Organizational Crisis Research Articles

Optimizing the Organizational Crisis Communication Portfolio

Organizational reputation can be seriously damaged after a self-inflicted or externally induced crisis. Studies have tested the restoring and protective effects of various crisis communication strategies. For this paper, we compared the effects on organizational reputation dependent on (a) crisis type and (b) crisis communication strategy used. We combined six strategies in a stepwise manner, showing which ones are most effective in which type of crisis in an experimental online setting. Respondents were randomly assigned to questionnaires with varying combinations of (b) in a different sequence of (a) rating the organization for three points in time. Using a diverse sample, we show that organizational reputation improves significantly only after combining at least five strategies.

Care in Hard Times from the Perspective of Elderly Care Workers

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has deepened and reshaped the care crisis both on personal and organizational levels. The study aims at answering how and in what form the symptoms of the care crisis appear in elderly care, which is one of the most important but undervalued fields of professional care. The focus of the study lies on what additional burdens the primarily female employees bear due to performing both paid and reproductive labor at the same time. The primary focus of the qualitative case study, conducted in the summer of 2020 and the spring of 2021, was to explore the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The preliminary assumption is that the measures to curb the pandemic exacerbated the pre-existing organizational crisis and made it even more visible. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted in a mid-sized town located in the Southern Great Plain in Hungary with the key stakeholders of care management: heads of institutions and mostly middle managers in coordinating roles. In the second phase of the study, focus group interviews were conducted with non-executive carer workers. The purpose of the interviews was to explore their personal perceptions and narratives of care.

Provide a Comprehensive and Ambidextrous Model for the Typology of Response Strategies to Organizational Crises

هدف: با توجه به آسیب‌پذیری سازمان­ها در برابر عدم قطعیت‌های محیطی، هیچ سازمانی از بحران مصون نیست. بنابراین آسیب­های ناشی از بحران را می‌توان با اتخاذ استراتژی­های صحیح، به حداقل رساند. ازاین‌رو هدف اصلی پژوهش حاضر ارائه الگویی جامع و دوسوتوان برای گونه‌شناسی راهبردهای پاسخ به بحران­های سازمانی است.طراحی/ روش‌شناسی/ رویکرد: برای دستیابی به هدف اصلی پژوهش از روش فراترکیب هفت مرحله­ای سندلوسکی و باروسو (2006) استفاده شد. از این‌رو تمامی مقالات مرتبط با هدف پژوهش در پایگاه داده اسکوپوس در بازه 2010 الی 2021 مورد جست­و­جو قرارگرفته و 678 مقاله یافت شد که پس از بررسی و غربال آن­ها بر اساس عنوان، چکیده، محتوا و کیفیت در نهایت 61 مقاله امتیاز لازم را جهت استخراج شاخص­ها کسب نمودند.یافته‌های پژوهش: پس از تجزیه­وتحلیل داده­ها، 59 شاخص استخراج گردید که این شاخص­ها در نهایت در 4 گونه‌شناسی راهبردی (تهاجمی، تدافعی، تحلیلگر و واکنشی) دسته­بندی شدند.محدودیت‌ها و پیامدها: پژوهش حاضر مقالات علمی-پژوهشی انگلیسی زبان را بررسی کرده است. پژوهش­های آتی می­توانند مقالات فارسی زبان و سایر اسناد نظیر کتاب­ها، مقالات کنفرانسی و... را نیز بررسی کنند.پیامدهای عملی: ایجاد تعادل نزدیک‌تر بین اکتشاف و بهره‌برداری، سازمان را قادر می‌سازد تا از خطر انقراض یا خطر عدم تطبیق با محیط‌های بحرانی اجتناب کند، یا حداقل آن را بهتر مدیریت کند. همچنین شرکت‌هایی که هم‌زمان فعالیت‌های اکتشافی و بهره­بردارانه را دنبال می‌کنند می‌توانند در مقایسه با شرکت‌هایی که بر یکی به قیمت دیگری تمرکز می‌کنند به عملکرد برتر در بحران­ها دست یابند.ابتکار یا ارزش مقاله: پژوهش حاضر یک گونه‌شناسی از استراتژی­های مقابله با بحران را به‌عنوان توصیه­هایی برای مدیران و رهبران سازمان­ها ارائه می­دهد که می­تواند به‌صورت استراتژیک به کاهش اثرات منفی و مدیریت بحران کمک کند.نوع مقاله: پژوهشی

