Construction companies face a number of operational risks in their projects, ranging from the risks of changing weather conditions, to the problem of insufficiently skilled staff (Cohen & Palmer, 2004). It is essential to ensure that all of these risks are effectively identified and controlled by the risk management division. This dissertation conducts a case study of a construction company in Saudi Arabia, the Al Thuwairat Construction Company, which aims to evaluate the extent to which the company’s model of business continuity management is effective at managing operational risk. The research has been carried out based on a mixture of secondary research, a survey conducted with the company’s employees, and semi structured interviewees with people working in the company’s risk management division, in order to explore this research issue. The findings of the research suggest that, although the company’s operational risk management is effective given that it controls many of the risks with the use of legal contracts, it engages in the systematic identification of risks at the beginning of projects, and it also uses the expertise of a range of personnel who are skilled in risk identification and measurement, there are also many weaknesses. These include the fact that there is no systematic methodology for assessing the effectiveness of risk management, and that there is a lack of communication between the risk management division and the rest of the organization. A series of practical recommendations are made in the dissertation to increase the effectiveness of risk management within this company and in companies in the construction industry in general.
Keywords: Al-Thuwairat, Business, Continuity .Management, Risk
