The Role of Essential Businesses in Whole-of-Society Resilience to Disruption
梳理了“全社会韧性”这一政策概念，聚焦关键企业在保障弱势群体基本服务中的角色，提出定义和框架，并探讨政策落实中的挑战。
“Whole-of-society resilience” articulates a new multilevel policy ambition on resilience to disruption. The term is intuitive, appears incontestable, and places a new prominence on businesses by allocating them new obligations to enhance local resilience. However, a lack of conceptual clarity and a gap between policy expectations and business delivery problematizes operationalization of the term. This vagueness obscures how the policy is translated to assure businesses’ own continuity as well as the resilience of their external environment. These issues are particularly critical for businesses that deliver essential services to people who are disproportionately vulnerable to a disruption (e.g., people with chronic health issues). To explore the implications of this new expectation, we review scholarly and policy literature to identify the role of these “essential businesses” in operationalizing whole-of-society resilience to disruption. We propose a definition for whole-of-society resilience to disruption and discuss how, and for whom, essential businesses can be involved in its operationalization. We present a framework to outline how essential businesses target society’s essential needs and mobilize support to help society adapt and advance in changing environments. We explain the implications for essential businesses, challenge the operational value of “whole-of,” and uncover implications for policy.