Crisis Communication 9783110554236, 9783110552287

Citation preview

Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen (Eds.) Crisis Communication

Handbooks of Communication Science

Edited by Peter J. Schulz and Paul Cobley Advisory Board Klaus Bruhn Jensen (University of Copenhagen) Min-Sun Kim (University of Hawaii at Manoa) Denis McQuail † (University of Southampton) Katherine I. Miller (Arizona State University) Daniel O’Keefe (Northwestern University) Frans H. van Eemeren (University Amsterdam) Jürgen Wilke (Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz)

Volume 23

Crisis Communication

Edited by Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

The publication of this series has been partly funded by the Università della Svizzera italiana – ­University of Lugano.

ISBN 978-3-11-055228-7 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-055423-6 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-055252-2 ISSN 2199-6288 Library of Congress Control Number: 2020935641 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2020 Walter de Gruyter Inc., Boston/Berlin Cover image: Oliver Rossi/Photographer’s Choice RF/Gettyimages Typesetting: Dörlemann Satz, Lemförde Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Preface to Handbooks of Communication Science series This volume is part of the series Handbooks of Communication Science, published from 2012 onwards by de Gruyter Mouton. When our generation of scholars was in their undergraduate years, and one happened to be studying communication, a series like this one was hard to imagine. There was, in fact, such a dearth of basic and reference literature that trying to make one’s way in communication studies as our generation did would be unimaginable to today’s undergraduates in the field. In truth, there was simply nothing much to turn to when you needed to cast a first glance at the key objects in the field of communication. The situation in the United States was slightly different; nevertheless, it is only within the last generation that the basic literature has really proliferated there. What one did when looking for an overview or just a quick reference was to turn to social science books in general, or to the handbooks or textbooks from the neighbouring disciplines such as psychology, sociology, political science, linguistics, and probably other fields. That situation has changed dramatically. There are more textbooks available on some subjects than even the most industrious undergraduate can read. The representative key multi-volume International Encyclopedia of Communication has now been available for some years. Overviews of subfields of communication exist in abundance. There is no longer a dearth for the curious undergraduate, who might nevertheless overlook the abundance of printed material and Google whatever he or she wants to know, to find a suitable Wikipedia entry within seconds. ‘Overview literature’ in an academic discipline serves to draw a balance. There has been a demand and a necessity to draw that balance in the field of communication and it is an indicator of the maturing of the discipline. Our project of a multi-volume series of Handbooks of Communication Science is a part of this coming-of-age movement of the field. It is certainly one of the largest endeavours of its kind within communication sciences, with almost two dozen volumes already planned. But it is also unique in its combination of several things. The series is a major publishing venture which aims to offer a portrait of the current state of the art in the study of communication. But it seeks to do more than just assemble our knowledge of communication structures and processes; it seeks to integrate this knowledge. It does so by offering comprehensive articles in all the volumes instead of small entries in the style of an encyclopedia. An extensive index in each Handbook in the series, serves the encyclopedic task of find relevant specific pieces of information. There are already several handbooks in sub-disciplines of communication sciences such as political communication, methodology, organizational communication – but none so far has tried to comprehensively cover the discipline as a whole.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-201

VI 

 Preface to Handbooks of Communication Science series

For all that it is maturing, communication as a discipline is still young and one of its benefits is that it derives its theories and methods from a great variety of work in other, and often older, disciplines. One consequence of this is that there is a variety of approaches and traditions in the field. For the Handbooks in this series, this has created two necessities: commitment to a pluralism of approaches, and a commitment to honour the scholarly traditions of current work and its intellectual roots in the knowledge in earlier times. There is really no single object of communication sciences. However, if one were to posit one possible object it might be the human communicative act – often conceived as “someone communicates something to someone else.” This is the departure point for much study of communication and, in consonance with such study, it is also the departure point for this series of Handbooks. As such, the series does not attempt to adopt the untenable position of understanding communication sciences as the study of everything that can be conceived as communicating. Rather, while acknowledging that the study of communication must be multifaceted or fragmented, it also recognizes two very general approaches to communication which can be distinguished as: a) the semiotic or linguistic approach associated particularly with the humanities and developed especially where the Romance languages have been dominant and b) a quantitative approach associated with the hard and the social sciences and developed, especially, within an Anglo-German tradition. Although the relationship between these two approaches and between theory and research has not always been straightforward, the series does not privilege one above the other. In being committed to a plurality of approaches it assumes that different camps have something to tell each other. In this way, the Handbooks aspire to be relevant for all approaches to communication. The specific designation “communication science” for the Handbooks should be taken to indicate this commitment to plurality; like “the study of communication”, it merely designates the disciplined, methodologically informed, institutionalized study of (human) communication. On an operational level, the series aims at meeting the needs of undergraduates, postgraduates, academics and researchers across the area of communication studies. Integrating knowledge of communication structures and processes, it is dedicated to cultural and epistemological diversity, covering work originating from around the globe and applying very different scholarly approaches. To this end, the series is divided into 6 sections: “Theories and Models of Communication”, “Messages, Codes and Channels”, “Mode of Address, Communicative Situations and Contexts”, “Methodologies”, “Application areas” and “Futures”. As readers will see, the first four sections are fixed; yet it is in the nature of our field that the “Application areas” will expand. It is inevitable that the futures for the field promise to be intriguing with their proximity to the key concerns of human existence on this planet (and even beyond), with the continuing prospect in communication sciences that that future is increasingly susceptible of prediction.



Preface to Handbooks of Communication Science series 

 VII

Note: administration on this series has been funded by the Universita della Svizzera italiana – University of Lugano. Thanks go to the president of the university, Professor Piero Martinoli, as well as to the administration director, Albino Zgraggen.  

Peter J. Schulz, Universita della Svizzera italiana, Lugano Paul Cobley, Middlesex University, London

Acknowledgements The editors of this volume want to thank the series editors of the Handbooks of Communication Science (HOCS), Professor Peter J. Schulz, Università della Svizzera Italiana, and Professor Paul Cobley, Middlesex University, for having invited us to be the editors of volume 23, that is, the volume on crisis communication, of this opus magnum. The timing could not have been more perfect. We literally speaking received the invitation on the very same day we handed in the final manuscript for our textbook Organizational Crisis Communication: A Multivocal Approach (2017). At least, this is how we would like it to take place in our imagination. We also want to thank our many contributors from all over the world. More than forty international experts from ten different countries have contributed with new perspectives on organizational crisis management and crisis communication. For the first time in our academic career we have found ourselves in the role of the host who has to put together the perfect seating plan for a gigantic international feast. Who is going to sit next to whom? Which chapter belongs to which section? Will the scholars representing a more managerial or organizational approach be able to engage in conversation with the scholars representing a more communicational approach? Editing a handbook is different from writing a textbook. A handbook is much more multivocal than a textbook, in theory as well as in practice. However, we are convinced that we have succeeded in turning this fact into an advantage. This handbook is perhaps not the handbook with the highest number of chapters and contributors. Instead, it excels by its combination of old and new research topics. From image repair theory and situational crisis communication theory to whistle-blowing, internal crisis communication, and visual crisis communication. From public and private sector crisis communication to international, intercultural and global crisis communication. From multi-crises to supply chain crises and spill-over crises. From organizational resilience to crisis consulting and the ethics of crisis communication. A special thanks goes to Professor W. Timothy Coombs, Texas A&M University, a seasoned handbook editor and writer, for his advice and friendship; to Laurence Barton, Distinguished Professor of Crisis Management and Public Safety, University of Central Florida, for helping us with the history of the New Avenues in Crisis Management conferences, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; and to Professor Arjen Boin and Professor Paul ‘t Hart for helping us with the history of the Politics of Crisis Management research tradition. We also want to thank the editorial staff at De Gruyter Mouton in Berlin, in particular team manager Barbara Karlson, in-house editor Michaela Göbels, and production editor Sabina Dabrowski. Without your help, patience, kindness and expertise we would never have succeeded in turning all these pages into a coherent handbook. Finally, we want to thank our two families. Winni would like to thank Bjarne, Jenni, Trine and Britt and their families. Finn would like to thank Kirsten, Søren, Birgitte and Marianne and their families. Once again, our research interests – the study of https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-202

X 

 Acknowledgements

organizational crises, crisis management and crisis communication – absorbed most of our ‘situational awareness’ for a long period. Unfortunately, we cannot promise that it will not happen again. Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen Department of Management, Aarhus University January 2020

Contents Preface to Handbooks of Communication Science series  Acknowledgements   IX

 V

Section I – Introducing the field Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen 1 General introduction   3 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen 2 A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication: From organizational practice to academic discipline   17 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen 3 Reframing the field: Public crisis management, political crisis management, and corporate crisis management   59

Section II – Between text and context William L. Benoit 4 Image repair theory 

 105

W. Timothy Coombs 5 Situational crisis communication theory: Influences, provenance, evolution, and prospects   121 Augustine Pang, Yan Jin, Sungsu Kim and Glen T. Cameron 6 Contingency theory: Evolution from a public relations theory to a theory of strategic conflict management   141 Robert R. Ulmer and Timothy L. Sellnow 7 Discourse of renewal: Understanding the theory’s implications for the field of crisis communication   165 Finn Frandsen Making sense of crisis sensemaking theory: Weick’s contributions to the 8 study of crisis communication   177

XII 

 Contents

Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen 9 Arenas and voices in organizational crisis communication: How far have we come?   195 Carmen Daniela Maier Visual crisis communication  10

 213

Section III – Organizational level Michael D. Pfarrer, Jonathan Bundy, Alan Muller and Anthony R. Wheeler 11 To minimize or mobilize? The trade-offs associated with the crisis communication process   237 Mats Heide and Charlotte Simonsson 12 Internal crisis communication: On current and future research  Alessandra Mazzei and Silvia Ravazzani 13 Whistleblowing in organizations 

 259

 279

Sabine A. Einwiller and Christine Korn 14 Employee reactions to negative media coverage 

 299

Marya L. Doerfel, Jack L. Harris, Melanie Kwestel and Minkyung Kim 15 Crisis communication and organizational resilience   319

Section IV – Interorganizational level Shari R. Veil and Kathleen L. Ambrose 16 Fixing the broken link: Communication strategies for supply chain crises   343 Shari R. Veil and Lindsay L. Dillingham 17 Reputational interdependence and spillover: Exploring the contextual challenges of spillover crisis response   363 Winni Johansen Crisis management consulting: An emerging field of study  18

 375

Contents 

 XIII

Section V – Societal level Matthew Seeger, Barbara Reynolds and Ashleigh M. Day 19 Crisis and emergency risk communication: Past, present, and future   401 Eva-Karin Olsson and Mats Eriksson Crisis communication in public organizations  20

 419

Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen and Paul ‘t Hart 21 Communicating and managing crisis in the world of politics  Bengt Johansson and Orla Vigsø 22 Crisis communication and the political scandal 

 439

 461

Yan Jin and Lucinda Austin 23 Crisis communication and social media: Short history of the evolution of social media in crisis communication   477 Duncan Koerber 24 Mass media and their symbiotic relationship with crisis 

 493

Section VI – Intersocietal level Daniel Laufer 25 Should CEOs of multinationals be spokespersons during an overseas product harm crisis?   511 Jesper Falkheimer and Hui Zhao 26 Intercultural and multicultural approaches to crisis communication 

Section VII – Critical approaches Shannon A. Bowen and W. Timothy Coombs 27 Ethics in crisis communication   543

 523

XIV 

 Contents

Section VIII – The future Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen 28 The future of organizational crises, crisis management and crisis communication   565 Biographical sketches  Index   581

 571

Section I – Introducing the field

Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

1 General introduction

Abstract: Part 1 of this new handbook of organizational crisis management and crisis communication is entitled Introducing the field and comprises three chapters. The first of these three chapters serves as a general introduction to the handbook. In the first part of the chapter, we briefly define the role and function of academic handbooks as such. What is an academic handbook? How do they contribute to the knowledge creation and dissemination of a discipline compared to other members of the academic genre system such as the journal article? In the second part of the chapter, we briefly introduce some of the first and most important handbooks of organizational crisis management and crisis communication published between 2009 and 2019. Finally, in the third part of the chapter, we focus on the new handbook – its aims and purposes, structures and levels – explaining how it differs from its predecessors and how the reader can benefit from reading it. Keywords: crisis communication, crisis management, crisis society, academic genre system, handbook, journal article, textbook

1 Introduction Only a few decades ago, crisis management and crisis communication were considered nothing more than a simple practice. The people who worked within the field or wrote about it were practitioners and their knowledge was based on personal experience. Today, the situation has changed dramatically. We live in a “crisis society” (Frandsen and Johansen 2017: 17) where the most visible and mediatized crisis events follow like pearls on a string: the 2001 WTC terrorist attack, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami crisis, the 2008 financial crisis, the 2010 Toyota Recall crisis, the 2015 Volkswagen emissions scandal, and the 2019 Danske Bank money laundering scandal. Crisis management and crisis communication are increasingly defined as a profession based on core competencies and educational standards underpinned by academic research. Crisis management and crisis communication have transformed into an industry and a market where crisis consultants are selling their advice to private and public organizations. Finally, since the 1980  s, crisis management and crisis communication have become a dynamic field of research and education. In short, the practice has been professionalized, academized and institutionalized.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-001

4 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

2 What is an academic handbook? In our capacity as editors of this new handbook of organizational crisis management and crisis communication, and on behalf of the large number of international experts who have accepted to contribute chapters to it, we would like to begin by bringing up the following question: If we already have access to several handbooks of crisis management and crisis communication, and we have, why then publish another one? Do we really need an additional 600 pages on how private and public organizations manage and communicate in times of crisis? We must not forget that many of these handbooks of crisis management and crisis communication were published only recently. The Handbook of International Crisis Communication Research (edited by Andreas Schwarz, Matthew W. Seeger and Claudia Auer) was published in 2016, only three years ago. Similarly, The Routledge Companion to Risk, Crisis and Emergency Management (edited by Robert P. Gephart Jr., C. Chet Miller and Karin Svedberg Helgesson) was published in 2019, not even a year ago. We also must not forget that academic handbooks are relatively costly productions, and that it can be very time-consuming to write, edit, publish and promote handbooks in the appropriate academic markets. So there seems to be every reason to justify the decision to add yet another voluminous handbook to the rapidly growing literature on crisis management and crisis communication. Before we do that, however, we would like to bring up a more fundamental question: What is an academic handbook? Academia consists of numerous national and international communities tied together internally and externally by different types af scholarly communication (for an introduction to scientific communication, see, for example, Vickery 2000). Each community is based on a system of academic genres, a kind of intellectual and institutional infrastructure comprising, for example, dissertations, monographies, journal articles, book chapters, conference papers, posters, abstracts, textbooks, MA theses and term papers. The overall aim of these genres is to diffuse new scientific insights from experts to novices (education), among peers (research) and/or from experts to laymen (popularization) within a given academic discipline. The system of academic genres also serves as a ‘total quality management system’ that monitors the production of scientific insights seeing to that both written and unwritten rules are observed (by means of evaluation tools such as peer reviewing, impact factors, etc.). Handbooks, including handbooks on crisis management and crisis communication, form an important part of academic genre systems. Genres can be approached from different perspectives. Swales (1990), one of the pioneers in the study of academic writing and academic genres, defines genre in the following way: A genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes. These purposes are recognized by the expert members of the parent



General introduction 

 5

discourse community and thereby constitute the rationale for the genre. This rationale shapes the schematic structure of the discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style. (Swales 1990: 58; see also Swales 2004)

Students, educators and researchers know, or at least ought to know, how to produce and consume texts applying specific genre conventions. They have been introduced to the genres in use in their discipline as part of the curriculum. Most of them are also aware of the different types of genre hierarchies that have crystallized over time. Genres have different status and contribute differently to the research reputation of the individual scholar as well as to his or her research center, department, faculty, university or business school. The literature on academic genres has been growing for decades. However, there are exceptions to this rule. Unfortunately, handbooks seem to be one of them. Besides a few books and articles on the topic, there is not much to read. We have in fact only been able to identify one recent publication of real interest: Milojevic, Sugimoto, Lanvière, Thelwall and Ding’s (2014) article published in Journal of Informetrics and entitled “The role of handbooks in knowledge creation and diffusion: A case of science and technology studies”. The aim of the study presented in these articles is to “understand the role that handbooks play in knowledge creation and diffusion and their relationship with the genre of journal articles, particularly in highly interdisciplinary and emergent social science and humanities disciplines” (Milojevic et al. 2014: 693). The study can be considered a test of the widespread idea that different genres play different roles in scholarly communication and practice. The goal of textbooks, for example, is to contribute to discipline formation. The goal of journal articles is to present new empirical insights and/or to contribute to theory-bulding. The goal of handbooks is to encapsulate the core of a coherent subject area in order to set a reference point for the researchers who are active in this area. The data collected for the study conducted by Milojevic et al. (2014) consist of five handbooks (re)published between 1977 and 2008, and 11.675 journal articles published between 1956 and 2012, within the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), that is, the study of how society, politics, and culture affect scientific research and technological innovation. The method used by the researchers to quantify the similarity between texts is the so-called cosine similarity, a method that measures the geometrical separation between multidimensional vectors, each representing some property (in casu word occurrence frequency). Milojevic et al. (2014) are interested in a specific aspect of knowledge production and diffusion: the evolution of research topics, that is, how these topics emerge, mature, interact, and disappear over time. They also want to apply a holistic approach where two genres are compared (in casu handbooks and journal articles). Here is a brief summary of some of their findings: In the 19th and early 20th centuries, handbooks were usually written by a single author or a small group of co-authors. Contemporary handbooks, on the contrary, are

6 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

primarily edited works with a set of selected contributors. Compared to journal articles, handbooks are normally written by invitation. This means that the editors have a more prominent role to play in shaping the content of handbooks. Academic handbooks do not seem to play a special role in either focusing the research efforts or marking their decline regarding specific research topics. They do not represent summaries of research directions that have emerged since the previous edition of the handbook Instead, handbooks often serve a programmatic role in the sense that the editors have made a concerted effort to demarcate the field. This means that handbooks are written for external as much as for internal audiences. Finally, most handbooks seem to have an educational function. As already mentioned, the findings generated by Milojevic et al. (2014) apply first and foremost to the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). We argue, however, that a similar study could be conducted within the field of crisis management and crisis communication. Although this field is much younger, and although none of the six handbooks of crisis management and crisis communication presented in the following section has seen more than one edition so far, such a study would probably confirm many of the same findings. For example, almost all six of them serve a programmatic role in the sense that they envision a future where crisis communication has established itself as an independent field of study. Nobody has expressed this ambition better than W. Timothy Coombs and Sherry J. Holladay in their preface to The Handbook of Crisis Communication (2010): Currently, crisis communication is more of a subfield in public relations and corporate communication. However, as the research in crisis communication continues to grow, it may be able to establish itself as an independent field that is both provocative and exciting. These are lofty goals, but as one popular expression states: “Go big or stay home” (GOBOSH). (Coombs and Holladay 2010: xxvi-xxvii)

We can only agree with this viewpoint to which we shall return in chapter three.

3 The predecessors 3.1 Crisis management During the past decade, six important academic handbooks of organzational crisis management and crisis communication have been published. They can all be described as general (they cover the entire field and not just part of it) and research-based (they are not just practical). They focus on organizational crises (not on personal or societal crises) and they are international (they are written in English by inter­national experts). Some publishers such as Edward Elgar prefer to call them Handbook of Research. In this section, we briefly present these six handbooks.



General introduction 

 7

International Handbook of Organizational Crisis Management (2007) is edited by Christine M. Pearson, Christophe Roux-Dufort and Judith A. Clair. The purpose of this handbook is to share “the latest understanding of organizational crisis management as gathered from prominent crisis-management scholars and practitioners around the globe. Contributing authors have attempted to push the boundaries of their crisis management thinking and research to envision the field from a broader perspective and to position their reflections across new horizons” (Pearson et al. 2007: viii). The three editors are rather critical in their account of the present status of organizational crisis management research. The intellectual foundation of the discipline is described as disappointing and underdeveloped. Regarding its position within the field of management and organization studies in general, crisis management is described as an “isolated endeavour” (Pearson et al. 2007: viii). The editors list up three reasons for this isolation: (1) crisis management research is dispersed and noncumulative, and this leads to a lack of precise and common definitions of key concepts and theories, which then again leads to a lack of legitimacy and credibility; (2) crisis management research suffers from a monolithic methodology; early research was often based on the study of industrial catastrophes or accidents; and (3) crisis management research has become “a science of the exceptional, focusing on rare and anomalous events rather than on the process through which normality becomes abnormality, reliability becomes vulnerability, and imperfection becomes catastrophe” (Pearson et al. 2007: viii). International Handbook of Organizational Crisis Management is structured in four parts and 12 chapters. The four parts are entitled “New risks, new crises, new dangers” (focus on the evolution of crises and crisis management), “New crises, new meaning” (focus on how key stakeholders make sense of crisis situations), “New crises, new barriers”, and “New crises, new solutions” (focus on how an organization can get out of a crisis). The research topics treated in the 12 chapters are: organizations in the World Risk Society (Ulrich Beck); crisis management and legitimacy; crisis management in the online world; sensemaking during and after crisis; a cognitive approach to crisis management; the psychological effects of crisis; crisis management and imperfections; the eight characteristics of Japanese crisis-prone organizations; organizational learning; a ‘total’ responsibility management approach to crisis management; and crisis management and simulations. There are no chapters devoted exclusively to crisis communication. However, chapter  2 “Crisis management and legitimacy” (authored by Romain Laufer) concentrates on the role of communication systems and processes in risk management. Pearson, Roux-Dufort and Clair (2007) has been reviewed by Jaques (2007). Handbook of Research on Crisis Leadership in Organizations (2013) is edited by Andrew J. DuBrin. This handbook focuses on “the process of crisis leadership and the crisis leader’s characteristics” (DuBrin 2013: xi). It addresses not only an academic audience, but also provides guidelines for practitioners, something that almost made us decide not to include this handbook in our corpus of handbooks on crisis man-

8 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

agement and crisis communication. Unlike the other handbooks reviewed in this section, DuBrin and his contributors prefer to talk about crisis leadership instead of crisis management. Handbook of Research on Crisis Leadership in Organizations is structured in four parts and 17 chapters. The four parts are entitled: “Attributes and behaviors of the crisis leader”, “Leadership of subordinates during a crisis”, “Managing the present crisis and preventing future crises”, and “An integration of approaches to understanding crisis leadership”. The research topics treated in the 17 chapters are: attributes and behaviors of the effective crisis leader; minimization of choking under pressure; transformational and charismatic leadership for crisis management; turnaround managers as crisis leaders; emotional leadership; the development of resilience; the management of the crisis lifecycle in the information age; leadership strategies and tactics for crisis management; dealing with external stakeholders; risk and crisis communication and multiple publics; disaster planning for crisis leaders; the leadership role in crisis prevention; organizational learning; leadership crises in nonprofit organizations. The Routledge Companion to Risk, Crisis and Emergency Management (2019) is edited by Robert P. Gephart, Jr., C. Chet Miller and Karin Svedberg Helgesson. The three editors describe their handbook as a “comprehensive, broadly based and contemporary discussion of management and organizational research addressing risk, crisis and emergency management” (Gephart et al. 2019: 4). The purpose of the book is to offer an up-to date and state-of-the-art understanding of risk, crisis and emergency management issues based on social sciences theories, concepts, methods and empirical findings. The book also contributes to the advancement of the field of risk and crisis management by integrating three interrelated streams or areas of scholarship and practice that often overlap but are seldom considered in the same volume: the areas of risk and risk management, industrial crisis management, and emergency and safety management. The book is […] highly integrative across previously unrelated areas. Further, it takes a strong social and organizational science view rather than emphasizing engineering practice or financial economics and incorporates cultural studies of risk. (Gephart et al. 2019: 5)

Finally, it is one of the handbooks in our small corpus that refers to other handbooks within the field: “The volume builds on the need of the field initially outlined in part by Pearson, Roux-Dufort and Clair (2007)” (Pearson et al. 2007: 5). The Routledge Companion to Risk, Crisis and Emergency Management is divided into seven parts and 36 chapters. The seven parts are entitled: “An introduction to risk, crisis and management”, “Foundational processes”, “Theoretical viewpoints and methods”, “Types of crises”, “International case studies”, “Current issues”, and “Dialogue and commentary on the future of risk, crisis and emergency management”. The research topics treated in the 36 chapters are: crisis management; crisis communication; post-disaster recovery; the concept of collective fit as a team characteristic; the concept of failure; risk management; risk sensemaking; research methods; inter-



General introduction 

 9

national case studies; the development of actionable knowledge in crisis management; economic crises; risk management and (C)SR; supply chain risk; effectiveness of regulatory agencies; and the Janus faces of risk.

3.2 Handbooks of crisis communication Since 2009, three important handbooks all defining themselves as handbooks of crisis communication have been published. The first is Handbook of Risk and Crisis Communication (2009) edited by Robert L. Heath and H. Dan O’Hair. Handbook of Risk and Crisis Communication is described as an attempt to “embrace the scope of risk and its counterpart crisis to better understand them conceptually and strategically” (Heath and O’Hair 2009: XI). They present their handbook as the first broad approach to risk and crisis as joint concerns. They want us to think of crisis as risks that are manifested. They define the collective management of risk as the rationale of society. Handbook of Risk and Crisis Communication is structured in three parts and 33 chapters. The three parts are entitled: “Exploring the reach of crisis and risk communication”, “Key constructs of crisis and risk communication”, and “Contexts of crisis and risk communication”. The research topics treated in the 33 chapters are: the significance of crisis and risk communication; historical trends; theories of risk and crisis communication (e.  g., the CERC model, renewal discourse theory, apologia theory); cultural theory and risk; community building; the mental models approach; the precautionary principle and risk; social dramaturgy and risk; myths and maxims; the ecological perspective on risk communication; a discourse perspective on risk communication and biotechnology; science literacy; influence theories; alarms and warnings; risk, crisis, mediated communication and cyberspace; ethical responsibility and risk communication; campus violence; communication research in the travel and tourism risk and crisis literature; and terrorism. Roughly speaking, elleven chapters are about crisis communication. However, only few of these chapters are devoted exclusively to crisis communication. One of these chapters is “Historical trends of risk and crisis communication”, to which we shall return in Chapter 3. Heath and O’Hair (2009) has been reviewed by Lachlan (2010) and Youngblood (2010). The second handbook is The Handbook of Crisis Communication (2010) edited by W. Timothy Coombs and Sherry J. Holladay. It is the first handbook devoted exclusively to crisis communication. The primary purpose of The Handbook of Crisis Communuication is to improve the practice of crisis communication. The secondary purpose is to create a resource for crisis communication researchers. The tertiary purpose is to further the development of crisis communication as its own field. In their afterword, Coombs and Holladay describe how crisis communication has evolved “from a small sub-discipline within public relations and corporate communication to become one of the dominant research areas in these fields, especially public relations” (Coombs and

10 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

Holladay 2010: 726). The Handbook of Crisis Communication is structured in eight parts and 39 chapters. The eight parts are entitled: “Crisis and allied fields”, “Methodological variety”, “The practice”, “Specific applications”, “Technology and crisis communication”, “Global crisis communication”, “Theory development”, and “Future research directions”. All the chapters focus on crisis communication.The research topics treated in the 39 chapters are: key definitions for crisis; the crisis management process; the general nature and history of crisis communication research (including a thematic meta-analysis); crisis communication and its allied fields (issues management, risk management and risk communication, reputation management, disaster communication, and business continuity management); research methods (case study, text analysis, content analysis, experiments); the practice of crisis mananagement and crisis communication; specific applications, new media and communication technology; global crisis communication; theory development (e.  g., improvisation, and future research directions (complexity, emotions, contingency theory, renewal discourse theory), development of a holistic organizational approach, refocusing crisis research, organizational learning, and evidence-based communication. Coombs and Holladay (2010) has been reviewed by Henson (2010). The third and most recent handbook of crisis communication published between 2009 and 2019 is The Handbook of International Crisis Communication Research (2016) edited by Andreas Schwarz, Matthew W. Seeger and Claudia Auer. The purpose of this handbook is to serve as “a starting point for establishing a more interdisciplinary and international conversation about crisis communication as an emerging cross-cutting subdiscipline in communications that, in addition, seek stronger links to other social science fields” (Schwarz, Seeger and Auer 2016: 7). The idea is to broaden the perspective on risk and crisis management. In the introduction to the handbook, Schwarz, Seeger and Auer provide the reader with an overview of the categories of international and cross-cultural crisis communication research. First, they introduce two dimensions: (1) the consideration of national or cultural context factors as independent or explaining sets of variables, and (2) the observation of crisis communication as a cross-national or cross-cultural communication process. Second, each dimension has two categories: (1a and 1b) studies that involve or do not involve the national or the cultural context as a variable to explain similarities and differences of certain aspects of risk and crisis communication; and (2a and 2b) perceived risks or crises that transcend national or cultural boundaries in physical and/or symbolic terms, and crises that are largey limited to national contexts in terms of scope, effects, and visibility. This results in a grid with four analytical categories of international crisis communication research. Schwarz, Seeger and Auer refer explicitely to previous handbooks of crisis communication (Heath and O’Hair 2009; Coombs and Holladay 2010). According to the three editors, these handbooks suffer from at least one of the following three limitations; (1) they focus too much on organizational and/or corporate crises; (2) they do not take into consideration the international and/or cross-cultural dimension of



General introduction 

 11

crisis communication; and (3) they do not represent crisis communication scholarship in terms of its disciplinary and international diversity. The Handbook of International Crisis Communication Research is divided into six parts and 46 chapters. The six parts are entitled: “Disciplinary foundations for international crisis communication research”, “Actors and institutional communicators in international crises”, “The role of the media in the construction of international crises”, “Domestic and international audiences in the context of crisis communication”, “The state of crisis communication research around the globe”, and “Challenges and topics of future research on crisis communication”. All the chapters focus on crisis communication. Crisis is understood in a very broad way with a preference for societal crises. The research topics treated in the 46 chapters are: an integrative approach to international crisis communication research; disciplinary foundations (political science, management and economics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and communication); actors, media and audiences (in case of war, terrorism, disasters and pandemia, political crises and organizational crises); the state of crisis communication research around the globe; and challenges and topics of future research.

4 This handbook We are now ready to answer the question that we brought up in the first pages of this chapter: Why do we need a new handbook of organizational crisis management and crisis communication? We need a new handbook because the already existing handbooks constantly need to be up-dated. Although the field of crisis management and crisis communication has already developed considerably since the mid-1990  s, it is still a very dynamic discipline (for an overview, see Chapter 2 in this handbook). The Handbook of Crisis Communication (2010) edited by W. Timothy Coombs and Sherry J. Holladay was published ten years ago. This handbook was considered a milestone at the time, but much has happened in the meantime. When we invited the contributors to send in chapters for the new handbook, we therefore asked them not only to introduce the reader to the well-known concepts, models, theories and research traditions in their most recent edition. We also asked them to write about the past and the future of these components. We also need a new handbook that can help us to expand and reframe the field. The scope of the already existing handbooks is too narrow. We do not just want to have more of the same. We also want to have something different. This handbook differs from its predecessors in more than one aspect. It has a clear focus on organizational crises in the private and public sectors. It integrates communication, organization and management studies to a much higher extent than it has been the case before. It includes a series of new research topics such as internal crisis communication, whis-

12 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

tle-blowing, crisis consulting, and visual crisis communication. It is not yet a fully integrated handbook of organizational crisis management and crisis communication, but it is an important step in the right direction. We also need a new handbook that can help us to build up a more multidisciplinary identity. For a long time, since the mid-1990  s, crisis communication has ‘cocooned’ as a subdiscipline of public relations. However, in the long run, we will have to leave our protective envelopes. We shall return to this crucial question in the last chapter of this handbook. Finally, we need a new handbook that can serve as a resource both for the student and the educator, and for the researcher and the practitioner. In Chapter 2, we provide the reader with overviews of international networks and conferences, journals, textbooks and handbooks.

4.1 The structure of the handbook This new handbook of crisis communication is structured in eight parts and 28 chapters. Together the eight parts represent a certain number of textual, contextual, organizational, interorganizational, societal and intersocietal levels. Viewed from the perspective of the crisis manager or the crisis management team of a private or a public organization, each of these levels reflects a growing degree of complexity. Part 1 Introducing the field provides a detailed introduction to the field of organizational crisis management and crisis communication. The editors of the handbook, Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen, have co-authored the three chapters in this section: chapter 1 “General introduction”; chapter 2 “A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication: from organizational practice to academic discipline”; and chapter 3 “Reframing the field: public crisis management, political crisis management, and corporate crisis management”. Part 2 Between text and context consists of advanced introductions to some of the most important and most applied crisis communication theories: William L. Benoit’s image repair theory (including his theory of persuasive attacks); W. Timothy Coombs’ situational crisis communication theory (including his theory of paracrises); Glen Cameron’s contingency theory and how it has transformed into a theory of strategic conflict management (Augustine Pang, Yan Jin); Robert R. Ulmer and Timothy L. Sellnow’s discourse of renewal theory; Karl E. Weick’s crisis sensemaking theory; Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen’s rhetorical arena theory (the multivocal approach to crisis communication). Some of these crisis communication theories are text-oriented focusing on how organizations in crisis defend themselves verbally; others are more context-oriented searching for the situational variables or contingency factors that can guide us when we have to decide which crisis response strategies to use. Some of these crisis communication theories see crises as a threat; others also see them as an opportunity. Some of them emphasize the sensemaking processes while others



General introduction 

 13

hightlights the multivocality of crisis. Part 2 concludes with Carmen Daniela Maier’s chapter on “Visual crisis communication”. Part  3 Organizational level consists of presentations where the organizational factor is the central issue. Michael D. Pfarrer, Jonathan Bundy, Alan Muller and Anthony Wheeler are bridging the third section and the two previous sections with their chapter on “To minimize and to mobilize? The trade-offs associated with the crisis communication process”. The following three chapters are devoted to the internal dimension of organizational crisis management and crisis communication. Mats Heide and Charlotte Simonsson provide a general introduction to this new subfield. Alessandra Mazzei and Silvia Ravazzani investigate whistleblowing in organizations from a crisis management and crisis communication perspecticve Based on Kepplinger’s reciprocal effects model, Sabine Einwiller and Christine Nord write about employee reactions to negative media coverage challenging our traditional understanding of internal versus external. Part  3 concludes with Marya Doerfel, Jack K. Harris, Melanie Kwestel and Minkyung Kim’s chapter on “Crisis communication and organizational resilience”. Part 4 Interorganizational level represents an important shift in perspective from the individual organization to the relationship between two or more organizations in a crisis situation. Together with Kathleen L. Ambrose and Lindsay L. Dillingham Shari Veil writes about interorganizational crises such as supply chain crises and spillover crises. Winni Johansen’s chapter on crisis management and crisis communication ­consulting, a research topic that has been neglected for too long, concludes Part 3. Part 5 Societal level is devoted to crisis and emergency risk communication, political scandals, crisis management and crisis cmmunication in public and political organizations, political scandals, the legacy media and the new social media. The setting for the study of these topics is no longer the organization or interorganizational, but society at large. Matthew Seeger, Barbara Reynolds and Ashleigh M. Day provide us with an advanced introduction to Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication. Eva-Karin Olsson and Mats Eriksson and Heidi Salomonsen and Paul ‘t Hart devote their chapters to two different types of crisis communication: public crisis communication and political crisis communication. Bengt Johansson and Orla Vigsø introduce us to political scandals. Finally, Duncan Koerber and Yan Jin and Lucinda Austin write about crisis communication and the mass madia and crisis communication and social media. Part 6 Intersocietal level introduces two perspectives: the international or global perspective and the intercultural and multicultural perspective. Daniel Laufer investigates the advantages and disadvantages of using the CEO of a private company as a spokesperson during an overseas crisis. Jesper Falkheimer and Hui Zhao write about culture as a key dimension of crisis communication and about the differences between intercultural crisis communication and multicultural crisis communication. Part 7 Critical and ethical approaches. This section only contains one chapter, the one entitled “Ethics in crisis communication” and co-authored by Shannon A. Bowen amd W. Timothy Coombs. It is the first time that a handbook of organizational crisis

14 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

management and crisis communication contains a chapter on ethical issues including recommendations for practice. Part 8 The future. The editors conclude the handbook by comparing how crisis management and crisis communication scholars envisioned the future of their discipline ten years ago, in 2010, and how they do it today, in 2020. In The Handbook of Crisis Management (2010) edited by W. Timothy Coombs and Sherry J. Holladay, the following future research directions were highlighted: emotions and crisis, complexity and crisis, discourse of renewal, a holistic organizational approach to crises, learning from crisis, and, finally, an evidence-based approach to crisis communication. Today, these future directions already look very familiar to us. As the last chapter in this new handbook will demonstrate, one of the biggest challenges in the future will be to develop frameworks that are robust, integrative and cross-disciplinary. From the future of the past to the present of the future. Where are we going?

4.2 The context of the handbook The new handbook of crisis communication is a volume in the Handbooks of Communication Science series (HOCS) published by De Gruyter Mouton in Berlin and edited by Peter J. Schulz, University of Lugano, Switzerland and Paul Cobley, London Middlesex University, United Kingdom. The Handbooks of Communication Science series is a highly ambitious project encompassing more than 30 handbooks on various topics, from theories and models of communication to organizational communication and public relations. The volume on crisis communication is number 23 and belongs to the fifth section of HOCS (“Application areas”). The great advantage of having such an opus magnum at our disposal is that it allows all kinds of readers – undergraduates and postgraduates, educators and researchers – both to focus on the topic of a single volume (for instance, crisis communication) and/or to move across the topics of two or more volumes to combine insights in new ways (for instance, public relations, journalism, mediatization, and crisis communication).

References Coombs, W. T., and S. J. Holladay (eds.). 2010. The Handbook of Crisis Communication. Handbooks in Communication and Media, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. DuBrin, A. J. (ed.). 2013. Handbook of Research on Crisis Leadership in Organizations. Celtenham. Gephart, R., Jr., C. C. Miller and K. Svedberg Helgesson (eds.). 2019. The Routledge Companion to Risk, Crisis and Emergency Management. New York: Routledge. Heath, R. L., and H. D. O’Hair (eds.). 2009. Handbook of Risk and Crisis Communication. New York: Routledge.



General introduction 

 15

Henson, D. 2010. The case for crisis communication: Review of the book The Handbook of Crisis Communication edited by W. T. Coombs and S. J. Holladay: Pacific Journalism Review 16(1). 230–232. Jaques, T. 2007. Review of Christine M. Pearson, Christophe Roux-Dufort and Judith Clair (eds.), International Handbook of Organizational Crisis Management. Los Angeles: Sage. Praxis: The Public Relations Resource Centre. Lachlan, K. A. 2010. Review of Robert L. Heath and H. Dan O’Hair (eds.). 2009. Handbook of Risk and Crisis Communication. New York: Routledge. Journal of Communication 60(3). 8–11. Milojevic, S., C. R. Sugimoto, V. Lanvière, M. Thelwall and Y. Ding. 2014. The role of handbooks in knowledge creation and diffusion: A case of science and technology studies. Journal of Informetrics 8(3). 693–709. Pearson, C. A., C. Roux-Dufort and J. A. Clair (eds.). 2007. International Handbook of Organizational Crisis Management. Los Angeles: Sage. Praxis: The Public Relations Resource Centre. Schwarz, A., M. W. Seeger and C. Auer (eds.). 2016. The Handbook of International Crisis Communication Research. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Swales, J. 1990. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Swales, J. 2004. Research Genres: Explorations and Applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vikery, B. 2000. Scientific Communication in History. Lanham, MB: Scarecrow Press. Youngblood, S. 2010. Review of Robert L. Heath and H. Dan O’Hair (eds.). Handbook of Risk and Crisis Communication. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication 53(2). 174–178.

Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

2 A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication: From organizational practice to academic discipline Abstract: The second chapter in Part  1 is devoted to the history of modern organizational crisis management and crisis communication. We have divided the chapter into two parts: (1) the practical history of crisis management and crisis communication defined as an organizational practice, that is, how “things are done around here” when a private or public organization is handling a crisis; and (2) the intellectual and institutional history of crisis management and crisis communication defined as an academic discipline (or subdiscipline), that is, as an integrated part of management, organization, and communication studies. By history, we understand more specifically the process of institutionalization whereby new ideas about organizational crises, and how they can be managed succesfully, are adopted. Keywords: academic (sub)discipline, crisis communication, crisis management, historiography, institutionalization, legitimacy, organizational practice, survey

1 Introduction When and where did the history of modern organizational crisis management and crisis communication begin? In which year? In which country? In which organization? As we shall see, it is not easy to provide answers to these questions. Some scholars argue that the history of modern crisis management and crisis communication began with the Atlantic City train crash which occurred on October 28, 1906, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, when a West Jersey and Seashore Railroad electric train fell of a draw (swing) bridge, drowning 53 people. The usual reaction of Pennsylvania Railroad, parent company of the West Jersey and Seashore Railroad, would have been to suppress all news about the accident, but their newly hired advisor and spokesman, Ivy Lee, who represented the Parker & Lee firm, convinced the company to present a statement to the journalists at the scene of the accident. Two days later, on October 30, 1906, New York Times printed the statement word-for-word. Today, this statement has become famous as the very first press release in the history of public relations (Churella 2013; Hiebert 2017). Other scholars argue that the history of modern crisis management and crisis communication began on September 29, 1982, when seven people in the Chicago area died after taking a capsule of Extra Strength Tylenol filled with cyanide. The company behind the painkillers was the American multinational medical devices, pharmahttps://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-002

18 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

ceutical and consumer packaged goods manufacturing company Johnson & Johnson founded in 1886. Although Johnson & Johnson did not have a crises preparedness at the moment of the crisis, including a crisis management plan, the company won praise for its quick and appropriate handling of the crisis which was based on its credo: We believe our first responsibility is to the patients, doctors and nurses, to mothers and fathers and all others who use our products and services. In meeting their needs everything we do must be of high quality. We must constantly strive to provide value, reduce our costs and maintain reasonable prices. Customers’ orders must be serviced promptly and accurately. Our business partners must have an opportunity to make a fair profit. (www.jnj.com)

Johnson & Johnson distributed warnings to hospitals and distributors and halted Tylenol production and advertising. On October 5, 1982, the company issued a nationwide recall of Tylenol products. An estimated 31 million bottles were in circulation at the time, with a retail value of over US $100 million (corresponding to US $267 million in 2018). A few years later, Johnson & Johnson was once again the victim of another product tampering crisis, managed this time in a less successfully way (Snyder 1983; Benson 1988). Both of these examples demonstrate how a specific organization manage a specific crisis event. This approach is very popular in books and television documentaries that tell the story of “the world’s worst crises”. However, sometimes you also meet this approach in academic quarters. One of the rare attempts to write the history of modern crisis management and crisis communication is Claire B. Rubin’s two books on Emergency Management: The American Experience, 1900–2005 (2007) and Emergency Management: The American Experience, 1900–2010 (2012). They are based on the hypothesis that changes in emergency policy, authorities, systems, and practices are “event-driven” (Rubin 2007: 4). More specifically, she applies Thomas A. Birkland’s theory of focusing events on the history of emergency management (Birkland 1997, 2006). We shall return to Rubin’s use of the theory of focusing events in Chapter 3. Other scholars again argue that the history of modern crisis management and crisis communication did not begin with one specific crisis event. Identifying or pointing to a specific date or event that launched risk communication or crisis communication is impossible, as both movements grew organically out of a variety of perspectives and initiatives, whether they are community-based activism, government response or industry initiated. Certain incidents, events and research streams, however, loom large in the history of both these fields of communication study. (Palenchar 2009: 31–32)

Some of these scholars refer to the 1980  s as an important decade where we experienced crises of a different order of magnitude (mega-crises such as Bhopal, 1984, and Chernobyl, 1986); where we began talking about society in terms of a risk civilization (Lagadec 1982) or a risk society (Beck 1986); where consultants began writing the first books on crisis management (Stephen Fink: Crisis Management: Planning for the Inev-



A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication 

 19

itable, 1986); and where social scientists began to study industrial and organizational crises (see, for example, Ian I. Mitroff and the USC Center for Crisis Management), and where they began to disseminate the results of these studies at conferences and in journals (Industrial Crisis Quarterly, 1987; see also the special issue of Journal of Management Studies, guest-edited under the title “Industrial Crisis Management: Learning from Organizational Failure” by Paul Shrivastava and published in 1987). This third answer to our initial question is different from the two previous answers inasfar as history is no longer understood as a series of isolated crisis events, but as something more comprehensive: a new way of thinking and talking about our society and our organizations. In this chapter we want to tell the story of how modern crisis management and crisis communication emerged and was institutionalized as an organizational practice and as an academic dicipline and how the idea of crisis preparedness has spread, not only to organizations, industries, sectors and communities, but also to universities and business schools over most of the world since the 1980  s. This development did not take place at the same time in all countries. If we had to apply Everett Rogers’ (1962) theory of diffusion of innovation, we would probably consider countries such as the United States, the Netherlands, Sweden and France as innovators (or early adoptors) when it comes to conducting research within the field of crisis management and crisis communication. Countries such as Denmark and Japan (West 2006), on the other hand, would be considered laggards. If we by crisis management understand all public efforts to protect the citizens, their lives and values, against fire, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, inondations and epidemies, the history of this practice began several decades or centuries, perhaps even thousands of years ago, in what we today name the public sector. The idea that we need to have a fire department seems to go back to ancient Rome where slaves served as firefighters. The 1755 Lisbon earthquake has been termed the first modern disaster by Dynes (2000). The Royal Fire Department of Copenhagen was established in 1687 under the reign of king Christian the 5th. In the second half of the 18th century, a growing number of European cities established fire departments with full-time personnel (or volunteers in smaller cities). The Copenhagen Fire Department was transformed into a municipal institution in 1870. However, nobody talked about crises or crisis management. Instead expressions such as accident, disaster, destiny or “an act of God” were used. The latter refers to a natural disaster which lies outside human control and which you therefore cannot be made responsible for. However, if we by crisis management understand a type of management that actually defines and applies the words crisis and crisis management, it seems as if the practical history of crisis management and crisis communication began in the business world only a few decades ago. American consultant Steven Fink’s book Crisis Management: Planning for the Inevitable (1986) is often nominated as the first book ever on crisis management (see Coombs 2010); a viewpoint that Fink himself seems to endorse. Before the 1980  s, terms such as crisis management plan (CMP) and crises

20 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

management team (CMT) did not form part of the vocabulary that people used when talking about organizations and the threats they were facing, but today these concepts are used frequently and with the greatest naturalness. As one of the crisis consulting truisms says: The question is not if the organization will be hit by a crisis, but when it will be hit.1 What is not less important: the history about how crisis management became an organizational practice and an academic discipline does not only take place at different places at different times. It can also be told in different ways. In our previous books (see, for example, Johansen and Frandsen 2007 or Frandsen and Johansen 2017) we chose deliberately to concentrate on crisis management and crisis communication in the private sector. But recently we have discovered that it is perhaps more appropriate to define crisis management, not as one big field of study, but as three subfields: public crisis management, political crisis management, and corporate crisis communication. We shall return to this reframing of the field in the following chapter. So far, we just need to emphasize that such a reframing also will have consequences for how we tell the practical and intellectual history of crisis management and crisis communication.

2 In search of a theoretical framework It is relatively easy to describe what has happened since the 1980  s, at least on the surface of events: crisis management and crisis communication have been institutionalized, first as an organizational practice and then as an academic discipline. To verify this we only have to observe how organizations answer the question: Does your organization have a crisis management plan? If the answer is yes, then there is a fair chance that the concerned organization has adopted or is in the process of adopting some kind of crisis preparedness. But what made the organization decide to implement a crisis management plan? Was it an outcome of rational and purposeful behavior? Or was the determining factor of a more symbolic nature? In short, we need to have a theory that can explain how and why private and public organizations adopt new ideas about management, organization and communcation – in casu new ideas about how to handle crises – and how and why this process leads to organizational changes.

1 In Denmark, this truism is often ascribed to JØP, Ove & Myrthu, a communication consultancy founded in 1989 by Jørgen Petersen, Erik Ove and Jess Myrthu. However, it also seems to be popular among consultants from other countries. See, for example, Steven Fink who introduces his most recent book with the following statement: “Some years ago, I wrote Crisis Management: Planning for the Inevitable, the first book ever written on the subject. It took the position, as the subtitle boldly asserts, that today, a crisis in business is as inevitable as dearth and taxes, it is not a question of if, but rather when” (Fink 2013: xiii). Recently, PricewaterhouseCoopers has used the truism “It’s not if. It’s when. No one is immune” in its Global Crisis Survey 2019.



A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication 

 21

In our previous books, Krisekommunikation (2007) and Organizational Crisis Communication (2017), we used risk sociology in general, and Ulrich Beck’s theory of the risk society in particular, as the overall sociological framework for our explanations. Our approach was based on the argument that we from a risk sociological perspective can define crisis management and crisis communications as a specific type of ‘risk administration’. This was also in line with Robert L. Heath’s idea of collective risk management as the rationale of society. We share this view with other researchers. In a guest editorial introduction, published in Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management in 2002, a group of Dutch researchers, including Paul t’Hart, Liesbet Heyse and Arjen Boin, identified three main developments in crisis management practice. The first of these developments was the evolution from an industrial to a postmodern risk society. This development comprises three trends: (1) the proliferation of risk, complexity and tight coupling, (2) the public discovery of the risk society, and (3) the politicization of risk management. The two other main developments are not relevant in this context. In the same way, American disaster sociologist Kathleen Tierney has been the advocate of moving disaster sociology “from the margins to the mainstream” in an attempt to reconnect this field theoretically as well as methodologically with mainstream sociology, including Ulrich Beck’s theory of the risk society (see Tierney 2007, 2014). However, the use of risk sociology as our explanatory framework must not prevent us from combining the risk sociological approach with alternative approaches. One of these alternative approaches is the new institutionalism. The constellation of organizational sociological theories today known as the new institutionalism emerged in the 1970  s and at the beginning of the 1980  s as a reaction to a series of articles including Meyer and Rowan (1977), Zucker (1977), and DiMaggio and Powell (1983). These articles represented a major breakthrough in our understanding of what an organization is and what makes it change. The new institutionalism can be described as a theory about the relationship between organizations and their environment and how this environment pervades and changes the organizations in the shape of institutions. Just like resource dependence theory, it grew out of the application of general systems theory to organizational behavior in the 1960  s (see, for example, the open-systems approach developed by Katz and Kahn 1966).2 The new institutionalism has roots that go back to an ‘old institutionalism’, including American professor of sociology and law University of California Berkeley, Philip Selznick (1919–2010). In the introduction to Leadership in Administration: A 2 For an introduction to the new institutionalism, see Richard W. Scott’s Institutions and Organizations: Ideas, Interests, and Identities (20144) and The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism (2008, 20172), edited by Royston Greenwood, Christine Oliver, Roy Suddaby and Kerstin Sahlin-Andersson, (first edition), and Royston Greenwood, Christine Oliver, Thomas B. Lawrence and Renate E. Meyer (second edition) respectively. For a shorter introduction designed for crisis communication scholars, see Frandsen and Johansen (2013a).

22 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

Sociological Interpretation (1957), Selznick defined institutionalization as a process that transforms an organization over time. To institutionalize, he wrote, is “to infuse with value beyond the technical requirements of the task at hand” (Selznick 1957: 17). This means that the tools we use more or less succesfully to solve specific tasks in our organization are assigned a value that is higher than required by the task. This then again means that we do not just discard these tools when they prove less effective than expected; on the contrary, we often keep them far beyond their functionalist “expiration date”. The new institutionalism rejects the idea that organizations are rational and effective instruments that can help us to fulfill specific goals (decisions, innovation, products, profit, etc.). From such an instrumentalist perspective, the planned change of an organization is viewed as a rational and effective ‘solution’ to an objective ‘problem’. Neo-institutional theory, on the contrary, does not only see organizations as actors striving to be as effective as possible; they also and maybe in particular see organizations as actors driven forward by a search for legitimacy (Deephouse and Suchman 2008). From such a symbolic perspective, the relationship between ‘problem’ and ‘solution’ is turned upside down. First, the organization becomes aware of a popular ‘solution’ that has become more and more prominent within a specific organizational field; and first then the organization discovers that it has a ‘problem’ that must be solved (Røvik 1998). Scott (2013: 48) defines institutions in the following way: “Institutions are comprised of regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive elements that, together with associated activities and resources, provide stability and meaning to social life” (Scott 2013: 48). Røvik (1998) defines institutions as legitimized ‘recipes’ for how one ought to manage, organize and communicate in or across specific organizations and organizational fields. Using a somehow different metaphore, Røvik also terms them ‘ideas that travel’, that is, ideas that enter organizations and create consequences that will spread in time and space, and that are competing with alternative ideas. We argue that crisis management and crisis communication is an example of such a recipe and that we are moving into a society where we increasingly take for granted that organizations have a crisis preparedness and that their members are competent within this organizational practice. There are various schools within the new institutionalism. In early neo-institutional research from the 1970  s and the 1980  s, there was a tendency to see organizations as passive receivers of institutionalized norms which were adopted ceremonially and in a decoupled way (cf. the concepts of myth, ceremony and decoupling in Meyer and Rowan 1977) and which spread to all organizations within one or more organizational fields (cf. the concepts of isomorphism and homogeneity in DiMaggio and Powell 1983). This early research was primarily interested in investigating the formally decided adoption of institutionally prescribed structures and practices.



A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication 

 23

In more recent research, from the end of the 1980  s onwards, organizations are no longer seen as passive receivers, but as active interpreters of the recipes that they adopt and adapt to their local organizational context. This development, which from a communication theoretical perspective can be described as a development from diffusion to translation, is obvious in the so-called Scandinavian school. However, you also notice it in many of the new theories of institutionel entrepreneurship (DiMaggio 1988), strategic response (Oliver 1991), institutional work (Lawrence, Suddaby and Leca 2009) and institutional logics (Thornton, Ocasio and Lounsbury 2012) within the Anglo-Saxon tradition. Recently, finally, the concept of communicative institutionalism has emerged, that is, the study of how processes of institutionalization unfold through rhetoric, language, text, discourse and communication (Cornelissen, Durand, Fiss, Lammers and Vaara 2015). Let us try to summarize how neo-institutional theory can be used as a theoretical framework: – The idea that has become known under the name of organizational crisis preparedness has not always been around, or to put it differently: it is an idea with a history. In Denmark, for example, expressions such as crisis, crisis management, crisis communication, crisis management plan, crisis management team, damage control, etc. did not become part of the vocabulary used by organizations to describe themselves until the second half of the 1990  s (Frandsen and Johansen 2017: 17–19). – Crisis preparedness represents the type of ideas that Røvik (1998) describes as institutional megastandards, that is, ideas that are adopted by many organizations over a long period. The strategic, proactive and process-oriented approach to crisis management is such an institutional megastandard. – Sometimes institutional megastandards are depicted as ideas that travel across organizational fields and that are adopted as a result of a normative pressure from their environment. – As we shall see in Chapter 3, the three pillars of institutions all play a key role in the history of modern organizational crisis management, – The idea of crisis preparedness are adopted in different ways by different organizations in their search for legitimacy (regarding the relationship between crisis communication and organizationel legitimacy, see Frandsen and Johansen 2020a). So far, there have only been very few attempts to apply a neo-institutional approach in the study of organizational crises, crisis management and crisis communication. Frandsen and Johansen (2009) investigated the institutionalization of crisis communication in the public sector in Denmark. Inspired by the theory of institutional logics defined as “the socially constructed, historical patterns of material practices, assumptions, values, beliefs, and rules by which individuals produce and reproduce their material subsistence, organize time and space, and provide meaning to their social reality” (Thornton and Ocasio 1999: 804), they conducted a multiple case study in four

24 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

Danish municipalities. They interviewed four emergency managers (fire departments) and four chief communication officers (communication departments) asking them how they defined and talked about crisis, crisis management and crisis communication, and how they perceived themselves and their colleagues. The multiple case study revealed that two different institutional logics were interacting behind the total crisis preparedness of Danish municipalities: an old emergency management logic (installed at the beginning of the 1990  s) and a new crisis communication logic (installed around 2007). In a follow-up study, Frandsen and Johansen (2013b) conducted a document analysis of a large corpus of (1) general and specific (compulsory) emergency management plans, (2) (non compulsary) crisis communication plans, (3) communication strategies and (4) communication policies from the 98 municipalities in Denmark. The aim was to examine – at the textual level of these institutional messages (Lammers 2011) – if the interaction between the two institutional logics was the same as 5 years earlier or if it had changed to any extent. The study demonstrated that the two institutional logics actually were approaching each other. It also showed how important the existence of concept literatures and arenas for development such as Local Government Denmark (the association and interest organization of the 98 Danish municipalities) and Danish Emergency Management Agency (DEMA) is to a complex process of institutionalization (Røvik 1998, 2007). Finally, a third study was conducted by Frandsen, Johansen and Salomonsen (2016) to investigate how and why reputation and crisis management – defined as two different yet not incompatible ideas stemming from the same institutional logic – have been institutionalized in the public sector in Denmark. More specifically, the study examined whether reputation and crisis management become integrated (coupling) or not (decoupling) as organizational practices. The study revealed that although reputation and crisis management per se are widely disseminated within the field, they are neither entirely institutionalized nor strongly coupled.

3 The history of crisis management as an ­organizational practice As already mentioned, the history of modern crisis management and crisis communication can be told in different ways. We have divided our historiography into two parts: a practical history, or the history of crisis management and crisis communication defined as an organizational practice, that is, how “things are done around here” (or not done) when a private or public organization is handling a crisis (see section 3 in this chapter), and an intellectual and institutional history, or the history of crisis management and crisis communication defined as an academic discipline or subdiscipline (see section 4 in this chapter).



A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication 

 25

We define crisis management and crisis communication as an organizational practice, and not as a function. If we wanted to describe an organization in terms of functions, we would have to focus on the core processes wihtin a department or area of an organization. Marketing, human resources and corporate communication are good examples of functions. We would also have to focus on the relationship between these core processes and how they are located in the hierarchy of authority. If we instead want to describe an organization in terms of a practice, an approach that originates from the practice turn in the social sciences (for an introduction, see Schatzki, Knorr-Cetina and von Savigny 2001), we would have to focus on how the ‘social life’ of an organization is performed in a local context. The concept of practice is broader than the concept of function. It includes aspects such as the identity of the members of the organization, how they interact and look at each other, their routines, etc. However, to work with practices is not less troublesome than to work with functions. For example, how do you decide when something is an organizational practice? Are crisis management and crisis communication only a practice when the crisis preparedness of the organization is activated by the crisis management team who often is cross-functional? There are several good reasons for implementing a crisis preparedness in a private or public organization. Obviously, crises can damage an organization in many ways. They can lead to a sudden decrease in turnover and share prices (economic capital). They can chase away loyal customers. They can make it difficult to work with employer branding and attract the best qualified employees (human capital). They can reduce the company’s political influenc at the local, regional and national levels. Finally, crises can also damage the trust and credibility (social capital), or the image and reputation (symbolic capital) established by the organization among its key stakeholders. A crisis preparedness can help the organization to avoid or at least mitigate the damage. Beyond these good reasons for implementing a crisis preparedness there can be some other reasons for establishing a crisis preparedness. Let us call them symbolic reasons. If all the other organizations from a specific industry or sector, not least the organizations that are admired the most, have decided to work with crisis management, many other organizations from the same industry or sector will almost automatically follow suit. It is the phenomenon called isomorphism, that is, the mechanism that “make organizations more similar without necessarily making them more efficient” (DiMaggio and Powell 1983: 147). Thus, isomorphism can explain why some organizations adopt a new idea – in our case: the idea of crisis preparedness. But isomorphism can also explain why some organizations never really learn to use the new idea. So far, almost nobody has subjected the institutionalization of the idea of crisis preparedness in private and public organization to a longitudinal study. However, on the basis of a series of mutually independent surveys, conducted at different points

26 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

in time, in different countries and in different types of organizations, it is possible to form a kind of historical overview of the formal adoption of crisis preparedness. In other words, it is possible to find out whether the organizations have a complete crisis preparedness, or if they have just implemented elements of such a preparedness (e.  g., a crisis management plan), but we cannot tell if, how, where, when and why they use it. In order to find answers to research questions of this type we will have to apply a qualitative research design. Tab. 1: How to study the history of crisis management defined as a practice. First-hand data

Quantitative Cross-sectional surveys

Objective

Studies of organizational crisis preparedness in different types of organizations Example: PwC’s Global Crisis Survey 2019

Ethnographic studies

Field studies of the profession or the crisis ­management team in action Example: Bergeron and Cooren (2012)

Qualitative

Subjective

Table 1 provides an overview of research designs and/or methods used in empirical studies of crisis management as an organisational practice. Bergeron and Cooren (2012) is an ethnographic study of how crisis management teams succeed or fail in understanding each other and in collectively framing the crisis situation when the team members background is different. Both studies are based on first-hand data.

3.1 Surveys conducted by academics We will now look at some of the most important surveys to find out what they can tell us about the history of modern organizational crisis management and crisis communication. The very first survey of the crisis preparedness of private companies, including the managers’ understanding of crises and crisis management, was conducted by the USC Center for Crisis Management in collaboration with Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales in Montreal under the direction of Ian I. Mitroff from 1987 to 1991 (for a more detailed introduction, see section 4.1 in this chapter). The survey consisted of two parts: (1) interviews with 500 managers from the United States, Canada and France, and (2) a questionnaire distributed to all Fortune 1000 companies in the United States (response rate: 11 percent). The insights generated from this large survey formed the basis for Thierry C. Pauchant and Ian I. Mitroff’s book Transforming the Crisis-Prone



A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication 

 27

Organization: Preventing Individual, Organizational, and Environmental Tragedies (1992), which today has become a classic in the crisis management literature. The survey demonstrated that 60 percent of the respondents defined a crisis as “a negative shift in the demand of our product”, “a threat to our company’s image”, “a stop in our production system” or “a financial loss”. All these definitions were based on the idea of crises as ‘closed systems’. The study also demonstrated that half of the managers who were interviewed perceived crisis management as “a mostly technical issue”; that only 55 percent of the companies had created a formal “crisis management unit”; that 40 percent of the managers who were interviewed were aware that a crisis could have both internal and external consequences; and that half of the respondents were of the opinion that the crisis management plan of their company was satisfactory. Also academics outside the United States have conducted similar surveys. Frandsen and Johansen (2004) conducted a large national survey among private companies and public authorities in Denmark. The survey was entitled How Prepared Are They? Seven hundred and fifty private and public organizations were contacted, and 298 filled out the questionnaire (response rate: 39,7 percent). Out of the 160 private companies that had accepted to participate in the survey, 66 percent answered that they had a crisis management plan, and 38 percent that they had a crisis management team. In the ICMCC survey (Internal Crisis Management and Crisis Communication Survey), a similar survey conducted in Denmark by Johansen, Aggerholm and Frandsen (2012) almost ten years later, more than 70 percent answered that they had a crisis management plan. The most recent Danish survey, which was the result of a collaboration between the Danish Chamber of Commerce and the Danish Emergency Management Agency (DEMA), was published under the title Are We Ready when the Crisis Hits? The Crisis Management Experiences of 225 Private and Public Organizations (Crisis Management Survey 2017). Some of the most important conclusions from the survey were: There are only few differences between the approaches to crisis management in the private and public sectors. There is a big potential for learning and collaboration across sectors. Top management is intented to participate in the crisis management in an active way, but top management does not prioritize the area high enough and does not participate in the preparations. The organizations work hard on crisis management and subplans, but follow-up activities such as simulations and development of skills are seldom completed. Internal scandals are generally neglected as a potential crisis trigger. Most of the numerous surveys that we have collected on the Internet are about organizational crisis preparedness or crisis management. However, there are a few surveys devoted exclusivey to crisis communication. Cloudman and Hallahan (2006) conducted a survey among 126 public relations professionals in American organizations in order to measure their crisis communication preparedness. The survey revealed, among other things, that 75 percent of the organizations had a written crisis plan.

28 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

3.2 Surveys conducted by associations and consultancies Some professional associations also conduct crisis management surveys. From 2002 to 2004, for example, the American Management Association published an annual Crisis Management and Security Issues Survey. Not only professional associations, but also management and communication consultancies conduct surveys about crisis management and crisis communication. It is a cheap and easy way to promote a consultancy and a flexible supplement to Popular Crisis Management Books (PCMBs) (for an introduction to this practice-oriented literature, see Frandsen and Johansen 2019 and Chapter 18 in this handbook). However, some of them are high quality surveys and deserve to be taken serious. In 2014, Steelhenge Consulting who had specialized in crisis management and business continuity published a Crisis Management Survey in collaboration with the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) in the UK. The survey included 375 respondents. Seventy percent of them were from the United Kingdom. Seventy four percent represented large organizations (more than 2.500 employees). Eighty four percent answered that their organization had a crisis management plan. In 2015, Steelhenge Consulting became part of Regester Larkin and launched a Crisis Management Survey focusing on “Integration and alignment in crisis management” at the annual Crisis Management Conference in London. Regester Larkin was founded by Michael Regester and Judy Larkin, two of the pioneers within the field of crisis management in the UK and the authors of books such as Risk, Issues and Crisis Management: A Casebook of Best Practice (1997, 2008). Only 170 respondents from 27 different countries participated in this second survey. As in the previous survey, many respondents answered that their organization had a crisis management plan (84 percent). However, the most interesting part of this survey and its predecessor is all the other questions that were brought up. Where is the crisis preparedness of your organization ‘located? How integrated is top management? How often and why is the crisis management plan revised? Does the crisis preparedness cover the entire value chain (customers, partners, suppliers, etc.)? We interpret these questions as a clear signal that the crisis consultancies are moving towards a more complex and integrated understanding of the organizational crisis preparedness.3 Danish consultancies and associations also conduct crisis management surveys on a regular basis. In 2012, Lederne, the Danish interest organization for managers and executives, published a survey about crisis management in Danish companies from 2008 to 2011, that is, from the beginning of the economic and financial crisis. 3 In 2016, both Steelhenge Consulting Ltd and Regester Larkin Ltd were bought by Deloitte LLP and transformed into Regester Larkin by Deloitte. Andrew Griffin and Tim Johnson, the authors of Crisis, Issues and Reputation Management (2014) and Crisis Leadership: How to Lead in Times of Crisis, Threat and Uncertainty (2018), are both partners.



A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication 

 29

3.3 Some conclusions What kind of conclusions can be drawn from all these cross-sectional surveys conducted by academics as well as professional associations and management and communication concultancies? Here are some of the conclusions: Although the surveys represent an interesting data set, and although the adoption of a crisis management plan does not tell us very much about how an organization handles a crisis, the data reveal that the formal crisis preparedness among private companies slowly but steady has increased during the past two or three decades. However, if we want to learn more about what is really going on when an organization activates its crisis preparedness during a crisis situation, it will probably be better to conduct an ethnographic field study (see, for example, Bergeron and Cooren 2012). Unfortunately, the surveys are not based on a hypothesis and/or a theory of where, when, how and why an organization begins to work with crisis management and crisis communication implementing a crisis preparedness. Does it typically happen after the organization itself has experienced a crisis? What kind of crisis preparedness do the organizations typically begin with? Who is the driving force behind the implementation process, the CEO, the CMT (crisis management team) or the chief communication officer? The number of respondents, the response rate, the type and size of the participating organizations and the country of origin vary from survey to survey. It makes it difficult for us to make comparisons. The surveys conducted by management and communication agencies are generally less transparent than the surveys conducted by academics. This means that it is difficult to get a more detailed idea about how the research actually took place. Finally, and before we continue with the next section, we would like to emphasize that we have in fact only looked at very few of the numerous crisis management and crisis communication surveys that are conducted and published by academics and consultancies every year. While we were writing this chapter, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) released its first-ever Global Crisis Survey 2019 entitled Crisis Preparedness as the next competetive advantage. This survey is presented as the “most comprehensive repository of corporate crises data ever assembled”.

30 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

4 The history of crisis management as an academic discipline In the previous section, the focus was on the practical history of modern organizational crisis management and crisis communication. Based on first-hand data collected by means of questionnaires or participant observation, we gained new insights into how crisis management and crisis communication have been institutionalized as a organizational practice. In this section, the world of practice will be replaced with the world of academia. We are going to study how crisis management and crisis communication have emerged and developed as an academic discipline. It is not easy to define what an academic discipline is. The disciplines are so different from each other that it is hard to come up with a definition that would fit all of them to the same degree. Take for example crisis management and crisis communication. Are we talking about one discipline (crisis management) or two disciplines (crisis management and crisis communication)? Or a discipline and a subdiscipline (crisis management including crisis communication)? Or two subdisciplines (one under mangement and organization studies, the other under public relations)? Or are we talking about a branch of knowledge across disciplines? The most common defining characteristics of a discipline include: A discipline has a particular object of research. In this handbook, the object of research is defined as organizationel crises, including their causes and consequences, and how private and public organizations handle these crises. The concept of crisis is used in fields of study such as economics, political science, history, psychology, sociology, and philosophy.4 However, we will not make use of these highly diversified crisis definitions. The nexus in our approach is management, organization, communication and crisis (see the argumentation in Coombs 2014: xxvi-xvii; Frandsen and Johansen 2017: 10). A discipline has an accumulated body of specialist knowledge referring to the object of research. However, accumulation in this case does not necessarily mean that we are always making progress. We know more and more, that is a fact, but not all the accumulated parts of our specialist knowledge will always be true. Take for example the so-called centralization thesis according to which administrative decision making becomes centralized under conditions of crisis. In an article entitled “Crisis decision making: The centralization thesis revisited” (1993), Paul ‘t Hart, Uriel Rosenthal, and Alexander Kouzmin, three representatives of the Politics of Crisis Management research tradition, demonstrated that this thesis was problematic.

4 Apart from philosophy, all these disciplines belong to the social sciences. However, also in biology, or to be more specific, in conservation biology or nature’s ‘crisis discipline’, the concept of crisis is in use (Cox 2007).



A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication 

 31

A discipline has concepts, models, and theories by means of which we can organize the accumulated body of knowledge. The so-called staged models where either the crisis or the crisis management process is conceived as a lifecycle divided into stages (typically the pre-crisis, crisis and post-crisis stages), is an excellent example of how disciplinary knowledge can be organized. To each of these stages belongs a set of tools and/or disciplines. In the pre-crisis stage, for example, where the focus is on prevention and preparation, we often use tools and disciplines such as signal detection, risk management, issues management, CMPs and CMTs. Steven Fink is often referred to as the first who divided the crisis process into stages. Coombs (2010: 21) describes Fink’s book as a “useful classic”. However, Coetze and van Niekerk (2012) have demonstrated that the idea of a life cycle is not a new conceptual invention. The idea has in fact been around since the early 1920  s, first within sociology (e.  g., Prince 1920, who distinguished between three stages: the emergency period, the transition period, and the rehabilitation period), then within psychology (Stoddard 1968), who also distinguished between three phases: the pre-emergency, the emergency, and the post-emergency phases). A discipline has a specific metalanguage. In crisis management and crisis communication, there is a rich, some would say a litle too rich, vocabulary. However, the problem is not the size of the vocabulary, that is, the number of concepts. The problem is the amount of ill-defined concepts. Disaster sociology is a discipline that excels in juggling with many key concepts: emergency, disaster, catastrophy, hazard, etc. but disaster sociologists who love to define key concepts (Quarantelli 1998; see also the first chapter in Tierney 2019) have nevertheless succeeded in elaborating clear conceptual framework where the individual concepts do not overlap. Crisis management and crisis communication only have one key concept – the concept of crisis – and it is not well-defined. Finally, a discipline has some institutional manifestation (subject taught at universities or business schools, a research center, a department, a professional association, etc.). In the United States, for example, many if not most departments and schools of communication offer courses on crisis communication.

4.1 History and historiography There is no such thing as history as such. Between us and the past is the writing of history (or historiography). In the handbooks of crisis management and crisis communication, we find attempts to write the history of crisis management and crisis communication as a discipline (see, for example, Palenchar 2009; Coombs 2010, 2014). However, nobody has really succeeded in doing this job. Why? It is not because the historiographers are incompetent, or that they have not done their work properly. It is because of what we could call structural problems. One of these problems is the fact that the history of crisis management and crisis communication is so short that

32 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

it is difficult to identify periods, shifts, trends and developments. Instead, diachrony transforms into synchrony. It would not be unfair to blame the editors of this handbook for having contributed to this transformation with their distinction between a rhetorical or text-oriented approach and a strategic or context-oriented approach (Frandsen and Johansen 2017; see also Coombs 2009). Another challenge concerns how we conceive the history of science: as a continuous stream of discoveries, as a progressive and cumulative process? Organizational crisis management and crisis communication are often introduced as a young field of study that we expect to grow and mature as an academic discipline. Maturity models of this kind are very popular, probably because it is so easy to understand and make sense out of them. However, there is something wrong with them. For example, maturity models assume that growth is a linear progression through a number of discrete phases marked by unique characteristics. However, progression is often messier than we expect.

4.2 Intellectual and institutional indicators in the history of a discipline Another way to study how crisis management and crisis communication have emerged and developed over time as an academic discipline is to look for intellectual and institutional indicators. We are inspired by Löblich and Scheu’s (2011) sociology of science model that integrates the intellectual, institutional and biographical dimensions of scientific research. The intellectual dimension focuses on the cognitive developments of communication studies (concepts, models, and theories). The institutional dimension focuses on scientific research as an ‘organization’. The biographical dimension is about individual scholars or groups of researchers, their academic careers, function as mentors, etc. We have identified six different types of intellectual and institutional indicators. These indicators make it possible for us to describe crisis management and crisis communication as an academic discipline and to explain how far crisis management and crisis communication have come in the process of transforming into a mature and legitimate discipline. The six indicators are: (1) the production and dissemination of new scientific knowledge, (2) academic forums, (3) academic journals, (4) academic handbooks, (5) collection of masterworks, and (6) textbooks. We will now briefly present the six indicators including the methods that can be used to study them (see Table 2). We begin with the most important indicator: the production and dissemination of new knowledge.



A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication 

 33

Tab. 2: How to study the history of crisis management defined as an academic discipline. Second-hand data

Quantitative Citation analysis (bibliometric analysis)

Study of the most cited authors, the most cited works, and citation networks in crisis management and crisis communication research.

Delphi Study

Study based on a panel of experts who are asked to answer a set of questions in two or more rounds

Objective

Example: Ki, Pasadeos and Ertem-Eray (2019)

Example: Manias-Munoz, Yin and Reber (2019) Literature review

Study based on the systematic review of a literature. Example: Nohrstedt, Bynander, Parker, and ‘t Hart (2018)

Autobiographic study

Study of the biography or the memories of a person. Example: French scholar Patrick Lagadec’s academic autobiography Le continent des imprévus: Journal de bord des temps chaotiques (2015)

Qualitative

Subjective

Table 2 provides an overview of research designs and/or methods applied in empirical studies of crisis management defined as an academic discipline. For a short presentation of Ki, Pasadeos and Ertem-Eray (2019) and of Manias-Munoz, Yin and Reber (2019), see section 4.2.1. Nohrstedt, Bynander, Parker and ‘t Hart (2018) is a literature review of the literature on interorganizational collaboration. All the studies mentioned in Table 2 are based on second-hand data.

4.2.1 The production and dissemination of new scientific knowledge The first and most important indicator is the production and dissemination of new scientific (empirical and/or theoretical) knowledge, or what researchers refer to as their ‘findings’ or ‘results’. Without such a production there is no discipline. It seems relevant to bring up the question: Who produces these new insights? And the answer is: (1) researchers, (2) consultants, and (3) practitioners. The production and dissemination of new knowledge represents the core of the intellectual history of an academic discipline. But how can we measure and evaluate this process?

34 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

Citation analysis Whether empirical or theoretical, the new scientific knowledge is disseminated by means of various academic genres (for an overview of the academic genre system, see Chapter 1). These genres can be studied through a bibliometric analysis such as a citation analysis. Citation analysis is a way of measuring the relative importance or impact of a researcher and/or a research publication by counting the number of times that this researcher or this research publication has been cited by other researchers or research publications. A citation analysis can reveal how a specific field of study such as crisis management or communiation has developed over time, including which theoretical and methodological frameworks are the most dominant, and which research topics are the most popular. The quality of the bibliometric studies is dependent on how broad or narrow the discipline is defined and which outlets are included. Yorgo Pasadeos, University of Alabama, is an expert when it comes to investigating the citations of scholarly works. Together with his collaborators, he has conducted a series of periodic bibliometric analyses in works on public relations published from 1975 to 2005 (see, for example, Pasadeos and Renfro 1992 and Pasadeos, Berger and Renfro 2010). These bibliometric analyses are particularly interesting for us as crisis communication scholars because crisis communication is often considered a subdiscipline of public relations. Pasadeos’ most recent study covered the citations in six journals from 2010 to 2015: Public Relations Review, Journal of Public Relations Research, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Journal of Communication Management, Corporate Communications: An International Journal, and International Journal of Strategic Communication (see Ki et al. 2019). The following four sets of research questions were addressed: (1) Which authors were most cited in the public relations literature during the 2010–2015 period?, (2) Which works were most cited in the public relations literature during the 2010–2015 period? (3) Which kinds of publications were most cited in the public relations literature during the 2010–2015 period? And (4) what was the co-citation network (defined as the frequency with which two publications are cited together by other publications) of the most cited works? The findings of the study clearly showed that some of the most cited authors and most cited works in public relations belong to the subdiscipline of crisis communication. W. Timothy Coombs is the second most cited scholar (722 citations) in all six journals. William L. Benoit is number 11 on the list (316 citations). Crisis communication ‘emerged’ during the 2000–2005 period, but during the 2010–2015 period crisis communication has become one of the four strongest research topics (together with excellence theory, relationship management, and new technologies). It is thought-provoking to see how Ki et al. (2019) envision the future for crisis communication as a discipline:



A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication 

 35

Across the analyses, four main areas – crisis communication, relationship management, new technologies and dialogic communication – were at the center of the public relations scholarship, and excellence theory continued to be influential. All of these areas gradually become more theory-driven over the past two decades. In the 2010–2015 period, instead of developing new theories for the field, scholars advanced and expanded existing theories in these areas. One notable pattern was that these topical areas were merged and integrated. […] This might be an indication that the existing theories in these four areas were saturated. It might be time for researchers in these areas to bring new perspectives from which to develop new theories or frameworks. (Ki, Pasadeos and Ertem-Eray 2019).

Delphi study A Delphi study (named after the Oracle of Delphi) was originally an interactive forecasting technique developed at the beginning of the Cold War. It was based on the idea that forecasts or decisions from a structured group of individuals are more accurate than those from unstructured groups. The technique consists in collecting opinions from a panel of experts in a specific area in an iterative process of answering questions. After each round the answers are summerized and redistributed for the next round. The experts are encouraged to revise their earlier answers in the light of the other experts’ answers. The aim is to reach consensus. Recently, Itsaso Manias-Munoz, University of the Basque Country, together with Yan Jin and Bryan H. Reber, University of Georgia, conducted an international Delphi study in order to explore the status of crisis communication research and education. See, for example, the article “The state of crisis communication research and education through the lens of crisis scholars: An international Delphi study” (2019) which is based on the reports from the study. Twenty-two international crisis scholars accepted to participate in the study. Forty percent were women, sixty percent were men. The study was conducted over a period of two years and consisted of two rounds (cf. the distinction betweem R1 and R2 participants). Two broad research questions were formulated: RQ1. What is the state of crisis communication research in the international realm? All R1 participants (the experts who participated in the first round of the Delpi study) believed that crisis communication was relatively more established in the United States than in other parts of the world. However, crisis communication researchers from Europe (especially from the Scandinavian countries) had seen the topic becoming very popular in the past decade. While the American scholars remained focused on the public relations aspects of crisis communication, the European scholars emphasized reputational variables and had a less organization-centric approach. RQ2. What is the state of crisis communication education at universities? The situation of crisis communication teaching at universities seemed to be the same in most participants’ countries. Crisis communication is rarely taught as a stand-alone course, but is normally included as a specialized course.

