Building sustainable community resilience and business preparedness through stakeholder perspective

PurposeThe paper aims to examine business and community-based organizations’ efforts to increase engagement in building resilience to violent acts of terrorism in the community. Businesses and community-based organizations are now being called upon to join the wider preparedness, response and recovery efforts in response to terrorist violence.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative approach is used to explore the study. Data collection includes observation, analysis and interviews with practitioners and local stakeholders to document lessons learnt from all perspectives. Further to understand the role of private sector business and NGOs in building resilience to violent acts of terrorism in the community, 21 businesses were selected in the two cities of Shikarpur and Sukkur in the province of Sindh in Pakistan, during a period of high stress from terrorist violence between November and December 2020.FindingsCommunity-based organizations in study areas contribute to resilience to violent acts of terrorism through making financial or material donations to local resilience to violent acts of terrorism programmes and by contributing supplies to affected people. Findings indicate that the implementation of a wide spectrum of community engagement initiatives has increased awareness of terrorist violence amongst various segments of societies.Originality/valueThe study provides a combination of practical data along with review of literature. A practical approach to the data collection from organizations operating in terrorist-ridden areas and consequently developing and implementing strategies to resilience to violent acts of terrorism in the community.