Social Media and Organizational Crisis Management: The use of Facebook by Ghanaian Senior High Schools to Manage Fire Outbreaks

Communication plays an important role in the successful operation of organizations. During crises, the survival of these organizations highly depends on its response structure. This study delved into how social media and Web 2.0 technologies like Facebook are used to manage the effects of fire outbreaks in Senior High Schools in Ghana, using Saint Charles Senior High School as a case study. The study sought to ascertain the knowledge respondents have on the use of Facebook, and the challenges they encounter, in managing and responding to fire outbreaks. The study also proposed the reinforcement and integration of Facebook in the school’s crisis response. The study adopted the mixed method approach to obtain information through the use of key interview guides and personal interviews. From the survey, 31.1 % of respondents stated that the impact of the use of Facebook in communicating the fire outbreak was satisfactory. Another 31.1 % of the respondents said the impact was effective and 26.7 % said the impact was weak. The last 11.1 % of the respondents said that its impact was very effective. Generally, 88.9 % were of the view that the use of Facebook did not pose any challenge in managing the crisis while 11.1 % of the respondents thought it posed some challenges. The study recommended that the school should create accounts on other platforms so they can be easily accessible. The study advocated for the review of Ghana Education Service’s (GES) policies on banning the use of mobile phones in schools as this would help inform students of fire safety precautions. Finally, it was recommended that the school should use quality electrical wires and appliances. Policy regulations for building wiring should be reinforced by Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo) and Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) as this would help reduce fire outbreaks.

A retrospective study of knowledge management for integrated resorts (IRs) crisis preparedness

PurposeThis study aims to propose a systematic knowledge management model to explore the causal links leading to the organizational crisis preparedness (OCP) level of integrated resorts (IRs) during the COVID-19 pandemic based on the intangible capital of organizational climate, dynamic capability, substantive capability and commitment.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use data obtained from IRs in Macau. The Wuli–Shili–Renli (WSR) approach underpins the study. Structural equation modeling following fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was used for data processing.FindingsThe results showed that organizational climate has an essential role in IRs preparedness for crises and affects their dynamic capacity, substantive capacity and commitment. The fsQCA results revealed that the relationships between conditions with a higher level of dynamic and substantive capability lead to higher OCP scores.Practical implicationsExecutives should develop systemic thinking regarding organization preparedness in IRs for crisis management. A comprehensive understanding of the IRs’ business environment and crises is necessary, as they will require different factor constellations to allow the organization to perform well in a crisis. Financial support for employees could ensure their assistance when dealing with such situations. Rapid response teams should be set up for daily operations and marketing implementation of each level of the IRs management systems.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the extant literature on IRs crisis management in the OCP aspect. The authors constructed a systematic composite picture of organization executives’ knowledge management through the three layers of intangible capitals in WSR. Moreover, the authors explored causal links of WSR from symmetric and asymmetric perspectives.

Social Media and Organizational Crisis Management: The use of Facebook by Ghanaian Senior High Schools to Manage Fire Outbreaks

Social Media and Organizational Crisis Management: The use of Facebook by Ghanaian Senior High Schools to Manage Fire Outbreaks

Traversing the storm: An interdisciplinary review of crisis leadership

An organizational crisis is a low-probability, high-impact event that threatens the survival of organizations and individuals, often with little warning. In response, people seek clarity, reassurance, and hope from organizational leaders. Yet, crises also vary in nature and impact (e.g., a product failure versus the COVID-19 pandemic), which presents diverse challenges to leaders and differing stakeholder perceptions. Based on a critical analysis of 69 empirical articles, we provide a comprehensive, systematic, interdisciplinary review of the crisis leadership literature. Our review utilizes the Coombs and Holladay (1996) crisis typology, where crises are categorized according to mutually exclusive attributional dimensions (i.e., internal–external and intentional–unintentional). We conduct a thematic analysis of crisis leadership within and across these four crisis categories and find that each is associated with a different leadership theme. We also examine the methodological quality and rigor of the qualitative and quantitative articles in our review. Based on our findings, we also offer suggestions to guide future crisis leadership research, and provide guidance for organizational leaders in how to respond to various crises.

