Building Organizational Resilience Through Strategy, Risk and Business Continuity Planning: A System Dynamics Approach

Abstract

The world has experienced and witnessed many disasters both natural and man-made in history. Such type of events have happened before and will certainly occur in the future. The implications of these events go beyond the tragic loss of human life to the devastation to infrastructure, economies, businesses and livelihoods. It is the responsibility of managers and leaders in organizations to ensure that their organizations are prepared to manage the potential threats, known and unknown, that they may face. This applies not only to commercial businesses but also to non-profit organizations to whom the burden to provide relief to society´s most vulnerable often falls. This research project has looked at how existing management tools and methodologies can be employed in unison with the scientific methodology of systems dynamics as well as simulated models to assist organizations in the non-profit sector plan, prepare for and mitigate against threats to their system. Using theory from Strategic Management, Risk Management, Business Continuity Management and Resilience Theory a conceptual framework and predictive simulation model has been developed and used to play out scenarios testing the resilience of the system of the PBO. Further, policies have been developed and tested, proving that indeed, organizational resilience can be enhanced by the application of appropriate policy interventions.