A study on perceived effectiveness of business continuity planning

Continuous availability of and instantaneous access to information is now more crucial than ever. Companies establish and run business continuity initiatives to fulfil these requirements.This doctoral thesis builds and tests a theoretical model that reveals the effectiveness of business continuity planning (BCP) as perceived by managers and BCP contributors in selected companies in Turkey. This is achieved through literature review, interviews with corporate managers, and a questionnaire survey on specified organizations' business continuity planning structures and status.During the comprehensive literature survey conducted for this study, early empirical studies also were investigated. Nevertheless no readily developed models on continuity management, which we could use in this study, could be found. We, therefore, made an effort to develop a three staged model with the support of a principle flow designed by Dr. Akhtar Syed and Afsar Syed in 2004. Each of the three stages, designed as Business Assessment, Prevention and Remediation, and Upgrade stages, was elaborated with two sub-stages in order to provide depth. Based on this structure, three main hypotheses, with ten supporting sub-hypotheses, were developed.In order to obtain preliminary information about BCP process in organizations, some interviews were conducted with top and senior managers in different organizations. Those interviews were used as a pilot study providing the initial data on the subject. With the support of this pilot study, a questionnaire of 54 questions, supported with 14 demographic questions, was developed. Using SPSS, main and sub-stages of the model as well as both main and sub-hypotheses of the model were analyzed. The findings confirmed some of the proposed relationships; while the unsubstantiated ones eliminated and removed from the model.Finally, conclusions are presented together with a reference to the limitations of the study, implications for the managers, and recommendations for the future research. Based on the research findings, three stages of the model and their flow are verified. The three stage model developed for this study thus has potential to elevate the levels of organizational BCP effectiveness as perceived by managers and BCP contributors.