Browsing by Author "Cox, Zachary"
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Item Beyond Keifer Sutherland’s Designated Survivor, Recovering Washington, D.C.: An Examination of the District of Columbia’s Recovery Plan(Biden School of Public Policy and Administration, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, 2020) Cox, ZacharyThe popular imagination, as exhibited by the television show Designated Survivor, constructs disaster recovery as a process performed by omnipotent government agents who guide action in ways that are comprehensive, fair, and efficient. However, as the National Disaster Recovery Plan and the District of Columbia Recovery Plan demonstrate, there is little understanding of the processes required to recover from a disaster. This paper examines the Plan for the District of Columbia’s Economic Recovery from disaster and proposes recommendations that could more easily streamline the planning and recovery of disaster in Washington, DC.Item Business continuity as entrepreneurship(University of Delaware, 2022) Cox, ZacharySmall organizations, including businesses and non-profits, serve as the economic engines of their communities, offering jobs to employees, fulfilling critical economic needs, and making space for people to experience public life. COVID-19 disrupted this critical role as organizations waded into uncharted waters. As a result, tough decisions had to be made about how to perform work in entirely new ways. This dissertation explored how the owners, managers, and employees of small organizations performed business continuity as entrepreneurship to survive and create new opportunities for themselves and the community. Instead of lamenting the lack of preparedness among small organizations, this project investigated how small organizations survived the pandemic in three ways: through “business continuity”, “internal reflection”, and “external adaptation.” Business continuity encompassed activities that an organization employed to preserve its value. Under review were the pre-disaster context, existing capacities, and just-in-time planning. Internal reflection went beyond these actions to explore how small organizations reimagined their procedures, updating the organization to match the owner's vision. This process began with vision-planning and included receiving loans, grants, and aid to enable working from home, upskilling employees, forming new relationships with peers, and, perhaps, winding down. Finally, external adaptation consisted of those activities that a small organization could engage in to meet new community needs. These included occupying a central location in the community, engaging in philanthropy, and acting entrepreneurially.Item Managing disaster risk associated with critical infrastructure systems: a system-level conceptual framework for research and policy guidance(Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems, 2022-04-25) Davidson, Rachel A.; Kendra, James; Ewing, Bradley; Nozick, Linda K.; Starbird, Kate; Cox, Zachary; Leon-Corwin, MaggieThis paper presents a new conceptual framework of the disaster risk of critical infrastructure systems in terms of societal impacts. Much research on infrastructure reliability focuses on specific issues related to the technical system or human coping. Focusing on the end goal of infrastructure services – societal functioning – this framework offers a new way to understand how those more focused research areas connect and the current thinking in each. Following an overview of the framework, each component is discussed in turn, including the initial buildout of physical systems; event occurrence; service interruptions; service provider response; user adaptations to preserve or create needed services; and the ending deficit in societal function. Possible uses of the framework include catalysing and guiding a systematic research agenda that could ultimately lead to a computational framework and stimulating discussion on resilience within utility and emergency management organisations and the larger community.