Integrating the Crisis Management Perspective into the Strategic Management Process

Abstract

The fields of strategic management and crisis management have been evolving separately despite their potential for synergistic integration. This paper explicates how adding crisis management's defensive/preventative capability to strategic management's offensive market positioning orientation can yield a more comprehensive approach to the strategic management of organizations. The traditional strategic management process is reviewed first and then analysed with respect to the gap that exists in this orientation. Examining the differences and similarities in perspectives between strategic management and crisis management and then reviewing the crisis management process provides a basis to proceed with a synthesis of the two fields. The paper concludes with the presentation of a new integrated strategic management process model that pushes forward the boundaries of strategic management and internalizes crisis management activities into that process.