Business continuity as self-efficacy: Augmenting existing business continuity practice

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the shortcomings of traditional business continuity principles. As much of the novel response to COVID-19 involved a curtailment or cessation of in-person commercial activity, businesses and communities were at unprecedented financial risk. Traditional methods of ensuring business continuity were likely insufficient; thus, an improved understanding of business continuity through disaster is needed for both business and community well-being. Canonically, academic studies examining business survival post-disaster have emphasized vulnerability characteristics and focused on factors outside the businesses’ locus of control. Recently, studies have found that business survival is related to features of self-efficacy that are not easily developed through succinct templates: creativity, flexibility, and improvisation. By critically examining ninety-three publicly available business continuity guides in a content analysis approach, we point to the need for further research on business preparedness as the building of self-efficacy and the effectiveness of converting these scientific findings into useful formats for business operators.