DOI: 10.4018/IJISCRAM.2018010101
International Journal of Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management
Volume 10 • Issue 1 • January-March 2018
Copyright © 2018, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
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Business Continuity Management
in Micro Enterprises: Perception,
Strategies, and Use of ICT
Marc-André Kaufhold, University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany
Thea Riebe, University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany
Christian Reuter, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
Julian Hester, University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany
Danny Jeske, University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany
Lisa Knüver, University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany
Viktoria Richert, University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany
ABSTRACT
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) represent 99% of enterprises in Germany and more than
95% in the European Union. Given the recent increase of natural disasters and man-made crises and
emergencies, it seems an important economic goal to ascertain that SMEs are capable of maintaining
their work, revenue and profit at an acceptable level. According to ISO 22301, business continuity
management (BCM) is a holistic management process which identifies potential threats and their
impact to an organization and serves as a framework to increase organizational resilience and response
capabilities. Prior research identified that BCM is under-represented in SMEs and that their security
level is partially in an uneconomical range. This article presents the analysis of interviews with 19
independent micro enterprises highlighting findings on their low crisis awareness, varying technical
dependency, existing action strategies and communication strategies and proposing a categorization
of micro enterprises as preventive technicians, data-intensive chains or pragmatic jumpers.
KEywoRdS
Action and Communication Strategies, Business Continuity Management, Crisis Awareness, Micro Enterprises,
Technical Dependency