36 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

When put together, the citation analysis in Ki et al. (2019) and the Delphi study in Manias-Munoz et al. (2019) demonstrate how far crisis communication has come in its development as an academic discipline. Literature reviews The literature review is also a member of the academic genre system that we introduced in Chapter 1. It has four objectives: (1) it surveys the literature in the area of study, (2) it synthesises the literature into a summery, (3) it critically evaluates the literature by identifying gaps in current knowledge; by showing limitations of concepts, models and theories; and by formulating areas for further research, (4) and, finally, it presents the literature in an organized way. One of the very first review articles within the field of crisis management was entitled “Recent research in crisis management: A study of 24 authors’ publications from 1986 to 1991” (1993) and was co-authored by Thierry C. Pauchant and Rosaline Douville. The empirical basis for this review consisted of 74 articles and 12 books. A content analysis revealed about 30 different themes which were then again reduced to eight major themes: (1) theory building, (2) technological issues, (3) subjective and cultural issues, (4) social criticism, (5) structural issues, (6) communication issues, (7) strategic issues, and (8) stakeholder management. Pauchant and Douville’s study is important. First of all, it provides us with an idea of how the research agenda looked like in the 1980  s. Second, the study reveals that communication issues are perhaps the most addressed today in crisis management. However, while this area is obviously paramount for crisis management efforts, many of the researchers we have surveyed consider the communication issues to be only a part of a total and systemic crisis management strategy (Pauchant and Rosaline Douville 1993: 56). Are Pauchant and Douville here not indirectly claiming that a systemic view, which was so popular in the late 1980  s (cf. Pauchant and Mitroff 1993), can prevent crisis management researchers from understanding how important communication was? One of the most recent and most comprehensive review articles on crisis management and crisis communication is entitled “Crisis and crisis management: Integration, interpretation and research development” (2017) and is co-authored by Jonathan Bundy, Michael D. Pfarrer, Cole E. Short and W. Timothy Coombs. It covers the period from 1998 to 2015, or to be more precise: the authors use Pearson and Clair’s article “Reframing crisis management” (1998) as their starting point. Bundy et al. (2017) propose an integrated framework consisting of (1) three components drawing from research in multiple disciplines and (2) two primary perspectives: an internal perspective and an external perspective. Academic autobiographies and memoirs An autobiography can be defined as the self-written account of the life of oneself. The memoir is closely associated with the autobiography but it focuses less on the self and



A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication 

 37

more on others. Both autobiographies and memoirs contribute with a personal, subjective perspective on their topic: a life, a time, a life time. In recent years, a growing number of academic autobiographies and memoirs has been published. This new trend has not yet reached the discipline of crisis management and crisis communication, but there are exceptions. In 2015, French crisis management researcher Patrick Lagadec (born 1948) published Le continent des imprévus: Journal de bord des temps chaotiques. Through this book, Lagadec tells us about his academic life and career, how crisis management slowly and not without difficulties became a legitimate discipline and practice in the public administration in France, and how he contributed to this development with new concepts and publications (the concept of major technological risk, the concept of crisis, and the concept of rupture).

4.2.2 Academic forums (conferences and networks) A second category of intellectual and institutional indicators is the academic forums, such as national and international conferences and networks inside which the new scientific knowledge can be exchanged and be the object of debates between peers or between researchers and practitioners. The first international conference on crisis management was organized by Paul Shrivastava and took place in 1986 at the Graduate School of Administration at New York University. More than 200 people from six different countries participated, including Patrick Lagadec from France. The conference apparently had crisis communication as the primary conference theme. At the beginning of the 1990  s, Larry Barton, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, organized a series of five conferences entitled New Avenues in Crisis Management. Today, there are international networks such as the thematic section on crisis communication created in 2015 under the auspices of European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA). There are also international conferences such as the important series entitled Crisis Communication at the 21st Century or Crisis 1, Crisis 2, Crisis 3, etc. which until now has been organized six times (Ilmenau, 2009; Aarhus, 2011; Erfurt, 2013; Lund, 2015; Lissabon, 2017; Leeds, 2019). Another important series entitled The International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference (ICRCC) has been organized every year since 2011 at the Nicholson School of Communication, University of Central Florida, Orlando.

4.2.3 Academic journals The third category of indicators is the growing number of academic journals, such as International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters (1983), Industrial Crisis Quarterly (1987), Disaster Prevention and Management (1992) and Journal of Contingencies

38 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

and Crisis Management (1993). As it appears from the years where these journals were launched, the first of them were founded in the early 1980  s. Until recently, there was no academic journal dedicated exclusively to the study of crisis communication. Instead potentials contributors had to search for journals with terms such as ‘public relations’, ‘organizational communication’, ‘corporate communication’ or ‘strategic communication’ in their names. Public Relations Review was the closest you could get to a genuine ‘Journal of Crisis Communication’. A journal such as Management Communication Quarterly, sometimes described as the flagship of organizational communication, has also published numerous articles on crisis communication (see, for example, the MCQ course pack). Then, in 2017, Matthew W. Seeger and Timothy L. Sellnow founded International Journal of Crisis and Risk Communication. Finally, we would like to emphasize that a new journal which calls itself International Journal of Crisis Communication, and is published by Lifescience Global, serves a more specific purpose. This also appears from the journal’s mission: “The Mission of International Journal of Crisis Communication is to integrate knowledge and principles of journalists working in environment of crisis”. Table 3 provides an overview of the most important journals in public crisis management, political crisis management and corporate crisis management (chronological order). Tab. 3: Overview of academic journals. Name

Year of ­Foundation

Specialist journals in public, political and corporate crisis management International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters 1983 Industrial Crisis Quarterly 1987 Security Journal 1989 Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal 1992 Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 1993 International Journal of Emergency Management 2001 Journal of Emergency Management 2003 Crisis Response Journal 2005 International Journal of Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management 2009 International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 2012 International Journal of Crisis and Risk Communication 2017 International Journal of Disaster Response and Emergency Management 2018 Progress in Disaster Science 2019 General public relations and communication journals Public Relations Review Management Communication Quarterly Journal of Public Relations Research Journal of Communication Management Corporate Communications: An International Journal

1976 1987 1989 1996 1996



A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication 

 39

4.2.4 Handbooks The fourth category of indicators is the academic handbooks (or handbooks of research). The aim of these handbooks is to define and delimit the field providing a systematic account for its core and structure. We refer to our presentation of the six handbooks of crisis management and crisis communication in Chapter 1: Pearson, Roux-Dufort and Clair (2007), Heath and O’Hair (2009), Coombs and Holladay (2010), DuBrin (2013), Schwarz, Seeger and Auer (2016), and Gephart, Miller and Helgesson, (2019).

4.2.5 Textbooks The fifth category of indicators is the academic textbooks. A growing number of universities and business schools offer courses on crisis management and crisis communication at different levels). It is therefore not a surprise that more and more textbooks enter the market, and that the interest in teaching crisis management and crisis communication is also growing. The authoritative textbooks are W. Timothy Coombs’ Ongoing Crisis Communication (1999, 2007, 2012, 2015, 2019), Fearn-Banks (1996, 2001, 2007, 2010, 2017), Ulmer, Sellnow and Seeger (2007, 2011, 2014, 2019), and Sellnow and Seeger (2013). We will also like to refer to Frandsen and Johansen (2017).

4.2.6 Collections of masterworks The sixth and last category of indicators is the collections of masterworks, or better: the attempt to establish a canon wihin a specific discipline. A canon covers the essential readings that all the researchers ought to know regardless of his or hers area of focus and approach. In principles, this means that researchers who have specialized in crisis management, but not in crisis communication, or vice versa, must read the most central masterworks belonging to the other part of the discipline. A reader is not the same as a canon, but can be any collection of texts that have been put together for any purpose. Two international publishers, Rouledge and Sage Publications, have published collections of masterworks. In 2006, Denis Smith and Dominic Elliott edited Key Readings in Crisis Management: Systems and Structures for Prevention and Recovery. In 2008, Arjen Boin edited Crisis Management  I–III, a collection in three volumes: (1) Causes and Dynamics, (2) Challenges of Crisis Management, and (3) Consequences of Crises and Crisis Management. In 2014, W. Timothy Coombs edited Crisis Management I–IV, a collection in four volumes: (1) Origins of Crisis Communication, (2) Theory Development in Crisis Communication, (3) Crisis Communication Connects with Other Strategic Communication Fields, and (4) Crisis Communication Evolves: Digital Channels, Globalization and Critiques.

40 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

4.2.7 Some conclusions What can we conclude on the basis of these intellectual and institutional indicators? It seems to depend on the eyes watching. The crisis management researchers are rather pessimistic in their evaluation of the history of their discipline. Pearson, Roux-Dufort and Clair (2007) describe the research on crisis management as “dispersed and noncumulative” (Pearson, Roux-Dufort and Clair 2007: viii). It is almost an echo of a similar evaluation made 15 years earlier by Pauchant and Douville (1993) where crisis management is described as a discipline suffering from fragmentation and the lack of a common paradigm. The crisis communication researchers, on the contrary, are much more optimistic. Toth (2010) describes the research on crisis communication within the field of public relations as leading to no less than a new “crisis communication paradigm” (Toth 2010: 714). Coombs and Holladay take the reader a step further. In their preface to The Handbook of Crisis Communication (2010) they state: “Currently, crisis communication is more of a subdiscipline in public relations and corporate communication. However, as the research in crisis communication continues to grow, it may be able to establish itself as an independent field” (Coombs and Holladay 2010: xxvi).

5 The history of modern organizational crisis ­management and crisis communication research (1980–2020) The remainder of this chapter is devoted to an attempt to write the history of more than 40 years of modern organizational crisis management and crisis communication research (1980–2020). Our historiography is based on the critical examination of as many relevant sources as possibles. However, our overview of theories and scholars is not and cannot be complete. It is impossible to mention all of the inspiring and exciting research that has been conducted during the last forty years. We have had to concentrate on til main developments. For an overview, see Table 4. Inspired by Coombs (2014), we have divided the period into decades. We are aware that such a linear periodization of the past into discrete blocks of time can be problematic. We can use Coombs’ own theoretical framework situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) and the concept of reception history to illustrate this. The history of how a piece of scientific research is ‘produced’ within an academic community will normally differ from the history of how the same piece of scientific research is ‘received’. There are not only important differences in time and space, but also differences in pre-understanding. The production history of SCCT began in 1995 with the publication of “Choosing the right words: The development of guidelines for the selection of the ‘appropriate’ crisis-response strategies” in Management Commu-



A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication 

 41

nication Quarterly. The production history in this case includes sources of inspiration (Benson 1988, attribution theory, relationship management and evidence-based management), why W. Timothy Coombs and Sherry J. Holladay changed the name of the theory from the symbolic approach to situational crisis communication theory, and how they have developed SCCT over time (for further details, see Chapter 5 in this handbook). The reception history of SCCT, on the contrary, began much later. In 2004, Coombs (1995) was cited 19 times according to Google Scholar. The article peaked in 2016 with 97 citations. If we turn to the very popular textbook that Coombs published in 1999 – Ongoing Crisis Communication  – it was cited 7 times in 2004 according to Google Scholar. The textbook peaked in 2017 with 214 citations. The reception history includes further developments of SCCT (made by other scholars than the two originators) and criticisms (see, for example, Benoit 2015 and Page 2019). It goes without saying that it is impossible to capture such complex processes within a simple system of decades. However, history is not the past. History is the past as interpreted and remembered by people living in the present. Without the idea of beginnings and endings, without names, there would not be such a thing as history. The 1960s/1970  s: pioneers The 1960  s and 1970  s were the pioneers’ decades. In 1963, American political scientist Charles F. Hermann (born 1938) defined an organizational crisis as a crisis that “(1) threatens high-priority values of the organization, (2) presents a restricted amount of time in which a response can be made, and (3) is unexpected or unanticipated by the organization” (Hermann 1963: 64). Today, more than 40 years later Hermann’s (1963) crisis definition is still very much in use (see, for example, Ulmer, Sellnow and Seeger 2019). It is the first of the two most popular crisis definitions in the literature. It represents a crisis-as-event perspective. British disaster sociologist Barry A. Turner (1937–1995) was another important pioneer who conducted research at the edge of crisis management. In his article “The organizational and interorganizational development of disasters” (1976), and in his book Man-made Disasters (1978), his use of a grounded approach led him to the conception of human-made disasters in terms of processes with long incubation periods – known as the sequential model of incubation (in six stages) – and to new concepts such as perceptual rigidity, information ambiguity and disregard of rules and instructions. Finally, Irving L. Janis (1918–1990) must also be considered a pioneer for his study of groupthink, a social psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire of harmony or conformity is so strong that it results in dysfunctional decision making. His influential book Victims of Groupthink was originally published in 1972, but a second edition came out in 1982. As we shall see in Chapter 3, this research tradition continued to play an important role in European crisis management research until the late 1990  s.

42 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

The 1980  s: beginnings We have decided to locate the foundations of organizational crisis management and crisis communication as an academic discipline in the 1980  s in the United States. However, we agree with Palenchar (2009) when he argues that it is impossible to identify a specific date or event where crisis management was launched as a field of study. There were probably several ‘beginnings’ spread all over the 1980  s. What characterized this first ‘crisis decade’? In the 1980  s, we discovered a new type of crises, the meta-crises, or what Lagadec (1992) called major technological risks, such as Seveso (1976), the Three Mile Island (1979), Bhopal (1984) and Chernobyl (1986). The first crises to be studied were not organizational, but industrial crises. In the 1980  s, we began talking about our society in terms of a risk civilization (Lagadec 1982) or a risk society (Beck 1986) embedded in “a culture of uncertainty” (Beck and Holzer 2007). In the 1980  s, the first international journal of crisis management, Industrial Crisis Quarterly, was launched, and the first international conference on cisis management was organized. Finally, in the 1980  s, consultants and consultancies such as Steven Fink, the founder of Lexicon Communications Corp. and often nicknamed the “Dean of Crisis Management”, began offering crisis consulting. The world’s first center for crisis management research – the USC Center for Crisis Management (CCM) – was founded in 1986 by Ian I. Mitroff (born 1932) in the Graduate School of Business at the University of Southern California. Mitroff was Harold Quinton Disinguished Professor of Business Policy and Strategic Management and he served as the Director of the new research center for 10 years. Among the other members we find (in alphabetical order): Murat Alpaslan, Chris Bresnahan, Judith Clair, Laura Farmer Hawkins, Sarah Kovoor, Maria Nathan, Thierry Pauchant, and Christine Pearson. Six years and a major international research project later, Mitroff published Transforming the Crisis-Prone Organization: Preventing Individual, Organizational, and Environmental Tragedies (1992) together with his French colleague Thierry Pauchant, a book that today is considered a classic. In general, Mitroff’s contribution to the new discipline of organizational crisis management and crisis communication must be described as comprehensive: the crisis portfolio model, the staged model for how crises develop as a process, the idea of emotional crisis preparedness, crisis leadership – all research topics developed within the frame of a system theoretical approach. Among Ian  I. Mitroff’s collaborators, we find Christine Pearson and Judith Clair who at the end of the 1990  s defined crises in the following way in their article “Reframing crisis management” (1998): “An organizational crisis is a low-probability, high-impact situation that is perceived by critical stakeholders to threaten the viability of the organization and that is subjectibely experienced by these individuals as personnally and socially threatening”. This is the second of the two most popular crisis definitions (cf. above). Like Herman’s (1963) crisis definition, it represents a crisis-as-event perspective.



A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication 

 43

Other important publications from Mitroff and his colleagues: Crisis Leadership: Planning for the Unthinkable (2004), and Swans, Swine, and Swindlers: Coping with the Growing Threat of Mega-Crises and Mega-Messes (2011). However, Mitroff was neither the first nor the only one who contributed to the institutionalization of crisis management. In 1963, Henri Quarantelli, Russell Dynes and J. Eugene Haas established the Disaster Research Center (DRC) at Ohio State University. In 1976, Gilbert White established the Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center (NHRAIC) at University of Colorado. Quarantelli and his colleagues were all trained as sociologist, while White was trained as a geographer, but apart from that they all came from the University of Chicago and they were all inspired by systems theory and symbolic interactionism. Quarantelli died in 2017, Dynes in 2019. One of their successors is Kathleen Tierney, the author of The Social Roots of Risk (2014) and Disasters: A Sociological Approach (2019). It is thanks to her that American disaster sociologists finally recognized the social construction of the risk society. The United States is a country where the President has the authority to declare an event for a disaster – including all the political strategies triggered by such a declaration. In 1984, Charles Perrow publishes Normal Accidents in which he develops his Natural Accident Theory (NAT). Six years later, Karlene H. Roberts starts publishing articles about High Reliability Organizations (HRO). The ground was thereby laid for a debate between NAT and HRO: the idea that industrial systems are tight coupled and produce normal accidents and the idea that organizations are able to build up a collective mindfuldness which make them capable to be particularly vigilant to accidents. One of the researchers who became inspired by the concept of high reliability organizations is American organizational psychologist Karl E. Weick who in collaboration with Kathleen M. Sutcliffe published the same book Managing the Unexpected in three different editions in 2001, 2007 and 2015 respectively. However, long before that time Weick had become known as the author of two important articles: “Enacted sensemaking in crisis situation” (1988) and “The collapse of sensemaking in organizations: The Mann Gulch disaster” (1993). In the first article, the cornerstone of what we today understand as crisis sensemaking is laid down, that is, the study of how people make sense in crisis situation. In the second article, Weick presents his definition of crisis: A cosmology episode occurs when people however suddenly and deeply feel that the universe is no longer a rational, orderly system. What makes such an episode so shattering is that both the sense of what is occurring and the means to rebuild that sense collapse together. (Weick 1993: 633; see also Chapter 8).

So far, we have only focused on crisis management. However, a few early articles on crisis communication see the light in the 1980  s, albeit in a smaller number and within

44 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

a bounded area. It is the case with marketing and consumer behavior research where consumer reactions to product harm crises (including product recalls) are investigated. It is also the case with rhetoric, or what the Americans for more than a hundred years have named speech communication, where apologia theory serves as the framework for rhetorical studies of crises. A good example is the special issue of Central States Speech Journal on “Space Shuttle Challenger: A Communication Perspective” (1986). Finally, Lagadec publishes a few articles on crisis communication strategies in the wake of the first international conference on industrial crises held at New York University. The 1990  s: first generation theories Two of the most important crisis research centers in Europe were established in the 1990  s. The oldest of the two centers is the Leiden University Crisis Research Center (CRC) which was founded in 1989 by Uriel Rosenthal (born 1945). Five years earlier Rosenthal had published his monumental work Disasters, Riots, and Terrorism: Crisis Decision Making in the Netherlands (1984, in Dutch). A summary in English entitled “Crisis decision making in the Netherlands” was published in 1986 in The Netherland’s Journal of Sociology. In 1993, Uriel Rosenthal founded Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, perhaps the first real ‘journal of crisis management’, together with Alexander Kouzmin. The Leiden University Crisis Research Center still exists. It studies crisis management in the public sector and has fostered researchers such as Arjen Boin and Paul ‘t Hart. Among their most important publications are Coping with Crisis: The Management of Disasters, Riots and Terrorism (Rosenthal, Charles and ‘t Hart 1989); Managing Crisis: Threats, Dilemma, Opportunities (Rosenthal, Boin and Comfort 2001); Governing after Crisis: The Politics of Investigation, Accountability and Learning (Boin, McConnell and ‘t Hart 2008). To this list of books, we can add two important articles: “The bureau-politics of crisis management” (Rosenthal, ‘t Hart and Kouzmin 1991) and “Crisis decision making: The centralization thesis revisited” (‘t Hart 1993). It is difficult not to see Uriel Rosenthal as a ‘founding father’ of crisis management research, in parallel with Ian I. Mitroff and the USC Center of Crisis Management in the United States. However, they have different theoretical backgrounds. The second center is CRISMART or the Center for Crisis Management Research and Training (CRISMART), which is part of the Swedish Defense University in Stockholm. CRISMART was founded in 2000 by Bengt Sundelius. Eric Stern and Bengt Sundelius are two of the most prominent CRISMART scholars. Among the most important publications are: Beyond Groupthink: Political Group Dynamics and Foreign Policymaking (1997); Crisis Ddecision Making: A Cognitive-Institutional Approach (1999). In 2005, Arjen Boin, Paul ’t Hart, Eric Stern and Bengt Sundelius published The Politics of Crisis Management: Public Leadership under Pressure (second edition, 2017)



A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication 

 45

At the end of the 1980  s, nobody talked about crisis communication as a field of study in its own right, but suddenly things started gaining momentum. Coombs (2014) calls it “a big bang that erupted”. A series of new theories focusing either on the textual dimension (what is communicated and how?) or on the contextual dimension (who, where, when and why?) of crisis communication experienced their final breakthrough. The concepts of image, reputation and/or social legitimacy play a key role in all of these theories. In 1995, American rhetorician William L. Benoit gave out what has since then been considered his most influential book: Accounts, Excuses, and Apologies: A Theory of Image Restoration Strategies. It consists of case studies of the verbal defense strategies applied by persons and/or organizations when their image, reputation, face or ethos have been attacked. The sources of inspiration are: Kenneth Burke and his theory of dramtism, Ware and Linkugel’s apologia theory, and Scott and Lyman’s sociological theory of accounts. Image restoration theory later changed its name to image repair theory following a discussion with Burns and Bruner (2000). See Chapter 4 in this handbook. A few years before, another American rhetorician by the name of Keith Michael Hearit publishes a series of articles about crises in the automobile industry that point towards his first and only book entitled Managing Crisis by Apology (2006). The sources of inspiration are: Kenneth Burke and his theory of terministic screens, Chaim Perelman and his theory of dissociation strategies, Dowling and Pfeffer’s (1975) theory of social legitimacy, and casuistry. The latter is the key component of Hearit’s attempt to establish an apologetic ethics. Together with Jeffrey Courtright, Hearit is one of the first researchers who has revisited social constructivism in crisis communication. We have baptized his theoretical framework terminological control theory: What is perhaps more crucial than anything else in a crisis situation is to get in control over the proto-definitions and the wording of the crisis communication messages. In 1995, American public relations researcher W. Timothy Coombs publishes an article entitled “Choosing the right words: The development of guidelines for the selection of the ‘appropriate’ crisis response strategies” in Management Communication Quarterly. Benoit had served as W. Timothy Coombs’ teacher in a course on rhetorical theory and rhetorical criticism when Benoit was at Bowling Green State University in the early 1980  s. Contrary to Benoit and his rhetorical or text-oriented approach to crisis communication, Coombs applies a more context-oriented approach on the basis of public relations (relationship management) and social psychology (attribution theory) and develops situational crisis communication theory. Coombs aims at examining how the crisis type in combination with intensifying factors such as crisis intensity, crisis history and prior reputation have an impact on stakeholders’ attribution of crisis responsibility, and how these situational factors play a role for the choice of crisis response strategies. In that way, SCCT constitutes a normative and evidence-based theory. See Chapter 5 in this handbook

46 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

In 1997, Glen G. Cameron and his collaborators publish the article “It depends: A contingency theory of accommodation in public relations”. What we are dealing with here is a grand theory of public relations that later on transforms into a middle-range theory on crisis communication. Just like Coombs, Cameron argues that the choice of crisis response strategy depends on the context. However, where Coombs claims that we only needs one situational variable to make this choice, Cameron has identified no less than 87 contingency factors. Fifteen years later, Avery, Lariscy, Kim and Hocke (2010) conducted a bibliometric study of trends in the use of crisis communication theory in public relations research and its applications between 1991 and 2009. The study resulted in the identification of 66 articles, published in 16 different academic journals. Benoit had (co-)authored 19 of these 66 articles, while Coombs had (co-)authored 14 of them. Thus, the two American researchers were responsible for half of all the articles identified, and their theoretical frameworks have been dominant since 1995. Image repair rheory is a theory that has proved fruitful for analyses of crisis response strategies, but it has not evolved much. This has also been the case with the promising theory of persuasive attacks that Benoit has been working on for some years, most recently in 2017 (Benoit and Glantz 2017). Furthermore, we must not forget that Benoit also is the originator of the functional theory of political campaign discourse. Situational crisis communication theory, on the contrary, is a very dynamic theory and Coombs has introduced several new concepts and theories: the halo and the velcro effect, the concept of paracrisis, the theory of scansis, etc. Despite this difference, both image repair theory and situational crisis communication theory have remained the two most dominant crisis communication theories until this day. There are theories of crisis communication that we can call crossovers. They do not define themselves as belonging to the field, and the field does not see them as full members. We call them crossovers because they are communication theories developed by management researchers. One of these theories is organizational perception management or event-based reputation management developed by Kimberly D. Elsbach. It is easy to detect the differences between the two research traditions: while most of the theories that we have looked upon until now use, Elsbach’s approach is based on a conceptual framework including the concepts of account, impression management, and organizational legitimacy (Elsbach 1994; Elsbach 2006; Elsbach and Sutton 1992; see also Frandsen and Johansen 2020). We have described the 1980  s and the 1990  s as two decades characterized by ‘foundations’, ‘beginnings’ and ‘first generation theories’, but how substantial was the impact? Were modern crisis management and crisis communication once and for all established as an academic discipline? We can divide crisis scholars into ‘pessimists’ and ‘optimists’. Christophe Roux-Dufort is definitely a pessimist. In his short, but thought-provoking essay Is Crisis Management (only) a Management of Exceptions? (2007; French edition, 2014), he explains the “isolation of crisis management in the field of organization theory” in the following way:



A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication 

 47

First, crisis management is a scattered and non-cumulative field of research characterized by little theorization. […] Second, vagueness of definitions. Without a solid conceptual and defining framework, research loses legitimacy […]. Third, crisis management suffers from a methodological monolithism. The main results it produces are drawn from case studies of major industrial disasters that still today serve as immovable references. Finally, a crisis is perceived above all as an event. This position gives it a singularity and a contingency that distance it from more structuring models and that make replication and generalization of research results difficult. (Roux-Dufort 2007: 106)

The 2000  s: second generation theories In the 2000  s, crisis communication begins to consolidate as a field of study. At the same time, a series of new theories enter the academic stage. The keyword in all of them is complexity. In 2003, Matthew W. Seeger, Timothy L. Sellnow, and Robert R. Ulmer published their first book Communication and Organizational Crisis. It is based on (1) Weick’s theory of sensemaking, (2) on the theory of organizational learning, but also on the idea of non-linear dynamics in chaos theory. The three American researchers also launch their discourse of renewal theory which is characterized by not conceiving a crisis as a negative threat, but as a positive opportunity for change and growth in the organization hit by the crisis. In 2008, Dawn R. Gilpin and Priscilla J. Murphy published Crisis Management in a Complex World. They distinguish between three approaches: the tactical approach, the strategic approach, and the adaptive approach. The second of these approaches – an approach based on anticipation, control and planning – represent the “dominant” view according to Gilpin and Murphy. It is also in the 2000  s that the editors of this handbook introduces rhetorical arena theory (RAT) and the multivocal approach to crisis communication (2000, 2007 in Danish, 2010 in English) which is an attempt to take into account the patterns and interactions among the multiple voices that enter an arena when a crisis breaks out and start communicating to, with, against, past and about each other (see Chapter 9 in this handbook). Finally, we have also observed a development from reactive crisis communication to proactive crisis communication. Crisis response strategies as presented in the inventories established by Benoit (1995) and Coombs (1999) are reactive strategies used when a crisis breaks out. However, new and proactive theories such as stealing thunder (Arpan and Pompper 2003) and inoculation theory (Wan and Pfau 2004) emerge during this decade.

48 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

The 2010s After the year 2010 it becomes increasingly difficult to make a clear distinction between the past and the present and to be the historiographer of the academic discipline of crisis management and crisis communication. However, new and important research topics are emerging or gaining traction within the field and deserve to be mentioned. The first of these new topics is emotions. By nature, crises call for emotional reactions, but these emotions can be very different depending on factors such as crisis type, origin and severity. Some emotions are negative (e.  g., anger and sadness), others are positive (e.  g., hope and relief). Jin, Pang, and Cameron (2007) have made an important contribution with their Integrated Crisis Mapping (ICM) model focusing on the emotions of the external stakeholders. So far, only little research has been conducted in relationship to the emotions expressed by the organization in crisis. A second important research topic is social media or SoMe. A fast growing stream of research inspired by the new social media landscape and the new types of crisis (such as ‘shitstorms’) which emerged when platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Yammer, etc. entered the world of organizations. The social-mediated crisis communication (SMCC) model was developed by Lucinda Austin, Brooke L. Liu, and Yan Jin (2012) as an attempt to describe this new phenomenon. Two of them, Austin and Jin, edited Social Media and Crisis Communication (2018). See Chapter 23 in this handbook. Among the other new research topics we cannot avoid mentioning the study of internal crisis management and crisis communication which was initiated at the beginning of the decade (for an important contribution, see, for example, Internal Crisis Communication: Crisis Awareness, Leadership, and Coworkership (2019), co-authored by Mats Heide and Charlotte Simonsson). Finally, it is also worth noting that the research in crisis consulting is gaining momentum (see, for example, Frandsen and Johansen 2019 and Chapter 12 in this handbook).



A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication 

 49

Tab. 4: Four decades of crisis management and crisis communication research. Decade

Crisis Management

1960  s and 1970s Pioneers

Hermann (1963) Irving (1972)

Crisis Communication

Ware and Linkugel (1973)

Turner (1976, 1978) 1980s Beginnings

Consumer research: product recall Mowen and Ellis (1981) Risk civilization/risk society Lagadec (1982) and Beck (1986) USC Center for Crisis Management (1986) Modelling the crisis (management) process Fink (1986) Blame avoidance Weaver (1986) Industrial Crisis Quarterly (1987-) “Communication strategies in crisis” Lagadec (1987) Journal of Management Studies Special issue: “Industrial crisis management: Learning from organizational failures” (1988) NAT vs HRO Perrow (1984) and Roberts (1990) A cosmology episode Weick (1988, 1993)

Speech communication Organizational rhetoric Apologia Central States Speech Journal Special issue: “Space Shuttle Challenger: A Communication Perspective” (1986) Dionisopolous and Vibbert (1988) Case studies

50 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

Tab. 4 (continued) The 1990s First generation theories

Crisis-prone and crisis-prepared organizations Pauchant and Mitroff (1992) Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management (1992-) Leiden University Crisis Research Center (1989) Centre for Crisis Management Research and Training (2000 –)

The 2000s Second ­generation theories

Text- and context-oriented crisis communication: Image Repair Theory Benoit (1995) Terminological Control Theory Hearit (1994) “Choosing the right words” Coombs (1995)

Crossovers Organizational perception management and event-based reputation management: Verbal accounts, impression management and legitimacy Elsbach (1994, 2006)

Contingency theory Cancel, Cameron et al. (1997)

Roux-Dufort (1999) Organizational learning

Renewal discourse theory Seeger and Ulmer (2001)

Roux-Dufort (2007): Crisis management: A management of exceptions?

Complexity Gilpin and Murphy (2008)

Handbooks: Pearson, Roux-Dufort and Clair (2007) Crisis exploitation strategy Boin, ‘t Hart and McConnell (2009) Blame aversion and blame game: Hood (2011)

From case study to experimental research design Ongoing Crisis Communication Textbook Coombs (1999)

Rhetorical arena theory (RAT) Frandsen and Johansen (2010) From reactive crisis communication to proactive crisis communication: Stealing Thunder Theory Inoculation Theory Arpan and Pompper (2003) Wan and Pfau (2004) Effective Crisis Communication Textbook Seeger, Sellnow and Ulmer (2004)



A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication 

 51

Tab. 4 (continued) 2010s Handbooks: Contemporary Gephart, Miller and Helgesson (2019) and emerging ideas Crisis leadership James, Wouten and Dushek (2011) Teams and crisis management Individual, orgaizational and societal resilience Williams, Gruber, Sutcliffe, Shepherd and Zhao (2017)

Handbooks: Heath and O’Hair (2009) Coombs and Holladay (2010) Schwarz, Seeger and Auer (2016) International conference: Crisis 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Emotions and crisis: The integrated crisis mapping model Jin, Pang and Cameron (2007) Social Media and Crisis Communication (Austin and Jin 2017) Internal crisis communication Frandsen and Johansen (2011) Crisis consulting: Pang, Frandsen, Johansen and Yeo (2013) New crisis types: paracrisis Coombs and Holladay (2012) Organizational Crisis Communication – A Multivocal .pproach Textbook Frandsen and Johansen (2017) International Journal of Crisis and Risk Communication (2017 –) Crisis Communication Think Tank (2018) University of Georgia, USA

52 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

References Alpaslan, C. M., and I. I. Mitroff. 2011. Swans, Swine, and Swindlers. Coping with the Growing Threat of Mega-Crises and Mega-Messes. Stanford: Standford Business Press. An, S.-K., and I-H. Cheng. 2010. Crisis communication research in public relations journals. In W. T. Coombs and S. J. Holladay (eds.), The Handbook of Crisis Communication, 65–90. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Andrews, R. V. 2005. Crisis communications and the Tylenol poisonings. In R. L. Heath (ed.), Encyclopedia of Public Relations, 224–226. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Arpan, L. M. and D. Pompper. 2003. Stormy weather: testing “stealing thunder” as a crisis communication strategy to improve communication flow between organizations and journalists. Public Relations Review 29(3). 291–308. Austin, L. L., B. F. Liu and Y. Jin. 2012. How audiences seek out crisis information: Exploring the social mediated crisis communication model. Journal of Applied Communication 40(2). 188–207. Austin, L. L., and Y. Jin. 2017. Social Media and Crisis Communication. New York: Routledge. Avery, E. J., R. W. Lariscy, S. Kim and T. Hocke. 2010. A quantitative review of crisis communication research in public relations from 1991 to 2009. Public Relations Review 36(2). 190–192 Beck, U. 1992. The Risk Society: Toward a New Modernity. London: Sage. German original, 1986. Beck, U., and B. Holzer. 2007. World Risk Society. In C. M. Pearson, C. Roux-Dufort and J. A. Clair (eds.), International Handbook of Crisis Management, 3–24. Los Angeles: Sage. Benoit, W. L. 1995. Accounts, Excuses, and Apologies: A Theory of Image Restoration Strategies. 2nd edn. Albany: State University of New York Press. Benoit, W. L., and M. J. Glantz. 2017. Persuasive Attacks on Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Primary. Lanham: Lexington Books Benson, J. A. 1988. Crisis revisited: An analysis of strategies used by Tylenol in the second tampering episode. Central States Speech Journal 39(1). 49–66. Bergeron, C. D., and F. Cooren. 2012. The collective framing of crisis management: A ventriloqual analysis of emergency operations centres, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 20(3). 120–137. Birkland, T. A. 1997. After Disaster: Agenda Setting, Public Policy, and Focusing Events. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Birkland, T. A. 2006. Lessons after Disaster: Policy Change after Catastrophic Events. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Boin, A. (ed.). 2008. Crisis Management I–III. London: Sage. Boin, A., P. ‘t Hart, E. Stern and B. Sundelius. 2005. The Politics of Crisis Management: Public Leadership under Pressure. 2nd edn 2017. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boin, A., A. McConnel and P. ‘t Hart (eds.). 2008. Governing after Crisis: The Politics of Investigation, Accountability and Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boin, A., P. ‘t Hart and A. McConnel. 2009. Crisis exploitation: political and policy impacts of framing contests. Journal of European Public Policy 16(1). 81–106. Bundy, J., M. D. Pfarrer, C. E. Short and W. T. Coombs. 2016. Crisis and crisis management: Integration, interpretation, and research development. Journal of Management 43(6). 1661–1692. Burns, J. P. and M. S. Bruner. 2000. Revisiting the theory of image restoration strategies. Communication Quarterly 48(1). 27–39. Cancel, A. E., G. T. Cameron, L. M. Sallot, and M. A. Mitrook. 1997. It depends: A contingency theory of accommodation in public relations. Journal of Public Relations Research 9(1). 31–63. Central States Speech Journal. 1986. Special issue: “Space shuttle Challenger: A communication perspective”.



A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication 

 53

Churella, A. J. 2013. The Pennsylvania Railroad: Volume I: Building an Empire, 1846–1913. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Cloudman, R., and K. Hallahan. 2006. Crisis communication preparedness among U.S. organizations: Activities and asessments by public relations practitioners. Public Relations Review 32(4). 367–376. Coetzee, C., and D. van Niekerk. 2012. Tracking the evolution of the disaster management cycle: A general system theory approach. Jàmbá: Journal of Disaster Risk Studies 4(1). 1–9. Coombs, W. T. 1995. Choosing the right words: The development of guidelines for the selection of the ‘appropriate’ crisis-response strategies. Management Communication Quarterly 8(4). 447–476. Coombs, W. T. 1999. Ongoing Crisis Communication: Planning, Managing, and Responding. 5th edn. 2019. Los Angeles: Sage. Coombs, W. T. 2009. Crisis communication. In W. Donsbach (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Communication Vol. III. Coombs, W. T. 2010. Parameters for crisis communication. In W. T. Coombs and S. J. Holladay (eds.), The Handbook of Crisis Communication, 17–53. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Coombs, W. T. (ed.). 2014. Crisis Communication I–IV. Los Angels: Sage. Coombs, W. T. 2014. Introduction: Origins of crisis communication. In W. T. Coombs (ed.), Crisis Communication, Vol. 1. Los Angeles: Sage. Coombs, W. T., and S. J. Holladay. 2010. The Handbook of Crisis Communication. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell Coombs, W. T., and S. J. Holladay. 2012. The paracrisis: the challenges created by publicly managing crisis prevention. Public Relations Review 38(3). 408–415 Cornelissen, J., R. Durand, P. C. Fiss, J. C. Lammers and E. Vaara. 2015. Putting communication front and enter in institutional theory and analysis. Academy of Management Review 40(1). 10–27. Deephouse, D. L. and M. Suchman. 2008. Legitimacy in organizational institutionalism. In R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, R. Suddaby and K. Sahlin-Andersson (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Institutionalism, 49–77. London: Sage. DiMaggio, P. J., and W. W. Powell. 1983. The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review 48(2). 147– 160. DiMaggio, P. J. 1988. Interest and agency in institutional theory. In L. Zucker (ed.), Institutional Patterns and Organizations: Culture and Environment, 3–21. Cambridge: Ballinger. Dionisopolous, G., and S.  D. Vibbert. 1988. CBS vs. Mobil Oil: Charges of creative bookkeeping in 1979. In H. R. Ryan (ed.), Oratorical encounters, 241–251. New York: Greenwood. Dowling, J., and J. Pfeffer. 1975. Organizational legitimacy: Social values and organizational behavior. Pacific Sociological Review 18(1). 122–136. Dynes, R. 2000. Governmental systems for disaster management. Disaster Research Center. Elsbach, K. D. 1994. Managing organizational legitimacy in the California cattle industry: The construction and effectiveness of verbal accounts. Administrative Science Quarterly 39. 57–88. Elsbach, K. D. 2006. Organizational Perception Management. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Elsbach, K. D. and R. I. Sutton. 1992. Acquiring organizational legitimacy through illegitimate actions: A marriage of institutional and impression management theories. Academy of Management Journal 35. 699–738. Fearn-Banks, K. 1996. Crisis Communications: A Casebook Approach. 5th edn. 2017. New York: Routledge. Fink, S. 1986. Crisis Management: Planning for the Inevitable. Lincoln, NE: An Authors Guild Backprint-com Edition. Fink, S. 2013. Crisis Communications: The Definitive Guide to Managing the Message. New York: McGraw Hill Professional.

54 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2000. Retorik og krisekommunikation [Rhetorics and Crisis Communication]. Rhetorica Scandinavica 14. 45–62. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2004. Hvor godt forberedte er de? En undersøgelse af danske virksomheders og myndigheders kriseberedskab anno 2003 [How Prepared Are They? A Study of the Crisis Preparedness of Private Companies and Public Authorities in Denmark AD 2003]. Aarhus School of Business: Reports from Centre for Corporate Communication. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2009. Institutionalizing crisis communication in the public sector: An explorative study in Danish municipalities. International Journal of Strategic Communication 3(2). 102–195. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2010. Crisis communication, complexity and the cartoon affair: A case study. In W. T. Coombs and S. J. Holladay (eds.), The Handbook of Crisis Communication, 425–448. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2011. The study of internal crisis communication: Towards an integrative framework. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 16(4). 347–361. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2013a. Public relations and the new institutionalism: In search of a theoretical framework. Public Relations Inquiry 2(2). 205–221. Frandsen, F., and W.Johansen. 2013b. Kommunal kriseledelse og krisekommunikation – midt i en kompeks institutionaliseringsproces [Municipal crisis management and crisis communication]. In H. H. Salomonsen (ed.), Offentlig ledelse og strategisk kommunikation, 169–192. Copenhagen: Jurist- og Økonomiforbundets Forlag. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2017. Organizational Crisis Communication: A Multivocal Approach. London: Sage. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2020. Advice on communicating during crisis: A study of popular crisis management books (PCMBs). International Journal of Business Communication. In press. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2020. Crisis communication and legitimacy. In J. D. Rendtorff (ed.), Handbook of Business Legitimacy: Responsibility, Ethics and Society. Berlin: Springer. Frandsen, F., W. Johansen and H. H. Salomonsen. 2016. Responding to institutional complexity: Reputation and crisis management in Danish municipalities. Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration 20(2). 7–38. Gephart, R. P., Jr., C. C., Miller and K. Svedberg Helgesson (eds.). 2019. The Routledge Companion to Risk, Crisis and Emergency Management. New York: Routledge. Gilpin, D. R., and P. J. Murphy. 2008. Crisis Management in a Complex World. Oxford: Oxford University Press Greenwood, R., C. Oliver, R. Suddaby and K. Sahlin-Andersson (eds.). 2008. The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism. London: Sage. Greenwood, R., C. Oliver, T. B. Lawrence and R. E. Meyer (eds.). 2017. The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism. 2nd edn. London: Sage. Hearit, K. M. 1994. Apologies and public relations crises at Chrysler, Toshiba, and Volvo. Public Relations Review 20(2). 113–125. Hearit, K. M. 2006. Crisis Management by Apology: Corporate Responses to Allegations of Wrongdoing. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum. Heath, R. L., and H. D. O’Hair (eds.). 2009. Handbook of Risk and Crisis Communication. New York: Routledge. Heide, M., and C. Simonsson. 2019. Internal Crisis Communication: Crisis Awareness, Leadership and Coworkership. New York: Routledge. Hermann, C. F. 1963. Some consequences of crisis which limit the viability of organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly 8(1). 61–82. Hiebert, R. A. 2017. Courtier to the Crowd: Ivy Lee and the Development of Public Relations in America. 50th Anniversary Edition. 1st edn. 1966. New York: PRMuseum Press.



