Abstract
As units of analysis in disaster research, businesses have only recently begun to be studied. Far more research has been conducted on public sector organizations such as local emergency management agencies, public safety agencies, and other governmental organizations. Researchers studying the economic impacts of disasters have tended to focus on units of analysis that are larger than individual firms and enterprises, such as community and regional economies. Until fairly recently, very little was known regarding such topics as business vulnerability, loss-reduction measures adopted by businesses, disaster impacts on businesses, and business recovery. Systematic research was lacking despite the singular importance of businesses for society. Private businesses provide a vast array of goods and services that literally make life possible in our complex global economy. A recent governmental report on the U.S. critical infrastructure points out that “[t]he lion’s share of our critical infrastructures and key assets are owned and operated by the private sector” (White House, 2003, p. 32)1. Businesses are the foundation of local, regional, and national economies; when businesses are affected by disasters, that disruption produces not only direct business losses, but also indirect losses and economic ripple effects. Destruction of and damage to businesses, along with disaster-related closures, result in the loss of jobs, negatively affecting incomes and creating even greater challenges for households, neighborhoods, and communities as they attempt to recover from disasters. After disasters, business owners face a host of challenges, including how to finance business recovery, and often how to cope simultaneously with damage to both business and residential property. Disasters can produce both psychological distress and additional debt burdens for business owners. At the community level, business destruction and damage can result in lost tax revenues for communities and can undermine the viability of business and commercial districts.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Mitroff, I.I., & Pauchant, T.C. (1990). We’re so big and powerful nothing bad can happen to us: An investigation of America’s crisis prone corporations. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing Group.
Alesch, D.J., & Petak, W.J. (1986). The politics and economics of earthquake hazard mitigation: Unreinforced masonry buildings in Southern California. Boulder, CO: University of Colorado, Institute of Behavioral Science, Program on Environment and Behavior, Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center.
Sagan, S.D. (1993). The limits of safety: Organizations, accidents and nuclear weapons. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Cutter, S. (1996). Vulnerability to environmental hazards. Progress in Human Geography, 20(4), 529–539.
Tierney, K.J., & Dahlhamer, J.M. (1997). Earthquake vulnerability and emergency preparedness among businesses. In M. Shinozuka, A. Rose, & R. T. Eguchi (Eds.), Engineering and socioeconomic impacts of earthquakes: An analysis of electricity lifeline disruptions in the New Madrid area (pp. 53–73). Buffalo, NY: State University of New York at Buffalo, Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research.
Webb, G.R., Wachtendorf, T., & Eyre, A. (2000). Bringing culture back in: Exploring the cultural dimensions of disaster. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, 18, 5–19.
Shrivastava, P. (1987). Bhopal: Anatomy of a crisis. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Company.
Cavanaugh, M. (2000). The Loma Prieta earthquake and hurricane Andrew: A comparative study in disaster preparedness activities. Newark DE: M. A. thesis, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Delaware.
Dahlhamer, J.M., & Tierney, K.J. (1998). Rebounding from disruptive events: Business recovery following the Northridge Earthquake. Sociological Spectrum, 18, 121–141.
Drabek, T.E. (1994). Disaster evacuation and the tourist industry. Boulder, CO: Institute of Behavioral Science, Program on Environment and Behavior, Natural Hazards Center.
Webb, G.R., Tierney, K.J., & Dahlhamer, J.M. (2000). Businesses and disasters: Empirical patterns and unanswered questions. Natural Hazards Review, 1, 83–90.
Light, I., & Gold, S.J. (2000). Ethnic economies. San Diego: Academic Press.
Gordon, P., Richardson H.W., & Davis, B. (1997). Transport-related impacts of the Northridge earthquake. Journal of Transportation and Statistics, 1, 21–36.
Pauchant, T.C., & Mitroff, I.I. (1992). Transforming the crisis-prone organization: Preventing individual, organizational and environmental tragedies. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Thompson, W.C., Jr. (2002). One year later: The effects of 9/11 on commercial insurance rates and availability in New York City. New York: New York City Government, Office of the Comptroller of the City of New York.
Gustin, J.F. (2004). Disaster and recovery planning: A guide for facility managers (3rd ed.). New York: Marcel Dekker.
Solway, L. (1994). Urban development and megacities: Vulnerability to natural disasters. Disaster Management, 6(3), 160–169.
Baum, J.A.C., & Oliver, C. (1991). Institutional linkages and organizational mortality. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36, 187–218.
Laye, J. (2002). Avoiding disaster: How to keep your business going when catastrophe strikes. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Mendonca, D., Lee, E.E. II, & Wallace, W.A. (2004). Impact of the 2001 World Trade Center attack on critical interdependent infrastructures. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (vol. 5, 4053–4058).
Roberts, K.H. (1989). New challenges in organizational research: High-reliability organizations. Industrial Crisis Quarterly, 3, 111–125.
