adaptation to the new environment. Future research is required on techniques supporting adaptation to ‘new normalcy’.

The multifaceted perspectives of future business continuity- aftermath of COVID 19

“…Organizations must stay updated on regulatory changes and adapt their operations accordingly to ensure uninterrupted business continuity. 14 Access to finance is vital for organizations to sustain and expand their operations. Economic factors such as interest rates, availability of credit, and investment climate influence the ease with which businesses can access funds for growth and continuity.…”

Business continuity management and organizational resilience: A small and medium enterprises (SMEs) perspective

“…In this view, practitioners can operationalize the proposed framework by defining a set of tasks, milestones and metrics through which implementing and monitoring the overall BCM process and infrastructure are possible. This would realize a fundamental shift that sees transformed the traditional postemergency responses into preemergency activities (Tómasson, 2023), thus making organizations more prepared for transformations and systemic changes (Sánchez & De Batista, 2023).…”

“…In this view, practitioners can operationalize the proposed framework by defining a set of tasks, milestones and metrics through which implementing and monitoring the overall BCM process and infrastructure are possible. This would realize a fundamental shift that sees transformed the traditional postemergency responses into preemergency activities (Tómasson, 2023), thus making organizations more prepared for transformations and systemic changes (Sánchez & De Batista, 2023). More specifically, the concept of probability that is crucial in managing known risks is complemented by the role that knowledge (and lack of knowledge) plays for realizing and comprehending the aspects related to risks (Aven, 2017), which essentially characterize the resilience of organizations.…”

Headline risk: Forging a crisis communication keystone

“…By comparison, crisis communication theories are well‐established but still searching for validated and replicated keystones bridging from crisis events to business outcomes. Foundational research has been built to a great extent on experimental design, content analysis, expert surveys and tabletop exercises to inform critical communication decisions about emerging risks (Sánchez & De Batista, 2023), the influence of social media (Bakker et al, 2018) and online activist groups (Fagerholm et al, 2023), messaging tactics (Soares et al, 2023), the relative effectiveness of CEOs in crisis response (Beldad & von Rosenstiel, 2023), approaches for crisis preparedness (Alinier et al, 2023), brand damage and the effectiveness of apologies (Domschat et al, 2023), and educating a future generation of crisis communicators (Petridou et al, 2023). In practice, though, PR's qualitative definition of a crisis has meant major companies have been reliant on a blend of theoretical constructs, professional experience and gut instinct to manage headline risks that can dampen consumer demand and pressure companies to lower prices to maintain market share (Nichols, 2017), cut sales in half in the immediate aftermath of the event (Wells Fargo, 2016) and in extreme cases threaten their viability as a going concern.…”