A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication 

 55

Hood, C. 2011. The Blame Game: Spin, Bureaucracy, and Self-Preservation in Government. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. James, E. H., L. P. Wooten and K. Dushek. 2011. Crisis management: Informing a New Research Agenda. Academy of Management Annals 5(1). 455–493. Janis, I. L. 1972. Victims of Groupthink: A Psychological Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascoes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Jin, Y., A. Pang and G. T. Cameron. 2007. Integrated crisis mapping: Towards a public-based, emotion-driven conceptualization in crisis communication. Sphere Publica 7. 81–96. Johansen, F., and W. Frandsen. 2007. Krisekommunikation. Når en virksomheds image og omdømme er truet. [Crisis communication. When the image and reputation of an organization is threathened]. Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur. Johansen, W., H. K. Aggerholm and F. Frandsen. 2012. Entering new territory: A study of internal crisis management and crisis communication in organizations. Public Relations Review 38. 270–279. Journal of Management Studies. 1988. Special issue: “Learning from organizational failures”. Katz, D., and R. L. Kahn. 1966. The Social Psychology of Organizations. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Ki, E.-J., Y. Pasadeos and T. Ertem-Eray. 2019. Growth of public relations research networks: A bibliometric analysis. Journal of Public Relations Research 31(1–2). 5–31. Larkin, J., and M. Regester. 1997. Risk, Issues and Crisis Management: A Casebook of Best Practice. 4th edn. 2008. Lagadec, P. 1981. La civilization du risque: Catastrophes technologiques et responsibility sociale. Paris: Le Seuil. Lagadec, P. 1982. Le risque technologique majeur: Politique, risque et processus de dévelopment. Paris: Pergamon Press. Major Technological Risk: An Assessment of Industrial Disasters. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Lagadec, P. 1987. Communication strategies in crisis. Industrial Crisis Quarterly 1(2). 19–26. Lagadec, P. 2015. Le continent des imprévus: Journal de bord des temps chaotiques. Paris: Manitoba/Les Belles Lettres. Lawrence, T. B., R. Suddaby and B. Leca. 2009. Institutional Work. Actors and Agency in Institutional Studies of Organizations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Löblich, M., and A. M. Scheu. 2011. Writing the history of communication studies: A sociology of science approach. Communication Theory 21. 1–22. Manias-Muñoz, I., Y. Jin and B. Reber. 2019. The state of the crisis communication research and education through the lens of crisis scholars: An international Delphi study. Public Relations Review. Available online June 14, 2019. Meyer, J. W., and B. Rowan. 1977. Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. The American Journal of Sociology 83(2). 340–363. Mitroff, I. I. 2004. Crisis Leadership: Planning for the Unthinkable. Hoboken: Wiley. Mowen, J. C., and H. W. Ellis. 1981. The product defect: Managerial considerations and consumer implications. In B. M. Enis and K. J. Roering (eds.), Review of Marketing. American Marketing Association. Nohrstedt, D., F. Bynander, C. Parker and P. ’t Hart. 2018. Perspectives on Public Management and Governance 1(4). 257–271. Oliver, C. 1991. Strategic responses to institutional processes. Academy of Management Review 16(1). 145–179. Page, T. G. 2019. Beyond attribution: Building new measures to explain the reputation threat posed by crisis. Public Relations Review 45(1). 138–152.

56 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

Palenchar, M. J. 2009. Historical trends of risk and crisis communication. In R. L. Heath and H. D. O’Hair (eds.), Handbook of Risk and Crisis Communication, 31–52. New York: Routledge. Pang, A., F. Frandsen, W. Johansen and S.  D. Yeo. 2013. A comparative study of crisis consultancies between Singapore and Denmark: Distant cousins of the same destiny. International Journal of Strategic Communication, Special Issue 7(2). 149–164 Pasadeos, Y., B. Berger and R. B. Renfro. 2010. Public relations as a maturing discipline: An update on research network. Journal of Public Relations Research 11(1). 167–187. Pasadeos, Y., and R. B. Renfro. 1992. A bibliometric analysis of public relations research. Journal of Public Relations Research 22(2). 136–158. Pauchant, T. C., and I. I. Mitroff 1992. Transforming the Crisis-Prone Organization: Preventing Individual, Organizational, and Environmental Tragedies. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Pauchant, T. C., and R. Douville 1992. Recent research in crisis management: A study of 24 authors’ publications from 1986 to 1991. Industrial & Environmental Quarterly 7(1). 43–66. Pearson, C. M., and J. A. Clair. 1998. Reframing crisis management. Academy of Management Review 23(1). 59–76. Pearson, C. M., C. Roux-Dufort and J. A. Clair (eds.). 2007. International Handbook of Crisis Management. Los Angeles: Sage Perrow, C. 1984. Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Prince, S. H. 1920. Catastrophe and Social Change. New York: Colombia University. PwC. 2019. Global Crisis Survey: Crisis Preparedness as the next competitive advantage. Quarantelli, E. L. (ed.). 1998. What is a disaster? Perspectives on the Question. London: Routledge Roberts, K. H. 1990. Some characteristics of high reliability organizations. Organization Science 1. 160–177. Rogers, E. M. 1962. Diffusion of Innovation. New York: The Free Press. Rosenthal, U. T. 1984. Disasters, Riots, and Hostage Taking: Crisis Decision-Making in the Netherlands, Amsterdam: Dieren. (1984, in Dutch). A summary in English entitled Rosenthal, U. T. 1986. Crisis decision making in the Netherlands, The Netherland’s Journal of Sociology 22(2). 103–129. Rosenthal, U., M. T. Charles and P. ‘t Hart (eds.). 1989. Coping with Crisis: The Management of Disasters, Riots and Terrorism. Springfield IL: Charles C. Thomas. Rosenthal, U., A. R. Boin and L. K. Comfort (eds.). 2001. Managing Crises: Threats, Dilemma and Opportunities. Springfield IL: Charles C. Thomas. Roux-Dufort, C. 1999. Why organizations don’t learn from crisis: The perverse power of normalization. Review of Business 21(3/4). 25–30. Roux-Dufort, C. 2007. Is crisis management (only) a management of exceptions? Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 15(2). 105–114. Rubin, C. B. 2007. Emergency management: The American experience, 1900–2005. Fairfax, Virginia: PERI Public Entity Risk Institute. Rubin, C. B. 2012. Emergency management: The American experience, 1900–2010. Fairfax, Virginia: PERI Public Entity Risk Institute. Røvik, K. A. 1998. Moderne organisasjoner: trender i organisasjonstenkningen ved tusenårsskiftet. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. Schatzki, T. R., K. Knorr-Cetina and E. von Savigny. 2001. The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. London. Routledge Scott, W. R. 2013. Institutions and Organizations: Ideas, Interests, and Identities. 4th edn. London: Sage. Seeger, M. W., and R. R. Ulmer. 2001. Virtuous responses to organizational crisis: Aaron Feuerstein and Milt Colt. Journal of Business Ethics 31(4). 369–376.



A brief history of crisis management and crisis communication 

 57

Seeger, M. W., T. L. Sellnow and R. R. Ulmer. 2003. Communication and Organizational Crisis. Westport, CT: Praeger. Seeger, M. W., T. L. Sellnow and R. R. Ulmer. 2004. Effective Crisis Communication. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Sellnow, T. L., and M. W. Seeger. 2013. Theorizing Crisis Communication. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Selznick, P. 1957. Leadership in Administration: A Sociological Interpretation. New York: Harper & Row. Shrivastava, P. 1987. Are we ready for another Three Mile Island, Bhopal, Tylenol? Industrial Crisis Quarterly 9(3). 24–34. Smith, D., and D. Elliott (eds.). 2006. Key Readings in Crisis Management: Systems and Structures for Prevention and Recovery. London: Routledge. Snyder, L. 1983. An anniversary review and critique: The Tylenol crisis. Public Relations Review 9(3). 24–34. Stern, E. K. 2001. Crisis Decision-making: A Cognitive Institutional Approach. Swedish National Defence College. Stoddard, E. R. 1968. Conceptual Models of Human Behavior in Disaster. El Paso: Texas Western Press. Schwarz, A., M. W. Seeger and C. Auer (eds.). 2016. The Handbook of International Crisis Communication Research. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. ‘t Hart, P., E. K. Stern and B. Sundelius (eds.). 1997. Beyond Group Think: Political Group Dynamics and Foreign Policymaking. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. ‘t Hart, P., U. Rosenthal and A. Kouzmin. 1993. Crisis decision making: The centralization thesis revisited. Administration & Society 25 (1). 12–45. ‘t Hart, P., L. Heyse and A. Boin. 2002. New trends in crisis management practice and crisis management theory. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 9(4). 181–188. Thornton, P. H., W. Ocasio and M. Lounsbury. 2012. The Institutional Logics Perspective: A New Approach to Culture, Structure and Process. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thornton, P. H., and W. Ocasio. 1999. Institutional logics and the historical contingency of power in organizations: Executive succession in the higher education publishing industry, 1958–1990. American Journal of Sociology 105(3). 801–843. Tierney, C. 2007. From the margins to the mainstream? Disaster research at the ecrossroads. Annual Review of Sociology 33. 503–525. Tierney, C. 2014. The Social Roots of Risk: Producing Disaster, Promoting Resilience. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Tierney, C. 2019. Disasters: A Sociological Approach. Cambridge: Polity Press. Turner, B. A. 1976. The organizational and interorganizational development of disasters. Administrative Science Quarterly 21(3). 378–397. Turner, B. A. 1978. Man-Made Disasters. 2nd edn. Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann. Ulmer, R. R., T. L. Sellnow and M. W. Seeger. 2019. Effective Crisis Communication: Moving from Crisis to Opportunity. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Wan, H.-H., and M. Pfau. 2004. The relative effectiveness of inoculation, bolstering and combined approaches in crisis communication. Journal of Public Relations Research 16(3). 301–328. Weaver, K. R. 1986. The Politics of Blame Avoidance. Journal of Public Policy 6(4). 371–398 Weick, K. E. 1988. Enacted sensemaking in crisis situation. Journal of Management Studies 25(4). 305–317. Weick, K. E. 1993. The collapse of sensemaking in organizations: The Mann Gulch Disaster. Administrative Science Quarterly 38. 628–652.

58 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

Weick, K. E., and K. M. Sutcliffe. 2001. Managing the Unexpected: Assuring High Performance in an Age of Complexity. 2nd edn. 2007, 3rd edn. 2016. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Weick, K. E., and K. M. Sutcliffe. 2007. Managing the Unexpected: Resilient Performance in an Age of Uncertainty. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Weick, K. E., and K. M. Sutcliffe. 2016. Managing the Unexpected: Sustained Performance in a Complex World. Hoboken: Wiley. West, M. D. 2006. Secrets, Sex, and Spectacle: The Rules of Scandal in Japan and the United States. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Williams, T. A., D. A. Gruber, K. M. Sutcliffe, D. A. Shepherd and E. Yanfei. 2017. Organizational response to adversity: Fusing crisis management and resilience research streams. Academy of Management Annals 11(2). 733–769. Zucker, L. G. 1977. The role of institutionalization in cultural persistence. American Sociological Review 42(5). 726–743.

Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

3 Reframing the field: Public crisis management, political crisis management, and corporate crisis management Abstract: In this third chapter of Part 1, we argue that the field of crisis management and crisis communication needs to be reframed. Instead of assuming that we are conducting research inside one large monolithic field of study, or inside a group of more or less autonomous ‘crisis disciplines’ (disaster management, risk management, business continuity management, etc.), we propose a new model according to which it is possible to identify three interrelated subfields that we have named: (1) public crisis management, (2) political crisis management, and (3) corporate crisis management. Each of these subfields represents a group of actors who solve crisis-related tasks for specific sectors of society defined as an interinstitutional system. The institutionalized focus of these three subfields, their history and legal framework, their vocabulary and understanding of communication, organization and management, their key actors and the specific tasks they solve, are introduced throughout the chapter. The theoretical framework applied for this reframing of the field of crisis management and crisis communication is inspired by the institutional logics perspective. The ambition is to demonstrate how we as academics and practitioners, educators and students, can benefit from a more differentiated understanding of our field. Keywords: corporate crisis management, institutional logics perspective, political crisis management, public crisis management, reframing, (sub)field

1 Introduction The aim of the last chapter of Part 1 is to reframe crisis management and crisis communication as a multidisciplinary field of study. When researchers talk about reframing their field, they usually do so in order to signal that they want to set a new direction for their research. This also applies to the present chapter. We want to set a new direction that will increase integration and decrease fragmentation at one and the same time, but without any illusion of ending up with a fully integrated system. In the previous chapter, we looked at crisis management from a diachronic perspective, that is, as the history of a specific organizational practice and a specific academic discipline, or better, as an ongoing institutionalization of the idea of crisis-preparedness. In this chapter, we will look at crisis management from a synchronic perspective, that is, as a complex system consisting of three interrelated subfields. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-003

60 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

When did we for the first time witness an explicit attempt to reframe crisis management and crisis communication? If we look at the history of the field, we rapidly discover that such an attempt probably took place for the first time more than twenty years ago. In 1998, Christine Pearson and Judith Clair published an article entitled “Reframing crisis management” (reprinted in Boin 2008). The aim of this article was to integrate and build on existing knowledge to create a multidisciplinary approach based on psychological, social-political and technological-structural research. One of the outcomes of this was the following frequently cited crisis definition: An organizational crisis is a low-probability, high-impact situation that is perceived by critical stakeholders to threaten the viability of the organization and that is subjectively experienced by these individuals as personally and socially threatening. Ambiguity of cause, effect, and means of resolution of the organizational crisis, will lead to desillusionment or loss of psychic and shared meaning, as well as to the shattering of commonly held beliefs and values and individuals’ basic assumptions. During the crisis, decision making is pressed by perceived time constraints and colored by cognitive limitations. (Pearson and Clair 1998: 66)

The second time we witnessed a similar attempt to reframe the field of crisis management and crisis communication, was in 2008 when Dawn Gilpin and Priscilla Murphy published their book Crisis Management in a Complex World. At the end of this book, in the conclusion “Reframing crisis management in a complex world”, they wrote: It is the effort to achieve certainty, stablity, and control that fundamentally distinguishes mainstream crisis management from complexity-based thinking. For both managers and publics, one of the worst challenges in a crisis is the sense of being out of control. […] Broadly, we urge a paradigm shift for crisis management in which uncertainty, adaptiveness, and improvisation replace certainty, goal orientation, and control. We do not argue that complexity thinking should completely replace traditional management approaches in all cases, but we do recommend matching the tools to the job at hand. (Gilpin and Murphy 2008: 172, 177)

In their article, Pearson and Clair identified fragmentation as one of the main threats to the development of crisis management and crisis communication as a field of study. They have not been alone in doing so. In the first edition of Ongoing Crisis Communication from 1999, which today has become one of the most influential textbooks on crisis communication, W. Timothy Coombs explains how he has been haunted by fragmentation: I have been haunted by the fragmentation of the crisis management literature. Two qualities have created this sense of fragmentation. First, researchers from various disciplines are addressing crisis management but too often ignore similar research in other disciplines […]. Second, researchers tend to study “parts” of crisis management, not the whole process. Integrative efforts are far too rare in crisis management. We see more single-disciplinary work than multidisciplinary work. (Coombs 1999: ix)



Reframing the field 

 61

The opposite of fragmentation is integration, that is, to bring together the component subsystems into one system. Integration is also the focus point in several handbooks of crisis management including the most recent: The Routledge Companion to Risk, Crisis and Emergency Management (2019), edited by Robert P. Gephart, C. Chet Miller and Karen Svedborg Helgesson. But what kind of integration is it that we need so desperately? How deep and how broad must it be? Reframing the field of organizational crisis management and crisis communication may also serve as an opportunity to engage in other types of metatheoretical reflections.

2 Sectors, subfields and societies Until recently, the editors of this handbook had almost always been writing about crisis management and crisis communication as if they were conducting research inside one large monolithic field of study (see, for example, Johansen and Frandsen 2007, Frandsen and Johansen 2017). However, we will no longer frame the field in this way. Instead we propose a new model according to which there exist three interrelated subfields. These subfields can be named: (1) public crisis management, (2) political crisis management, and (3) corporate crisis management. By subfield we understand a set of institutionalized policies, programs and practices that are connected to a specific sector of society defined as an interinstitutional system. The prefixe sub does not mean that we are dealing with fields that are contained or embedded in another field (it is not about a hierarchical order, the three subfields are at the same level). The three subfields interact as illustrated in Figure 1.

Public Crisis Management

Political Crisis Management

Corporate Crisis Management

Fig. 1: The subfields of public, political and corporate crisis management.

62 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

Despite their names the three subfields are not disciplines in the traditional sense of the word. They are not ‘crisis disciplines’ such as disaster management, risk management and business continuity management that are concerned with specific types of crises (emergencies, disasters) or with specific stages in the life cycle of a crisis (risk, business continuity). We are dealing with a distinction that runs across traditional distinctions between natural and man-made disasters and between risk and business continuity. A discipline such as disaster management does not coincide with public crisis management but may involve all three subfields. If we want to understand how and why a society handles crises, we need to know a little about what a society is and how it works. A society is divided into sectors that can be described as task-solving areas of activity. The nature and number of these areas of activity depends on the type of political government and economic activity. In liberal democracies, or so-called capitalist democratic societies, there is an important divide between two sectors: the public sector and the private sector. The public sector is the area of the economy or society which under the leadership of politicians and the administration of civil servants deals with the production of public services to the citizens. The citizens have expectations to public crisis managers and the public crisis preparedness. The private sector is the area of the economy or society which is not under the control of the state and which is driven by company self-interest. The customers and the employees have expectations to corporate crisis managers and the private crisis preparedness. Political crisis management is not connected to a public or private sector in the same way as public crisis management and corporate crisis management. Instead we argue that politics is the place where the citizens and their parliamentarian representatives debate and make decisions regarding the nature, extent, and distribution of public services. The voters have expectations to political crisis managers and the political crisis preparedness. The three subfields also have in common that they are governed by specific institutional logics built around a practical and theoretical focus point. In public crisis management, the focus is on public safety. Drabek and Evans (2007) defines emergency management as “the process by which the uncertainties that exist in potentially hazardous situations can be minimized and public safety maximized”. Compared to the life cycle of a crisis (cf. staged models), public crisis management prefers to focus on the crisis stage. This may explain why much emergency management literature is obsessed with emergency and crisis management plans. In political crisis management, the focus is on political power. Finally, in corporate crisis management, the focus is on corporate reputation and stakeholder interests. Compared to the life cycle of a crisis, political crisis management is focused on the post-crisis stage, whereas corporate crisis management is focused on the pre-crisis stage. It must also be emphasized that none of the three subfields exists in a void. The subfields export and import concepts, models, and theories from each other (Frandsen, Johansen and Salomonsen 2017). Some of the theories representing one area could easily have represented another area. A good illustration of this is the multi-



Reframing the field 

 63

actor perspective introduced by Rosenthal, t’Hart and Kouzmin (1991) in their early version of the Politics of Crisis Management, a perspective which clearly has affinity to rhetorical arena theory and the multivocal approach to crisis communication developed by the editors of this handbook (see Chapter 9). We claim that the three subfields are governed by specific institutional logics, but what is an institutional logic? Roger Friedland and Robert L. Alford, who first and foremost are known as the authors of Powers of Theory: Capitalism, the State, and Democracy (1985), are often identified as the pioneers of the institutional logics perspective. In their article “Bringing society back in: Symbols, practices, and institutional contradictions” (1991), the two American sociologists argued that the social sciences were in the midst of a theoretical retrait from society – either in the direction of the individual (e.  g., the rational decision maker) or in the direction of the organization (e.  g., the resource-dependent organization). However, such a retrait seems to be absurd, and rightly so, as long as the job of the social sciences is to study society. Friedland and Alford introduced a distinction between six institutional orders: the market, the corporation, the professions, the state, the family, and the religions. In 2008, Patricia Thornton and William Ocasio revitalized Friedland and Alford’s more than 15 years old call to “bring society back in” defining institutional logics as “the socially constructed, historical patterns of cultural symbols and material practices, including assumptions, values and beliefs, by which individuals and organizations provide meaning to their daily activity, organize time and space, and reproduce their lives and experience”. In 2012, Thornton and Ocasio, this time together with Michael Lounsbury, published The Institutional Logics Perspective: A New Approach to Culture, Structure, and Process. In this new book, the theory is presented as a perspective that serves as a metatheoretical analysis of the interrelations between institutions, individuals and organizations in social systems, that is, society as an interinstitutional system. The metatheoretical framework is based on the following four fundamental principles: (1) The interests, values and assumptions of individuals and organizations are embedded in prevailing institutional logics, (2) institutional logics have both material aspects, that is, structures and practices, and symbolic aspects, that is, ideation and meaning, (3) institutions are historically contingent, and (4) institutions operate at many levels of analysis. The institutional logics perspective is first of all suitable for the study of dominant logics and the transition from one logic to another (Berg Johansen and Waldroff 2015). But it does not have to be a transition in time, it can also be a transition in space (cf. the three subfields). In the remainder of this chapter we will provide a detailed presentation of the three subfields based on a list of descriptors (see Table 1), including the history of the subfields, their legal frameworks, the tasks that have to be solved and the key actors who are in charge of doing this, their vocabulary and understanding of communication, organization and management, and finally, the challenges that the key actors are facing. To illustrate how the three subfields can interact, we use the Great Belt Bridge rail accident which occurred on January 2, 2019, in Denmark.

64 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

Tab. 1: List of descriptors of the three subfields. Focus points of institutional logic History Legal framework Key tasks Key actors Key vocabulary Management Organization Communication Profession

How has the subfield developed over time? Is the subfield subject to specific legal frameworks? What kind of tasks are solved (expectations)? Who are in charge of solving these tasks? What are the basic and most frequently used terms in this subfield? How is management understood within this subfield? How is organization understood within this subfield? How is communication understood within this subfield? Have the activities in the subfield given rise to a specific profession?

3 Public crisis management The first subfield is public crisis management. It is a new term which has not been used very often before. In countries where English is the mother tongue, the professionals prefer to talk about emergency management. In Denmark, they talk about beredskabsledelse. Nevertheless, we have decided to introduce a new term, not only because it includes the two generic words crisis and management, but also and most importantly because it emphasizes that this type of crisis management is practised in a public sector context with all the ensuing consequences (regulation, public services, financed via income tax, etc.). In public crisis management, the focus point is public safety. In most countries, it is the responsibility of local, regional and/or national governments to ensure the safety of the citizens. This can be done in many ways: by saving lives, protecting property, fire and rescue response, etc. This fundamental value of public safety is communicated through the mission, vision and value statements of emergency organizations such as fire departments and police departments. Today’s citizens expect that their political leaders and public administrators are able to deliver on this promise. From a crisis management point of view, the focus it neither on the pre-crisis perspective nor on the post-crisis perspective. The focus is on the crisis stage, that is, when the crisis breaks out. Table 2 provides an overview of public crisis management as a subfield. Later in this chapter, we will present two similar overviews of political crisis management and corporate crisis communication (Table 4 and Table 6). The idea behind these overviews is that they will allow the reader to make two different types of comparisons: (1) comparisons across subfields and (2) comparisons across national crisis management systems (within each individual subfield).



Reframing the field 

 65

Tab. 2: Overview of public crisis management. Focus points of institutional logic

Public safety Crisis stage

History

The history of public crisis management has already been told in some countries; see for example the two books by Claire Rubin: Emergency Management: The American Experience, 1900–2005 (2007) and Emergency Management: The American Experience, 1900–2010 (2012) which are based on Focusing Event Theory (Birkland, 1997, 2012)

Legal framework

In many countries, public crisis management is subject to specific laws. The Americans, for example, have the National Emergencies Act, enacted on September 14, 1976. The Danes have the Emergency Management Act, enacted on December 31, 1992.

Key tasks

The primary task of the involved actors is to deliver public emergency services (police, fire departments, ambulance services), as expected by the citizens.

Key actors

Local, regional and central government, public emergency organizations (e.  g., FEMA and DEMA). The Emergency Planning Officer (EPO). Relief organizations (e.  g., Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders).

Key vocabulary

Emergency, disaster, and catastrophy Hazard and hazards cycle (mitigation, preparedness, response and ­recovery) Vulnerability and disaster resilience Risk and uncertainty

Management

The understanding of management has developed from emergency services (ES) or first response disciplines at the operational level to emergency management (EM) at the strategic level. Focus on an all-hazard approach.

Organization

The organization of the public emergency organizations and the public emergency services Interorganizationel collaboration

Communication

Communication is information control Closed-loop communication

Profession

The International Emergency Management Society (TIEMS) (1993 –)

History Public crisis management is the oldest and most well established of the three subfields. It has a long and well described history as an organizational practice as well as an academic discipline. In many countries, public crisis management is practiced on the basis of a specific legal framework. Public crisis management is responsible for solving well defined tasks and serves as the basis for education and training and as an emerging profession with a specific professional identity.

66 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

This subfield is old enough to tell its own history. However, it is mostly in the United States that historians have begun writing about this type of crisis management. Thanks to Claire B. Rubin & Associates Disaster Research and Consulting, a consultancy established in 1990, two books about public crisis management in the United States have been published: Emergency Management: The American Experience, 1900–2005 (2007) and Emergency Management: The American Experience, 1900–2010 (2012). These two books are based on the hypothesis that changes in emergency policy, authorities, systems and practices are “event-driven” (Rubin 2005: 4), that is, created by: – Events that affect a large geographic area or a large number of people (such as the forest fires in Northern California which led to the evacuation of thousands of people in 2018). – Events that are highly visible or which take place in unsual locations (such as the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in the heart of the financial district of New York in 2001). – Events that have a prolonged and widespread impact and which are damaging to physical, economic, environmental, social and political structures (such as Hurricane Katrina in the city of New Orleans in 2005). – Events where an unsual threat agent such as a commercial airliner or a truck is used (the 9/11 terrorist attack or the Nice truck attack in 2016). – Events that are surprising (once again the 9/11 terrorist attack). – Events that are eligible for disaster declaration, which involves the use of an intensity-based crisis typology. Rubin refers to Focusing Events Theory, originally developed by John Kingdon and applied on catastrophes and accidents by American political scientist Thomas A. Birkland who investigates policy processes, including how focusing events affect agenda setting and policy change. Birkland has written two books about these processes: After Disaster: Agenda Setting, Public Policy, and Focusing Events (1997) and Lessons of Disaster: Policy Change after Catastrophic Events (2012). Birkland defines focusing events in the following way: I define a potential focusing event as an event that is sudden, relatively rare, can be reasonably defined as harmful or revealing the possibility of potentially greater future harms, inflicts harms or suggests potential harms that are or could be concentrated on definable geographical area or community of interest, and that is known to policy makers and the public virtually simultaneously. (Birkland 1997: 22)

The two history books edited by Rubin of which the latter examines American emergency management after 9/11, demonstrate that it is not until the end of the 20 th century that the federalization of the subfield of public crisis management begins. FEMA – the Federal Emergency Management Agency – was not established until 1978/1979. The new name indicated “a change in orientation from specialized preparedness for single or narrowly defined categories of hazards toward an all-hazards



Reframing the field 

 67

approach that includes potential threats to life and property through environmental and technological hazards, and domestic and foreign attacks” (FEMA training https:// training.fema.gov). Legal framework In most countries, public crisis management is subject to specific emergency laws. It can be very instructive to follow how the legal frameworks transform over time. We have already mentioned that the Americans had the National Emergencies Act (1976), and the Danes the Emergency Management Act (1992). In the United Kingdom, the old Civil Defence Act (1948) was replaced by the new Civil Contingencies Act (2004), which is a national emergency preparedness, response and recovery framework aiming at providing a consistent and co-ordinated approach to address a range of hazards and threats in a holistic way. At the same time Emergency Management was combined with Business Continuity Management. Blackstone’s Emergency Planning, Crisis, and Disaster management (2009/2014), written by Brian Dillon, is a practical guide based on the requirements of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. For a more critical approach to the new Civil Contingencies Act, see Clive Walker and Jim Broderick’s The Civil Contingencies Act 2004: Risk, Resilience and the Law in the United Kingdom (2006). Key tasks The tasks we have listed up here are the public emergency services that ensure public safety and which can be summoned directly by the citizens. There are three primary emergency services: (1) police that takes care of law enforcement, criminal investigation, and maintenance of public order, (2) fire which includes firefighting, hazardous materials response, and technical rescue; (3) emergency medical services (also known as ambulance service or paramedic service), and technical rescue. The term technical rescue refers to the aspects of saving life that employ the use of tools and skills that exceed those normally reserved for emergency medical services or firefighting. These specialized disciplines include vehicle and machinery rescue, confined-space rescue, rope rescue, trench and excavation rescue, structural collapse rescue, water rescue, and wilderness search and rescue. Key actors The actors who must meet the expectations of the citizens and solve the tasks for the public sector consist of individuals as well as organizations. The organizations can be divided further into public emergency organizations such as fire and police departments and private rescue organizations such as Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders. Dillon (2014) tells the story of the Emergency Planning Officer (EPO) in the United Kingdom. The original role allocated to the EPO was to prepare and train for nuclear war during the Cold War era. Following a series of disasters in the 1980  s, and

68 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

not to forget the New York terrorist attacks in 2001, the EPO became a more high-profile figure. Although the concept of reputation does not form part of Dillon’s practical guide, he nevertheless focus on “the EPO image” (Dillon 2014: 11–12). So-called disaster tourists, that is, people who travel to disaster tourism sites on tours organized by travel agencies, or who visit such places on their own intiative, represent a small but interesting category of actors. No less than fourty drivers were fined by the Danish police because they took photos of the scene of accident on the Great Belt Bridge while they were passing by (see the case study later in this chapter). Key vocabulary Public crisis management is the most diversified of the three subfields when it comes to the key vobabulary, that is, the basic and frequently used terms of the profession. Political crisis management has scandal, corporate crisis management has crisis, but public crisis management has emergency, disaster, catastrophy, and hazard. According to Tierney (2019), disaster sociologists typically classify events into emergencies, disasters and catastrophes. Tab. 3: Overview of disaster terminology. Source: inspired by Tierney (2019). Emergencies

Disasters

Catastrophy

Impacts localized

Impacts widespread

Devastating physical and societal impacts

Response mainly local Standard operating procedures sufficient to handle event

Response is multijurisdictional, intergovernmental, but typically bottom-up

Response is initiated by central government because localities and regions are devastated

Vast majority of response resources unaffected

Response requires activation and disaster plans; significant challenges emerge

Response challenges far exceed those envisioned in disaster plans

Public generally not involved in response

Extensive damage to and ­disruption of key emergencies services

Response system paralyzed at local and regional levels Public only source of initial response

No significant recovery challenges

Public extensively involved in response

Massive recovery challenges and very slow recovery process

Major recovery challenges

The structure of the vocabulary used by the actors within public crisis management testify to the fact that it has been subjected to an institutionalization process over a long period and in a homogeneous way due to existence of emergency laws, poli-



Reframing the field 

 69

cies, education, training, etc. Vocabulary structure theory, one of the recent theories in communicative institutionalism (Loewenstein, Ocasio and Jones 2012), can help us to explain how language use, culture, practices and institutions are related. The vocabulary structure is based on the combination of word frequency, word-to-word relationships and word-to-example relationships and demarcates a system of cultural categories. Management, organization and communication Management, organization and communication are the three most important descriptors. They reveal how each subfield understands crisis management and crisis communication embedded in an organizational and managerial context. Public crisis management can be defined as the organization and management of the resources and responsibilities for all humanitarian aspects of emergencies, disasters, and catastrophes, including reducing the harmful effects of all kinds of hazards. This understanding of management is structured by what FEMA refers to as the “emergency life cycle” (see Table 3), or what Tierney (2019: 9–11) calls the “hazards cycle”. Later in this chapter, we shall see that also political crisis management and corporate crisis management use a similar type of staged models in their understanding of management. However, there are also important differences, when it comes to the content and number of stages and how they are divided. Tab. 4: The four phases of emergency management according to FEMA. Source: GovDelivery. Emergency life cycle

Description

(1) Mitigation

Includes any activities that prevent an emergency, reduce the risk of an emergency happening, or reduce the damaging effects of unavoidable emergencies. Mitigation activities take place before and after emergencies.

(2) Preparedness

Includes plans or preparations made to save lives and to help response and rescue operations. Preparedness activities take place before an emergency occurs.

(3) Response

Includes actions taken to save lives and prevent further property damage in an emergency situation. Response putting your preparedness plans into action. Seeking shelter from a tornado or turning off gas valves in an earthquake. Response activities take place during an emergency.

(4) Recovery

Includes actions taken to return to a normal or an even safer situation following an emergency. Recovery includes getting financial assistance to help pay for the repairs. Recovery activities take place after an emergency.

70 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

When the all-hazard approach becomes increasingly integrated and crosses political, administrative and organizational levels and boundaries, one of the biggest challenges in public crisis management is the collaboration between key actors. Political crisis management and corporate crisis management are also confronted with the issue of collaboration, but not to the same extent, given that their key actors are smaller and must handle the crisis on their own – precisely because it is their own crisis. Since his doctoral dissertation on the World Trade Center terrorist attack, Naim Kapucu, University of Central Florida, has devoted a large part of his research to the study of collaborative emergency management, including interorganizational communication during emergencies (Kapucu 2004, 2008). What factors contribute to effective interorganizational communication and decision-making? What factors inhibit this development? And what is the role of information and communication technology (ICT)? Kapucu defines communication as a transmission process through which an organization sends a message across a channel to another part of the same organization or to another organization in the network. In fact, in this way, Kapucu seems to assume that the right message will lead to the right action. Emergencies create a high level of uncertainty and a need for timely and accurate information sharing. The rate of decision-making also increases. Kapucu’s research demonstrates that to communicate effectively at the time of a disaster it is important that the organizations have established a strong network before the disaster occurs. The understanding of communication in public crisis management has traditionally been inspired by the military command and control framework (C2). Shattuck and Woods (2000) talk about distributed supervisory control systems. These systems are hierarchical and cooperative. They involve remote supervisors (e.  g., senior commanders) who work through local actors (e.  g., subordinate commanders) to control a process. The senior commanders typically deliver plans and procedures to the subordinate commanders. What is important here, is not only to follow the chain of command or to be cooperative across boundaries. It is also important that the communication is as effective as possible, that the messages are transmitted to the correct receiver, and that misunderstandings are avoided. The use of closed-loop communication is a good example of how this can take place in practice. The idea behind this technique is to avoid misunderstandings. This is obtained by the principle of channel feedback. When the sender gives a message, the receiver repeats this back. The sender then confirms the message; thereby common is using the word “yes”. When the receiver incorrectly repeats the message back, the sender will say “negative” (or something similar) and then repeat the correct message. If the sender, the person giving the message, does not get a reply back, he or she must repeat it until the receiver starts closing the loop. FEMA’s emergency life cycle is the dominant approach in crisis management in the United States. However, if we are looking for an approach where crisis communication is the focus point, we better take into consideration to use the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) model (for an introduction, see Chapter 21 in this handbook). The CERC model was originally developed by Barbara Reynolds and



Reframing the field 

 71

a team of researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The first edition of the manual was published in the aftermath of the WTC terrorist attacks and the anthrax episode in 2001 (Reynolds, Galdo and Sokler 2002). At a later stage in the development of CERC, the CDC team researchers began collaborating with a group of crisis scholars, including Matthew W. Seeger, Timothy L. Sellnow and Robert R. Ulmer. The Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication model is a good example of how risk and crisis communication can be integrated from an emergency management perspective in the public sector. Like FEMA’s all-hazard approach, CERC is based on a life cycle or staged approach. The most recent edition of the CERC model is presented in detail in a voluminous 460 pages-long manual (CDC 2014). The institutional sender of the CERC manual is described as “public health and emergency communicators” whose job is to “offer the information the public needs” during an emergency (CDC 2014: 1). The target group of the manual is referred to as “community leaders”. The societal context is a “changing world” viewed from a US perspective, including increased population density in highrisk areas, increased technological risks, an aging population, emerging infectious diseases and antibiotic resistance, increased international travel, and increased terrorism. The CERC Manual is constantly updated chapter for chapter. The Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication model is more like a meta-strategy or general framework. It consists of five stages: pre-crisis, initial event, maintenance, resolution and evaluation. For each of these stages there is a certain number of communication processes. Profession Emergency management, or public crisis management, is increasingly being described as a developing profession by academics and practitioners alike (see, for example, Wilson and Oyola-Yemayiel 2000, 2002). However, not all academics and practitioners are convinced that emergency management has come so far. What is a profession? How important is it to be or to have a profession? Is emergency management a profession, or is it just an occupation? Are emergency managers like lawyers and doctors, who have been very successful in cultivating their ‘professional projects’ (Larsen 1977), or are they more like bus drivers? Based on a neo-institutional approach, Scott (2008) argues that “the professions function as institutional agents – as definers, interpreters, and associated with three kinds of professions appliers of institutional elements. Professionals are not the only, but are – I believe – the most influential, contemporary crafters of institutions” (Scott 2000: 223). Scott uses the pillars framework that he developed himself in the mid1990  s (Scott 1995; see also Chapter 2 in this handbook). Scott (2008) claims that it is possible to identify three different types of so-called theoretic culture (cf. Donald 1991) which are associated with three kinds of professions at work in society: (1) cultural-cognitive agents: a category of professions that create and warrant knowledge;

72 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

(2) normative agents: a categor of professions that transform norms and values; and (3) professions that have a privileged access to regulatory powers. We can once again use the American experience to explain the development. As already mentioned, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was established in 1978/1979. Ten years later, the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act replaced the Civil Defense Act. The driver behind this development was the need for an All Hazard Authority (All Hazard Approach) covering all local, regional and national levels. FEMA began training and educating people in emergency management functions (typically an integrated All Hazard EM program). Emergency management (EM) differs from Emergency Services (ES) (or First Response disciplines) in the following way: (1) EM is more strategic while ES is more tactical, (2) EM is longer in range and crosses more political and administrative boundaries. This means that collaboration becomes a major challenge. The most important professional association in public crisis management is the International Emergency Management Society (TIEMS). This association was founded in Washington, USA in 1993, but since then the TIEMS secretariat has been moved to Brussels, Belgium. It is TIEMS’ mission “to prepare the world for emergencies. We are a global forum for education, training and certification in emergency and disaster management. We do not respond to emergencies: we ensure that others are ready to respond” (www.tiems.info). Among the so-called TIEMS Focal Points are: – To establish a multi-disciplinary ‘all-hazards approach’ to tackling emergencies and disasters. – To bring together stakeholders such as governments, industry leaders, academics, volunteer organizations and other subject matter experts in energency and disaster management, – To increase society’s common knowledge of risk management, potential hazards, and means and remedies to avoid and reduce the impact of, and to assure a speedy recovery from, incident, crisis, emergencies and disasters. Introduction to case study As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, each subfield has its own institutional logic. We have tried to operationalize these instutional logics by identifying two focus points which include both symbolic and material aspects. The first focus point is about the value that the key actors of the subfields prioritize. The second focus point is about the type of crisis management action preferred by the key actors. In public crisis management, the focus points are: public safety and the crisis stage. In political crisis management, the focus points are: political power and the post-crisis stage. In corporate crisis management, the focus points are: corporate reputation and the pre-crisis stage. To illustrate, not only how the institutional logics permeate the various areas of activity, we will introduce a case study: the Great Belt Bridge rail accident which



Reframing the field 

 73

occurred on January 2, 2019 in Denmark. The case presentation is divided into three parts, one for each subfield. This should allow us to follow and to understand how the three subfields act and interact. The Great Belt Bridge rail accident (part 1): A public crisis management perspective Whap happened? The Great Belt Bridge rail accident occurred on January 2, 2019, when a passenger train collided with a semi-trailer from a passing freight train on the Great Belt Fixed Link. The Great Belt Fixed Link is a multi-element fixed link crossing the Great Belt strait between the Danish islands of Zealand and Funen. The accident happened early in the morning during a heavy storm, which had closed down the bridge for all road traffic but not for rail traffic. Eight passengers were killed, and 16 were injured, making it the deadliest train accident in Denmark since 1988. The following case description provides the reader with more detailed information. The accident: crisis as an event At 07:11, InterCity express ICL 210 left Odense heading for Copenhagen. Operated by DSB (an independent public corporation owned by the Danish Ministry of Transport), it was carrying 131 passengers and a crew of three when it arrived at the western end of the bridge. Meanwhile, a freight train operated by DB Cargo (the management company for the Rail Freight Business Unit of Deutsche Bahn) with a crew of one, loaded with semi-trailers carrying crates of empty bottles belonging to the Carlsberg Group in Copenhagen, was heading in the opposite direction towards the Carlsberg brewery in Fredericia. Shortly before 07:35, on the West Bridge of the Great Belt Fixed Link, the passenger train collided with an empty semi-trailer from the freight train. Eight passengers were killed and 16 were injured in the accident. The main actors Several actors were involved directly or indirectly in the accident. As the parent company, Sund & Bælt Holding A/S is responsible for the overall management of the activities of the 100 percent owned subsidiaries including A/S Storebælt which is the operator of the 18 km long bridge where the accident took place. Banedanmark is a governmental body under the Ministry of Transport and Housing and is responsible for keeping the trains on track every day, all year round. The Danish Road Directorate is responsible for the roads owned by the Danish state. It was the Directorate that decided to close the Great Belt Bridge for all road traffic on January 2, 2019 due to bad weather conditions. Funen Police (and not the Danish National Police) was responsible for handling the accident, including organizing press conferences. Anders Frandsen, chief communication officer of the Danish National Police, describes the communication task of the police in the following way: “We must support the operative police work with instructions for action to save life and mobility. We must be informative in our communication to the general public in order to give them an accurate picture of the character and size of the accident and to avoid rumors as far as possible. And then we must also protect the victims and their relatives” (Journalisten 4.01.19). The National Operative Staff (NOST), the governmental crisis management organization which is responsible for the coordination between authorities in severe crisis situations, decided to convene. The deaths and injuries were transported to Odense University Hospital which was responsible for the identification of the bodies. Investigation Board Denmark was responsible for the investigation.