Situational Crisis Communication Theory and the National Football League: A Case Study of the NFL’s Response Strategies to Its Concussion Crisis

This case study analyzes the crisis response strategies used by the National Football League (NFL) in its external communications to address the concussion crisis spanning 2015–2020. The analysis focuses on describing the crisis communication strategies and tactics used by the league. Situational crisis communication theory provides the theoretical framework for analyzing the NFL’s crisis response strategies. A qualitative thematic analysis was conducted of 25 publications published by the NFL on nflcommunications.com, with findings indicating that the NFL focused on the primary crisis strategies of rebuilding and diminishing while employing tactics such as organizational change and shared responsibility. The findings revealed in this case study also highlight a discrepancy between the theoretical ground of situational crisis communication theory and the application of crisis response strategies in a real-life organizational crisis facing a professional sports league.

Leading in the Paradoxical World of Crises: How Leaders Navigate Through Crises

Living and operating in a global world, the risk for a global economic crisis has never been greater. As ongoing events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the recent war in Ukraine or the sharply increasing inflation have shown, organizations need to be highly resilient to persevere in a crisis-prone world. Even though we know that crises serve as a focal lens on leadership behavior and leaders play a crucial role in these scenarios, little is known as to how leaders handle an existence-threatening organizational crisis. Using an inductive analysis of 32 interviews on crisis leadership, we show that in the case of an acute crisis, leaders apply different paradoxical behaviors to cope effectively with the situation and navigate their organizations through these events. More specifically, our study contributes to existing literature by, first, showing that the distinctiveness of crises results from the fact that leaders are confronted with paradoxes that they can otherwise smoothly separate in terms of time or organization, second, revealing that the leader’s paradoxical behaviors as a respond are derived from their mindset to consciously recognize the contradictory demands of the crisis, and third, from their action in terms of a compressed situational leadership. By identifying six pairs of paradoxical behaviors, we demonstrate how leaders effectively deal with the unsolvable contradictions that arise from the crisis, and thus contribute to the organizations’ ability to cope with crises.

A Study of John 21:15-17: Toward a Shepherd Model of Christian Ministry

Leadership is one of the key challenges facing the contemporary society despite many seminars, conferences and workshops organized on this subject. The political crises in many organizations and societies are the result of poor leadership. The subject of leadership is so important that no amount of scholarship dedicated to it can be considered too much. In a predominantly Christian society like Africa (and some other parts of the world) many people look up to Christianity to offer a leadership model that can promote quality leadership. The purpose of this paper is to provide biblical principles for leadership through a textual analysis of John 21:15-17. A literature-research methodology was used to gather data from books, journal articles and dissertations. A key finding is that shepherd leaders must show deep concern, compassion, acceptance and empathy for their followers in order to heal, sustain, nurture, and empower them. The paper ends with implications of the shepherding model of leadership for contemporary Christian ministry. Keywords: Christ, Christian, Leadership, Shepherd

A CEO’s Future Temporal Depth and Organizational Resilience

Scholars have long investigated the organizational antecedents of resilience, but less is known about CEO-level antecedents. This is surprising, since upper echelons research suggests that a CEO influences major firm decisions. Addressing this gap in our knowledge, we suggest that a CEO prepares for and adjusts to unexpected events in the environment on the basis of the individual future temporal depth (FTD). It reflects the temporal distance into the future that a CEO usually takes into consideration when contemplating future events. Our study of CEOs of 462 S&P500 firms during the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic shows that a CEO’s longer FTD is associated with less severe economic losses but with a longer recovery time from adversity. If such a CEO can draw on a functionally diverse TMT, the losses are less severe, while prior organizational crisis experience reduces the recovery time. Our paper contributes to organizational resilience research by uncovering its cognitive underpinnings and offering a contextual learning perspective on organizational resilience. We also contribute to upper echelons research by unveiling a CEO’s role in preparing for and adjusting to adversity.

