Convergence of crisis response strategy and source credibility: Who can you trust?

The purpose of this study was to explore how communicative responses and different sources of communication affect stakeholders’ perception of corporate reputation. The main goal was to explore the effects of crisis response strategy and source of crisis communication on organizational and speaker reputations. In a 2 × 2 scenario experiment, respondents judge corporate and speaker reputation of an imaginary organization. Apology as a strategy results in higher postcrisis reputation of both organization and speaker. However, the selection of the source has little effect on how people react to crisis response strategies. This means that a spokesperson can be as useful as a CEO which can be important if the CEO does not convey a positive presence on a screen.     

The FIFA Crisis: Examining Sponsor Response Options

A crisis not only affects the organization that engaged in the improper act, but its stakeholders as well. While there are many studies that analyse response options for the organization involved in the crisis, there is little research focusing on the strategic response of stakeholders. This article uses the crisis involving FIFA as its focus and how its sponsors, an essential stakeholder group, responded. While no companies terminated their sponsorship, sponsors did issue statements that indicated the severity of the crisis and encouraged FIFA to engage in corrective action. FIFA engaging in corrective action is the best outcome for sponsors as they can maintain their partnership and continue to accrue the promotional communication and business benefits of this sponsorship.     

Narcissism and Effective Crisis Management: A Review of Potential Problems and Pitfalls

In the event of a crisis, effective leadership by senior officials plays a significant role in an organization's attempt to return to a state of normal operation. Effectiveness, however, can be hampered by a leader's behaviour and attitude towards colleagues, and other employees within the organization. This paper explores how narcissism and narcissistic leaders may affect crisis management within an organization. Using the literature from the American Psychiatric Association, crisis management, and leadership, this paper explores how personality disorders associated with narcissism may affect the pre‐crisis, crisis, and post‐crisis stages of crisis management. The paper concludes by offering suggestions on how to handle narcissistic leaders within an organization, and areas for future research.     

Relational immunity? Examining relationship as crisis shield

This study examined the influence of a crisis on relational perceptions and the role of an empathetic response from stakeholders by investigating students’ perceptions of their relationship with a university following an on‐campus shooting. Findings show that despite the generally positive relationship, the university maintains with its students, the crisis had a negative impact on the students’ perceptions of their relationship with the university. Furthermore, results show how emotions, especially empathy, about an organization in a crisis situation can influence stakeholder relationships. This research helps provide nuance to the extant scholarship on crisis and emotions by introducing stakeholder empathy as a theoretical construct. Results also demonstrate that crisis managers who invest in relationship building before a crisis may elicit empathy more than blame in a crisis and may emerge with less relational damage.     

Transboundary crisis management under the volcano: The case of the Icelandic ash cloud

This paper discusses the intricacies of external transboundary crises, namely those cross‐border threats whose management requires coordination among EU and non‐EU countries. Specifically, it explores the extent to which European integration theories shed light on the coordination of external transboundary crisis responses by assessing the weight and role of the actor constellations involved in the civil aviation response to the 2010 Icelandic ash cloud crisis. The use of social network analysis as a methodological tool generates novel empirical evidence on the configuration of crisis management structures. The analysis shows that many EU Member States led decision‐making, whereas supranational organizations were instrumental in the coordination of the ash cloud crisis response. The centrality of these bodies contrasts with the peripheral position of most interest groups. This paper also suggests that external transboundary crises present complex management dynamics that distinguish them from generic transboundary threats. For example, the response to the ash cloud crisis was not commanded by the European Economic Area/European Free Trade Association countries where its epicentre was located. The empirical analysis was based on information extracted from a survey to experts involved in the management of this episode, as well as from ten semi‐structured elite interviews.     