74 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

The news media The accident was covered in the national as well as in the international press. Her Majesty Queen Margrethe and leaders from the political and corporate world, including DSB CEO Flemming Jensen and DSB Chairman Peter Schütze, expressed their compassion with the victims and their families. Immediately after the accident Journalisten, the magazine of the Union of Danish Journalists, released an article in which the communication of the Funen police is evaluated by Rasmus G. Kristensen, representing the communication consultancy Harbinger, and by Flemming Platz, representing the communication agency Niveau. Funen Police is praised by both professionals for their fast, open and reassuring communication. However, Funen Police is criticized for being too reprimanding and not fully in control, and for its general ban on photographing. The Great Belt Bridge rail accident in Denmark in 2019 is a good example of how crises are taken care of within a public crisis management and crisis communication approach. First responders and emergency managers are involved, as expected, and their collaboration does not produce any conflict in this case. The fact that the National Operative Staff (NOST) decided to convene can be seen as an indicator of how serious the accident was. The news media covers the accident right from the beginning. Source: Wikipedia, news coverage in the Danish press, 2019.

4 Political crisis management The second subfield is political crisis management. The term political does not only refer to the management of political crises in the traditional sense of the word (e.  g., an international crisis between two nation states or a national crisis between two political parties in a coalition government), but also – and in this context perhaps in particular – to the management of the political dimension of public and corporate crises and crisis management. As we shall see, it is easy to activate the political dimension of crises. “Crises are political at heart” (Boin, ‘t Hart, Stern and Sundelius 2005: ix). “Governance has increasingly become a matter of crisis management” (Boin, ‘t Hart, Stern and Sundelius 2017: 3) A corporate crisis can transform into a public policy issue that triggers a new political agenda or a new regulation. Political crisis management is different from public crisis management as well as corporate crisis communication by being the only approach where events and situations deliberately are ‘talked’ into crises. “The politician seeks to label a situation a crisis because the term has power and potential political utility” (Coombs 2011: 224). Before we go into details with the descriptors in Table 5, we would like to present the two focus points of political crisis management. While the focus point of public crisis management was public safety, the focus point of political crisis management is political power. In terms of a staged approach to crisis management, you might say that political crisis management is more focused on the post-crisis stage than on the two others stages (Boin, McConnell and ‘t Hart 2008).



Reframing the field 

 75

Tab. 5: Overview of political crisis management. Focus points of ­institutional logic

Political power Post-crisis stage

History

The history of political crisis manangement, including the history of ­“spinocracy”, blameworld and the post-truth society, has not yet been ­written. One way to study how it has developed is to define this ­development as a process of modernization, academization and ­professionalization.

Legal framework

Legal frameworks for special advisers or spin doctors.

Key tasks

Generally speaking, the citizens or the voters expect that their political leaders, from the president to the local mayor, will help them out of a given crisis. A political crisis management intervention is defined as effective when: An emerging crisis is detected The first responders understand what is happening Critical decisions are made by the right people The responders are collaborating Government communicates with its citizens The aftermath of a crisis is marked by accountability and learning

Key actors

Depending on the political and/or geographical level (e.  g., local, regional, national and international levels) or the managerial level (e.  g., operational and strategic levels), the multiple key actors can be divided into politicians (presidents, mayors) and administrators, office holders and non-office holders. To this list we can add voters, political journalists, etc. Politics, politicization, bureau-politics, polity.

Key vocabulary

A definition of crisis with three key components: threats, urgency and uncertainty (Boin et al. 2017: 5–7). Crisis as “breakdowns of familiar symbolic frameworks that legitimate the pre-existing sociopolitical order” (‘t Hart 1993). The term scandal is also often used but without leading to any conceptual clarification. Politics, policy, politicization, power

Management

Five strategic public leadership tasks in one management model. No evidence for the normative assumption of overriding consensus.

Organization

Collaboration across emergency organizations

Communication

Crisis exploitation strategy Blame avoidance and blame games Post-crisis communication (commissions of inquiries, public hearings, etc.)

Profession

The spin doctor

76 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

We will introduce political crisis management through the lens of a specific research tradition known as the Politics of Crisis Management. However, this does not imply that our approach will be based on just one theoretical framework. Besides the Politics of Crisis Management tradition, including the concept of crisis exploitation strategy, we will also briefly introduce the theories of blame aversion and blame games. The Politics of Crisis Management The research tradition known under the name of Politics of Crisis Management is represented by scholars from two of the most important crisis research centers in Europe. The oldest of these two research centers is the Leiden University Crisis Research Center (CRC) which was founded in 1989 by Uriel Rosenthal (born 1945). It studies crisis management in the public sector and has fostered prominent researchers such as Paul ‘t Hart and Arjen Boin. Among their most important publications are Disasters, Riots, and Terrorism: Crisis Decision Making in the Netherlands (Rosenthal 1984). This book is in Dutch, but a summary in English entitled “Crisis decision making in the Netherlands” was published in The Netherland’s Journal of Sociology 22(2): 103–129 in 1986; Coping with Crisis: The Management of Disasters, Riots and Terrorism (Rosenthal, Charles and ‘t Hart 1989); Managing Crisis: Threats, Dilemma, Opportunities (Rosenthal, Boin and Comfort 2001); Governing after Crisis: The Politics of Investigation, Accountability and Learning (Boin, McConnell and ‘t Hart 2008). To this list of books, we would like to add four important articles: “The bureau-politics of crisis management” (Rosenthal, ‘t Hart and Kouzmin 1991); “Symbols, rituals, and power: The lost dimensions of crisis management” (‘t Hart 1993a); “Crisis decision making: The centralization thesis revisited” (‘t Hart 1993b), and “Crisis exploitation: Political and policy impacts of framing contests” (Boin, ‘t Hart and McConnell 2009). Paul ‘t Hart published his doctoral dissertation Groupthink in Government in 1994. It is difficult not to see Uriel Rosenthal as a ‘founding father’ of crisis management research in Europe, in parallel with Ian I. Mitroff and the USC Center of Crisis Management in the United States. However, their theoretical backgrounds are different. Patrick Lagadec (born 1948) could also be included in this small group of pioneers. The second center is the Center for Crisis Management Research and Training (CRISMART), which is part of the Swedish Defense University in Stockholm. It was founded in 2000 by Bengt Sundelius. Eric Stern and Bengt Sundelius are two of the most prominent CRISMART scholars. The two Swedish scholars have collaborated since 1993. Among the most important publications are: Beyond Groupthink: Political Group Dynamics and Foreign Policymaking (‘t Hart, Stern and Sundelius 1997) and Crisis Decision Making: A Cognitive-Institutional Approach (Stern 2001). As it appears from the lists of publications, decision making and groupthink in crisis situation were two of the most popular research topics in the 1980  s and 1990  s.



Reframing the field 

 77

In 2005, Arjen Boin, Paul ’t Hart, Eric Stern and Bengt Sundelius published The Politics of Crisis Management: Public Leadership under Pressure (2005/second edition 2007). This important book is based on two assumptions. According to the first assumption, “public leaders have a special responsibility to help safeguard society from the adverse consequences of crisis” (Boin et al. 2005: 10). The citizens expect presidents and mayors, politicians at the local, regional, national and international level, to avert the threat and to minimize the damages of crises. According to the second assumption, the latent tensions that exist in any polity between public, the opposition’s, and government interest do not melt away during crises. On the contrary, since the visibility and political stakes of crises are so high, these tensions will be even more pronounced than usual. Crisis induce or amplify divisions not just among and between (segments of) society and the government, but also between officials, groups, and organizations within government. (Boin et al. 2017: 121).

The political conquences of these two assumptions can be formulated in the following manner: crises can produce heroes as well as vilains, crises can make political careers as well as break them. The best way to introduce the reader to this approach is to present the book which Boin, ‘t Hart, Stern and Sundelius have co-authored: The Politics of Crisis Management: Public Leadership under Pressure (2005; second edition 2017). It is a book on political leadership in crisis management. The approach is based on what the four authors identify as a normative assumption, namely that public leaders are responsible for their citizens and their society or community. The citizens expect that their political leaders – presidents or mayors, elected administrators or public managers – will eliminate the threat and minimize the damages of the crisis. Crisis management is defined as “a set of interrelated and extraordinary governance challenges” (Boin et al. 2017: 4). On the one hand, a crisis creates extraordinary circumstances for governance; on the other hand, a crisis provides political leaders with extraordinary opportunities. In short, a crisis can be the end of a political career, but it can also be the beginning of a political career. History It is clearly more challenging to write the history of political crisis management than it is to write the event-driven history of emergency management. Or to put it in a different way: it is easier to study focusing events than it is to study the transformation of the political landscape. This is perhaps the reason why this history has never really been written. The researchers who have specialized in political crisis management often prefer to conduct research within a more limited field of study: the professionalization of political communication (campaigns), including the role and function of the spin doctor. The concept of spinocracy – rule by spindoctors – implies that a new so-called media class “in the form of armies of flak-catchers and public relations profession-

78 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

als or bureaucrats in central and influential positions in all form of government and public organizations” (Hood 2011: 19). In an important article, Coombs (2011) argues that political crisis communication research can trace its origins to the study of presidential rhetoric in general, and presidential crisis rhetoric in particular, focusing on how American presidents strategically use the term crisis as a political weapon in their communication. Coombs (2011) describes this as crisis promotion. One of the pioneers in this stream of research, Theodore Otto Windt, Jr: “Situations do not create crises. Rather, the president’s perception of the situation and the rhetoric he used to describe it mark an event as a crisis” (Windt 1973: 7; see also Windt’s article “Presidetial rhetoric: Definition of a field of study”, including the selected bibliography). Coombs also refers to researchers such as Bostdorff (1994), Kiewe (1994) and Kuypers (1997). Recently, a similar approach has been introduced in crisis management, but this time across all subfields. We are here referring to Bert Spector and his his book Constructing Crisis: Leaders, Crises and Claims of Urgency (2019). Adopting a social constructionist perspective, Spector distinguishes between a crisis-as-event model where the unit of analysis is the crisis event and a crisis-as-claim model where the unit of analysis is the claim of urgency. “Crisis are not things that await first being recognized ane then being managed; they are claims that assert urgency” (Spector 2019: 16). Legal framework In many countries, the practice of political communication, including political crisis management, is subject to some kind of legal framework. In 2004, the former Danish government established an Expert Committee on Special Advisors. The background for this initiative was the debate about ministers’ employment of spin doctors or so-called special advisors; a debate that began shortly before the elections in November 2001. The task of the Expert Committee on Special Advisors was to analyse and review developments since 2004. The concept of special advisor was first defined as specific category of employment in 1998. The number of advisors, their access to specific types of material and their multi-faceted task profile are in focus. See Frandsen (2004) for an attempt to put this debate into a larger political perspective. Key tasks The primary task of political crisis management in times of crisis is to live up to the citizens’ expectations. The citizens expect that their political and administrative leaders, from the president or the prime minister at the national or international level to the mayor at the local level, will help them out of a given crisis. These expectations also include a certain practical professionalism. According to Boin et al. (2017), a political crisis management intervention is defined as effective when: – An emerging crisis is detected – The first responders understand what is happening



– – – –

Reframing the field 

 79

Critical decisions are made by the right people The responders are collaborating Government communicates with its citizens The aftermath of a crisis is marked by accountability and learning

However, to live up to the citizens’ expectations in times of crisis is not the only task to be solved. Another important task is to exploit the politicization of a crisis. A crisis does not imply that the political actors give up their self-interest and engagement in framing contests to produce a dominant interpretation or gain what Hearit (2006) calls terminological control. We must not forget that the focus point of political crisis management is power. The two types of tasks are present in the case presentation of the Great Belt Bridge rail accident (Part 2). First, the political and administrative leaders express their compassion with the victimes and their families in public. Second, spokepersons from two of the political parties represented in the Danish parliament criticize the Minister of Transport for not having reacted appropriately when he learned that the Danish government had not been informed by the European Union Agency Railways about a similar accident which took place in Germany. Key actors Who are the key actors of political crisis management? This question seems simple but it is not. Boin, McConnell and ‘t Hart (2008) differentiate between two levels of analysis in their study of how society reacts to crises: (1) an operational level and (2) a strategic level. What is interesting here is not so much the distinction in itself (it is, in fact, rather trivial) as how they distribute the key actors between these two levels. At the operational level we have the actors who experience and respond directly to a crisis such as emergency organizations, middle-level public officials, expert advisers, volunteers and victims. At the strategic level we have the political and administrative office holders who are expected to concentrate on the larger ramifications of the crisis. To our surprise, however, Boin et al. (2008: 8) declare: “This level also includes people and forums who are permanenly engaged in critically scrutinizing and influencing elite behavior: parliamentarians, watchdog agencies, journalists and interest/ lobby groups”. Would it not be more correct to say that the distinction between an operational level and a strategic level can only be unfolded within the limits of an organization or a practice? Key vocabular The researchers representing the Politics of Crisis Management tradition use terms such as crisis and scandals, but not, for example, emergency and disaster In their articles and books they provide definitions that differ from the definitions in the other subfields of crisis management. Here are three examples.

80 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

–

The most original of their crisis definitions highlights the dynamics of crisis development: “the definition of a situation in terms of crisis is the outcome of a political process. Certain situations “become” crises; they travel the continuum from the “no problem” pole to the “deep crisis” end” (Boin et al. 2005: 4) – Another original crisis definition includes the political dimension: crises as “episodic breakdowns of familiar symbolic frameworks that legitimate the pre-existing sociopolitical order” (Boin, McConnell and ‘t Hart 2008: 3). – However, they also present definitions that remind us about more traditional definitions: “In our definition of crisis, a social system, a community, an organization, a policy sector, a country, or an entire region – experiences an urgent threat to its basic structures or fundamental – values, which harvors “many unknowns” and appears to require a far-reaching response. This definition has three key components: threats, urgency, and uncertainty” (Boin et al. 2017: 5). This definition has at least two (perhaps three) components in common with Hermann’s early crisis definition (1963). The fact that a small group of crisis management researchers are working not just with one, but with a whole set of crisis definitions, may be interpreted differently. On the one hand, it can be viewed as a lack of theoretical integration, but on the other hand, it can also be seen as theoretical innovation. The Greek word polis has generated several derivatives: politician, politics, polity, and politicization. Management, organization and communication Boin et al. (2005/2017) seem to have structured their book in accordance with a process or crisis life cycle model including five stages; (1) sense making, (2) decision making, (3) meaning making, (4) terminating and (5) learning. Each stage represents a critical task in strategic crisis leadership. Each stage is described by means of a key question and a core claim (including sometimes a definition). Finally, in the last part of the book, there are recommendations for improving strategic crisis leadership. In Table 6, we have tried to put all these elements together. Like the approaches in the subfield of public crisis management, like FEMA and the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication model, the authors of The Politics of Crisis Management also structure their understanding of management in terms of a crisis life cycle. However, as we shall see, there are some important differences that we need to take into account. According to Boin, ‘t Hart, Stern and Sundelius, strategic crisis leadership in the public sector can be defined in terms of five critical tasks. Table 6 consists of three pillars that capture some of the complexity of a crisis. The first pillar (the one to the left) represents the five stages, from sense making, decision making and meaning making to accounting and learning, Each of the five stages is characterized by a question. These questions make the stages more specific. Unfortunately, Boin et al.



Reframing the field 

 81

(2005/2017) never really explain the difference between, for example, sense making and meaning making. It also seems a little problematic that decision making represents a specific stage in an ongoing dynamic process. The answer to the question in the first stage (What is happening?) is obviously the result of interpretive decision making. The second pillar (the one in the middle) represents the key questions and the core claims about leadership established by the authors. Finally, the third pillar (the one to the right), represents the recommendations that Boin et al. (2005/2017) formulated in the last chapter of the book. Tab. 6: The five core tasks of strategic crisis leadership. Source: adapted from Boin, ‘t Hart, Stern and Sundelius (2005/17). Stages

Core tasks

Recommendations

Sense making What is happening?

Key question: What factors affect the effectiveness of sense making before and during crises?

Learn to see crises coming.

Core claim: Many types of impending crises are very difficult to recognize in advance. Decision making What must we decide to do?

Key question: How do political leaders make strategic, response-shaping decisions and what can they do to achieve a coordinated response?

Centralized authority is overrated.

Core claim: Crisis responses take shape not just through strategic decision making from the top down; they also depend on the quality of decision making and coordination throughout the response network(s). Meaning making How can we reduce uncertainty and inspire confidence in crisis leaders by formulating and imposing a convincing narrative?

Key question: Why do leaders succeed or fail in shaping a common and widely supported understanding of what the crisis is about and what needs to be done to deal with it.

Accounting How can a crisis be terminated?

Key question: Why do some crises come to a clear, quick, and (relatively) clean ending while others continue to simmer, flare up and transform?

Political leaders who do not communicate ­persuasively will fail.

Core claim: crisis meaning making makes a crucial difference between obtaining and loosing the “permissive consensus” that leaders need to make decisions and formulate policies in times of crisis.

Core claim: When and how a crisis eventually ends depends to a considerable content on the way the accountability processes are managed.

Crises must be brought to closure.

82 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

Tab. 6 (continued) Learning What can we learn from the crisis?

Key question: Why do some countries and organizations learn appropriate lessons and implement the lessons learned, whereas others do not?

Learn!

Core claim: The capacity of governments to learn and change is constrained by fundamental tensions between the imperatives of political crisis management and the conditions for effective reform.

Three years after the publication of The Politics of Crisis Management, Boin and ‘t Hart – but without Stern and Sundelius who had been replaced by Allan McConnell – published Governing After Crisis: The Politics of Investigation, Accountability and Learning (2008). This book was a contribution to the study of the post-crisis stage or “postcrisis politics”. Before this publication, the sensemaking perspective in general, and crisis sensmaking in particular, was the only stream of research (Brown 2000, 2004; Gephart 2000). Boin et al. (2008) are first and foremost interested in the politicization of crises. According to their research, politicization often revolves around two core processer: (1) accountability and (2) learning. The former relates to who what happened in the past, while the latter relates to what will happen in the future: Crises do not produce politics in a linear fashion. In particular, processes of accountability and learning do not automatically produce societal and political consensus on the evaluation of the past or the way forward. In crisis politics, we tend to find a spectrum of stances and reponses. At one end, there those who categorically advocate a change of leaders and policies. At the other end, we find leaders and their supporters determined to ride out the storm aswell as staunch supporters ocx existing policies and institutions. (Boin et al. 2008: 10)

Crisis exploitation strategies Another interesting contribution to the study of the Politics of Crisis Management is the theory of crisis exploitation strategy developed by Boin, ‘t Hart and McConnell (2009). They define crisis exploitation as the “purposeful utilization of crisis-type rhetoric to significantly alter levels of political support for public office-holders and public policies” (Boin et al. 2009: 83). We can form an idea of what is understood by exploitation in this context by returning to our comparison of private and public organizations. Coombs (2011) compares corporate crisis communication and political crisis communication. The former is defined as image repair theory (Benoit 2015) and situational crisis communication theory (Coombs 2015); the latter as presidential crisis rhetoric (Bostdorff 1994) and the theory of crisis exploitation. According to Coombs, corporate crisis communication and political crisis communication share an interest in framing



Reframing the field 

 83

and crisis responsibility. However, political crisis communication has a more offensive approach to crisis. Politicians seek to label a situation crisis, and crises are viewed as a political weapon that may change political agendas, policies and careers. Crises are viewed as “outside” crises that politicians step in to manage (adopting a hero role). Corporate crisis communication, on the contrary, has a more defensive approach. Corporate leaders try to avoid to use the term crisis. Crisis are “inside” crises that must be managed by the organization. Boin et al. (2009) claim that when a crisis breaks out, it will give rise to conflicting interpretations concerning what has happened or what will happen. What are the causes and the short-term or long-term consequences of the crisis? And last, but not least, who is responsible and who can be blamed for its occurrence and escalation? These interpretations are conflicting because citizens in general, and politicians in particular, have conflicting values and interests. Based on this assumption, a crisis is defined as a contest between frames and counter-frames fighting against each other to have their interpretation accepted as the dominant narrative. According to Boin et al. (2009), two framing contests can be identified. The first centers around the significance of the crisis event or situation. The second centers around the causality of the crisis event or situation. Four types of actors are involved in these contests: (1) the national or local government or other incumbent office-holders, (2) the opposition or other critics, (3) status-quo players, and (4) change advocates. These four types of actors enter two different types of exploitation games: the political crisis exploitation game and the policy crisis exploitation game. The first game is the game between government and opposition. The second game is the game between those who defend the regulatory and administrative status quo and those who are in favor of policy paradigm shift or reform. The theory of the crisis exploitation strategy is promissing in more than one sense. It highlights the agonistic or dissensus dimension of political crisis management and crisis communication. For det first time in the short history of crisis communication research, we have defined a crisis communication strategy the purpose of which is not to defend but to attack others. Blame avoidance and blame games The Politics of Crisis Management is not the only theoretical framework that has contributed to the development of political crisis management as a subfield. Similarly, crisis exploitation strategies are neither the only crisis communication strategies, although they seem to capture the essence. There are alternative theories and strategies such as Christoffer Hood’s theory of blame games. The concepts of blame, blame risk, blame game, and blame avoidance have become cornerstones in political crisis management. Research in blame avoidance began in the United States in the 1980  s with the publication of political scientist R.

84 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

Kent Weaver’s article “The Politics of Blame Avoidance” (1986). Weaver was interested in understanding how political institutions, past policy choices and the motivations of politicians interacted to shape public policy processes. He claimed that elected politicians were primarily motivated by the desire to avoid blame for unpopular actions rather than by seeking claim credit for popular actions. He explained this motivation by the voters’ negativity bias, that is, their tendency to be more sensitive to real or potential losses than they are to gains. Weaver saw blame avoidance as leading to the adoption of a distinctive set of political strategies. The overall aim of Christoffer Hood’s book The Blame Game: Spin, Bureaucracy, and Self Preservation (2011) is to describe and explain blame games focusing on the risk of personal blame. Interestingly he admits that he could have used the term reputational risk instead of blame risk, but that this term is more often used for corporate brands rather than individual officeholders. Hood defines blame as “the act of attributing something considered to be bad or wrong to some person or entity” (Hood 2011: 6). The social process of blaming, or the participation in a blame game, involves at least two sets of actors: (1) blame makers and (2) blame takers. One way to manage blame is to avoid blame. Hood has identified three main strategies for avoiding blame: (1) presentational strategies that deal with the perceived loss or harm dimension of blame. The slogan is: “Spin your way out of trouble”; (2) agency strategies that deal with the perceived agency dimension of blame. The slogan is: “Find a scapegoat”; (3) policy strategies that also deal with the agency dimension. The slogan is: “Don’t make contestable judgements that create losers”. Unfortunately, Christoffer Hood has not succeeded in moving his definition anywhere further apart from the distinction between two components. More than ten years after the publication of Christoffer Hood’s, Bertram Malle and his colleagues introduced the so-called path model of blame (for a detailed introduction, see Malle, Guglielmo and Monroe 2014). According to this model, blame as moral judgment is both cognitive and social (or communicative). From Hood’s study of political blame games to denial or shifting blame, the first of the 14 crisis response strategies in Benoit’s image repair theory, there is only a small step (see section 4 in this chapter). Profession In their introduction to the second edition of The Politics of Crisis Management (2017), the four authors write that it is “fair to say that crisis management has become a profession, an industry, and a growing community of practice and research. […] A cross-disciplinary array of researchers, consultants, software developers, and manufacturers push the trends toward professionalization” (Boin et al. 2017: 1). Many people would agree with the observation that a process of professionalization has taken place also within the subfield of political crisis management. However, does professionalization equate profession?



Reframing the field 

 85

The Great Belt Bridge rail accident (part 2): A political crisis management perspective When a community is the victim of a disaster, it seems as if the distress caused by the disaster will bring the members of this community a little closer to each other, at least for a while. At the same time, the members expect that their political leaders, from prime ministers to mayors, from administrators to public managers, will help them out of the tragic situation. Reactions This also seemed to be the case on the second day of the New Year 2019 where 8 people had been killed and 16 were injuried when a passenger train collided with a freight train on the Great Belt Fixed Link between the islands of Zealand and Funen. The Danish prime minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen sent out a press release: “The tragic accident on the Great Belt Bridge this morning with many killed and wounded has shakened us all. The lives of ordinary Danes on their way to work or on their way home from Christmas holiday have been broken. It is very sad. My thoughts go the victims of the accident and their families”. Also the prime ministers of Sweden and Norway, and the President of the European Commission expressed their compassion. Five out of the eight people who were killed in the accident came from Funen. The mayors and the city councils on Funen decided that people could put flowers in front of public buildings and put the flag at half mast on January 4. However, many other people participated in this rapidly organized event, e.  g. the employees at Storebælt A/S. It was also possible to put flowers on both sides of the Great Belt Fixed Link. However, this togetherness soon ended. Why did it happen? Immediately after the rail accident occurred, and the Danish authorities had informed the citizens about how serious the accident was, speculations about what had caused the accident began to circulate. Was it because of the bad weather conditions? Was it because of the train crew? Or was it because of DB Cargo (Deutsche Bahn’s Rail Freight Unit). In the midst of these speculations two things happened. On January 5, the Danish Transport Authority issued a warning about pocket wagons used to transport semi-trailers, on the recommendation of the Accident Investigation Board Denmark, stating that the locking mechanism securing the trailer could pose a safety risk. It also requested the Joint Network Secretariat (JNS) to open a formal procedure. On January 7, a test at DB Cargo showed that, after a semi-trailer had been loaded and secured, it could still be lifted off the wagon. The freight train had been checked prior to departure and seemed to have been properly secured. The following day, the transport authority temporarily prohibited the use of pocket wagons to transport semi-trailers, and tightened the rules for freight trains crossing the Great Belt, with respect to wind conditions. On January 7, Danish Minister for Transport, Ole Birk Olesen, was blamed by members of the Danish parliament for not protesting when he learned that the European Union Agency Railways had not informed the Danish government about an accident in Hamburg similar to the Great Belt bridge accident in 2014. Could that information have led to new rules about transportation safety in Denmark and prevented the accident on the Great Belt? “Dissatisfied political spokespersons: Danish authorities were not informed about the German train accident” (TV2 10.01.19). It made the minister state that he now wants “a new more effective and binding reporting system for the railways” (Ingeniøren 12.02.19). On this type of wagon, a pocket wagon, the front of a semi-trailer was fixed only with its kingpin. The back of the semi-trailer is kept in place as the wheels are lowered into a “pocket”. Following the accident, DB Cargo temporarily suspended all freight trains carrying bottle crates. The

86 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

accident resembled an incident in Hamburg, Germany, where a semi-truck that was not properly secured had been dislodged and collided with a bridge pier. The European Union Agency for Railways was supposed to forward information relating to serious incidents, but the Danish authorities had not been informed about the German accident prior to the Danish accident. Sources: Wikipedia, media coverage in Danish newspapers and television channels, 2019.

5 Corporate crisis management The third subfield is corporate crisis management. The word corporate immediately tells us in which sectors and in which areas of activity this type of crisis management has been institutionalized  – in the private sector, in private companies. Corporate crisis management refers to corporate crises and how these crises have been managed since Johnson & Johnson handled the Tylenol crisis in 1982 (see Chapter 2 in this handbook). Among the more recent corporate crises we find the Toyota vehicle recalls (2009–2011), the BP Deepwater Horizon oilspill (2010), the Volkswagen emission scandal (2015) and Danske Bank’s money laundering scandal (2017–2018). For readers who are interested in monitoring the corporate crisis landscape and how it has changed over the years, please consult the ICM Annual Crisis Report published by the Institute for Crisis Management. ICM was founded in 1990 by Robert Irving in Louisville, Kentucky and was acquired by Strategist Management in Denvor, Colorado in 2014. For 30 years, Irving and later on Deborah Hilemen, Strategist Management’s CEO, and their teams have studied business crises defined broadly as: “Any issue, problem or disruption which triggers negative stakeholder reactions that can impact the organization’s reputation, business and financial strength”. ICM collects and categorizes the crises covered by the American news media during a year according to industry and types of business crises (sudden, perceptual, smoldering, bizarre). All the crises mentioned above have been managed with varying degrees of success by the companies that have taken the product to market. The Johnson & Johnson Tylenol crisis became a crisis management success when chairman James Burke decided to pull the Tylenol capsules off the market. The BP Deepwater Horizon oilspill, on the contrary, never became a crisis management success (unless we include the American disaster film of the same name from 2016). Many people still remember the statement made by British Petrol’s CEO Tony Hayward on May 30, 2010: “There is no one who wants this thing over more than I do. I‘d like my life back” (quoted from Bergin 2011). It is difficult to do justice to the multifaceted character of the research taking place in the subfield of corporate crisis management and crisis communication. However, we can cover part of what is going on by making a distinction between the following national ‘schools’: An American school defined by Ian I. Mitroff and his colleagues at USC Center for Crisis Management in the 1980  s. The early research in croporate crisis management



Reframing the field 

 87

in the United States was to a large extent the research conducted at this center. It was inspired by systems theory, stakeholder management, spirituality, the subjective side of business, etc. However, there was also a small group of pioneers representing some of the other academic disciplines. Robert L. Heath, professor emeritus from the University of Houston, is one af them. Based on a rhetorical and/or critical approaches to crisis communication, he has co-authored and co-edited the Handbook of Risk and Crisis Communication (2009; together with H. Dan O’Hair) and Reponding to Crisis: A Rhetorical Approach to Crisis Communication. (2004; together with Dan P. Millar, former ICM senior consultant). Together with Damion Waymer Heath has taken the first steps towards formulating a critical approach to crisis managenent and crisis communication which lies across the three subfields that we have focused on in this chapter. See, for example, the article by Waymer and Heath: “Emergent agents: The forgotten publics in crisis communication and issues management research” and the special issue of Public Relations Review entitled “Critical and nonmainstream approaches to legitimacy, issues, and crisis” (9(1), 2020). A Canadian school defined first of all by two scholars who originally came from France: Thierry Pauchant, HEC Montreal, and Christophe Roux-Dufort, Université de Laval. Thierry Pauchant’s primary research interest is the ethical management of crisis and risk. Among his numerous publications, you find several books and journal articles on ethical management. See, for example, Ethics and Spirituality at Work: Hopes and Pitfalls of the Search for Meaning in Organizations (2002) and “Complexity and ethical crisis management: A systemic analysis of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness (2014; co-authored with Y. Guntzburger). Thierry Pauchant as well as Christophe Roux-Dufort are first of all interested in the study of corporate crisis management. Another Canadian researcher, Duncan Koerber, is concentrating on corporate crisis communication in his book entitled Crisis Communication in Canada (2017). A British school defined by Denis Smith and Dominic Elliott. Elliott has co-authored Business Continuity Management (2010) together with Etné Swartz and Brahim Erbane. He has conducted research within the area of organizational learning. See, for example, the journal article “Exploring the barriers to learning from crisis: Organizational learning and crisis” (2007; co-authored with Denis Smith). A French school defined by Patrick Lagadec and Claude Gilbert. Lagadec developed the theory of the risk civilization and the concept of le risque technologique majeur. Gilbert has first of all contributed to the study of collective risks and crisis situations. French sociologist Edgar Morin can also be considered a member of the French school, if only for his article “Pour une crisologie” (1976), which consists of metatheoretical reflections on the concept of crisis. Finally, we would also like to refer to The Handbook of International Crisis Communication Research (2016) edited by Andreas Schwarz, Matthew W. Seeger and Claudia Auer (see Chapter 1 in this handbook). Unfortunately, there are no chapters on corporate crisis management and crisis communication research in Great Britain and

88 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

France. However, there is a chapter on crisis communication in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark (Frandsen and Johansen 2016). In corporate crisis management, the focus point of the institutional logic is neither citizen safety nor political power, but the reputation of the company defined as “a collective assessment of a company’s attractiveness to a specific group of stakeholders relative to a reference group of companies with which the company competes for resources” (Fombrun 2012: 100). We shall return to the concept of reputation later in this section. From a crisis management point of view, the focus is on the pre-crisis stage, which includes enterprise risk management, signal detection, issues management, stakeholder analysis, risk management, crisis management plan (CMP), crisis management team (CMT), etc. In Chapter 2, we defined the idea of crisis preparedness as an institutional megastandard, that is, an idea adopted by many organizations over a long period of time. The strategic, proactive and process-oriented approach that characterizes corporate crisis management represents an instantiation of this idea. Since the 1980  s, the idea of corporate crisis management has travelled not only in time, but also in space, across organizational fields. From large corporations like the companies mentioned at the beginning of this section, to small and medium-sized companies (Herbane 2010; 2013); from the automative industry to tourism destinations (Carlsen and Liburd 2008), and from the private sector to the public sector (municipalities, hospitals, universities, etc.); Table 7 provides an overview of corporate crisis management as a subfield. Tab. 7: Overview of corporate crisis management. Focus points of institutional logic

Reputation The pre-crisis stage

History

Unfortunately, there is no general history of corporate crisis management and crisis communication. It has to be written piecemeal, that is, from ­company to company. There seems to some overlap with the history of the risk society (Beck 1992) and of the risk organization (Power 2008).

Legal framework

There is no national legal framework for corporate crisis management and crisis communication. However, if we go to the individual sectors and/ or industries, we will find more specific types of legal frameworks (for example, in the aviation industry).

Key tasks

The primary task for a private company is to protect the reputation of the company. A secondary task is to protect the stakeholders and their stakes.

Key actors

The key actors are distributed between the external stakeholders ­(customers, investors, the business press) and the internal stakeholders (employees, the board).

Key vocabulary

Crisis, risik and scandal are the three basic terms Passive, active, reactive and proactive: How can we define?



Reframing the field 

 89

Tab. 7 (continued) Management

Corporate crisis management is based on a strategic, proactive and ­ rocess-oriented approach to management. p

Organization

The crisis preparedness of a private company will normally be activated by the members of the crisis management team (CMT).

Communication

Theories of crisis response strategies: – Image repair theory – Terminological control theory – Situational crisis communication theory – Contingency theory – Discourse of renewal Theories of proactive crisis communication strategies: – Inoculation – Stealing thunder

Profession

Crisis management and crisis communication as core competencies for managers and employees working in the department of corporate communication.

History To our knowledge, nobody so far has made an attempt to write the general history of corporate crisis management, that is, something similar to Peter L. Bernstein’s Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk (1998). There are scholars who reject that such a history is possible. Zamoum and Gorpe (2018), for example, argue that the study of crisis management cannot be linked to a specific civilization or era. We have to be content with our ‘crisis chroniclers’, that is, academics, journalists and consultants who write about some of the most famous crises. To mention a few: American sociologist Diane Vaughan wrote about The Challenger Launch Decision; Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NSA (1996); American reporter Tom Bergin wrote about Spills and Spin: The Inside Story of BP (2011); and American scientists Earl Boebert and James M. Blossom wrote about Deepwater Horizon; A Systems Analysis of the Macondo Disaster (2016). It is difficult to generalize on the basis of case studies, but they can serve as a heuristic. Many of these chronicles are presented as normative “lessons” by their authors. Legal framework Legal frameworks for the practice of crisis management in the private sector as such are rare. However, if we move from the general level to a specific level, or to put it differently, if we divide the private sector into industries, we find several examples of legal frameworks. The banking industry, for example, plays a specific role in a country’s economy, as it performs functions that are essential for its economic activities,

90 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

such as provision of payment services, saving, insurance, loans, risk hedging, etc. Any disturbance in these functions tends to reflect negatively on financial system stability, while repercussions are also felt by the real economy and all citizens. The global financial crisis has proved that not even the most advanced economies have an appropriate legal framework for problem bank resolution which would ensure that bank bailout burden is borne primarily by its shareholders and creditors. Competent authorities and governments had to make a choice between a bankruptcy procedure bearing a high risk of potential systemic disturbances on the one hand and bank bailouts shouldered by budgetary or other public funds on the other. Endeavours to prevent bank insolvency and illiquidity and to preserve critical bank functions led to problem banks rescues at very high costs ultimately borne by taxpayers. Key tasks As already emphasized, the focus point of corporate crisis management is to protect the reputation of the company. Reputation is an important resource for a company. It attracts customers, investors, employees, business partners, and influence among politicans. However, a favorable reputation is not something that falls down from the sky by it self. It is an effect of something: a good product (in terms of quality). Key actors The distance between public crisis management and political crisis management is considerable, in particular in their understanding of crisis communication (e.  g., emergency communication versus crisis exploitation strategy). However, the distance between public and political crisis management and corporate crisis management is even larger. If we take a communication perspective and focus on the form, content, medium and patterns of messages and how they influence the way that people make meaning and take action, the primary communication processes in public crisis management involve the emergency organizations (from first responders to emergency managers) and the citizens. In corporate crisis management, the companies Key vocabulary Risk, crisis, and scandal are three of the most frequently used terms in corporate crisis management and crisis communication. We will leave it to the risk sociologists to define what we have to understand by risk and how we can sort out the multiple risk definitions (see the overview in Frandsen and Johansen 2017). In this chapter and in the previous chapter we looked at two of the most widespread definitions of crisis: Hermann (1963) and Pearson and Clair (1998). Since the late 1990  s, through the five editions of Ongoing Crisis Communication: Planning, Managing, and Responding, W. Timothy Coombs has developed what you may consider a whole series of crisis definitions:



–

–

–

–

–

Reframing the field 

 91

“A crisis can be defined as an event that is an unpredictable, major threat that can have a negative effect on the organization, industry, or stakeholders if handled improperly” (Coombs 1999: 2–3) “A crisis is the perception of an unpredictable event that threatens important expectancies and can seriously impact an organization’s performance and generate negative outcomes” (Coombs 2007: 2–3) “A crisis is the perception of an unpredictable event that threatens important expectancies and can seriously impact an organization’s performance and generate negative outcomes” (Coombs 2012: 2–3). “A crisis is the perception of an unpredictable event that threatens important expectancies of stakeholders related to health, safety, environmental, and economic issue, and can seriously impact an organization’s performance and generate negative outcomes” (Coombs 2015: 3) “A crisis is the perceived violation of salience stakeholder expectations that can create negative outcomes for stakeholders and/or the organization” (Coombs 2019: 3).

