Marketing flood risk adaptation to small businesses and households

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Time: 4.00pm - 6.00pm
Venue: Room 322, Kingston Business School, Kingston Hill campus, Kingston Hill, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT2 7LB
Price: free
Speaker(s): Dr Tim Harris

Dr Tim Harris is a senior research fellow in the Strategy, Marketing & Entrepreneurship department at Kingston Business School and is deputy-director of the Behaviour and Planning Research Group. He is responsible for Kingston's contribution to a three-year EPSRC project researching small businesses and flood risk adaptation. Tim has extensively researched householder responses to flood risk, the impacts of digital feedback on electricity consumption and active lifestyles and the factors influencing the self-management of type-1 diabetes amongst adolescents.

In this seminar Tim will demonstrate what can be done to promote resilience to flooding amongst the UK's small businesses and households. As illustrated by the floods of 1998, 2000, 2007, 2012 and 2013-14, flood risk continues to grow in the UK. However, insurers are becoming less willing to provide cover in high risk areas and governments are increasingly arguing that responsibility for managing that risk lies not only with the state but also, or even primarily, with those affected. In spite of this, relatively few businesses and households in flood risk areas take proactive steps to reduce the business interruption, damage and disruption of a future flood. Reflecting on ongoing research with businesses in Swindon, Tyne & Wear, Tewkesbury and Sheffield, and on previous work elsewhere, this paper asks how small businesses and households react after a flood, in what circumstances they take adaptive measures and how more adaptation can be fostered. Contrasting small businesses to households, it will also ask in what circumstances responses to flood risk are either problem focused (addressing practical considerations such as finance) or emotion focused (addressing emotional considerations such as anxiety) and, for small businesses, how this is influenced by the business context, the entrepreneurial personality and the distinction between 'home' and 'work'.

For further information about this event:

Contact: Jaywant Singh
Tel: 020 8417 5158
Email: j.singh@kingston.ac.uk