Corporate Contributions to Community Resilience: Structuring the Concept of “Gyo-jyo” ‐ Focusing on the Recovery and Revitalization Period of the Great East Japan Earthquake

A research team is working to underline the crucial role of corporations in supporting community resilience. In its project, the group is proposing a novel concept called ‘Gyo-Jyo’, which means ‘corporate contribution to community resilience’. The goal is to develop and implement improved strategies by exploring the role that organisations of different sizes play in disaster recovery. The proposed strategies will help communities to recover quickly and effectively and limit the damage caused by disasters. The research team is headed up by Associate Professor Rui Fukumoto. Based within the Department of Architecture and Environmental Design at the Nagaoka Institute of Design in Japan. Fukumoto’s assumption that large companies would take the lead in local recovery efforts was turned on its head when he discovered, first hand, that the on the ground presence of these companies was lacking. Instead, these companies focused on ensuring their production lines and supply chains remained functional, which was accepted by local residents who assumed the long-term stability of a large employer could benefit the entire region through sustained employment opportunities. In conversations with the companies one year post-disaster, Fukumoto discovered that their motivation in continuing operations and reestablishing a viable production system was supporting local employment and overall recovery in the mid to long term. For Fukumoto, this highlighted that there is no one-size-fits-all model of disaster relief for corporate companies. He believes that understanding diverse strategies and their rationale will help shed light on the complex relationship between corporate scale, disaster response and community resilience.