Business plays important roles in community functioning. However, disaster research has
been disproportionately focusing on units of analysis such as families, households, and
government agencies. This paper synthesizes the major findings within the business
development research field and those within the disaster research field. It constructs a
research framework for evaluating business vulnerability to natural disasters. Our
theoretical integration of the research conducted to date addresses five major issues. First,
it defines the ways in which businesses are subject to the impacts of natural disasters.
Second, it identifies the factors that determine the magnitude of business impacts after a
disaster. Third, it identifies how and when businesses will return to their pre-disaster
level in the disaster stricken community. Fourth, it outlines how business impacts interact
with other aspects of community impacts (i.e. socio-demographic impacts) of natural
disasters? Fifth, it discusses which business sectors are winners and which are losers in
response to a natural disaster in terms of how to measure business losses or gains.National Science Foundation EEC-9701785National Science Foundation CMS 0219155published or submitted for publicatio