It is interesting to follow how one and the same researcher over a period of 20 years develops his own crisis definition, how this definition differs from other definitions, and how some defining aspects are present while other are absent. Crisis as event and process – and beyond Research in crisis management, and particularly in corporate crisis management, is characterized by its many models. It began with Barry Turner’s disaster incubation theory and sequence model in the 1970  s and it continued with Ian I. Mitroff’s onion model in the 1980’s and Denis Smith crisis management model in the 1990  s. However, we will continue our discussion of the life cycle or staged models that we presented in the sections on public and political crisis management. A large part of the metatheoretical reflections within the field of corporate crisis managementa has revolved around the understanding of crisis as either an event or a process including the various ontological assumptions underpinning these two models. Two prominent crisis management scholars – Christophe Roux-Dufort, the (co-)author of “Crises: events or processes? (1998), “Is crisis management (only) a management of exceptions?” (2007), and Bert Spector, the author of Constructing Crisis: Leaders, Crisis and Claims (2019) – will serve as our guides. The understanding of management and communication in corporate crisis management is often based on a strategic, proactive and process-oriented approach to crisis management and crisis communication. Gilpin and Murphy (2008: 7) describe this approach as the “dominant paradigm of planning and control”. By strategic we refer to an approach which is very much inspired by the discipline of strategic management. This new management discipline emerged in the 1950  s and

92 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

the 1960  s. Prior to the 1960  s, the term strategy was primarily used regarding war and politics, not business. According to this approach the crisis preparedness of an organization has to be fully integrated and anchored in top management as well as among the employees. By proactive we refer to the pre-crisis stage. Its crisis preparedness must be able to prevent crises from occurring and prepare, by means of its crisis management plan (crisis communication plan). Finally, by process-oriented we refer to the difference between a crisis-as-event perspective and a crisis-as-process perspective. “One cannot completely plan for a crisis given an inability to consider probabilities of potential risks as these events are inconceivable, unscheduled, and unexpected” (Williams et al. 2017: 735). Tab. 8: Crisis as event and crisis as process. Sources: Roux-Dufort (2007, 2016), Williams et al. (2017). Crisis-as-event model

Crisis-as-process perspective

Strong signals Crisis as a rare and exceptional event Crisis as an unanticipated contingent event that is isolated in time and space Focus on the aftermath of a crisis Pearson and Clair (1998)

Weak signals Crisis as a routine Crises develop over time through Including organizational weakening, strategic drift, incubation, etc. Focus on the pre-event, in-event and post-event crisis management

Recently, in his book Constructing Crisis: Leaders, Crises, and Claims of Urgency (2019), American business and management researcher Bert Spector criticizes main stream crisis management researchers, practitioners and consultants for defining crisis as an objective fact, that is, as a thing. A thing is something that “can be categorized, located in time and space, and given a name” (Wagner-Pacifici 2017: 1). Tab. 9: Crisis as event and crisis as claim. Source: Spector (2019). Crisis-as-event model

Crisis-as-claim model

A crisis is a thing, an onjective fact A crisis is a claim of urgency made by a leader Focus on the event

Crisis is a claim of urgency made by a leader facts never speak for themselves Focus on the claim: a position of power and influence intended to shape the understanding of others

The metatheoretical implications of this social constructivist approach have not yet been formulated, but it seems obvious that Spector’s book will serve as the starting point for a critical approach to crisis management and crisis communication.



Reframing the field 

 93

Crisis response strategies: A paradox? For more than 20 years, the study of corporate crisis communication has primarily been a study of crisis response strategies. This seems to have produced a major paradox. On the one hand, there is a strong focus on the pre-crisis stage as such, including signal detection, risk assesment, issues management, stakeholder management, crisis management plans, crisis management teams, etc. On the other hand, there is at the same time a focus on the post-crisis stage communication. How can we explain this paradox? Responding represents a fundamental aspect of crisis communication, from FEMA and CERC to image repair theory and situational crisis communication theory, according to which managing a crisis is first of all a question of how to defend an organization that is under attack. The study of crisis response strategies is inspired by various streams of sociological and/or psychological research including apologia theory. Seeger and Sellnow (2013): “Apologia theory, or theories of apology, was developed from rhetorical theory. It describes a specific form, class, or genre of communication behaviors and messages that occur after a crisis or following an accusation of wrongdoing”. The accusation of wrongdoing may involve an individual, group, or organization. For an overview, see Towner (2009). Among the other streams of research we find the sociological theory of accounts, that is, “a statement made by a social actor to explain unanticipated or untoward behavior” (Scott and Lyman 1968: 46; see also Orbuch 1997), the sociological theory of impression management, that is, the process in which people try to influence the perception of other people about a person or an organization by regulating and controlling information in social interaction (Goffman 1959), and the social psychological theory of attribution. William L. Benoit’s image repair theory and W. Timothy Coombs’ situational crisis communication theory are two of the most influential theories of crisis response strategies (see Chapter 2 in this handbook). At first sight, they seem to be very similar but is this also correct? We will try to compare the two theories using the following questions as our starting point: – Is it a general and systematic theory covering all types of crisis response strat­ egies? Or is it a specific theory focusing on only one strategy (such as the apology)? – How many overall (sub-)strategies are covered? – How simple or complex is the theory (actors, functions)? – How simple or complex is the theoretical context of the theory? – How big is the development potential? Benoit’s image repair theory is a general and systematic theory based on a list of five main strategies (denial, evading responsibility, reducing offensiveness, corrective action, and mortification) and nine sub-strategies. These strategies are embedded in a limited theoretical context and presented as a theory of communication, based on

94 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

two assumptions: (1) communication is a goal-oriented activity and (2) maintaining a favorable reputation is a key goal of communication. Coombs’ situational crisis communication theory is also a general and systematic theory based on a list of ten strategies (attacking the accuser, denial, scapegoating, excusing, justification, compensation, apology, reminding, ingratiation, victimage). These strategies which are divided into 4 postures, are embedded in a theoretical context which is richer than the theoretical context in Benoit’s image repair theory. It contains concepts (paracrisis), micro-theories (halo and velcro effect), theories (attribution theory), metatheory (evidence-based approach), osv. How similar are Benoit and Coombs’ theories of crisis response strategies? Depending on what you understand by theory, it is possible to describe the two theories as a classification or as a “real” theory. The two theories apply different research designs (case studies vs. experiments). Both of them have theoretical development potential related to the attack strategies, but so far only Benoit has established a theory of persuasive attacks. Both theories are rather monovocal, but Coombs has been experimenting more than Benoit. The best way to handle a crisis is to prevent it from occurring. This obvious statement is part of the conventional wisdom of crisis management. It is therefore a surprise to observe that crisis communication research first and foremost has investigated the reactive type of communication, that is, the communication that takes place in the post-crisis stage. Although image repair theory and situational crisis communication theory are two very different theories, they both have a strong focus on response strategies. However, there are other theories and strategies that seem to be proactive. Inoculation and stealing thunder Inoculation theory was developed in the 1960  s by American social psychologist William J. McGuire (1925–2007). McGuire, who was inspired by Carl Hovland, one of the four “founding fathers” of modern communication research, was interested in the psychology of persuasion. He was particularly interested in knowing if – and if yes, then how and to what extent? – you can make a person’s attitudes and beliefs immune or resistant to future attacks or counter-arguments. The easiest way to explain the rationale behind this theory is to draw a parallel to medicine. Just like the doctor vaccinates his patients to render them immune to infectious deseases by injecting a small dosis of the pathagenic, the sender tries to strengthen an already existing idea or attitude in the receiver by making him or her resistant to future counter-arguments. Drawing a parallel to medicine also allows us to nominate inoculation theory the second ‘hypodermic needle theory’ in the history of communication research. The so-called ‘Lasswells formel’ (Who Says What to Whom …) was the first ‘hypodermic needle theory’. Inoculation theory consists of two key components. The first components is threat, which creates a motivation to resist. The second component is refutational preemption,



Reframing the field 

 95

that is, the ability to defend yourself against counter-arguments. Today, inoculation theory is used within areas such as political communication, health communication and marketing communication. Michael Pfau (1945–2009), another renowned persuasion researcher, was the first to test inoculation theory within crisis communication. Stealing thunder is a self-revealing strategy. It proceeds as follows: a social actor (e.  g., a private company) that knows that it is guilty of some kind of wrongdoing and therefore risks to end up in a crisis, hastens to reveal this before another social actor (e.  g., the news media) can do it. Various conditions must be met. First, the company must tell the whole story and not only the most presentable parts of it. If the company does not do that, the strategy risks being misinterpreted as a PR stunt. Second, the company and the news media (or the environment of the company) must agree on the fact that the company has done wrong including where, when, how and why. Already in 1999 Laura M. Arpan, Florida State University, published a PhD dissertation in which she examined the effect of proactive crisis communication on the image of a company. She has also published articles in which she investigates if the use of a stealing thunder strategy can contribute to amiliorate the communication flow between companies and journalists. What precisely do we mean when we say that the stealing thunder strategy is a proactive strategy? The term proactive can have at least two different meanings. You can be proactive when you try to prevent an organizational crisis from becoming a reality. In this case there is a clear focus on the pre-crisis stage. This is the meaning of the term we that use when we talk about applying a strategic, proactive and process-oriented approach to crisis management. However, you can also be proactive when you try to be the first actor who communicates about a specific crisis that has become a reality. In this case the focus is not on the pre-crisis, but on the crisis stage, or to be more precise: on when you must begin to handle a crisis. The crisis is only known by the organization itself, but it has occurred. The crisis type therefore becomes an important factor. Reputation – An ill-defined concept? Sometimes the concepts of an academic discipline are so successful that they become the object of what French philosopher and sociologist of science Bruno Latour has named the social process of blackboxing. He defines this process as “the way scientific and technical work is made invisible by its own success. When a machine runs efficiently, when a matter of fact is settled, one need focus only on its inputs and outputs and not on its internal complexity. Thus, paradoxically, the more science and technology succeed, the more opaque and obscure they become” (Latour, 1999). Reputation – the focus point in this institutional logic – is one of these concepts. The intellectual history of the concept of reputation coincides with the history of modern organizational crisis management and crisis communication. It all begins around 1990 – the year where Charles J. Fombrun and M. Shanley wrote their article

96 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

“What’s in a name? Reputation building and corporate strategy”. In 1996, Fombrun publishes Reputation: Realizing value from the Corporate Image. The Reputation Institute was founded in 1997, and Corporate Reputation Review was launched the same year. For a comprehensive and recent overview of the literature on reputation, see Veh, Göbel and Vogel (2019). The concept of reputation and its faithful companion, the concept of image, have had a diffucult life. In the early 1990  s, James E. Grunig Reputation is a central category in Benoit’s image repair theory and in Coombs’ situational crisis communication theory. Both of these theories center on the use of crisis response strategies to protect an organization’s reputation. However, the concept of reputation, and its faithful companion, the concept of image, have had a difficult life in public relations, the discipline in which crisis communication grew. It is possible to distinguish between: (1) crisis (communication) without reputational effects, (2) and crisis (communication) with reputational effects. Sturges (1994), for example, distinguishes between instructing/adjusting crisis information vs internalizing crisis information. Coombs (2016) distinguishes between operational crisis vs reputational crises. Many other crisis communication researchers have introduced similar typologies (see, for example, Olsson 2014; Fredriksson and Pallas 2016). Crisis communication research can benefit from an understanding of reputation (1) which defines reputation as omni-present, that is, every type of crisis management and crisis communication activity can elicit reputational effects among stakeholders, and (2) which has a multi-disciplinary, multi-dimensional and multi-level approach to reputation. The theoretical and practical implications of this alternative understanding of reputation in crisis communication theory and practice are important. We will have to revise some of our models and typologies, such as the one proposed by Sturges (1994). We will also have to rethink emergency and disaster management where reputation is often seen as an irrelevant concept (Seeger and Donayle 2010). However, the instructing and adjusting information offered to direct and indirect victims of a major emergency by public emergency organizations also elicit reputational effects. American crisis consultant Jim Lukaszewski, who promotes himself on his website as “America’s Crisis Guru”, has introduced a similar distinction between operational and non-operational crises. He estimates that 95 percent of all crises occur as result of the day-to-day operations of an organization and that only 5 percent of all crises occur in the non-operating areas of the organization. According to Lukaszewski (2013), this has two implications. First, there is substantial internal expertise to deal with operational crises, and the level of confidence in a solution is high among operating management because these situations are often daily facts of life. Second, given that the non-operational crises are the most difficult to manage and most damaging to trust and reputation, this is also where the need for external assistance will be most obvious.



Reframing the field 

 97

Profession There is no specific profession, as it was the case in public crisis management. However, it makes sense to see crisis managent and crisis communication as a core competence which together with other core competencies represents the basis for a profession in corporate communication or strategic communication in a corporate communication department. The Great Belt Bridge rail accident (part 3): A corporate crisis management perspective As mentioned in part 1 of this case presentation, several private and public companies – Sund & Bælt Holding A/S, the operator of the bridge, and Banedanmark, the operator of Danish Railways, the Carlsberg Breweries and DB Cargo – were involved directly or indirectly in the accident. However, as we shall see, DB Cargo remained the protagonist throughout the course of events. DB Cargo is the management company for the Rail Freight Business Unit of Deutsche Bahn, previously known as first Rallion Logistics (until 2009) and then DB Schenker Rail (until 2016). The accident was the most serious rail accident in Denmark since 1988. Eigth people died, and another sixteen people were injured. Immediately after the accident had occurred, corporate spokespersons began explaining the role of their company. Either on their own initiative or pushed by inquisitive reporters. Carlsberg confirms that their freight is involved. “We are deeply affected. At 9:30, DB Cargo informed us that there has been an accident involving our freight. DB Cargo is the operator of this part of our transport, and they use to transport freight in a responsible manner”, declares Carlsberg press officer Kasper Elbjørn. He informs that Carlsberg is ready to help with the investigation of the accident, but he also refers to DB Cargo for more details about the transport. Jan Wildau, communications director at DB Cargo, tells Danish TV 2 (2.01.19) that the freight followed the instructions from Banedanmark: “We had a green signal from Banedanmark that is was safe to pass the bridge. We knew there was a heavy wind. Normally our set-up is very robust and it ought to be able to deal with this.” For their part, Banedanmark explains that “the wind was not in the danger zone” (Horsens Folkeblad 2.01.19) and is quoted in another newspaper: “We have followed the rules that we have had to for many years” (Berlingske 5.01.19). The day after the accident, Wilday informs that DB Cargo has chosen not to resume driving with beer trains after Wednesday’s train accident on the Great Belt Bridge, and that the company is in the process of reviewing all the company’s procedures, materials and a variety of other conditions, and he states: “When we feel that with a very high degree of security we can start driving the train, then we do it, and we do not do it before. We would rather go 25 extra rounds to ensure safety than sending the trains too early back on the rails”. […] DB Cargo carries beer boxes over the Great Belt Bridge thirty times per week. There has never been an indication that the freight train is not safe. “They have been driving for many years. At the moment, there is nothing that tells us that they are not in order, but we want to be absolutely sure”, Wildau said. (Danish TV 2 (3.01.19). As it appears, immediately after the accident, all three companies attempt to some extent to reduce or avoid responsibility, and they all use bolstering strategies in an attempt to protect themselves and their reputation at a point in time where they may not have all the needed information for explaining exactly what happened. While DB Cargo carries out its own investigation, a local police team (Funen Police) has assumed formal investigations into the accident, and Funen Police has accused a union representative

98 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

from DB Cargo of hiding key evidence pertaining to the accident. More specifically, the person has been charged with concealing who was responsible for the loading and checking of the freight train that caused the accident when one of its wagons blew off and into an incoming passenger train. He reportedly removed a name from a list. In October 2019, the union representative, employee at DB Cargo, was given a twenty days suspended sentence, after having explained that it was just a matter of a “blunder”. The final report On December 18, 2019, the Danish Investigation Board published its final report on the accident. A preliminary report had been published already in March. The final report was presented at a press conference. The Investigation Board concluded that the cause of the accident was that the semi-trailer was not locked in place, and that improper maintenance was the reason for it not working. The locking mechanism needs regular lubrication, but the official guidelines were incomplete, resulting in insufficient lubrication of some of its parts. At the same time, there was uncertainty about who was responsible for this part of the maintenance (whether it was DB Cargo that leased and operated the freight train wagon, or VTG Rail that owned it). If the locking mechanism had been properly functioning, the wind would not have been able to loosen the semi-truck from the freight train. As a result of the investigation, new guidelines on the maintenance of such locking mechanisms are expected to be implemented throughout Europe in early 2020. For the report, employees at Carlsberg explained to the Investigation Board that they had told (in speaking) DB Cargo about incidents of locking mechanisms not working correctly on trailers. DB Cargo explains that “in our internal investigations we have found no documentation that we have received such information and not having acted upon it.” “But we are not saying that it has not happened. When it is about safety, it is completely clear that you have to say something”. DB Cargo has now introduced new measures to assure “fast and precise information”. (JP 19.12.19). As it appears from the three parts of Great Belt Train Accident case study, actors and voices interact within their own subfields as well as across the subfields, having different role and functions along the course of events. The emergency officers and the police assist victims and take care of trafic and communication to the public (safety during the crisis stage), but the police also interact with the public authorities, the public and the private companies to find out about the cause of the accident. The politicians are interested in responsibility issues (could this accident have been avoided by having the right information and procedures) and in revising procedures to avoid this from happening again as well as with the private companies. The involved companies refer to one another and act upon the communication of the others, but are also affected by the investigations of the police and the statements of the politicians. And the media of course play a central role in bringing the subfields together in their reporting of the accident. The case study not only illustrates the interdependencies between the three subfields, it is also a fine example of patterns and interactions in the rhetorical arena (see chap. 9 in this handbook). Sources: Wikipedia and Danish news media 2019.

General conclusions In the second chapter of Part 1 “Introducing the field” we took a diachronic perspective and made an ambitious attempt to write the history of four decades of research in organizational crises, crisis management and crisis communication (1980–2020). In this third chapter, we have shifted from a diachronic perspective to a synchronic



Reframing the field 

 99

perspective in another ambitious attempt: to reframe the field into three subfields that we have termed public crisis management, political management and corporate communication. Two of the three types of crisis management are clearly located witin the public and the private sectors respectively. We argue that public crisis management is governed by an institutional logic where the safety of the citizens and society at large is the focus point while corporate crisis management is governed by an institutional logic where the reputation of the companies and their stakeholders ia the focus point. The third type of crisis management – political crisis management – is different from the two other types because “crises” are not handled as negative events that must be contained. We argue that political crisis management is governed by an institutional logic where power and blame avoidance is the focus point. Inspired by the new institutionalism in general and the institutional logics perspective in particular, we argued that each of the three subfields are governed by different institutional logics, that is, “socially constructed, historical patters of cultural symbols and material practicism including assumptions, values and beliefs, by which individuals and organizations provide meaning to their daily activity, organize time and space, and reproduce their lives and experience” (Thornton and Ocasio 2008). The idea behind the concept of institutional logic seem evident, but the concept, its components and its structure, remains abstract. To make the approach more concrete we will have to operationalize the concept, that is, to define how we can measure it, although it is not directly measurable. So far, in our research, we have tried to operationalize the concept of institutional logic by identifying two focus points within each subfield and/or institutional logic. The first focus point can be described as value-oriented. Each of the value-orented focus point. The second focus point can be described as action-oriented. These logics or focus points are not isolated from one another. They overlap, they export and import, they attack or fight against each other. They are suffiently different to remain a subfield instead of turning into one big field of crisis management. Throughout this chapter, we have used the case of the Great Belt Bridge rail accident which occurred on January 2, 2019. The case study served its purpose: to demonstrate how the three institutional logics play specific roles in the dynamic development of the accident. It is our firm belief that the institutional logics perspective will contribute to future research, not only inside each of the three subfields of public, political and corporate crisis management but also between and across these logics. The three chapters will help us in our attempt to understand the complexity of organizational crises, crisis management and crisis communication. They will also help us to integrate what has too often been separated in this exciting field of research.

100 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

References Berg Johansen, C., and S. Boch Waldroff. 2015. What are institutional logics – and where is the perspective taking us? Paper presented at Academy of Management. Proceedings 2015(1). Bergin, T. 2011. Spills and Spin: The Inside Story of BP. Random House Business Books. Bernstein, P. L. 1998. Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk. New York: John Wiley. Birkland, T. A. 1997. After Disaster: Agenda Setting, Public Policy, and Focusing Events. Washington D. C.: Georgetown University Press. Birkland, T. A. 2012. Lessons of Disaster: Policy Change After Catastrophic Events. Washington D. C.: Georgetown University Press. Boebert, E., and J. M. Blossom. 2016. Deepwater Horizon; A Systems Analysis of the Macondo Disaster. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Boin, A. (ed.). 2008. Crisis Management I–III. Sage Library in Business and Mangement. London: Sage. Boin, A., P. ’t Hart, E. Stern and B. Sundelius. 2005. The Politics of Crisis Management: Public Leadership under Pressure. 2nd edn. 2017. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boin, A., A. Mcconnell and P. ’t Hart (eds.). 2008. Governing after Crisis: The Politics of investigation, Accountability and Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boin, A., P. ‘t Hart and A. Mcconnell. 2009. Crisis exploitation: Political and policy impacts of framing contests. Journal of European Public Policy 16(1). 81–106. Bostdorff, D. M. 1994. The Presidency and the Rhetoric of Foreign Crisis. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. Carlsen, J. C., and J. J. Liburd. 2008. Developing a research agenda for tourism crisis management, market recovery and communications. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 23(2–4). 265–276. Coombs, W. T. 2011. Political public relations and crisis communication: A public relations perspective. In J. Strömbäck and S. Kiousis (eds.), Political Public Relations: Principles and Applications, 214–234. London: Routledge. Dillon, B. 2009. Blackstone’s Emergency Planning, Crisis and Disaster Management. 2nd edn. 2014. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Donald, M. 1991. Origins of the Modern Mind: Thre Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Drabek, T. E., and J. Evans. 2007. Sociology, disasters and emergency management: History, contributions, and future agenda. In D. A. McEntire (ed.), Disciplines, Disasters and Emergency Management: The Convergence and Divergence of Concepts, Issues and Trends in the Research Literature. Emmitsburg, Maryland: Emergency Management Institute, FEMA. Farris, D., and R. McCreight. 2014. The professionalization of emergency management in institutions of higher education. Homeland Security & Emergency Management 11(1). 73–94. Frandsen, F. 2004. Spindoktorerne – en episode i det moderne demokratis historie [Spindoctors – an episode in the history of modern democracy]. In M. Femø Nielsen (eds.), Spin, selvfremstilling og samfund, 15–37. Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2007. Krisekommunikation: når virksomhedens image og omdømme er truet [Crisis communication: When the image and reputation of the company are threatened]. Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2016. Crisis communication research in the Nordic countries. In A. Schwarz, M. Seeger and C. Auer (eds.), Handbook of International Crisis Communication Research, 373–383. Boston: Wiley-Blackwell. Frandsen, F., W. Johansen and H. H. Salomonsen. 2017. Reputation: a cross-disciplinary study of key concepts in public relations, business administration, and public administration. In B. van



Reframing the field 

 101

Ruler, L. Smit, Ø. Ihlen and S. Romenti (eds.), How Strategic Communication Shapes Value and Innovation in Society, 159–176. Bingley: Emerald Publishing. Advances in Public Relations and Communication Management. Friedland, R., and R. L. Alford. 1985. Powers of Theory: Capitalism, the State, and Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Friedland, R., and R. L. Alford. 1991. Bringing society back in: Symbols, practices, and institutional contradictions. In W. W. Powell and P. J. DiMaggio (eds.), The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analaysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gephart, R., Jr., C. C. Miller and K. Svedberg Helgesson (eds.). 2019. The Routledge Companion to Risk, Crisis and Emergency Management. New York: Routledge. Gilpin, D. R. and P. J. Murphy. 2008. Crisis Management in a Complex World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gorpe, T. S., and K. Zamoum. 2018. Crisis management: A historical and conceptual approach for a better understading of today’s crisis. In K. Holla, J. Ristvej and M. Titko (eds.), Crisis Management – Theory and Practice, IntechOpen. Guntzburger, Y., and T. C. Pauchant. 2014. Complexity and ethical crisis management. A systemic analysis of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness 1(4). 378–401.  Herbane, B. 2010. Small business research: Time for a crisis-based view. International Small Business Journal 28(1). 43–64. Herbane, B. 2013. Exploring crisis management in UK small and medium-sized enterprises. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 21(2). 82–95. Hood, C. 2002. The risk game and the blame game. Government and Opposition 37(1). 15–37. Hood, C. 2011. The Blame Game: Spin, Bureaucracy, and Self-Preservation in Government. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kapucu, N. 2004. Interagency communication networks during emergencies: Boundary spanners in multiagency coordination. American Review of Public Administration 36(2). 207–225. Kapucu, N. 2008. Collaborative emergency management: Better communuty organizing, better public preparedness, and response. Disasters 32(2). 239–262. Kiewe, A. (ed.). 1994. The Modern Precidency and Crisis Rhetoric. Westport, CT: Praeger. Kuypers, J. A. 1997. Presidential Crisis Rhetoric and the Press in the Post-cold war World. Westport, CT: Praeger. Larson, M. S. 1977. The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press. Latour, B. 1999. Pandora’s Hope: Essay on the Reality of Science Studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Loewenstein, J., W. Ocasio, and C. Jones. 2012. Vocabularies and vocabulary structure: A new approach linking categories, practices and institutions. The Academy of Management Annals 6(1). 41–86. Lyman, S. M., and M. B. Scott. 1968. Accounts. American Sociological Review 33(1). 46–62. Orbuch, T. L. 1997. People’s accounts count: The sociology of accounts. Annual Review of Sociology 23. 455–478. Pauchant, T. C. (ed.). 2002. Ethics and Spirituality at Work. New York: Quorum Books. Power, M. 2007. Organized Uncertainty: Designing a World of Risk Management. OxfordL Oxford University. Reynolds, B., J. Hunter-Galdo, and L. Sokler. 2002. Crisis and emergency risk communication. Atlanta GA: Centres for Desease Control and Prevention. Rosenthal, U., P. t’Hart and A. Kouzmin. 1991. The bureau-politics of crisis management. Public Administration 69. 211–233.

102 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

Rosenthal, U., H. Charles and P. ‘t Hart. 1989. Coping with Crises: The Management of Disasters, Riots and Terrorism. Springfield: Charles Thomas. Rubin, C. B. (ed.). 2007. Emergency Management: The American Experiemce, 1900–2005. Fairfax, Virginia: PERI Public Entity Risk Institute. Rubin, C. B. (ed.). 2012. Emergency Management: The American Experiemce, 1900–2010. Fairfax, Virginia: PERI Public Entity Risk Institute. Sahin, B., N. Kapucu and A. Unlu. 2008. Perspectives on crisis management in European Union countries: United Kingdom, Spain and Germany. European Journal of Economic and Political Studies 1(1).19–45. Scott, W. R. 1995. Institutios and Organizations: Foundations for Organizational Science. London: Sage. Scott, W. R. 2000. Lords of the dance: Professionals as institutionals agents. Organization Studies 29(2). 219–238. Shattuck, L. G., and D. D. Woods. 2000. Communication of intent in military command and control systems. In C. McCann and R. Pigeau (eds.), The Human in Command: Exploring the Modern Military Experience. 279–291. New York: Springer, ‘t Hart, P. 1993. Symbols, rituals and power: The lost dimensions of crisis management. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 1(1). 29–43. Spector, B. 2019. Constructing Crisis: Leaders, Crises, and Claim of Urgency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thornton, P. H., W. Ocasio and M. Lounsbury. 2012. The Institutional Logics Perspective: A New Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tiems. The International Emergency Management Society. www.tiems.info. Tierney, K. 2019. Disasters. A Sociological Approach. Cambridge: Polity Press. Towner, E. B. 2009. Apologies, image repair, and reconciliation: The application, limitations, and future directions of apologetic rhetoric. Annals of the International Communication Association 33(1). 431–468. Vaughan, D. 1996. The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NSA. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wagner-Pacifici, R. 2017. What Is an Event?. Chicago: The University if Chicago Press. Walker, C., and J. Broderick. 2006. The Civil Contingencies Act 2004: Risk, Resilience and the Law in the United Kingdom. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Waymer, D., and R. L. Heath. 2007. Emergent agents: The forgotten publics in crisis communication and issues management research. Journal of Applied Communication Research 35. 88–108. Weaver, R. K. 1986. The politics of blame avoidance. Journal of Public Policy 6(4): 371–329. Williams, T., D. Gruber, K. M. Suttcliffe, D. A. Shepherd and E. Y. Zhao. 2017. Organizational response to adversity: Fusing crisis mangement and resilience streams of research. The Academy of Management Annals 11(2). 733–769. Wilson, J., and A. Oyola-Yemaiel. 2000. The historical origins of emergency management professionalization in the United States. Journal of Professional Emergency Planners 39(1–2). Wilson, J., and A. Oyola-Yemaiel. 2001. The evolution of emergency management and the advancement towards a profession in the United States and Florida. Safety Science 39(1–2). 117–131. Wilson, J., and A. Oyola-Yemaiel. 2002. An emergency management profession: Will we make it? Journal of Professional Emergency Planners 9. 74–81. Windt, T. O., Jr. 1986. Presidential rhetoric: Definition of a field of study. Presidential Studies Quarterly 16(1). 102–116.

Section II – Between text and context

William L. Benoit

4 Image repair theory Abstract: This chapter discusses key concepts in image repair theory. The fourteen image repair strategies are defined and the relationship between persuasive attack and persuasive defense is noted. Suggestions for image repair (e.  g., more strategies are not necessarily better than fewer and particularly pertinent strategies) and stresses the importance of the audience in image repair. The chapter takes up the question of how image repair theory developed and how it has been applied. This theory is not claimed to be the final and complete statement on image repair but it has been useful in many studies. Keywords: apologia, defense, face, image repair, persuasive attack, reputation

1 Introduction It is clear that attacks, complaints, or criticism are common occurrences in human interaction. Because one’s face (image, reputation) is important, people, groups, and organizations are provoked by these attacks to engage in persuasive defense. The discipline lacked a comprehensive theory of ways to deal with threats to image. Ware and Linkugel (1973), a key work in this area, was the only available typology of defensive strategies in rhetoric at the time and it had limitations. Image repair theory was designed to encompass typologies from rhetoric (apologia) and sociology (accounts, excuses) into a unified approach.

2 Origins of image repair theory Frandsen and Johansen (2017) provide a context for understanding image repair theory, aptly characterizing it as a rhetorical and textual approach. My background was primarily in rhetorical theory and criticism, leading me to focus on rhetors, texts, and audiences. Image repair theory began with a convention paper which became an article about President Richard M. Nixon’s defenses for Watergate (Benoit 1982). Then, with Paul Gullifor and Dan Panici (Benoit, Gullifor and Panici 1991), image repair theory was developed drawing on the literature in rhetoric and sociology (including Burke 1970, 1973; Scott and Lyman 1968; and Ware and Linkugel 1973). They applied the theory to President Ronald Reagan’s discourse on the Iran-Contra Affair. This approach was initially called image restoration, but I renamed it image repair to avoid the implication that persuasive discourse should be expected to restore an image to its original state. Some image repair efforts will fail, of course, other defensive messages https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-004

106 

 William L. Benoit

partially rehabilitate the image without completely restoring it, and some defenses succeed in cleansing the image. The first edition of Accounts, Excuses, and Apologies (Benoit 1995a) was conceptualized to be rather like an edited book, albeit with all chapters written by the same author and using a common method. It began with a review of the literature in communication (rhetoric) and sociology and then presented the theory of image repair discourse. Four application chapters, written like journal articles (but with a common method, presented in chapter  3) illustrated this approach (Coke vs. Pepsi, Exxon Valdez, Bhopal gas leak, and Nixon’s Cambodia speech). The second edition of this book (Benoit 2015a) provided illustrative applications as components of conceptual chapters (corporate, political, sports/celebrity, international, and third party) instead of single case studies in application chapters.

3 Basic assumptions and key concepts of image repair theory Image repair erupts when people or organizations believe that their image has been attacked (or when they believe image is likely to be criticized). Threats to face are inevitable and frequent for four reasons: fierce competition for limited resources, circumstances beyond our control result in misdeeds, people are imperfect and say or do offensive things, and human beings have different priorities or values which provoke criticism of others. Image repair theory adopts key assumptions about image and communication. Communication is goal-directed. Of course, our goals sometimes can be vague, unclear, hidden, or even conflicting. However, to the extent we think about our goals, rhetoric is a means of striving for these ends. People, groups, and organizations embrace a myriad of goals; one important goal is maintaining a good reputation. Actual or perceived misbehavior can be embarrassing, can reduce our credibility (when trying to repair an image or when seeking other goals), and can impel others to behave toward us in unfavorable ways. This approach was developed using a theoretical or conceptual approach (rather than simply adding together various lists of image repair strategies; cf. Benoit 1982 with Benoit, Gullifor and Panici 1991). Threats to image have two components: blame and offensiveness (see, e.  g., Pomerantz 1978). Denial can respond to accusations by claiming the alleged act did not occur or by asserting that the accused did not perform the act (one can reinforce the second option by providing a scapegoat, shifting the blame to another person, group, or organization). Either option denies that the accused performed an offensive act, addressing blame. It is also possible to concede the act occurred but to deny that is harmful, addressing the offensiveness component of an image threat. Strategies for evading responsibility address the accused’s alleged



Image repair theory 

 107

blame. Strategies for reducing offensiveness are directed toward the perceived harmfulness of the act. Finally, one who defends can concede both blame and offensiveness but then either request forgiveness (mortification) or promise to fix the problem (corrective action). In principle, these strategies should exhaust the potential image repair approaches. A rhetor can challenge blame, contest offensiveness, or admit wrong-doing. See Table 1 for the complete typology. Tab. 1: Typology of image repair strategies. Derived from Benoit (1995, 1997, 2015a). Strategy

Definition

Example

Simple Denial

Did not perform act

Tylenol did not poison capsule

Shift Blame

Another performed the act

Tylenol: a “madman” poisoned c­ apsule

Provocation

responded to act of another

firm left state because taxes increased

Defeasibility

lack of information or ability

missed meeting because not informed of changed time

Accident

mishap

tree fell after storm, damaging car

Good Intentions

meant well

Sears wanted to provide good auto service

Bolstering

stress accused’s good qualities

Exxon claimed a swift and competent clean-up of oil spill

Minimization

act not serious

Exxon: few animals killed by oil spill

Differentiation

act less offensive than similar acts

I did not steal your laptop; I borrowed it without permission

Transcendence

more important values

stole food for hungry child

Attack Accuser

source of accusation not credible or deserved what happened

Accusations are just fake news

Compensation

reimburse victim

free desert if food not properly ­prepared

Corrective Action

Plans to solve problem or prevent recurrence

AT&T will spent billions to improve service

Mortification

apologize

AT&T apologized for service interruption

Denial

Evade Responsibility

Reduce Offensiveness

108 

 William L. Benoit

Several observations are important about the use of these strategies. First, more strategies are not necessarily better. For example, if one persuasively denies committing the offensive act, nothing is gained by adding additional strategies. In my opinion, “I am innocent, and by the way, the act was justified by higher values” is unlikely to be more persuasive than “I am innocent.” The former statement could create the impression that the accused is hedging by adding transcendence to denial, unwilling to rely just on denial. Second, some strategies may not necessarily work well together. “I apologize for my misbehavior” (mortification) and “I will make certain that it never happens again” (corrective action) can work well together. In contrast, “I did not do it” (denial) does not work well with “anyway, the effects of the act are small” (minimization). If the accused is innocent, there is no reason to minimize. Third, one can use different strategies for different accusations. A rhetor can deny committing one act and apologize for a different act. For example, ultimately Bill Clinton admitted to having inappropriate behavior with Monica Lewinsky but denied that he encouraged perjury by others (see, for example, Blaney and Benoit 2001). Finally, mortification is tricky. A variety of ideas can be components of an apology. For example, I can say such things as “I’m sorry,” or “I regret hurting you,” or “I cannot deny I committed the act,” or “I regret performing the act”. There is no agreed-upon set of elements that must be included in an apology. This is particularly important because “I’m sorry” can be used in at least two quite different ways: “I’m sorry I hurt you” and “I’m sorry you were hurt.” Some people use the latter (expression of sympathy) to create the appearance of an apology without actually admitting any misdeeds. We must also be careful to distinguish between “I’m sorry I offended you” from “I’m sorry you were offended.” The latter does not concede any wrong-doing and may even create the impression that the other was at fault (“I’m sorry you were offended”). The second sentence again could create the impression that the accused offered an apology without actually doing so. Communication is not omnipotent; sometimes it simply cannot overcome the obstacles it seeks to surmount. However, in many cases persuasive image repair messages can ameliorate, if not eliminate, threats to image. It is vital that the rhetor clarify the goal sought in a given situation (which accusation or accusations he or she faces), the audience (who must be persuaded to repair the image), and the rhetorical resources (arguments, evidence, supporters) that could be employed to craft the image repair message. It is possible that the accused’s reputation has been damaged with several audiences. The rhetor who defends must decide how to prioritize the audiences; it may simply not be possible to craft a defense that pleases everyone. Some unfavorable attitudes may be shared across all audiences but it is possible some audiences have accepted unique criticisms of the accused. For example, if an industrial plant emits pollution, a variety of potential audiences are in play, such as government regulators, company stakeholders, environmental activists, local residents, and the news media. Notice that what some audiences want can be quite different. Local residents may agitate for the company to spend as much money as possible to completely abate the



Image repair theory 

 109

pollution. Company stakeholders may prefer that the company spend as little as possible on pollution control. The accused may have to decide which audience(s) is (are) most important and focus attention there. The defending rhetor may choose to direct different messages, each including some unique elements, toward different audiences. However, in today’s age of Internet and social media, it can be risky to employ inconsistent arguments even if they are embedded in different messages. The various messages need not necessarily be identical but they should not be contradictory because some of the intended audience could become aware of any contradictions.

4 Relationship between image repair theory and the theory of persuasive attacks Persuasive attacks are messages or components of messages that criticize the words or deeds – including things unsaid or not done along with things said or done poorly – of people, groups, and organizations (Benoit 2017; Benoit and Dorries 1996; Benoit and Glantz 2017; Benoit and Harthcock 1999). These attacks can be fair and reasonable (e.  g., exposing wrong-doing such as child labor, fraud, or sexual abuse) or they can be unscrupulous mudslinging. Regardless of whether the attacks are true or false, fair or unfair, they can threaten the target’s reputation. These messages both the motivation and opportunity for image repair (it is also possible to deploy image repair strategies to preempt attacks; Benoit 2015a). Ryan (1982, 1984, 1988) rightly pointed out that it is imperative to examine a persuasive defense (apologia) in the context of the attacks (kategoria). The accused need not necessarily reply to every criticism; one may choose to focus the defense on the most important complaint(s). However, it is a mistake to accidentally overlook a damaging criticism. Image repair is all about rehabilitating a reputation that has been (or is likely to be) damaged with an audience important to the accused. Creating a defense (as well as analyzing a defense after it has been deployed) should begin with audience analysis: Identify the unfavorable attitudes held by the audience(s). Closely examining attacking message(s) can provide important insights into the audience’s likely attitudes toward the accused.

5 Development of image repair theory The theory of image repair has evolved over time. The second edition of Accounts, Excuses, and Apologies relates basic concepts of image repair theory to Fishbein and Ajzen’s Theory of Reasoned Action (2010): responsibility = belief, offensiveness = values. Furthermore, third party image repair (where one person, group, or organiza-

110 

 William L. Benoit

tion defends another target of attack) has been conceptualized and explored (Benoit 2015a: see case studies on Prime Minister David Cameron and by George Bush, Laura Bush and Condoleezza Rice; Edwards 2010). This theory is primarily intended to help with investigation (criticism) of image repair cases, but it also offers advice for those engaged in repairing a damaged image. The theory has begun to investigate pre-emptive image repair, where a person or organization offers a defense before the attack occurs, hoping to nip the crisis in the bud. Burns and Bruner (2000) offer suggestions for improving (and avoiding misunderstandings of) image repair theory. They note that as developed, this theory is focused on rhetors (defenders) who seek to repair an image that has been, or might be, damaged. They stress the alternative approach of “a more audience-oriented point of view” (Burns and Bruner 2000: 28). Burns and Bruner are correct in that image repair theory does not privilege the audience’s point of view; audience comes into play as the intended target of image repair discourse. Understanding the audience helps rhetors invent and deploy defensive messages; the audience’s actual or likely reactions to the defense can be used to corroborate the rhetorical critic’s evaluation of the defense. As Burns and Bruner correctly point out, focusing on the audience permits a different, complementary, approach to image repair. Burns and Bruner (2000: 29) also make it clear that a person’s, group’s, or organization’s image is neither “unitary nor homogeneous”. Benoit (2015a) stresses the fact that a defender may hope to persuade multiple audiences (with varied attitudes toward the accused); it is also possible that a variety of attitudes (beliefs and values) can be found in given audience. It is convenient to consider Republicans and Democrats to be different audiences. However, when Donald Trump responded to the accusations surrounding the “Access Hollywood” video, various Republicans reacted quite differently, some criticizing the Republican nominee vociferously (Benoit, in press b). This inherent variety complicates the rhetor’s process of inventing defensive messages and rhetorical critics’ evaluation of image repair discourse. Another important point to keep in mind is that image repair often occurs in complex situations – it is not always simply a single attack followed by a single defense. Analyses of Nixon’s Watergate rhetoric (Benoit 1982) as well as Reagan’s Iran-Contra defense (Benoit, Gullifor and Panici 1991) illustrate how the use of image repair strategies can shift over time – either as the rhetor decides the initial defense is not working or as new attacks emerge (or both). The evolution of a defense can also be seen in other case studies, such as AT&T (Benoit and Brinson 1994) or Trump (Benoit, in press b). The first edition of Accounts, Excuses, and Apologies (1995a) includes a chapter on multiple exchanges (40 advertisements in the trade publication Nation’s Restaurant News) between Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola spanning January 22, 1990 to December 21, 1992. The literature would benefit by more analysis of such interactions in attack and defense over time. These scholars argue that the context of a case study could usefully be construed in broader terms than might be used. Burns and Bruner (2000) also point out that,



Image repair theory 

 111

as in rhetorical criticism generally, evaluating the effectiveness of an image repair effort can be challenging. Finally, they argue that image repair can be influenced by a number of factors, including other actions of the accused that do not initially appear to be part of the defense, as well as the words and deeds of others. For example, Donald Trump’s defense against the accusations following the release of the “Access Hollywood” videotape was influenced by a variety of messages from other rhetors, including Hillary Clinton and other Democrats, other Republicans (many denigrating Trump), FBI Director Comey’s announcement near the end of the campaign that additional emails from Clinton had surfaced and were being investigated (Benoit, in press b), and others. Liu and Frastino (2014) develop a strong case for the idea that image repair theory should account for role of social media (see, e.  g., Glantz and Benoit, 2017; Muralidharan, Dillistone and Shin 2011). There can be no doubt that the explosion of social media represents a sea change in communication, with the potential for a tweet, Facebook post, video, or meme to go viral. Trump employed Twitter and Facebook in his defense (Benoit, in press b) and attacks were almost instantly promulgated against Trump via social media.

