Disasters such as the recent parliament shooting in Ottawa, Superstorm Sandy, and the Great Japan Sea Earthquake and tsunami are reminders of the roles essential service organizations have in maintaining public health. On a daily basis, organizations are expected to operate under normal conditions, providing goods, services, and community supports. In crisis situations, it is critical that these organizations continue to operate and contribute to adaptive response and recovery in a community. Business continuity planning focuses on ensuring continued functioning of core operations during a disruption. Inherent to the business continuity field is a prevent-and-protect approach to preparedness activities. Asset-mapping exercises have the potential to balance the predominantly risk-based field by focusing on the strengths and capabilities already present within an organization. To understand the value of asset-mapping activities in business continuity plans (BCPs), indicators for organizational resilience are needed. Indicators have the potential to provide essential service organizations with a way to gauge the value of their BCP activities. In addition, this information can help guide decision-makers when developing BCPs. This research is part of a larger project at the University of Ottawa focused on building the empirical evidence base for BCPs and organizational resilience. This thesis, as a sub-study within the larger project, explores assets and indicators for organizational resilience to contribute to the effective evaluation and engagement of organizations in business continuity planning efforts. Emergent themes highlight the importance of assets and their contribution to the adaptive capacity of an organization in the event of a disaster. This study also provides an example list of 28 SMARTT organizational resilience indicators directly derived from organizational assets, providing information that researchers and essential service organizations can use to evaluate business continuity planning activities in relation to organizational resilience.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/32175 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Tracey, Shannon |
| Contributors | O'Sullivan, Tracey, Lane, Daniel |
| Publisher | Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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