Wallace, M., & Webber, L. (2004). The disaster recovery handbook: A step-by-step plan to ensure business continuity and protect vital operations, facilities, and assets. NewYork: American Management Association.
Tierney, K.J., Nigg, J.M., & Dahlhamer, J.M. (1996). The impact of the 1993 Midwest floods: Business vulnerability and disruption in Des Moines. In R.T. Sylves & W.L. Waugh, Jr. (Eds.), Disaster management in the U.S. and Canada: The politics, policymaking, administration and analysis of emergency management. (pp. 214–233). Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas.
Jones, B., & Chang, S.E. (1995). Economic aspects of urban vulnerability and disaster mitigation. In F.Y. Chang & M.S. Sheu (Eds.), Urban disaster mitigation: The role of engineering and technology (pp. 311–320). Oxford: Elsevier.
West, C., & Lenze, D. (1994). Modeling the regional impact of natural disaster and recovery. International Regional Science Review, 17, 121–150.
Albala-Bertrand, J.M. (1993). The political economy of large natural disasters, with special reference to developing countries. New York: Clarendon Press.
Chang, S.E. (2001). Structural change in urban economies: Recovery and long–term impacts in the 1995 Kobe Earthquake.” The Kokumin Keizai Zasshi Journal of Economics and Business Administration, 183, 47–66.
Okuyama, U., & Chang, S.E. (Eds.). (2004). Modeling spatial economic impacts of natural disasters. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Webb, G.R., Tierney, K.J., & Dahlhamer, J.M. (2002). Predicting long-term business recovery from disaster: A comparison of the Loma Prieta Earthquake and Hurricane Andrew. Environmental Hazards, 4, 45–58.
Shaw, G. (1999). Business and industry crisis management, disaster recovery, and organizational continuity. Emmitsburg, MD: Emergency Management Institute, National Emergency Training Center, Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Wu, J.Y., & Lindell, M.K. (2004). Housing reconstruction after two major earthquakes: The 1994 Northridge Earthquake in the United States and the 1999 Chi-Chi Earthquake in Taiwan. Disasters, 28, 63–81.
Perrow, C. (1999). Normal accidents: Living with high-risk technologies (2nd ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Rose, A., & Guha, G.-S. (2004). Computable general equilibrium modeling of electric utility lifeline losses from earthquakes. In U. Okuyama & S.E. Chang (Eds.), Modeling spatial economics impacts of natural disasters (pp. 119–141). New York: Springer-Verlag.
Alesch, D.J., Holly J.N., Mittler E., & Nagy, R. (2001). Organizations at risk: What happens when small businesses and not-for-profits encounter natural disasters. Fairfax, VA: Public Entity Risk Institute, www.riskinstitute.org.
Mitroff, I.I., Pauchant T.C., Finney, M., & Pearson, C. (1989). Do (some) organizations cause their own crises? Cultural profiles of crisis prone versus crisis prepared organizations. Industrial Crisis Quarterly, 3, 269–283.
Vaughan, D. (1996). The challenger launch decision: Risky technology, culture, and deviance at NASA. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Hiles, A. (2000). Business continuity: Best practices, world-class business continuity management. Brookfield, CT: Rothstein Associates Inc.
Mileti, D.S., Cress, D.M., & Darlington, J.D. (1992). Earthquake culture and corporate action. Sociological Forum, 17(1), 161–180.
Mileti, D., Sorensen, J., & O’Brien, P. (1992). Towards an explanation of mass care shelter use in evacuations. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, 10, 25–42.
Alesch, D.J., Taylor, C., Ghanty, A.S., & Nagy, R.A. (1993). Earthquake risk reduction and small business. In K.J. Tierney & J.M. Nigg (Eds.), National Earthquake Conference Monograph No. 5: Socioeconomic impacts (pp. 133–160). Memphis: Central U.S. Earthquake Consortium.
Scawthorn, C.R., Porter, K.A., & Blackburn, F.T. (1992). Performance of emergency-response services after the earthquake. In T.D. O’Rourke (Ed.), The Loma Prieta, California, Earthquake of October 17, 1989—Marina District (pp. 195–215). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey. USGS Professional Paper. 1551-F.
Kunreuther, H. & Rose, A. (Eds.). (2004). The economics of natural hazards. Cheltenham: Elgar.
Hocker, C. (2005). Enterprises owned by African Americans have the lowest survival rates among ethnic businesses. Black Enterprise, 35, 38.
Parker, D., & Mitchell, J.K. (1995). Disaster vulnerability of megacities: An expanding problem that requires rethinking and innovative responses. GeoJournal, 37(3), 295–301.
Berke, P., Kartez, J., & Wenger, D. (1993). Recovery after disaster: Achieving sustainable development, mitigation, and equity. Disasters, 17, 93–109.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Tierney, K.J. (2007). Businesses and Disasters: Vulnerability, Impacts, and Recovery. In: Handbook of Disaster Research. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-32353-4_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-32353-4_16
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-73952-6
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-32353-4
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)