Initial Crisis Agent‐Response Impact Syndrome (ICARIS)

There has been a dramatic shift in attitude among organizations regarding the probabilities of crisis occurring. Once crises were considered the domain of the contingency management team that sought the fastest means to recovery, now the entire organization is compelled to take steps intended to mitigate conditions leading to a crisis. In this paper, the authors consider the organization's ‘first responders’ i.e., those who become involuntarily placed in the decision making process because they are the first to become aware of the conditions which indicate impending crisis simply because they are ‘on scene.’ As agents of the organization, these persons will make initial decisions well before the implementation of any formal contingency plan and because their decisions will be based on incomplete assumptions, they are likely to be in error. The impact of these initial crisis‐agent responses can cause irreparable damage to the organization, to the individuals within the organization, and to the surrounding environment. This tendency toward error is referred to as the initial crisis‐agent response impact syndrome: ICARIS. Exercising a program that prepares all employees for the initial decisions that need to be made at the moment of crisis can mitigate problems related to this issue.     

Fight,Flight or Freeze: Assumed Reactions of the Public During a Crisis

This article reports on how professionals at municipal level responsible for crisis communication (N=152) in Sweden judge the probability of 10 different responses occurring among the public, among people within their own emergency organization and themselves in case of a crisis. The direct physical effects of the crisis were kept identical throughout the study, but the cause of the crisis varied over three scenarios: accidental, terrorist and unknown. The results show that there are differences between how the respondents judge the reactions of themselves, their peers and the public, and there are also differences in the three crisis presented. The respondents judged their own reactions to be more logical and rational, and less marked by fear, panic and irrationality compared with the other two groups in all three crises. Also, it was investigated what source of information the crisis communicators thought would be used most by the public. The perceived sources of information varied depending on the cause of the crisis. The merit of these assumptions and implications for crisis communication are discussed.     

What's the Problem? Local Officials' Conceptions of Weaknesses in their Municipalities' Crisis Management Capabilities

It is becoming increasingly common for local‐government officials (civil servants and political appointees) to take part in vulnerability analyses to assess their municipality's capacity to withstand various crises. The question of how such groups conceive of problems concerning their municipality's crisis management capabilities (CMC) is largely unexplored. The aim of this study is to analyse the conceptions that groups of civil servants and political appointees engaged in vulnerability analyses have of weaknesses in their organizations' CMC. The attempt is to identify themes in how problems are described, as well as to compare how often the problems may be associated with different elements that constitute an organization and the different crisis management processes an organization needs to be involved in to manage crises. Ten vulnerability analyses, conducted in seven municipalities, and in one case at a county level, are analysed. The results are discussed in terms of what they indicate concerning the understanding these officials had of the organizations' CMC.     

An Examination of Consumer–Company Identification as a Key Predictor of Consumer Responses in Corporate Crisis

Through an experiment, this study examined how varying degrees of consumer–company identification, crisis severity and different crisis response messages (i.e., two‐sided vs. one‐sided) affected consumers’ responses to corporate crisis and the crisis‐affected company. Results suggested that two‐sided response messages were more effective in reducing the attribution of crisis responsibility than one‐sided positive response messages for weak identifiers, while one‐sided positive response messages were more effective than two‐sided response messages for strong identifiers. But this message effect was only found in low but not high severity crisis. Findings of the study indicated that consumer–company identification may serve as one of the key factors in predicting consumer reactions to crisis.     

Cultivating a longitudinal learning process through recurring crisis management training exercises in twelve Swedish municipalities

This study illustrates how crisis management capability is developed in series of recurring exercises, rather than in one single exercise. Over one hundred table‐top and role‐playing exercises were performed and evaluated in a longitudinal cross‐case action research study in 12 Swedish municipalities. By consciously adapting training formats, municipalities were lead through three learning phases: obtaining role understanding (phase 1: knowing what to do), developing information management skills (phase 2: knowing how to do it), and mastering self‐reflection in regular time‐outs (phase 3: knowing when and why to do something). This final learning outcome, being able to concurrently execute, evaluate, and reorganize an ongoing crisis management performance, may be the most valuable capability of a crisis management organization when crisis strikes.     