6 Methodology and philosophy of science Most of the research to date on image repair theory has focused on case studies using the method of rhetorical criticism. The categories (potential strategies) are used as a lens to analyze defensive efforts (case studies) into their constituent parts. I believe that reality  – particularly social reality  – is constructed through communication. Burke (1965) offers a delightful concept, the recalcitrance of reality. Given a piece of furniture with four legs and a flat top surface, I might be able to persuade you that it was a desk or that it was a table; I could not convince you it was a duck or a truck. Because rhetoric is epistemic (see, e.  g., Cherwitz and Hikins 1982, 1983; Crable 1982; Kneupper 1980; Railsback 1983; Scott 1967, 1976; or Weimer 1981) it is possible to change the audience’s perceptions of the image threat, altering beliefs about blame or values concerning the action’s offensiveness. So, the epistemic nature of rhetoric ultimately provides the foundation for image repair theory. It is important to realize that persuasive messages, such as image repair discourse, work on perceptions (rather than reality) at two levels. The defender must perceive a threat to his, her, or its image before image repair becomes an option to consider. The defender should develop a defense based on his, her, or its perceptions of the audience(s)’ concerning the image threat. People can disagree about whether a given act was acceptable or unacceptable. Still, I believe that in most cases one accused of a misdeed is either guilty or innocent (in “reality”). If one is innocent that is ordinarily an argument one could use in a defense. However, unless undeniable proof (e.  g.,

112 

 William L. Benoit

unaltered video), the audience might not agree that the accused is innocent even after a vigorous denial by an innocent party. The truth (reality) matters, but because our perceptions of the world and the people in it are constructed via discourse, the truth does not always emerge. I like to think the truth usually comes out, but not always. Some research adopts a quantitative approach to image repair (e.  g., Benoit 2016b; Benoit and Drew 1997; Blaney 2016). Studies have looked at both the production of image repair (relative frequency of the strategies; see, e.  g., Kim, Avery and Lariscy 2009; Stephens, Malone and Bailey 2005) as well as reception of image repair messages (e.  g., Benoit, et al. 2014; Brown 2016; Brown, Anderson, and Dickhaus 2016; Brown, Billings and Devlin 2016; Brown, Murphy and Maxwell 2017; Dardis and Haigh 2008, Sheldon and Sallot 2009). Arendt, LaFleche and Limperopulos (2017) examine 110 case studies on image repair. The most common strategy identified in these articles was denial, which was the least successful defense. The most common successful strategy was corrective action. This work offers important insights into image repair discourse.

7 Contributions of image repair theory Image repair theory does not pretend to be a complete theory. For example, it does not stress the phases or stages of crisis communication. It is limited to image repair; crisis communication encompasses other areas of inquiry, such as natural disasters. Nor does it attempt to provide a simple list linking possible image threats to particular image repair strategies: If A, use strategy 1; if B, use strategy 2; if 3, use strategy 4. In my opinion, human interaction is highly complex, rendering such a list questionable at best. Rhetorical invention (creating an image repair message or messages) depends on whether the accused is guilty or innocent, past attitudes toward the accused, the words and deeds of others, and the resources (such as evidence) available to the defender. The fact that rhetoric is epistemic means that one accused of wrong-doing can use discourse to change the basic situation: The audience could be persuaded to believe that the accused is innocent rather than guilty. Nevertheless, this theory has advantages. It develops the typology using principles; the 14 strategies are not merely a collection of distinct ideas lumped together by reviewing the literature. It begins with the assumption that attacks (or anticipated attacks) provoke image repair and that these criticisms have two components: blame and offensiveness. Some strategies dispute blame, other strategies dispute offensiveness, and two strategies concede blame and offensiveness. Furthermore, research has applied image repair theory to defensive discourse in a wide variety of contexts, including investigation of corporate image repair such as AT&T (Benoit and Brinson 1994), Sears (Benoit 1995b), USAir (Benoit and Czerwinski 1997), the tobacco industry (Benoit 1998), Texaco (Brinson and Benoit 1999),



Image repair theory 

 113

Firestone (Blaney, Benoit and Brazeal 2002), Philip Morris (Oliveira 2008), corporate fraud (Caldiero, Taylor and Ungureanu 2009), Alitalia (Romenti and Calentini 2010), British Petroleum (Benoit 2015a; Harlow, Brantley and Harlow 2011; Smithson and Venette 2013), corporate image repair on Twitter (Page 2014), Arby’s (Compton 2014), Grunenthal (Benoit 2015a), Barbie (Mattel, Benoit 2015c), and Deutsche Telekom (Maiorescu 2016). Political image repair is another topic of interest, with research on Richard Nixon (Benoit 1982), Ronald Reagan (Benoit, Gullifor and Panici 1991), Newt Gingrich (Kennedy and Benoit 1997), Clarence Thomas (Benoit and Nill 1998a), Whitewater (Benoit and Wells 1998), Kenneth Starr (Benoit and McHale 1999), Bill Clinton (Blaney and Benoit 2001), Gary Condit (Len-Rios and Benoit 2004), George William Bush (Benoit 2006a, 2006b; Benoit and Henson 2009), Hillary Clinton (Oles-Acevedo 2012; Davis 2013), Rick Perry (Dewberry and Fox 2012), Newt Gingrich and John King (Valenzano and Edwards 2012), Barack Obama (Benoit 2014, 2016a), David Vitter (Benoit 2015a), Anthony Weiner (2015a), Chris Christie (Benoit 2015b), Eric Shinseki (Benoit, in press a), Dominique Strauss-Kahn (Xifra 2012), and Donald Trump (Benoit, in press b). Other studies investigate image repair in sports and entertainment, including, Tanya Harding (Benoit and Hanczor 1994), Murphy Brown (Benoit and Anderson 1996), Hugh Grant (Benoit 1997a), Oliver Stone (Benoit and Nill 1998b), Terrell Owens (Brazeal 2008), Taiwanese MLB pitcher Chien-ming Wang (Wen, Yu and Benoit 2009), Floyd Landis (Glantz 2009), Jimmy Swaggart (Legg 2009), Christian Bale (Johnson 2011), Dave Letterman (Compton and Miller 2011), Michael Phelps (Walsh and McAllister-Spooner 2011), Jon and Kate Plus 8 (Moody 2011), Jim Cramer (Browning 2011), Ricky Gervais’ (Kauffman 2012), steroid usage (Utsler and Epps 2013), Tiger Woods (Benoit 2013), Michael Vick (Holdener and Kauffman 2014), Richie Incognito (Schmittel and Hull 2015), New Orleans Saints (Benoit 2015a), Lance Armstrong (2015a), and the Cannes Film Festival (Lauzen 2016). Blaney, Lippert and Smith (2013) present of collection of useful essays on image repair in sport. Image repair in the media is another topic of research, with studies of The New York Times (Hindman 2005). NPR (Benoit 2011), Rush Limbaugh (Furgerson and Benoit 2013; McGuire 2012) and the News of the World (Benoit 2015a). Studies have also examined international image repair, including Queen Elizabeth (Benoit and Brinson 1999), the U.S. and Japan (Drumheller and Benoit 2004), Saudi Arabia and the U.S. (Zhang and Benoit 2004), China and SARS (Zhang and Benoit 2009), China (Peijuan, Ting and Pang 2009), Western and Asian image repair (Low, Varughese and Pang 2011), the U.S. and Taiwan (Wen, Yu and Benoit 2012) Chilean companies (Valdebenito 2013), Apple (Benoit 2015a), Benjamin Netanyahu (Benoit 2015a) and Hillary Clinton (Benoit 2015a). Scholars have also studied image repair in religion (Blaney 2009; Blaney and Benoit 1997; Kauffman 2008; Miller 2002), destination image repair (tourism; Avaham 2015), in health care (Brinson and Benoit 1996; Johnson 2006; Smith 2012), and in higher education (Brown and Geddes 2006; Fortunado 2008; Len-Rios 2010).

114 

 William L. Benoit

8 Concluding remarks I developed image repair theory to fill what I saw as a gap in the literature. This approach has developed from a list of strategies to a theory to help explain threats to image and responses to those threats. It cannot be denied that accusations or suspicions of wrong-doing are commonplace throughout human society. Many, if not most, of these attacks provoke image repair. The multitude of case studies demonstrate that this theory is applicable to a wide variety of situations across culture. I do not dispute the idea that cultural differences exist in image repair (see, e.  g., Drumheller and Benoit 2004), I only argue that this theory has been proven useful in many contexts around the world.

References Arendt, C., M. LaFleche and M. A. Limperopulos. 2017. A qualitative meta-analysis of apologia, image repair, and crisis communication: Implications for theory and practice. Public Relations Review 3. 517–526. Avraham, E. 2015. Destination image repair during crisis: Attracting tourism during the Arab Spring uprisings. Tourism Management. 224–232. Benoit, W. L. 1982. Richard M. Nixon’s rhetorical strategies in his public statements on Watergate. Southern Speech Communication Journal 47. 192–211. Benoit, W. L. 1995a. Accounts, excuses, apologies: A theory of image restoration strategies. Albany: State University of New York Press. Benoit, W. L. 1995b. Sears’ repair of its auto service image: Image restoration discourse in the corporate sector. Communication Studies 46. 89–10. Benoit, W. L. 1997a. Hugh Grant’s image restoration discourse: An actor apologizes. Communication Quarterly 45. 251–267. Benoit, W. L. 1997b. Image restoration discourse and crisis communication. Public Relations Review 23. 177–186. Benoit, W. L. 1998. Merchants of death: Persuasive defenses by the tobacco industry. In J. F. Klumpp (ed.), Argument in a Time of Change: Definition, Frameworks, and Critiques, 220–225. Annandale: NCA. Benoit, W. L. 2006a. Image repair in President Bush’s April 2004 news conference. Public Relations Review 32. 137–143. Benoit, W. L. 2006b. President Bush’s image repair effort on Meet the Press: The complexities of defeasibility. Journal of Applied Communication Research 34. 285–306. Benoit, W. L. 2011. NPR’s image repair discourse on firing Juan Williams. Journal of Radio & Audio Media 18. 84–91. Benoit, W. L. 2013. Tiger Woods’ image repair: Could he hit one out of the rough? In J. R. Blaney, L. R. Lippert and J. S. Smith (eds.), Repairing the athlete’s image: Studies in sports image restoration, 89–96. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books: Rowman & Littlefield. Benoit, W. L. 2014. President Barack Obama’s image repair on HealthCare.gov. Public Relations Review 40. 733–738. Benoit, W. L. 2015a. Accounts, Excuses, Apologies: Image Repair Theory and Research. 2nd edn. Albany: State University of New York Press.



Image repair theory 

 115

Benoit, W. L. 2015b. Bully or dupe? Governor Chris Christie’s image repair on the bridge lane closure scandal. Speaker & Gavel 52. 54–67. Benoit, W. L. 2015c. Image repair analysis of Barbie’s “#Unapologetic” OpEd. Relevant Rhetoric. Accessed 6//9/17: http://relevantrhetoric.com/BarbieUnapology.pdf Benoit, W. L. 2016a. Barack Obama’s 2008 speech on Reverend Wright: Defending self and others. Public Relations Review 42(5). 843–848. Benoit, W. L. 2016b. Effects of image repair strategies. In J. R. Blaney (ed.), Putting image repair to the test: Quantitative applications to image restoration strategies, 7–28. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Benoit, W. L. 2017. Criticism of actions and character: Strategies for persuasive attack extended. Relevant Rhetoric 8. http://relevantrhetoric.com/CriticismofActionsandCharacter.pdf Benoit, W. L. 2017. Eric Shinseki’s image repair for the Veteran’s Administration health care scandal. In C. Liberman, D. Rodriguez and T. A. Avtgis (eds.). Casing risk and crisis communication. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt. Benoit, W. L. 2017. Image repair on the Donald Trump “Access Hollywood” Video: “Grab them by the p*ssy.” Communication Studies 68(3). 243–259. Benoit, W. L., and K. K. Anderson. 1996. Blending politics and entertainment: Dan Quayle versus Murphy Brown. Southern Communication Journal 62. 73–85. Benoit, W. L., and S.  D. Brinson. 1994. AT&T: Apologies are not enough. Communication Quarterly 42. 75–88. Benoit, W. L., and S.  D. Brinson. 1999. Queen Elizabeth’s image repair discourse: Insensitive royal or compassionate Queen? Public Relations Review 25. 145–156. Benoit, W. L., and A. Czerwinski. 1997. A critical analysis of USAir’s image repair discourse. Business Communication Quarterly 60. 38–57. Benoit, W. L. and B. Dorries. 1996. Dateline NBC’s persuasive attack on Wal-Mart. Communication Quarterly 44. 464–477. Benoit, W. L., and S. Drew, S. 1997. Appropriateness and effectiveness of image repair strategies. Communication Reports 10. 153–163. Benoit, W. L., and M. Glantz. 2017. Persuasive attack on Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican primaries. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Benoit, W. L., P. Gullifor, P. and D. Panici 1991. President Reagan’s defensive discourse on the Iran-Contra affair. Communication Studies 42. 272–294. Benoit, W. L., and R. S. Hanczor. 1994. The Tonya Harding controversy: An analysis of image repair strategies. Communication Quarterly 42. 416–433. Benoit, W. L., and A. Harthcock. 1999. Attacking the tobacco industry: A rhetorical analysis of advertisements by The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Southern Communication Journal 65. 66–81. Benoit, W. L., and J. R. Henson. 2009. President Bush’s image repair discourse on Hurricane Katrina. Public Relations Review 35. 40–46. Benoit, W. L., and J. P. McHale. 1999. Kenneth Starr’s image repair discourse viewed in 20/20. Communication Quarterly 47. 265–280. Benoit, W. L., and D. M. Nill. 1998a. A critical analysis of Judge Clarence Thomas’s statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Communication Studies 49. 179–195. Benoit, W. L., and D. M. Nill. 1998b. Oliver Stone’s defense of JFK. Communication Quarterly 46. 127–143. Benoit, W. L., K. Tenzek, M. Allen, N. A. Burrell, S. Chattopadhyay, K. Cherry, T. Comeau, A. Daulton, G. J. Hansen, R. Jergens, J. Piazza, C. Prentice and K. A. Stein. 2014. Evaluation of accounts: A meta-analysis. In N. A. Burrell, M. Allen, B. M. Gayle and R. W. Preiss (eds.), Managing interpersonal conflict: Advances through meta-analysis, 284–296. New York: Routledge.

116 

 William L. Benoit

Benoit, W. L., and W. T. Wells. 1998. An analysis of three image restoration discourses on Whitewater. Journal of Public Advocacy 3. 21–37. Blaney, J. R. 2009. The Vatican’s response to the sexual abuse crisis in America: An image restoration study. In J. R. B. and J. P. Zompetti (eds.), The rhetoric of Pope John Paul II, 199–210. Lanham, MD: Lexington, Rowman & Littlefield. Blaney, J. R. (ed.). 2016. Putting Image Repair to the Test: Quantitative Applications to image restoration strategies. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Blaney, J. R., and W. L. Benoit. 1997. The persuasive defense of Jesus in the Gospel according to John. Journal of Communication and Religion 20. 25–30. Blaney, J. R., and W. L. Benoit. 2001. The Clinton scandals and the politics of image restoration. Westport, CT: Praeger. Blaney, J. R., W. L. Benoit and L. M. Brazeal. 2002. Blowout! Firestone’s image restoration campaign. Public Relations Research 28. 379–392. Blaney, J. R., L. R. Lippert and J. S. Smith (eds.). 2013. Repairing the Athlete’s Image: Studies in Sports Image Restoration. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books: Rowman & Littlefield. Brazeal, L. M. 2008. The image repair strategies of Terrell Owens. Public Relations Review 34. 145–150. Brinson, S.  D., and W. L. Benoit. 1996. Dow Corning’s image repair strategies in the breast implant crisis. Communication Quarterly 44. 29–41. Brinson, S., and W. L. Benoit. 1999. The tarnished star: Restoring Texaco’s damaged public image. Management Communication Quarterly 12. 483–510. Brown, K. G., and R. Geddes. 2006. Image repair: Research, consensus, and strategies: A study of the University College of Cape Breton. Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing 15. 69–85. Brown, K. A. 2016. Is apology the best policy? An experimental examination of the effectiveness of image repair strategies during criminal and non-criminal athletic transgressions. Communication & Sport 4. 487–506. Brown, K. A., M. L. Anderson and J. Dickhaus. 2016. The impact of the image repair process on athlete-endorsement effectiveness. Journal of Sports Media 11. 25–48. Brown, K. A., A. Billings and M. Devlin. 2016. Image repair across the racial spectrum: Experimentally exploring athlete transgression responses. Communication Research Reports 33. 47–53. Brown, K. A., B. Murphy and L. C. Maxwell. 2017. Tried in the court of public opinion: Effects of involvement in criminal transgressions on athlete image. Communication & Sport 5. 1–25. Browning, N. 2011. “Mad Money” madness: Jim Cramer’s image restoration effort. Public Relations Review 37. 184–186. Burke, K.1965. Permanence and change. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill. Burke, K. 1970. The rhetoric of religion. Berkeley: University of California Press. Burke, K. 1973. The philosophy of literary form. 3rd edn. Berkeley: University of California Press. Burns, J. P., and M. S. Bruner. 2000. Revisiting the theory of image restoration strategies. Communication Quarterly 48. 27–39. Caldiero, C. T., M. Taylor and L. Ungureanu. 2009. Image repair tactics and information subsidies during fraud crises. Journal of Public Relations Research 21. 218–228. Cherwitz, R. A., and J. W. Hikins. 1982. Toward a rhetorical epistemology. Southern Speech Communication Journal 47. 135–162. Cherwitz, R. A., and J. W. Hikins. 1983. Rhetorical perspectivism. Quarterly Journal of Speech 69. 248–266. Compton, J. 2014. Arby’s image repair tactics as a public relations strategy. Public Relations Review 40. 122–124.



Image repair theory 

 117

Compton, J., and B. Miller. 2011. Image repair in late night comedy: Letterman and the Palin joke controversy. Public Relations Review 37. 415–421. Crable, R. E. 1982. Knowledge-as-status: On Argument and epistemology. Communication Monographs 49. 249–262. Dardis, F., and M. M. Haigh. 2008. Prescribing versus describing: Testing image restoration strategies in a crisis situation. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 14. 101–118. Davis, C. B. 2013. An inconvenient vote: Hillary Clinton’s Iraq war image repair debate strategies and their implications for representative democracy. Public Relations Review 39. 315–319. de Fatima Oliveira, M. 2008. Fighting a smoky fire: An analysis of Philip Morris’s CEO speeches according to image restoration strategies. Social Responsibility Journal 4. 228–245. Dewberry, D. R., and R. Fox. 2012. Easy as 1, 2, 3: Rick Perry and self-deprecation as image restoration. Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric 2. 1–10. Drumheller, K., and W. L. Benoit. 2004. USS Greeneville collides with Japan’s Ehime Maru: Cultural issues in image repair discourse. Public Relations Review 30. 177–185. Edwards, J. A. 2010. Predicting and Changing Behavior: The Reasoned Action Approach. New York: Psychology Press. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2017. Organizational Crisis Communication: A Multivocal Approach. London: Sage. Fortunato, J. A. 2008. Restoring a reputation: The Duke University Lacrosse scandal. Public Relations Review 34. 116–123. Furgerson, J. L., and W. L. Benoit. 2013. Limbaugh’s loose lips: Rush Limbaugh’s image repair after the Sandra Fluke controversy. Journal of Radio and Audio Media 20. 273–291. Glantz. M. 2009. The Floyd Landis doping scandal: Implications for image repair discourse. Public Relations Review 30. 157–163. Glantz, M., and W. L. Benoit. 2017. The world’s all Atwitter: Image repair discourse on social media. In L. L. Austin and Y. Jin (eds.), Social media and crisis communication, 168–179. Routledge. Harlow, W. F., B. C. Brantley and R. M. Harlow. 2011. BP initial image repair strategies after the Deepwater Horizon spill. Public Relations Review 37. 80–83. Hindman, E. B. 2005. Jayson Blair, The New York Times, and paradigm repair. Journal of Communication 55. 225–241. Holdener, M., and J. Kauffman. 2014. Getting out of the doghouse: The image repair strategies of Michael Vick. Public Relations Review 40. 92–99. Johnson, N. 2011. Christian Bale’s account of a profane tirade: Salvation or “Bale-out?” Relevant Rhetoric 2. 1–17. Johnson, R. L., and R. E. Brown. 2006. Crisis communication: Case studies in healthcare image restoration. Marblehead, MA: HCPro. Kauffman, J. 2008. When sorry is not enough: Archbishop Cardinal Bernard Law’s image restoration strategies in the statement on sexual abuse of minors by clergy. Public Relations Review 34. 258–262. Kauffman, J. 2012. Hooray for Hollywood? The 2011 Golden Globes and Ricky Gervais’ image repair strategies. Public Relations Review 38. 46–50. Kennedy, K. A., and W. L. Benoit. 1997. Newt Gingrich’s book deal: A case study in self-defense rhetoric. Southern Communication Journal 63. 197–216. Kim, S., E. J. Avery and R. W. Lariscy. 2009. Are crisis communicators practicing what we preach? An evaluation of crisis response strategy analyzed in public relations research from 1991 to 2009. Public Relations Review 35. 446–448. Kneupper, C. W. 1980. Rhetoric, argument, and social reality. Journal of the American Forensic Association 16. 173–181.

118 

 William L. Benoit

Lauzen, M. M. 2016. Image repair: A case study of Thierry Fremaux and the Cannes Film Festival. Public Relations Review 42(1). 170–175. Legg, K. L. 2009. Religious celebrity: An analysis of image repair discourse. Journal of Public Relations Research 21(2). 240–250. Len-Rios, M. E. 2010. Image repair strategies, local news portrayals and crisis state: A case study of Duke University’s Lacrosse Team crisis. International Journal of Strategic Communication 4(4). 267–287. Len-Rios, M. E., and W. L. Benoit. 2004. Gary Condit’s image repair strategies: Squandering a golden opportunity. Public Relations Review 50. 95–106. Liu, B. F., and J. D. Fraustino. 2014. Beyond image repair: Suggestions for crisis communication theory development. Public Relations Review 40. 543–546. Low, Y. S.-Y., J. Varughese and A. Pang. 2011. Communication crisis: How culture influences image repair in Western and Asian governments. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 16(3). 218–242. Maiorescu, R. 2016. Deutsche Telekom’s spying scandal: An international application of the image repair discourse. Public Relations Review 42(4). 673–678. McGuire, J. 2012. Excellence in broadcasting? Rush Limbaugh and image repair in the Sandra Fluke controversy. Journal of Radio & Audio Media 19(2). 206–220. Miller, B. A. 2002. Devine apology: The discourse of religious image restoration. Westport, CT: Praeger. Moody, M. 2011. Jon and Kate Plus 8: A case study of social media and image repair tactics. Public Relations Review 37(4). 405–414. Muralidharan, S., K. Dillistone and J.-H. Shin. 2011. The Gulf Coast oil spill: Extending the theory of Image Restoration Discourse to the realm of social media and beyond petroleum. Public Relations Review 37(3). 226–232. Oles-Acevedo, D. 2012. Fixing the Hillary factor: Examining the trajectory of Hillary Clinton’s image repair from political bumbler to political powerhouse. American Communication Journal 14. 33–66. Page, R. 2014. Saying “sorry”: Corporate apologies posted on Twitter. Journal of Pragmatic 62. 30–45. Cal Peijuan, L. P. T., and A. Pang. 2009. Managing a nation’s image during crisis: A study of the Chinese government’s image repair efforts in the “Made in China” controversy. Public Relations Review 35. 213–218. Pomerantz, A. 1978. Attributions of responsibility: Blamings. Sociology 12. 115–121. Railsback, C. C. 1983. Beyond rhetorical relativism: A structural-material model of truth and objective reality. Quarterly Journal of Speech 69(4). 351–363. Romenti, S., and C. Valentini. 2010. Alitalia’s crisis in the media – A situational analysis. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 15. 380–396. Ryan, H. R. 1982. Kategoria and apologia: On their rhetorical criticism as a speech set. Quarterly Journal of Speech 68. 256–261. Ryan, H. R. 1984. Baldwin vs. Edward VIII: A case study in kategoria and apologia. Southern Speech Communication Journal 49(2). 125–134. Ryan, H. R. (ed.). 1988. Oratorical Encounters: Selected Studies and sources of twentieth-century political accusations and apologies. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Schmittel, A., and K. Hull. 2015. “Shit got cray cray #MYBAD: An examination of the image repair discourse of Richie Incognito during the Miami Dolphins’ bullying scandal. Journal of Sports Media 10(2). 115–137. Scott, M. B., and S. M. Lyman. 1968. Accounts. American Sociological Review 33(1). 46–62. Scott, R. L. 1967. On viewing rhetoric as epistemic. Central States Speech Journal 18(1). 9–17.



Image repair theory 

 119

Scott, R. L. 1976. On viewing rhetoric as epistemic: Ten years later. Central States Speech Journal 27(4). 258–266. Sheldon, C. A., and L. M. Sallot. 2009. Image repair in politics: Testing effects of communication strategy and performance history in a faux pas. Journal of Public Relations Research 21(1). 25–50. Smith, E. 2012. Corporate image and public health: An analysis of the Philip Morris, Kraft, and Nestle websites. Journal of Health Communication 17(5). 582–600. Smithson, J., and S. Venette. 2013. Stonewalling as an image-defense strategy: A critical examination of BP’s response to the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Communication Studies 64(4). 395–410. Stephens, K. K., P. Callish Malone and C. M. Bailey. 2005. Communicating with stakeholders during a crisis: Evaluating message strategies. Journal of Business Communication 42(4). 390–419. Ustler, M., and S. Epp. 2013. Image repair through TV: The strategies of McGwire, Rodrigues, and Bonds. Journal of Sports Media 8. 139–161. Valdebenito, M. S. 2013. Image repair discourse of Chilean companies facing a scandal. Discourse & Communication 7. 95–115. Valenzano, J. M., and J. A. Edwards. 2012. The debate confessional: Newt Gingrich, John King, and atoning for past sins. Journal of Contemporary Rhetoric 2. 30–38. Walsh, J., and S. McAllister-Spooner. 2011. Analysis of the image repair discourse in the Michael Phelps controversy. Public Relations Review 37(2). 157–162. Ware, B. L., and W. A. Linkugel. 1973. They spoke in defense of themselves: On the generic criticism of apologia. Quarterly Journal of Speech 59. 273–283. Weimer, W. B. 1981. Why all knowing is rhetorical. Journal of the American Forensic Association 20. 63–71. Wen, W.-C., T.-H. Yu and W. L. Benoit. 2009. Our hero can’t be wrong: A case study of collectivist image repair in Taiwan. Chinese Journal of Communication 2(2). 174–192. Wen, W.-C., T.-H. Yu and W. L. Benoit. 2012. The failure of ´scientific’ evidence in Taiwan: a case study of international image repair for American beef. Asian Journal of Communication 22. 121–139. Xifra, J. 2012. Sex, lies, and post-trial publicity: The reputation repair strategies of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Public Relations Review 38(3). 477–483. Zhang, J., and W. L. Benoit. 2004. Message strategies of Saudi Arabia’s image restoration campaign after 9/11. Public Relations Review 30(2). 161–167. Zhang, E., and W. L. Benoit. 2009. Former Minister Zhang’s discourse on SARS: Government’s image restoration or destruction Public Relations Review 35(3). 240–246.

W. Timothy Coombs

5 Situational crisis communication theory: Influences, provenance, evolution, and prospects Abstract: Situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) is a cognitive-based, prescriptive theory designed specifically to explain the use of optimal and sub-optimal crisis responses during organizational crises. This chapter explores the origins, evolution, and future prospects for SCCT. The origin details the intellectual traditions and practical concerns that influenced the development of SCCT. Social science theory should not be static. New research and ideas enter a field and theory should be able to adapt to accommodate to the changes if the theory is to hold its value for the field. While the core concepts of SCCT remain the same, additional variables and changes to the prescribed crisis responses have been developed. The evolution of SCCT reflects the changes created by new findings in crisis communication research and the effects of the digital environment on crisis communication. The future prospects highlight promising areas for future research using SCCT. Keywords: attribution theory, crisis responsibility, crisis type, ethical base response, paracrisis, prescriptive theory, scansis, situational crisis communication theory, theory-building.

1 Introduction Theory is essential to advancing knowledge and practice in any field (Shepherd and Suddaby 2016). A theory addresses three key elements: what, how, and why. The what involves the variables being studied. The how involves how the variables are related to/affect one another. The why involves articulating the causal relationships that explain the relationships between the variables (Busse, Kach and Wagner 2017). Early in its development, crisis communication lacked the theory necessary for its advancement (Coombs 2014). Situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) was one of the early efforts to create and to test a theory designed specifically for crisis communication. The purpose of this chapter is to detail the development of SCCT over the past twenty plus years. The chapter unfolds through three sections. The first section examines the milieu in which SCCT was developed by detailing the theory’s provenance and influences. The second section elaborates on the evolution of the theory by examining its linguistic and conceptual changes overtime. The third section considers the prospects for continues research in the area of SCCT. The end result is an exhaustive https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-005

122 

 W. Timothy Coombs

articulation of how SCCT entered and how it contributes to the field of crisis communication theory and practice.

2 Provenance and influences In the 1980  s, crisis communication began to emerge as a distinct concept and practice. Yes, people did manage crises before the 1980  s but we did not think of those efforts consistently through the terminology of “crisis management” either in practice or research before then. For me, the Challenger tragedy was the force that drew me to crisis communication. These early days of crisis communication were mostly “war stories” from professionals in non-academic journals or efforts by academics to create lists of crisis types and crisis response strategies. Theory was in short supply. In the late 1980  s, Benson (1988) wrote a piece in Communication Studies that summed up my assessment of the emerging area that would become crisis communication: We had lists of crisis types and lists of crisis response strategies but no means to connect the two especially no theory to do so. It was after reading Benson’s article that I began to work on the problem of articulating a theory-based linkage between crisis types and crisis response strategies. My initial influence on a breakthrough was from interpersonal communication. I was looking for existing ideas that could be adapted and applied to understanding crisis communication. Metts and Cupach (1989), who were colleagues of mine at the time, had written about the situational influence of remedial strategies in embarrassing situations. I viewed crises as a form of embarrassing situation and crisis response strategies as remedial strategies. It seemed logical that situational influences, more specifically the crisis type, should influence the effectiveness of crisis response strategies. In addition, Bitzer’s (1968) rhetorical situation was part of the readings I had in various rhetoric classes and he exposed the power to the situation to influence communicative effectiveness. At this point I had a conceptual link but not a clear theoretical link. The interpersonal communication writings I was reading often drew upon attribution theory. Attribution theory holds that people seek explanations for the causes of events, especially negative ones. Crises are negative events therefore it is logical that people search for explanations of the crisis. People tend to place the blame for events either on external or internal factors. For instance, did your favorite soccer team lose because of a bad call by a referee (external) or poor performance by the players (internal)? I then began to read Bernard Weiner’s (1972) work on attribution theory. Weiner focuses on the influences of locus of control (internal or external), stability (infrequent or regular), and controllability (one can or cannot control the causes) (Weiner 1986). In turn, attributions of responsibility affect behaviors and emotions related to



Situational crisis communication theory 

 123

the event. To me, attribution theory provided the theoretical link between the crisis types and the crisis response strategies. The crisis types were critical to defining the situation by indicating if the organization or some external factors would be attributed responsibility for the crisis. Different crisis types should produce different attributions of crisis responsibility. Moreover, the crisis response strategies vary in their acceptance of responsibility for the crisis. My starting point for SCCT was that the level of crisis responsibility generated by the crisis type should be matched by the perceived acceptance of responsibility by the crisis response strategy. In other words, crisis communication is more effective when it matches key situational features of crisis responsibility. Initially, effectiveness was defined as the ability to limit the reputational damage a crisis could inflict on an organization. The basic idea was the more people thought the organization was responsible for the crisis, the more responsibility the crisis managers must accept with the crisis response in order to limit the reputational damage the crisis could inflict on the organization. I began formulating what would become SCCT with a conference paper in 1993. Around this same time, I found marketing studies from the 1980  s that used attribution theory in the examination of product harm crises (a specific crisis type). These experimental studies found a link between reputation and attributions of responsibility for product harm crises (e.  g., Mowen 1980; Stockmyer 1996) providing yet another reason to continue pushing the development of an attribution-based theory of crisis communication. This early work consisted of reviewing the published literature as well as actual crisis cases to refine the lists of crisis types and crisis response strategies. I reviewer the published works to determine what strategies were being articulated and the overlap in those lists. I examined actual crisis cases to determine if those same strategies were being used in the practice of crisis communication. Once the lists were compiled, connections could be made between the various crisis types and crisis response strategies predicated upon attributions of crisis responsibility. In 1995, I published a decision tree for crisis communicators based upon this attribution approach that served as the precursor to SCCT (Coombs 1995). It was a precursor because I had yet to organize the ideas into a fully developed theory and to name it. That would not occur until 2002. We began conducting experimental studies to test the relationships and recommendations from crisis communication theory I was creating. We then started presenting the findings related to this research at a professionally-oriented conference for crisis managers held at the University of Las Vegas Nevada. This venue gave me a chance to determine how professional crisis managers would respond to the theory. I was interested in this response because SCCT was intended to help improve the practice of crisis communication. I envisioned SCCT as being applied and a theory that could be embraced by professionals. The response was favorable. Because I was working from attribution theory, we adopted the use of experimental designs that guided attribution research. I was taking a cognitive approach to crisis communication that was amenable to experimental methods. This was a significant

124 

 W. Timothy Coombs

departure from the rhetorical cases studies that dominated crisis communication research during this time period. Both corporate apologia and image restoration/ repair theory (IRT) were rhetorical theories that employed rhetorical case studies as the preferred method. While I drew upon these works to construct my list of crisis response strategies, I was doing social scientific research that was based in attributions making experiments a much better fit for the methods. This applied focus of SCCT resulted in a third influence, the evidence-based approach. Evidence-based management began to emerge in the 2000  s. Evidence-based approaches center on interventions designed to have an effect. Those using interventions should consult the best possible evidence and combine that with their own experience to select the best possible intervention in a given situation (Latham 2011). Among the options for evidence, research that can demonstrate a cause and effect relationship between an intervention and an outcome is the most highly prized (Best 2015). Crisis communication is an intervention. By using experimental methods, SCCT seeks to create cause and effect evidence that can be used to develop evidence-based crisis communication. SCCT provides one source for the theory-driven and experimentally tested evidence that professionals can integrate with their own experiences when making decisions about the selection of crisis response strategies. As noted earlier, SCCT began as a decision tree model that carried with it two ­critical assumptions and the need to group both crisis types and crisis response strategies. The first critical assumption was that the negative relationship between post-crisis reputation and crisis responsibility would hold across the spectrum of crisis types and was not limited to the documented relationship found with product harm crises. Experiments using a variety of crisis types did demonstrate the crisis responsibility-post-crisis reputation relationship held across crisis types (Coombs and Holladay 2002). The second critical assumption was that the optimal response in a crisis is one that matched the perceived acceptance of responsibility with the perceived crisis responsibility. (We have used the term appropriate strategies but optimal is a more accurate term to capture the intended dynamic). A number of experiments have tested this relationship and most have supported the existence of the relationship (Ma and Zhan 2016). Two separate studies were conducted to discover the groupings of crisis types and crisis response strategies. In each study, responsibility was the dimension used to find the groupings based on cluster analysis. It is important that the clustering was based upon how people perceive the specific crisis types and crisis response strategies rather than relying on the supposed level of responsibility in each crisis type and crisis response strategy – it takes a receiver-oriented focus. Crisis types formed three distinct clusters: (1) victim crises, (2) accidental crises, and (3) preventable/intentional crises (Coombs and Holladay 2002). Table 1 presents a full description of the crisis types and clusters.



