Organisational resilience: Researching the reality of New Zealand organisations
Abstract
This paper presents findings from a six-year research programme underway in New Zealand to develop strategies for improving the resilience of organisations to major crisis events. The research takes a systems view of organisations, recognising that there are multiple interdependencies within and between different organisations that influence their abilities to respond and recover. This means that effective resilience management for any one organisation must look beyond that single organisation and consider the resilience of other organisations on which it depends. Particular aspects of organisational resilience focused on by the research team include: how individual organisations are positioned to respond to and recover from major crises; their ability to communicate and share information in order to direct resources effectively during crises; and the legal and contractual frameworks within which they will need to operate during crisis response and recovery. None of these issues can be resolved by a single organisation acting unilaterally. Organisations are required to work together towards greater system resilience.
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Author's Biography
Erica Seville co-leads the Resilient Organisations Research Programme in New Zealand, a synthesis of engineering, science and business leadership aimed at transforming organisations into those that survive disruption and thrive in the aftermath. She has written more than 100 articles on resilience and is regularly invited to speak at conferences around the world. Her interest in the subject began when she was working in the banking sector in London at the time of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. Since then, she has been a member of the NZ reconnaissance to Thailand following the Boxing Day tsunami, has researched earthquake recovery in China and the Black Saturday bushfires in Australia, and is at the forefront of research on Christchurch’s recovery following the 2010–11 earthquakes in New Zealand.
John Vargo is a senior researcher and co-leader of the Resilient Organisations Research Programme based at the University of Canterbury. His interests focus on building organisational resilience in the face of systemic insecurity in a complex and interconnected world. The ResOrgs group (www.resorgs.org.nz) has been researching Organisational Resilience since 2004 and has been heavily involved in related research following the series of devastating earthquakes that hit Christchurch, New Zealand in 2010–11. This research has looked at the impacts of the earthquakes on organisations and economic sectors and the application of the ResOrgs 13 indicator resilience model to systemic recovery. Other recent research projects have focused on the resilience of critical infrastructure organisations in Australia and New Zealand and the key role they play in the resilience of a community and a nation. His research interests are in organisational resilience, information security, risk management and strategic planning.
Citation
Seville, Erica, Brunsdon, David, Dantas, Andre, Le Masurier, Jason, Wilkinson, Suzanne and Vargo, John (2008, April 1). Organisational resilience: Researching the reality of New Zealand organisations. In the Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning, Volume 2, Issue 3. https://doi.org/10.69554/XPTG9053.
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