Social media crisis management: Aligning corporate response strategies with stakeholders’ emotions online

The article focuses on how the analysis of stakeholders’ emotions online can help companies facing a social media crisis determine the response strategy that will best minimize the reputational threat. The article indeed questions the relevance of classical crisis management theory to an online environment. Results show that social media have increased the unpredictability of corporate crises. Consequently, on social media, crises cannot be addressed with the methods that have prevailed so far. Rather, incorporating emotion‐based analysis in six case studies showed how crisis analysis, and the subsequent response strategy, could be fine‐tuned. The article builds on recent literature to develop a new analytical framework for response strategies and a model for crisis resolution—the social media crisis management matrix.     

Understanding the social construction of crises: Comparing the crisis‐as‐claim model with securitization theory

Spector (2019) introduced the crisis‐as‐claim model to analyze the social construction of crises. Securitization theory offers insights that can complement this crisis‐as‐claim model. Both approaches share an interest in the crisis declarations of actors, the motivations behind such claims, and the public's evaluations of crisis claims. In addition, securitization theory helps us to understand how various actors negotiate crisis declarations, how certain practices can constitute a crisis reality, and how crisis perceptions enable the use of exceptional crisis response measures.     

Activating constructive employee behavioural responses in a crisis: Examining the effects of pre‐crisis reputation and crisis communication strategies on employee voice behaviours

This study explores how organizational management can promote employee voice behaviours, as positive behavioural reactions with constructive ideas, in responding to organizational crisis. Using an experimental study (N = 640) among full‐time employees in the United States, the study found that pre‐crisis internal reputation and crisis communication strategies—accommodative response and stealing thunder—positively and directly affected constructive employee voice behaviours in a crisis situation. Furthermore, the study revealed how post‐crisis internal reputation mediates the influences of pre‐crisis internal reputation and stealing thunder on positive/constructive and negative/destructive employee voice behaviours. The findings of this study contribute to the theoretical development of crisis communication in the internal context of an organization, especially with respect to employee voice behaviours. The study also highlights an important practical implication for crisis managers who can activate and promote positive employee behaviour voices, thereby influencing leadership's strategic decision‐making in an organizational crisis.     

An empirical study of software reuse with special attention to Ada

Over the past several decades, numerous software technologies have been developed for overcoming the software crisis. Among these technologies, reuse has been recognized as one of the most important software technologies. Recently, it has gained substantial attention as a possible solution to the software crisis in Ada and other software communities. The purpose of this empirical study is to examine how organizations actually exploit reuse technologies and evaluates how reuse factors affect the rate of reuse in an organization. This study is an attempt to enhance the measurement of the rate of reuse and the effectiveness of reuse by establishing conceptual foundations in the literature for reuse and conducting an empirical investigation of organizations using Ada technology. This study differentiated software reuse into six criteria: domain, human, tool, organization, software metrics, and environment. The results of this study show that the rate of reuse significantly depends upon reuse capability, software development effort, object-oriented design capability, repository development effort, Ada technology capability, and domain capability     

The role of IT in crisis response: Lessons from the SARS and Asian Tsunami disasters

Research on crisis management recognizes the important role of information although few studies of crisis response deal explicitly with information systems. In this paper, we present a case study of Singapore’s response to the SARS and Asian Tsunami disasters. Using the resource-based view of the firm as our theoretical lens, we examine three research questions: what IS resources are needed in crisis response, how are these IS resources bundled with other non-IS resources, and how are they effectively coordinated? Our analysis of the case suggests that existing assets such as information technology infrastructure, leadership, and collaborative networks and existing capabilities such as the ability to build and apply IT, the ability to recognize signals and the ability to see the big picture are critical during crisis response. The actions taken using these assets and capabilities include informing resolutely, gaining stakeholder commitment and agile mobilizing of people and IT. Our analysis further suggests that coordination mechanisms, namely the crisis response organizational, informational, and IT structures, are important facilitators of the response actions. The resulting framework of resource deployment during crisis response extends the resource based view of the firm into a cooperative setting, aiming to understand the nature of IS resource value in a cooperative context, and considers not just the resources per se, but the means of coordination the resources.     