Crisis-as-practice: Conceptualizing the role of everyday work practices in crisis management

Although research on organizational crisis management is vast, it is sometimes insubstantial, particularly in understanding how an organization's routine practices are utilized in crisis management. This article presents a conceptual framework of crisis-as-practice to complement the ‘traditional’ crisis-as-event and crisis-as-process perspectives of crisis management research. By turning to practice theory, it is possible to emphasize the importance of apprehending crisis management as an accomplishment shaped by socially shared practices routinely performed in organizations. This article outlines a framework based on two theoretical constructs: (1) the three-element model of practice, and (2) the distinction between integrative and dispersed practices revealing crisis management capabilities generally invisible in other research. The article concludes with a discussion of how the practice-based framework can widen the understanding of what crisis management is, who is viewed as a crisis manager, what crisis managers do, and what can be grasped through an analysis of crisis managers and their practices.

Buffer or Backfire? Effects of Corporate Social Responsibility Activities in Organizational Crises

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities can help an organization to build a favorable reputation; such activities can thereby serve as a buffer in times of crisis. However, research also suggests that these activities can backfire and reinforce the reputational damage caused by a crisis because they can lead to elevated expectations among the stakeholders. Drawing on prior research on buffering and backfire effects, this study examines the possible moderating effects of crisis type and severity. Two experiments show that CSR activities positively affect the perceptions of a company’s affective image. In times of crisis, this image boost indeed serves as a buffer in a victim crisis and in a preventable crisis (contrary to our expectations). However, in the case of a very severe crisis, CSR activities can also backfire and a company that engages in CSR activities matching the field of the corporate crisis is perceived more negatively.

Emotional Crisis Communication: The Effects of CEO’s Expression of Guilt and Anger on Organizational Reputation

ABSTRACT Organizational crises are emotionally-charged occurrences for both organizations and their stakeholders. There has been a growing body of research on the effects of emotions on organizational outcomes such as reputation, forgiveness, and negative word-of-mouth. The current study seeks to contribute to this growing body of research in emotional crisis communication by investigating the role of discrete emotions in a crisis, and the effects of such emotions on organizational reputation. Additionally, the current study seeks to investigate whether the effect of emotional expression depends on the crisis response strategy adopted. A between-subjects three (communicated emotion; anger vs. guilt vs. no emotion) × two (response strategy: rebuilding vs. denial) experiment was designed with 922 participants. The findings show that, in the context of a severe crisis, rebuilding strategies result in a more positive organizational reputation than denial strategies and that guilt was superior to anger regardless of response type. The implications of the study on organizational reputation and crisis management are discussed.

Spurring innovation through intentional organizational crisis: the moderating effects of past performance and resources allocation capability

PurposeHow to promote innovation remains a challenge. In practice, some enterprises try to initiate an organizational crisis intentionally to spur innovation. This study approaches this practice and aims to explore the role of intentional organizational crisis in innovation.Design/methodology/approachThis study conducted an empirical study. Data was collected from 297 companies in China by a questionnaire survey.FindingsResults show the role of intentional organizational crisis in innovation. There is a U-shaped relationship between intentional organizational crisis and product innovation capability. Past performance and resources allocation capability moderate this relationship by weakening the impact of intentional organizational crisis on product innovation capability.Originality/valueThis study highlights the light and dark sides of intentional organizational crisis and explores its impact on innovation capability, providing some implications for practitioners to use crises as shocks to spur innovation and enriching the research of organizational crisis and innovation capability.

