The Crisis Management Practices of Australian Construction Companies

Abstract

Recent world events in the international relations arena and the subsequent knock-on affect on the insurance industry, have sent shock-waves through Australia’s business community,elevating crisis management to the top of the managerial agenda. This paperpresents the findings of exploratory research, which investigated the crisis managementpractices of construction companies. Using a diagnostic model of crisis preparednesswhich has been developed and tested across a broad range of industries, it concludes thatif the sample surveyed is typical, then crisis planning is rudimentary and undertaken in aninsular, informal, fragmented fashion, supported by few resources and little strategicguidance. Consequently, many construction companies will have an inadequate understandingof their crisis exposure, of how to cope with crises when they happen and of howto learn and recover from their aftermath.