Agent-oriented modeling and development of a system for crisis management

The management of crisis situations has been a challenging problem from different points of views, such as communication efficiency and avoiding casualties. This paper presents a novel approach that includes an interaction organization pattern for Multi-agent Systems (MASs) in crisis management, abstracted from several existing case studies in which the agents follow a sequence of interactions and the organization must optimize the use of human resources. The pattern considers an emergent organization of peers that adopt different roles according to the circumstances. The key features of the organization are its robustness, scalability (in terms of both agents and roles), flexibility to deal with a changing environment, and the efficient use of resources. In order to validate the organization, the paper presents its modeling and development with the Ingenias methodology, conforming the corresponding MAS. This development follows a model-driven approach, which allows a smooth transition from the specification to the code, and a low-cost testing of the system with different settings. Another key aspect is the application of metrics for validating and improving the MAS in terms of response time. The MAS has been tested with 600 agents representing 200 citizens, showing its performance.     

Crisis vs. Controversy

Communication is a response that can mitigate and even restore the damage resulting from organizational crisis. Yet what is often asserted in most of the research is that organizations are in a state of crisis and that they are indeed engaging in crisis communication. Sometimes organizations are in controversy as opposed to crisis. The distinction between controversy and crisis, in turn, has implications for the practice of communication. The current paper takes the opportunity to show the fruitful directions to be taken up based on the differences between crisis and controversy and how these differences impact organizational communication.     

Resilience and vulnerability of small flexible crisis response teams: implications for training and preparation

Following the Asian Tsunami of 2004 and during the Israel–Lebanon Crisis of 2006, Sweden sent small crisis response teams to support civilians. The small size of the teams, combined with situations that did not always play out according to expectations and plans, presented a challenge to their resilience—their ability to adapt to circumstances outside of plans made in advance. In this paper, we analyze the experiences of 14 members of Swedish field teams involved in the crises response, based on focus group discussions. We describe a cycle of preparing for role improvisation, of taking improvised roles, of working in them, and of getting out of them when they are no longer a benefit. The discussions revealed that although role improvisation was seen as necessary to get the work done, they also saw a need to manage negative side effects and vulnerabilities of role improvisation in various ways. We discuss training goals based on their experiences, to address perceived strengths and vulnerabilities of role improvisation. We also discuss factors affecting role improvisation, such as a resilience climate of shared attitudes. Our results can be useful for organizations that have or that plan to adopt flexible crisis response teams. Our results can also be of interests to a more general audience with an interest in how practices necessary for resilience can bring negative side effects, for instance, resilience loss in the organization after an initial adaptive stage.     

Expressing Compassion in the Face of Crisis: Organizational Practices in the Aftermath of the Brisbane Floods of 2011

Compassion is almost universally acknowledged as an important issue in the crisis management literature. The dominant perspective, however, approaches compassion instrumentally. The findings of this study on the compassionate support offered (or not) to employees during and after the Brisbane flood crisis of January 2011 provide insight into crisis management as a continuous process rather than a reactionary response when disaster arises. Three significant policy implications are generated: First, compassionate discourses and categorization schemas should be clearly articulated within the organization before crisis. Second, compassionate policies and practices need to be embedded in ongoing organizational routines and policies. Third, initiatives framed as compassion responses should not be assumed to necessarily create positive outcomes; rather, outcomes should be assessed on an ongoing basis.     

The Interplay of Organization Type,Organization Size,and Practitioner Role on Perceived Crisis Preparedness: A Cognitive Appraisal Approach

This study examined the perceived crisis preparedness of a random sample of public relations practitioners in the United States (N=144) as evidenced in their assessment of crisis situation and organizational resources. The main effects of organization size and practitioner role were evident on practitioner's perceived crisis preparedness in different crisis situations. Organization type was found to be effective only when it interplayed with either practitioner role or organization size.