Building resilience through the application of an incident management methodology : a Singaporean context

The anticipated catastrophic effects of the Year 2000 Millennium (Y2K) computer bug had far-reaching effects, despite the fear being eventually unfounded. It demonstrated the potential vulnerability of reliance on computers. This recognition sparked massive waves of planning and preparation, giving rise to resilience as a new emerging strategic capability for enterprises and governments alike. Thus, we have seen an increased focus by business leaders and academics on business continuity and recovery management (BCRM), corporate crisis and emergency management (CCEM), and enterprise risk and resource management (ERRM) to overcome disruptions due to natural and human-made incidents affecting business operations (Hamel & Valikangas, 2003; Smith, 2003; Sheffi, 2005). As the search to enhance the resilience of organizations continues, there has been an increasing interest in incident management (IM) and an IM methodology (Barney & Hesterly, 2010; Zhang & McMurray, 2013), which is the focus of this study. Given limited research in the area of IM methodology, the objective of the study was to understand ‘how and why’ enterprises apply the IM methodology the way they do, and elicit the ‘need and want’ functions of their desired methodology. A qualitative case study methodology with a collective, descriptive, and exploratory approach was used to answer the research question (Yin, 1994), ‘What are the elements that drive the application of IM methodology in enterprises in Singapore?’ A questionnaire was used to draw out participants’ perceived roles with respect to the associated dimensions. This was followed by in-depth interviews to elicit the needed and wanted functions of the IM methodology through the respondents’ experiences. A total of 102 respondents took part in the questionnaire and interview given their role in IM. The data and findings were triangulated with enterprise documents, field observation of a mega-IM exercise, and a focus group discussion comprising IM practitioners (Sekaran & Bougie, 2013). The research study contributes three key findings to knowledge and the extant literature: the incident management body of knowledge (IMBOK) competency framework; the adaptive IM methodology (AIMM); and the IM system architecture and focal points