Measuring and Comparing Organisational Resilience in Auckland

Organisations often find it difficult to demonstrate the value added by emergency management and business continuity programs, and their progress towards becoming 'more resilient'. This is partly because these programs are compared to profit-driven activities for which there are metrics for evaluating whether or not they have produced financial growth. Resilience however, focuses on social and cultural factors within organisations which contribute to the organisations' ability to survive, and potentially even thrive, in times of crisis. The effectiveness and value of programs to build resilience are much more difficult to measure. This paper presents the initial results of a web-based survey tool developed to address this gap and measure and compare organisational resilience. The tool enables organisations to identify resilience strengths and weaknesses and evaluate resilience management programs. In total 249 individuals representing 68 organisations in Auckland, New Zealand took part in the study. The results are discussed in terms of the resilience of the community of organisations in Auckland, the individual industry sectors that were represented, and the individual organisations that took part.

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