Abstract:
In developing countries bounded by traditional approaches of
disaster management, post-disaster policies may not lead to
resilience at aggregate level. Turkey exemplifies the case with
its experience in the 1999 Izmit earthquake. The policies
applied following the 1999 trajectory to create a safer built
environment incorporated resettlement and reconstruction
efforts, yet businesses were largely unregulated by local and
national governments during the recovery process which
leads to development of their own adaptive strategies to
survive after the disaster. This paper aims to analyse the
adaptation strategies of private enterprises in the face of
disasters. In this respect, a case study research was
undertaken in Adapazari, Turkey to inquire their adaptive
strategies after the disaster with respect to the independent
variables of business size and occupancy status. This paper
contributes to the field of disaster studies by showing
businesses’ adaptive capacities that enable them to survive
following a disaster. The key findings of this study present that
businesses adapt for survival after a natural disaster in
accordance with their business size and occupancy status.
Although small firms and lease-holder firms challenge with
organizational and financial problems, they are able to
develop locational strategies which increase their survival
change and adaptability against their larger and owner
occupied counterparts.