Evolutionary dynamics of transnational private regulation

ABSTRACT This article puts forward an approach to account for the evolution of transnational private rule-makers. Morphing of organisations, procedures, and rules is suggested as a key strength of various forms of private authority. Directing attention towards evolutionary dynamics, and their impact on the goals pursued by transnational private regulators, as well as on the implications for targets and beneficiaries of their rules, brings forward various implications of transnational private regulators. These implications include tensions between the complementary and competitive relations between public and private authority, and question the capacity of the former to effectively enrol, steer and influence the latter. The article discusses the role of regulatory and organisational crises as catalysts for the emergence and evolution of transnational private rule-makers, and how crises affect the relation between public and private regimes. Finally, we reflect on possible competitive challenges that emerge by employing a dynamic perspective to transnational private regulation.

Independence without purpose? Macroprudential regulation at the Bundesbank

It is commonly assumed that state agencies legitimize themselves via outputs. This paper shows that in situations of organizational crisis, state agencies may adopt new policy areas symbolically to compensate for lost legitimacy. Drawing on an ethnography within the Bundesbank, internal documents, and insider interviews, I trace how the German Bundesbank adopted financial stability as a policy area to compensate for the loss of monetary policy and banking supervision in the early 2000s. By focusing on the relationship between internal organizational struggles over the Bundesbank’s identity and the boundary work it has to conduct to establish its new role, I show that the Bundesbank failed to shift the state-economy boundary post-crisis in its effort to regain its position as autonomous purveyor of macroeconomic governance.

The impact of digital leadership in the effectiveness of organizational crisis management by mediating strategic vigilance

The current research aims to verify the impact of digital leadership as an independent variable, in the effectiveness of crisis management as a response variable through centralizing strategic vigilance in the faculties of the University of Baghdad and its departments, and to investigate the level of interest of its leaders and subordinates in research variables, as well as coming up with recommendations that contribute to strengthening the practices of the three variables. In the university under study, and based on the researcher’s interest to diagnose the influence relationship between the variables, because of their importance in the university’s headquarters and its members on the one hand, and its reflection on society on the other hand, the descriptive exploratory approach was adopted in completing the chapters and sections of the current research, as the research community included university colleges Baghdad, consisting of (24) colleges, the researcher targeted a sample of (160) views that included(Dean, Associate Dean, Head of Department)By adopting the questionnaire that included (57) paragraphs, personal interviews, and field inspection to enhance the practical aspect, while the researcher used statistical programs

Organizational resilience through techno-structural interventions: case of an Indian wealth management firm

PurposeThe purpose of the current study is to examine organizational crisis and the role of tech-structural interventions in overcoming the crisis to achieve resilience. Developing resilience in organizations has become imperative for managers in the never-ending turbulent environment and concerns toward pleasing the stakeholders. Organizations have begun to rely on techno-structural and human process change interventions to attain resilient organizations. Although such strategies are widely prevalent in organizational change literature and can be traced back to the 1970s, scholarly research on the process that develops resilient organizations is limited and also absent in the context of developing economies.Design/methodology/approachThis study uncovered the process of change interventions (primarily techno-structural interventions) at a wealth management firm in India, adopting a case study approach.FindingsAccording to the findings, change interventions through techno-structural interventions aided in the transformation of a precarious organization into a resilient one.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper provides vital practical implications about the role of techno-structural change interventions in reshaping an organization into a more viable business, making the organization resilient to deal with untimely disruptions in the environment.Originality/valueVery limited research has been done to understand the stakeholder’s management and resilience in the context of financial consulting firms in the emerging market context.

Zoom in and zoom out the glocalized network: when transnationalism meets geopolitics and technopolitics

ABSTRACT Drawing on theories on transnationalism and organizational crisis communication, this research uses the lens of glocalized networks with both global and local connections to examine how Zoom, as a transnational tech firm, responds to geopolitics and technopolitics during the volatile times of a global pandemic. Based on digital, text, and video data, corporate documents, media interviews, and coverage, the research traces Zoom's trajectory before and during the pandemic. I first describe how glocalized networks enabled Zoom's birth and growth, especially taking advantage of cross-border talent flow and fundraising. Second, I assess how the same glocalized networks become a liability, forcing the firm to zoom in and out along the hardening physical and digital borders, due to shifting geopolitics and technopolitics in and between the United States and China. Results shed light on the transnational logics shaping Zoom's network reconfiguration to defend and restore its image that has been threatened by national security accusations.