Landmark symposium looking at Christchurch’s resilience

August 26, 2013

A landmark symposium looking at Christchurch’s resilience following the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes will be held at the University of Canterbury (UC) tomorrow.

Two leading UC management researchers, Dr Bernard Walker and Associate Professor Nilakant Venkataraman, will talk about how organisations responded in Christchurch.

Planning for a disaster is good practice for businesses – however the disaster often doesn't align with the plan. Organisations need to be adaptive when this happens, Dr Walker says.

Accounting and information systems postgraduate student Tracy Hatton will outline what happened to Christchurch’s central business district (CBD) retailers.

``With the CBD cordoned for two years, many retailers looked to be out of business. What has really happened to these retailers? I’ll discuss this next week,’’ Hatton says.

Postgraduate student Charlotte Brown will explain the tricky insurance issues and whether they have been a help or hindrance to recovery.

Insurance is an important part of business recovery following a disaster. Brown will say what has been learned about commercial insurance policies from the earthquakes.

Dr John Vargo, co-leader of UC’s Resilient Organisations, will talk about disaster recovery which is a difficult and challenging process.

``Sometimes good things look bad and bad things have a silver lining during this complex process,’’ Dr Vargo says.

Dr Erica Seville, co-leader of UC’s Resilient Organisations, will present 13 leading indicators of an organisation’s resilience and method for tracking an organisation’s resilience over time.

The symposium is open to the public. Representatives from the Canterbury Earthquake Authority (CERA) and the Christchurch City Council plus people from organisations in Auckland and Wellington will be attending.

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