Rebounding from disruptive events : business recovery following the Northridge earthquake.

"An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the North Central Sociological Association, Cincinnati, Ohio, April, 1996"

Bibliography: p. 20-27

Although the long-term effects of disasters and the factors that affect the ability to recover have received increasing attention from social science researchers, little systematic research has been conducted on recovery processes and outcomes. For example, the processes and outcomes associated with the recovery of private businesses have almost never been addressed in the disaster recovery literature. This paper attempts to fill a void in the literature by exploring the determinants of recovery within the private sector. A model of business disaster recovery is developed by drawing from existing research on disaster recovery and organizational survival in non-disaster contexts. Analyses are conducted on a stratified random sample of 1110 Los Angeles and Santa Monica firms impactd by the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Findings show that business size, disruption of business operations due to the earthquake, earthquake shaking intensity, and the utilization of post-disaster aid are all related to business recovery. Policy, theory, and future research implications are discussed