Situational crisis communication theory 

 125

Tab. 1: Original SCCT crisis clusters for crisis types. Victim Cluster: very low attributions of crisis responsibility Natural disasters Workplace violence Product tampering Rumors Accidental Cluster: minimal attributions of crisis responsibility Technical breakdowns accidents Technical breakdowns recalls (product harm) Megadamage (accident with environmental damage) Challenge Preventable/Intentional Cluster: high attributions of crisis responsibility Human breakdowns accident Human breakdowns recalls (product harm) Organizational misdeeds no injuries (management knowingly deceives stakeholders) Organizational misdeeds injuries (management knowingly places stakeholders at risk) Organizational misdeed management misconduct (management knowingly violates law)

When discussing crisis response strategies, it is essential to differentiate between instructing information, adjusting information, and reputation repair strategies, an idea first articulated by Sturges (1994). Instructing information tells people what they need to do to physically protect themselves from a crisis while adjusting information helps people to cope psychologically with a crisis and includes expressions of sympathies and corrective action. There is often overlap between instructing and adjusting information (Holladay 2009). Sturges (1994) argues that instructing and adjusting information are the first communication priorities in a crisis. Reputation management represent efforts to restore some of the reputational assets lost during a crisis. SCCT, following Sturges (1994), argues that the first response any time there are victims or potential victims in a crisis should be the ethical base response. The ethical base response is the combination of instructing and adjusting information designed to help those impacted negatively by a crisis. It is an ethical response because it is derived from an ethic care wherein the more powerful organizations seek to help the less power stakeholders who might be harmed by the crisis (Coombs 2017; Yehya and Coombs 2017). Only after employing the ethical base response should crisis managers entertain the application of reputation-oriented crisis response strategies. The reputation-oriented crisis response strategies clustered into three primary postures and one secondary posture (Coombs 2006). The three primary postures are denial, diminish, and rebuilding while bolstering is the secondary posture. Table 2 defines the various crisis response strategies and postures. Bolstering is considered secondary because stakeholder would view a crisis response as odd if all the organization did was engage in bolstering. Bolstering strategies just seem to function as being

126 

 W. Timothy Coombs

supportive of other crisis response strategies. Research by Park (2016) supports the belief that bolstering when used as the only response in a crisis is largely ineffective. Tab. 2: Original crisis response strategies clusters from SCCT. Denial Cluster Deny claim there is no crisis Attack the accuser confront those making claims that a crisis exists Scapegoat blame some other entity for the crisis Diminish Cluster Justification minimize perceived damage from the crisis Excuse minimize organization’s crisis responsibility Deal Cluster Compassion/Compensation offer money or gifts to victims Concern express concern for victims Apology accept responsibility and ask for forgiveness Regret feel bad about the crisis Bolstering Remind people of past good works by the organization Praise others for helping during the crisis

It is critical to note that the various crisis response strategies have differential effects on the crisis management process. This differential effect is often misunderstood resulting in misleading research findings. Denial strategies benefit organizations by “removing” attributions of crisis responsibility. The logic is that if the organization is not responsible for a crisis, that crisis should have very little effect upon the organization. There can still be some lingering effects from the initial erroneous assumption of responsibility, hence, denial does not eliminate completely the damage from a crisis. Diminish strategies function by reducing attributions of crisis responsibility. Rebuilding, the ethical base response, and bolstering benefit an organization by creating positive stimuli to offset the negative stimuli created by the crisis. Crisis response strategies work according to different dynamics and researchers must be cognizant of that factor when comparing crisis response strategies and interpreting the results of such research. I will return to this point later in the chapter in the discussion of future research directions. Research has generally supported the links between attributions of crisis responsibility and organization outcomes (Ma and Zhan 2016). The assessment of the level of crisis responsibility stakeholders are likely to attribute to a crisis is a key factor in SCCT and it is a two-step process. The initial assessment of crisis responsibility is based upon the crisis type. The crisis type is a frame people use to interpret the crisis. Specific aspects of a crisis help to define the crisis type such



Situational crisis communication theory 

 127

as a product causing harm or a hazardous chemical being released. Moreover, media coverage (tradition and social media) help to set the crisis frame as well (Clemente and Gabbioneta 2017; Coombs 2015). The second step in the assessment is considering other factors, beyond the crisis type, that can influence attributions of crisis responsibility. Originally, we called these additional factors intensifiers because the first ones we charted all served to increase attributions of crisis responsibility. However, a better term would be contextual modifiers, factors that can influence how much crisis responsibility stakeholders attribute to an organization. I will elaborate on contextual modifiers in a moment but for now I will focus on the two original “intensifiers,” crisis history and prior reputation. Crisis history is whether or not an organization has had a similar crisis in the past. Crisis history should affect attributions through stability. If the organization has had a similar crisis, there is a pattern meaning crises are common rather than an exception. The experiments did find that when organizations were in identical crises, people attribute more crisis responsibility when the organization had had a similar crisis in the past. A history of crises did intensify attributions of crisis responsibility while information about a lack of crises in the past had no effect on attributions of crisis responsibility (Coombs 2004; Elliot 2010). Prior reputation is how people feel about the organization before a crisis occurs. There is an unwarranted belief in crisis communication of a halo effect, that an organization’s reputation protects it from the potential damage of a crisis. It is more accurate to treat reputation as a bank account and a crisis causes the organization to spend some of those assets. Crisis communication can help to determine how much the crisis will cost the organization. There are limited conditions under which a halo effect occurs in a crisis and typically involve extremely positive prior reputations. A more common reputational effect than the halo effect is the Velcro effect, an organization’s negative prior reputation increases the reputational damage from a crisis. Experiments have found that people judge a neutral prior reputation condition the same as a prior positive reputation condition for attributions of crisis responsibility. However, a negative prior reputation will increase attributions of crisis responsibility (Coombs and Holladay 2006). Notice how with both crisis history and prior reputation the negative condition causes the effect by increase attributions of crisis responsibility. That is why we originally called these factors intensifiers. The crisis types coupled with intensifiers provides the two elements of the crisis responsibility assessment. SCCT is a prescriptive theory meaning it does indicate which strategies are optimal and sub-optimal in a particular crisis situation. Crises can create victims or potential victims demanding the use of the ethical base response. Hence, the ethical base response becomes the starting point for crisis communication in SCCT. If the crisis is likely to produce only minimal attributions of crisis responsibility (victim and accidental crises), the ethical base response serves as the optimal strategy. For accidental crises, crisis managers could add minimization crisis response strategies but those typically have little effect on post-crisis reputations. For intentional crises or accidental crises

128 

 W. Timothy Coombs

combined with intensifiers, crisis managers could add compensation and/or apology (highly accommodative strategies). Bolstering strategies can be used in combination with any crisis response strategies but data on their effectiveness is limited (Coombs 2015). The data support the belief that highly accommodative crisis response strategies are optimal while denial crisis response strategies are imprudent when attributions of crisis responsibility are high and that the ethical base response is an optimal crisis response strategy when attributions of crisis responsibility are low (Ma and Zhan 2016). The research on crisis response strategies is mixed but generally supportive of the intended effects of highly accommodative strategies (Ma and Zhan 2016). Every theory has boundary conditions, points at which it is no longer viable. Part of doing research is locating these boundary conditions and adding to the theory when necessary. Some of the studies that failed to find effects for crisis response strategies are helping to map the boundary conditions rather than being evidence that SCCT as a whole does not work. One test of one part of a theory does not invalidate the entire theory. For instance, account acceptance is a boundary conditions that should be considered in SCCT studies. Account acceptance is the degree to which people accept the crisis response as legitimate—do people believe the message. If people are rejecting a crisis response strategy, it is incongruent to expect that crisis response strategy will have the desired effect upon people. For instance, if people reject the apology it will not have a positive effect on reputation. Researchers should measure account acceptance, or some similar concept, to determine whether or not the crisis response strategy should be expected to have an effect on the dependent variable in the study. I will return to the idea of a boundary condition shortly.

3 Evolution The initial statement of SCCT was never meant to be the final, definitive version of the theory. There are a core set of relationships built around attribution theory that are essential to SCCT. Attributions of crisis responsibility must be able to affect organizational outcomes such as reputation. Crisis response strategies must be able to influence how people feel about the crisis or the organization in crisis. Moreover, we have always been open to the idea that other variables could be added to SCCT. Additional factors can help to shape attributions of crisis responsibility and affect how people interpret crisis response strategies, there can be additional crisis, and there can be new crisis response strategies to add to the theory. SCCT can evolve—be refined—as research uncovers new variables and relationships relevant to attributions of crisis responsibility and reactions to crisis response strategies. The evolution of SCCT is both linguistical and conceptual. Linguistical refers to the refinement of terminology while conceptual concerns the variables and relationships between variables in SCCT. I will start with the linguistical aspects then shift to the conceptual.



Situational crisis communication theory 

 129

3.1 Linguistical evolution The initial use of the terms appropriate crisis response and intensifiers have both proven to be limiting and imprecise. The prescriptive element of SCCT began with the initial decision-tree model published in 1995. The terms appropriate and inappropriate to differentiate between crisis response strategies that followed or violated the recommendations of SCCT. However, appropriate and inappropriate are too dogmatic and restrictive. It is better to think of crisis response strategies as optimal, sub-optimal, and imprudent. Optimal refers to the best or most favorable option while sub-optimal is less than the highest standard. Crisis response strategies that follow SCCT are optimal because they should maximize the beneficial power of crisis response strategies. Crisis response strategies that would be considered less effective in SCCT would be sub-optimal. The sub-optimal crisis response could be better (optimal) but does offer some benefits or at least does no harm. Technically, optimal and sub-optimal are a pair that need no other term. However, imprudent is added to identify those crisis response strategies that show no regard for the consequences of the response by acting in opposition to SCCT recommendations. Imprudent strategies do increase the harm inflicted by a crisis and create a double crisis because the response makes the crisis worse (Frandsen and Johansen 2010, 2017). In retrospect, the term intensifier is needlessly restrictive. We believe there are any number of additional factors that might affect attributions of crisis responsibility and some of those may reduce attributions of crisis responsibility. A more inclusive term is contextual modifiers. Contextual modifiers serve to affect how people attribute crisis responsibility and/or what crisis response options will be optimal in a crisis situation. For instance, a number of researchers have begun to consider how cultural factors and individual differences can affect attributions of crisis responsibility and reactions to crisis response strategies (e.  g., Huang, Wu and Cheng 2016). Moreover, people who identify strongly with an organization are more likely to be supportive during a crisis and predisposed to accept the crisis response strategies (Zavyolova, Pfarrer, Reger and Hubbard 2016). Organizational identification can create a halo effect and would not be an intensifier. Additionally, the rhetorical arena theory (Frandsen and Johansen 2017) posits multiple crisis communicators producing crisis response strategies. These additional crisis response strategies are contextual modifiers that can influence both perceptions of the crisis and the crisis response strategies used by an organization. Consider the case of a product harm crisis. If a trusted government agency announced the cause of the product harm was accidental, that should create a much different reaction to the crisis than if the same agency claimed the product harm was result of management efforts to cut cost and circumvent regulatory requirements. In some instances, the contextual factors may also serve as boundary conditions indicating when SCCT recommendations may not be effective. Boundary conditions help to identify the limits of a theory’s generalizability (Whetten 1989). The application of social scientific theories is context dependent

130 

 W. Timothy Coombs

meaning that contexts can constrain the application of a theory. An often overlooked aspect of theorizing is the delineation of boundary conditions. Boundary conditions enhance a theory by improving accuracy through a clearer understanding of the theory’s generalizability (Busse, Kach and Wagner 2017). For SCCT, the initial boundary condition has been the application to organizational crises as opposed to disasters or political crises. The exploration of contextual factors has the potential to identify additional boundary conditions for SCCT. Researchers should not confuse a boundary condition with “disproving a theory.” Boundary conditions specify when a theory is applicable and when it is not applicable. One negative result is more likely be the location of a boundary condition rather than evidence that a theory has been disproven.

3.2 Conceptual evolution SCCT has changed some since the initial statement of the decision-tree model. The most significant change was the move away from a two-by-two matrix of crises types to a continuum of crisis types. Initially external control and personal control dimensions along with intentionality (all variables from attribution theory) were used to create the two-by-two crisis type matrix of faux pas (external-unintentional), terrorism (external-intentional), accidents (unintentional-internal), and transgressions (intentional-internal). However, later studies found external control added little to explaining the variance. External control was dropped and personal control was combined with blame to form crisis responsibility. Currently, crisis types are arrayed along the crisis responsibility continuum from minimal to high. Moving away from the decision tree to a model of SCCT resulted in dropping veracity of evidence (true, false, or ambiguous) and victim status (victim or non-victim). Each of these variables has re-entered SCCT overtime. Crises often create victims—those harmed in some way by the crisis. Employees injured in an industrial or consumers sickened by a foodborne illness are common victims. Along with victims you have potential victims, those that could have been harmed by the crisis. Using the earlier examples, employees not injured in the industrial accident and consumers who consumed or purchased the food product but did not get ill are potential victims. We also have voyeur stakeholders who were never at risk from the crisis but who are observing how the organization is handling the crisis including how victims are being treated. Voyeurs are evaluating the crisis communicate efforts and those evaluations will affect how these stakeholders feel about and interact with the organization in the future (Coombs 2015). Potential victims and voyeurs can be found across media channels and an organization has no effective means to separately target the two entities. There often is direct communication with victims but this tends to be private and not part of the crisis communication witnessed by other stakeholders. Most public crisis communication efforts will need to target victims, nonvictims, and voyeurs simultaneously. Even though digital communica-



Situational crisis communication theory 

 131

tion has fragmented the media landscape, people can still “see” across media and notice inconsistencies in crisis messages that might be created by sending different messages through different channels driven by the belief the users of those channels represent different crisis audiences that are more of less receptive to a crisis message. For instance, stakeholders that strongly identify with an organization would accept a less accommodative crisis response strategy. However, most organizations do not have the means to isolate and communicate only to the high identification stakeholders. Social media have created a need to reflect on the conceptualization of crisis types. On a macro-level, organizational crises can be classified as operational or paracrises. Operational are the tradition form of crises that gave rise to crisis management—potential or actual disruption to organizational operations. The operational crisis classification would include natural disasters, product tampering, terrorism, sabotage, accidents, product harm, workplace violence, data breaches, and management misconduct. Paracrises capture what researchers have called social media crises and reputational crises. The term social media crisis is so vague as to be meaningless because it concentrates on the media in which the crisis transpires and not the nature of the crisis. Reputational crises feature potential or actual damage to reputational assets while creating a limited operational threat (Sohn and Lariscy 2014). Frandsen and Johansen (2017) rightly noted that the term “reputational crisis” is conceptually problematic. Paracrises include misinformation and challenge crises. The SCCT crisis types should be aligned as indicated in Table 3 between operational and paracrises. SCCT was designed primary for operational crises, both a boundary condition and a weakness for the original version of SCCT. Tab. 3: Revised list of crises and paracrises. Crises Victim Crisis Cluster Product tampering Natural disaster Workplace violence Accidental Crisis Cluster Technical-error accident Technical-error product harm Preventable Crisis Cluster Human-error accident Human-error product harm Management misconduct Scansis Paracrises Challenges: claims the organization is engaging in irresponsible behavior Misinformation (rumor): erroneous and damaging information circulating about the organization

132 

 W. Timothy Coombs

Recently, SCCT was extended to address the lack of applicability to paracrises driven by social media (Coombs 2017). Challenges are a perfect example of a reputational crisis that is a paracrisis. Most challenges are only a threat to an organization’s reputation rather than inflicting serious damage on a reputation (Coombs and Holladay 2015). Social media has increased the salience and frequency of reputational crises when we include paracrises within the purview of reputational crises. Social media demands that SCCT be extended from the crisis stage to the pre-crisis stage in order to address paracrises such as challenges (Coombs 2017). Table 4 outlines the crisis response options and key situational factors that influence the selection of responses to paracrises. Crisis managers must consider different crisis response options and situational factors when deciding how to respond to a paracrises as opposed to those used in operational crises. For instance, it is not a viable option to ignore when your facility is on fire (operational) but you might ignore certain stakeholders claiming your palm oil sourcing is irresponsible (paracrisis). Misinformation crises are paracrises as well but the accepted response in that crisis type is to correct the misinformation and deny if there really is no crisis (Coombs 2015). Tab. 4: Paracrisis response options. Refusal: managers ignore the paracrisis and choose not to respond Refutation: managers claim the organization’s actions or policies are responsible Repression: managers try to suppress the paracrisis by preventing others from creating and spreading messages about the paracrisis Recognition/reception: managers acknowledge a problem exists but take no actions to address the problem Revision: managers make some changes to the behaviors or policies or but they are not the exact changes requested by the upset with the organization Reform managers make the changes to behaviors or policies or behaviors requested by those upset with the organization. Identified on the basis of their relationship with messages

The most recent evolutionary step in SCCT has been refining the intentional/preventable crisis cluster. Originally, the clustering method placed human-error and management misconduct crises together because of the similar strong attributions of crisis responsibility. However, the psychological literature on trust violations would suggest human-error and management could differ (Kim, Ferrin, Cooper and Dirks 2004). A human-error crisis might be premised on competence while a management misconduct crisis is driven by integrity. Research the concept of scansis, when a crisis becomes transformed into a scandal, moral outrage (an affective response created by perceptions of injustice and greed) provided additional



Situational crisis communication theory 

 133

reasons to revise the preventable crisis cluster (Coombs, Holladay and Tachkova 2018). The scansis would fit into the preventable crisis cluster because it creates high levels of crisis responsibility. An initial test of crisis response strategies and scansis found that the recommended crisis response strategies had no short-term effect on reputation, purchase intention, or negative word-of-mouth (three common outcome variables for SCCT). These results indicated moral outrage was a boundary condition for SCCT. More precisely, the communicative recommendations from SCCT will not hold when the crisis produces strong perceptions of moral outrage (Coombs and Tachkova 2018). This suggests a need to consider a triadic appraisal for crises rather than the dual appraisal found in SCCT. The initial dual appraisal in SCCT is (1) the situation is negative and (2) assign crisis responsibility to the situation. A triadic appraisal adds an evaluation of moral outrage to the first two appraisals (Coombs and Tachkova 2018). A second scansis study examined if using the triadic appraisal would change how crises clusters in the preventable crisis cluster. When injustice and greed (the two components of moral outrage) were used to cluster the crisis types, three distinct sub-clusters emerged: human-error, management misconduct, and scansis. Moral outrage created a distinction between the human-error crises and management misconduct crises matching the distinction made in the trust violation literature. While human-error and transgressions produce similar attributions of crisis responsibility, the two crisis types differ in terms of the moral outrage that is generated. Moreover, scansis generated the strongest perceptions of moral outrage and established itself as a separate and unique form of crisis (Coombs and Tachkova 2018). The scansis research added scansis as a new type of crisis, moral outrage as third appraisal, and a revision of the preventable crisis cluster. The next step is to revise the SCCT communication recommendations for the preventable crisis cluster. We know moral outrage is a boundary condition and a scansis is beyond that boundary and human-error is within the boundary. What we do not know is whether or not management misconduct is beyond or within the boundary. More research is needed to understand how the revised preventable crisis cluster and the addition of moral outrage affects the communicative recommendations of SCCT for the preventable crisis cluster.

4 Prospects In computer gaming there is a concept known as open world. In an open world game, gamers are free to explore the game world and can play game sequences as they see fit instead of in a fixed story mode found in many video games. An open world still has restrictions about what players can actually do and experience in game – the game still has boundaries. However, the open world format gives gamers the chances to explore and to customize their gaming experience to a degree. SCCT was developed

134 

 W. Timothy Coombs

to be an open world crisis communication theory. SCCT has a central logic built upon attribution theory and crisis responsibility. However, there is freedom to explore and to add other variables to SCCT (especially contextual modifiers and boundary conditions), additional crisis response strategies, and new crisis types. Any modifications to SCCT need to be consistent with the belief that stakeholders make attributions about crisis responsibility, that those attributions affect how stakeholders perceive and react (affectively and behaviorally) to the organization in crisis, and that communication can affect those perceptions and reactions. I believe the prospects for future SCCT research are wide-open. This section explores of the potential trajectories for future SCCT research.

4.1 Industry context trajectory It is possible that certain industries are unique enough to create specific contexts that have identifiable effects upon attributions of crisis responsibility and reactions to crisis response strategies. Essentially the industry itself could serve as a contextual modifier and as boundary conditions. It is worthwhile to pursue promising industrial contexts and to map their unique elements through the lens of SCCT. Researchers have already begun to explore the sport and travel industries through the application of SCCT (e.  g., Brown and Billings 2013; Paraskevas, Altinay, McLean and Cooper 2013). For example, Liu, Pennington-Grey and Kriefer (2016) have explored the application of the extended parallel process model (EPPM) to the cruise industry. Sato, Park and Tao (2015) developed the concept to the athlete reputational crisis (ARC) that shares a focus on attribution theory with SCCT while Wilson, Stavros and Westberg (2010) sough to adapt the four original crisis types from SCCT to the sports context. These research efforts are promising and more research is needed to more fully articulate how certain industrial contexts can be integrated into SCCT to enhance crisis communication within that industry or to understand how an industry context may create a boundary condition for SCCT.

4.2 Crisis response trajectory SCCT remains open to adding new crisis response strategies that emerge from research into actual crisis cases. The original list of crisis response strategies was never meant to be the final and only list. What is important when identifying a new crisis response strategy is too clearly defined it and explain how it is different from existing crisis response strategies. This step is necessary to avoid claiming to have found a new strategy when previous research had identified the same phenomenon but called it by a different name. For SCCT, there is a need to determine if the new crisis response strategy fits within the existing clusters or creates an entirely new cluster.



Situational crisis communication theory 

 135

As Fediuk Pace, and Botero (2010) noted, researchers need to consider how they are operationalizing crisis response strategies. There are different ways to create apologies and denial, two of the most common crisis response strategies found in the research (e.  g., Coombs et al. 2015). Some of the contradictory results in crisis communication research can be attributed to different operationalization of the crisis response strategies. Researchers should pay closer attention to the operationalization of crisis response strategies especially when conducting meta-analyses or literature reviews. In addition, research must consider how different operationalization of other key variables, such as reputation, affects the comparability of research studies and findings. We need a greater understanding of how the operationalization of crisis response strategies might affect how people react to those strategies. There is some promising research that has begun to explore the effects of how crisis response strategies are constructed and how those factors affect stakeholder reactions. Xiao, Cauberghe and Hudders (2018) have examined the effect of humor in crisis response strategies. They found humor had negative effects in a crisis by decreasing sincerity and increasing attributions of crisis responsibility. In a rumor, however, the use of humor had positive effects by reducing attributions in crisis responsibility and allowing organizations to a more positive post-crisis reputation. Xu and Wu (2016) examined the effect of emotional support (a variation of the ethical base response) as a format for a crisis response. The Twitter emotional support response had the most positive effect on attributions of crisis responsibility and post-crisis reputation compared to conditions using no emotional support and/or a news release. The interaction effect of crisis response strategy and channel limits our understanding of the crisis response format from the study. Ahmend, Ashari and Samani (2017) examined the use of rational and emotional framing of crisis response strategies. The rational frame focuses on information about the crisis and would include instructing information. The emotional framing appeal directly to emotions and would include expressing sympathy (adjusting information). Emotional frames produced more positive reactions toward the organization in crisis than did the rational frames. It would appear that operationalizing a crisis response strategy in a way that maximizes the use of emotion and emotional support might create the optimal crisis response strategy. More research is needed to further our understanding of the effects of how crisis response strategies are operationalized and the effects of those operationalizations on stakeholder reactions to crisis response strategies. Of critical importance in the need to include some measure of account acceptance in any study that seeks to examine the effects of crisis response strategies. If account acceptance is low, the odds of finding an effect for the crisis response strategies is very low. Methods experts have argued that account acceptance is not a covariate but is “a factor that can impact causal relationships” (Fediuk, Pace and Botero 2010: 229). Account acceptance is not a outcome (dependent variable) but is more akin to a moderator or could even be used as a form of manipulation check.

136 

 W. Timothy Coombs

4.3 Outcomes trajectory Reputation has been a dominant outcome in the SCCT research. We have been trying to expand beyond reputation by examining purchase intension, affect, and negative word-of-mouth. This is still a limited set of outcome variables making this a prime area for further expansion and research. We should consider other important outcomes for organizations and stakeholders that might be added to SCCT.

4.4 Contextual modifiers trajectory In addition to industry, there is the potential to expand the contextual modifiers for SCCT. The Rhetorical Arena Theory (Frandsen and Johansen 2017) posits a multi-vocal approach wherein there are numerous crisis communicators attempting to affect the crisis management process. Other, prominent crisis voices can be examined as contextual modifiers because they can affect how people are reacting to the crisis and organization’s crisis communication efforts. Identification between stakeholders and the organization is another potentially valuable contextual modifier. Research does suggest that strongly identified stakeholders react differently to crisis events than those with lower levels of identification (Zavyolova et al. 2016). Furthermore, the idea of faithholders is related to identification and is a form of contextual modifier (Johansen, Johansen and Weckesser 2016). There is promising research in sports crises working to integrate identification into SCCT (e.  g., Brown-Devlin 2018; Harker 2018). There must be other individual differences that matter in crisis communication but researchers must be careful with this line of research. If crisis managers do not have a clear idea of what individual differences exist in their targets for crisis communication, the individual differences are essentially meaningless because the crisis managers cannot act on that information. Identification is an exception because social media allows managers to find those with high identification fairly easily (Kent 2008). However, social media channels are mostly public and can be viewed by stakeholders with lower levels of identification as well. The sports context offers unique access to highly identified stakeholders because of the nature of fandom (Coombs 2018; Harker 2018).

4.5 Crisis history refinement trajectory Eddy and Yin (2018) have pioneered work designed to improve our understanding of crisis history. The original conceptualization of crisis history is rather generic being defined as an organization having had a crisis in the past. Through the lens of attribution theory, crisis history is a form of stability that should increase attributions of crisis responsibility (Coombs 2004). Eddy and Yin (2018) rightly notes that crisis



Situational crisis communication theory 

 137

history is a very general concept that needs greater specificity. One was to increase specificity is to consider the source of the information about past crises. Media reports often mention past crises when reporting on a current crisis but that is only one possible source of crisis history information. Another option is for the organization to disclose the past crisis information, a variation of stealing thunder. A third option is that peers of the stakeholders disclose the information, perhaps through social media posts (Eddy and Yin 2018). Using an experimental design, three sources of crisis history were examined: the media, the organization, and a peer. The results showed people were angrier when the source for the crisis history information was the media verses the organization or a peer. People perceived the organization had higher control over the crisis when the source of the crisis history information was the media or peer verses the organization. (The study separated personal control from crisis responsibility. As noted earlier, SCCT collapsed personal control and blame to create the crisis responsibility concept because of the conceptual overlap of the two concepts. But there is no reason the two concepts cannot be used separately from one another). The data suggest that the source of the crisis history information is an important refinement for conceptualizing crisis history (Eddy and Yin 2018).

5 Conclusion SCCT is a cognitive based, prescriptive theory of crisis communication that centers on organizational crises. Being prescriptive, SCCT specifies when certain crisis response strategies are an optimal crisis response or a sub-optimal response why the response should be optimal or sub-optimal under those conditions. SCCT is construct from foundation of attribution theory, hence, SCCT is cognitive – how people perceived a crisis. SCCT does focus on how the organization is using communication to “manage” the crisis making it organization-centric. However, SCCT is not sender-focused because it is premised on how stakeholders (receivers) experience the crisis situation and perceived the crisis response. Moreover, SCCT is guided by an ethic of care. Given its position of power, organizations have a responsibility to the safety and wellbeing of tis stakeholders. That is why the ethical base response is THE starting point for any crisis that has the potential to create victims. Crisis communicators assess the potential crisis responsibility a crisis situation will generate and select an optimal crisis response to fit the anticipated level of crisis responsibility. The examination of the crisis types and contextual modifiers helps crisis communicators to predict the potential level of crisis responsibility their crisis situation is likely to generate. Through the course of this chapter I have tried to explain the origins, evolution, and future prospects for SCCT. The influences and provenance are important to understand what SCCT is and is not. SCCT is a cognitive theory that seeks to improve the

138 

 W. Timothy Coombs

practice of crisis communication in a way that benefits both organizations and stakeholders. The evolution of SCCT is important because social science theory should not be stagnant. Theory needs to change and be adapted as new concepts and contextual elements emerge (Shepherd and Suddaby 2016). For instance, the additional of paracrises to SCCT reflects the growing influence of the digital world on crisis communication. Isolated, contrary findings do not disprove a theory but are possible indicators of a need to modify the theory or to identify new boundary conditions for the theory (Busse, Kach and Wagner 2017). The prospects are important to consider potentially useful research areas for future SCCT-related research. While we have a basic understanding of the what, how, and why of crisis communication, there is plenty of opportunity to expand upon that knowledge in a way that contributes to both crisis communication theory and practice. The future of crisis communication is bright and SCCT can be a part of that light that helps to further illuminate the field.

References Ahmad, D. A. M. A. A., N. M. Ashari and M. C. Samani. 2017. Effect of rational and emotional framing on highly involved audience in severe crisis situation: An experimental study on MH370. Jurnal Komunikasi, Malaysian Journal of Communication 33(2). 89–104. Benson, J. A. 1988. Crisis revisited: An analysis of strategies used by Tylenol in the second tampering episode. Communication Studies 39(1). 49–66. Best research evidence. 2015. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/practice/guidelines/evidencebased-statement.aspx. Bitzer, L. F. 1968. The rhetorical situation. Philosophy and Rhetoric 1(1). 1–14. Brown, N. A., and A. C. Billings. 2013. Sports fans as crisis communicators on social media websites. Public Relations Review 39(1). 74–81. Brown-Devlin, N. 2018. Experimentally examining crisis management in sporting organizations. In N. Brown-Devlin, A. C. Billings and W. T. Coombs (eds.), Reputational Challenges in Sport, 41–55. New York: Routledge. Busse, C., A. P. Kach and S. M. Wagner. 2017. Boundary conditions: What they are, how to explore them, why we need them, and when to consider them. Organizational Research Methods 20(4). 574–609. Clemente, M., and C. Gabbioneta. 2017. How does the media frame corporate scandals? The case of German newspapers and the Volkswagen diesel scandal. Journal of Management Inquiry 26(3). 287–302. Coombs, W. T. 2004. Impact of past crises on current crisis communication: Insights from situational crisis communication theory. The Journal of Business Communication (1973) 41(3). 265–289. Coombs, W. T. 2006. The protective powers of crisis response strategies: Managing reputational assets during a crisis. Journal of Promotion Management 12(3–4). 241–260. Coombs, W. T. 1995. Choosing the right words: The development of guidelines for the selection of the “appropriate” crisis response strategies. Management Communication Quarterly 8. 447–476. Coombs, W. T. 2007. Protecting organization reputations during a crisis: The development and application of situtional Crisis Communication Theory. Corporate Reputation Review 10(3). 163–177.



Situational crisis communication theory 

 139

Coombs, W. T. 2014. Applied Crisis Communication and Crisis Management. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Coombs, W. T. 2015. Ongoing Crisis Communication: Planning, Managing, and Responding. 4th edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Coombs, W. T. 2017. Revisiting situational crisis communication theory: The influences of social media on crisis communication theory and practice. In L. Austin and Y. Jin (eds.), Social Media and Crisis Communication, 21–38. New York: Routledge. Coombs, W. T. 2018. Athlete reputational crises: One point for linking situational crisis communication theory and sports crises. In A. C. Billings, W. Timothy Coombs and K. A. Brown (eds.), Reputational Challenges in Sport: Theory and Application, 13–24. New York, NY: Routledge. Coombs, W. T., and S. J. Holladay. 2002. Helping crisis managers protect reputational assets initial tests of the Situational Crisis Communication Theory. Management Communication Quarterly 16(2). 165–186. Coombs, W. T., and S. J. Holladay. 2006. Unpacking the halo effect: Reputation and crisis management. Journal of Communication Management 10(2). 123–137. Coombs, W. T., and S. J. Holladay. 2015. CSR as crisis risk: expanding how we conceptualize the relationship. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 20(2). 144–162. Coombs, W. T., S. J. Holladay and E. R. Tachkova. 2018. When a scandal and a crisis fuse: Exploring the communicative implications of scansis. In A. Haller, H. Michael and M. Kraus (eds.), Scandology: An Interdisciplinary Field, 172–190. Cologne: Herbert Von Verlag. Elliot, J. D. 2010. How do past crises affect publics’ perceptions of current events? An experiment testing corporate reputation during an adverse event. In W. T. Coombs and S. J. Holladay (eds.), The Handbook of Crisis Communication, 205–220. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Fediuk, T. A., K. M. Pace and I. Botero. 2010. Crisis response effectiveness: Methodological considerations for advancement in empirical investigation into response impact. In W. T. Coombs and S. J. Holladay (eds.), The Handbook of Crisis Communication, 221–242. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2010. Crisis communication, complexity, and the cartoon affair: A case study. In W. T. Coombs and S. J. Holladay (eds.), Handbook of Crisis Communication, 425–448. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2017a. Organizational Crisis Communication: A Multivocal Approach. London: Sage. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2017b. (Mis)understanding reputation in crisis communication Research. Paper presented at the Fifth International Crisis Communication Conference: Risk and Crisis Communication in a Digital Age, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Lisbon, October 19–21, 2017. Harker, J. L. 2018. Knee-jerk policymaking in crisis responses: A fumbled play by the NFL. In A. C. Billings, W. T. Coombs, and K. A. Brown (eds.), Reputational Challenges in Sport: Theory and Application, 87–103. London Routledg Holladay, S. J. 2009. Crisis communication strategies in the media coverage of chemical accidents. Journal of Public Relations Research 21(2). 208–217. Huang, Y. H. C., F. Wu and Y. Cheng. 2016. Crisis communication in context: Cultural and political influences underpinning Chinese public relations practice- Public Relations Review 42(1). 201–213. Johansen, B. F., W. Johansen and N. M. Weckesser. 2016. Emotional stakeholders as “crisis communicators” in social media: The case of the Telenor customer complaints crisis. Corporate Communications: An International Journa1(3). 289–308. Kent, M. L. 2008. Critical analysis of blogging in public relations. Public Relations Review 34(1). 32–40.

140 

 W. Timothy Coombs

Kim, P. H., D. L. Ferrin, C. D. Cooper and K. T. Dirks. 2004. Removing the shadow of suspicion: the effects of apology versus denial for repairing competence-versus integrity-based trust violations. Journal of Applied Psychology 89(1). 104–118. Latham, G. P. 2011. Becoming the evidence-based manager: Making the science of management work for you. Boston, MA: Davies-Black. Liu, B., L. Pennington-Gray and J. Krieger. 2016. Tourism crisis management: Can the Extended Parallel Process Model be used to understand crisis responses in the cruise industry? Tourism Management 55. 310–321. Ma, L., and M. Zhan. 2016. Effects of attributed responsibility and response strategies on organizational reputation: A meta-analysis of situational crisis communication theory research. Journal of Public Relations Research 28(2). 102–119. Metts, S., and W. R. Cupach. 1989. Situational influence on the use of remedial strategies in embarrassing predicaments. Communications Monographs 56(2). 151–162. Mowen, J. C. 1980. Further information on consumer perceptions of product recalls. ACR North American Advances. Paraskevas, A., L. Altinay, J. McLean and C. Cooper, C. 2013. Crisis knowledge in tourism: Types, flows and governance. Annals of Tourism Research 41. 130–152. Sato, S., Y. J. Ko, C. Park and W. Tao. 2015. Athlete reputational crisis and consumer evaluation. European Sport Management Quarterly 15(4). 434–453. Shepherd, D. A. R. Suddaby. 2017. Theory building: A review and integration. Journal of Management 43(1). 59–86. Sohn, Y. J., R. W. Lariscy. 2014. Understanding reputational crisis: Definition, properties, and consequences. Journal of Public Relations Research 26(1). 23–43. Stockmyer, J. 1996. Brands in crisis: Consumer help for deserving victims. Advances in Consumer Research 23.d 429–435. Sturges, D. L. 1994. Communicating through crisis: A strategy for organizational survival. Management Communication Quarterly 7(3). 297–316. Weiner, B. 1972. Attribution theory, achievement motivation, and the educational process. Review of educational research 42(2). 203–215. Weiner, B. 1986. An Attributional Theory of Motivation and Emotion. New York, NY: Springer Verlag. Xiao, Y., V. Cauberghe and L. Hudders. 2018. Humou as a double‐edged sword in response to crises versus rumours: The effectiveness of humorously framed crisis response messages on social media. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 26(2). 247–260. Xu, J., & Y. Wu. 2016. To tweet or not to tweet? The impact of expressing sympathy through twitter in crisis management. Public Relations Journal 10(2). Retrieved from https://prjournal. instituteforpr.org/wp-content/uploads/xu_nz3.pdf. Yehya, N. A., and W. T. Coombs. 2017. Catalytic defiance as a crisis communication strategy: The risk of pursuing long-term objectives. Business Horizons 60(4). 463–472. Zavyalova, A., M. D. Pfarrer, R. K. Reger and T. D. Hubbard. 2016. Reputation as a benefit and a burden? How stakeholders’ organizational identification affects the role of reputation following a negative event. Academy of Management Journal 59(1). 253–276.

Augustine Pang, Yan Jin, Sungsu Kim and Glen T. Cameron

6 Contingency theory: Evolution from a public relations theory to a theory of strategic conflict management Abstract: Over the past three decades, the contingency theory of strategic conflict management has evolved into its own, and emerged as an empirically tested perspective. Coombs (2010) has described the contingency theory as a “grand theory of public relations”. A “grand theory” is one which “seeks to explain how public relations as a whole operates”. Grand theories seek to explain an entire discipline and “can be adapted to specific areas of the discipline” (Coombs 2010: 41). Today, it is one of the top six theories applied in crisis communication research (An and Cheng 2010). The purpose of this chapter is threefold. First, to capture the evolution of the theory and transformation into its current form. Second, to demonstrate the dynamism of the theory as a theory of strategic conflict management. Third, to examine the applicability of the theory in this age of disruption. Keywords: conflict management, crisis, advocacy, accommodation, stance, conflict positioning, emotions, dynamism, disruption

1 Introduction The inquiry began innocuously after observing what was practiced in the industry: Can organizations practice two-way symmetrical communication? Did it work? When did it work? When did it not work? What were the reasons underlying them? The answer often given by practitioners: “It depends”. Recounting their experience, Cancel, Cameron, Sallot, and Mitrook (1997) wrote: It depends on a whole lot of things. First, you have to talk in terms of a specific public at a particular time. Then you must ask some questions. Is the public reasonable or radical? Are the public’s beliefs or behavior morally repugnant? Do I have support from top management to make the call? How enlightened is my boss about accommodation’s benefits to all parties? How much of a threat is the public? Is the public socially responsible …? (Cancel et al. 1997: 31–32).

The inquiry that began in the 1990 s started a whole process of exploration and reflection that led to the birth of the contingency theory. The contingency theory, which began questioning excellence theory’s positioning of symmetrical communication as normative theory on how organizations should be practicing public relations that was regarded as the most ethical and effective (Grunig 1996), might have had its humble beginnings as an elaboration, qualification, and extension of the value of symmetry https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-006

142 

 Augustine Pang, Yan Jin, Sungsu Kim and Glen T. Cameron

(Cameron 1997; Cameron, Cropp and Reber 2001). Over the past three decades since Amanda Cancel began her thesis supervised by Cameron, however, it has evolved into its own, and emerged as an empirically tested perspective that argued that the complexity in strategic communication – with all its nuances and texture – could not be reduced to excellence theory’s models of effective performance (Cancel, Mitrook and Cameron 1999; Cameron, Pang and Jin 2008; Pang, Jin and Cameron 2010b). The gist of the theory was this: If two-way communication is not always possible, organizational response to a public relations issue or problem must be examined more dynamically. Contingency theory argues this to be examined via stance movements, which has, at one end of the continuum, advocacy, and at the other end, accommodation. The theory offers a matrix of 87 factors, arranged thematically, that the organization could draw on to determine their stance. Between advocacy, which means arguing for one’s own case, and accommodation, which means making tradeoffs with a public, was a wide range of operational stances that influenced strategic communication strategies. Along this continuum, the theory argued that any of the 87 factors, could affect the location of an organization on that continuum “at a given time regarding a given public” (Cancel et al. 1999: 172; Yarbrough, Cameron, Sallot and McWilliams 1998: 40). Coombs (2010) has described the contingency theory as a “grand theory of public relations” (Cancel et al. 2010: 41). A “grand theory” is one which “seeks to explain how public relations as a whole operates” (Cancel et al. 2010: 41). Citing Botan (2006), Coombs (2010) argued that a grand theory “helps us to understand what guides policy-level decisions an organization makes about goals, alignments, ethics, and relationships with publics and other forces in its environment” (Cancel et al. 2010: 41). Grand theories, argued Coombs (2010), began by seeking to explain an entire discipline and “can be adapted to specific areas of the discipline” (Cancel et al. 2010: 41). Contingency theory began essentially as a public relations theory in the 1990 s, but has since been adapted and applied to crisis situations. Frandsen and Johansen (2017: 116) wrote: “It was not until the mid-2000 s that Cameron’s contingency theory of accommodation became a genuine theory of crisis communication. It was in particular Augustine Pang and Yan Jin who contributed to this development.” Today, it is regarded more as a conflict management theory (see Pang Jin and Cameron 2010a/b; Shin, Pang and Cameron 2013). It is also one of the top six theories applied in crisis communication research, argued An and Cheng (2010). The purpose of this chapter is threefold. First, to capture the evolution of the theory and transformation into its current form. Second, to demonstrate the dynamism of the theory as a theory of strategic conflict management. Third, to examine the applicability of the theory in this age of disruption.



Contingency theory 

 143

2 Contingency theory: Evolution and transformation 2.1 Changing mindsets: From models to dynamism in stance movements in communication The literature on two-way symmetrical communication, which was regarded as effective strategic communication, had been built on Grunig and Grunig’s (1992) excellence theory. Four models of excellence were posited: – Press agentry/publicity model: Here, the organization is only interested in making its ethos and products known, even at the expense of half-truths; – Public information model: Predominantly characterized by one-way transfer of information from the organization to the publics, the aim is to provide information in a journalistic form; – Two-way asymmetric model: Instead of a rigid transference of information, the organization uses surveys and polls to persuade the publics to accept its point of view; – Two-way symmetric model: Here, the organization is more amenable to developing a dialogue with the publics. Communication flows both ways between the organization and the public and both sides are prepared to change their stances, with the aims of resolving the crisis in a professional, ethical and effective way. The two-way symmetrical model has been positioned as normative theory, which stated how organizations should be practicing strategic communication that was regarded as the most ethical and effective manner (Grunig and Grunig 1992; Grunig 1996). The contingency theory, however, saw a different reality. Cancel et al. (1997) argued there were several reasons why the four models were inadequate to explain the reality of strategic communication. Inherent in practice of the two-way symmetrical communication was that the organization must engage in dialogue with the public, even though the public may be morally repugnant. This included “offering trade-offs” to a morally repugnant public, an exercise that could be viewed as “unethical” (Cancel et al. 1997: 38). At that time, studies demonstrated restrictions in engaging in dialogue – such as proscribed by circumstances (Kelleher 2003); limits in possibility of collaboration and cooperation (Leichty 1997; Roper 2005). Symmetry may be subordinate to larger forces such as economic, social and political realities (Holzhausen, Petersen and Tindall 2003). Cancel et al. (1997) argued that strategic communication was more accurately portrayed along a continuum: “This view is a more effective and realistic illustration of strategic communication and organization behavior than a conceptualization of four models,” the authors argued. Moreover, because of the fluidity of the circumstances, which, in turn, may affect an organization’s stance and strategies, a continuum would be far more grounded on reality that was able to “more accurately portray the variety of public relations stances available” (Cancel et al. 1997: 34).

144 

 Augustine Pang, Yan Jin, Sungsu Kim and Glen T. Cameron

Cameron and his colleagues took the idea of continua further by examining how organizations practiced a variety of strategic communication stances at one point in time, how those stances changed, sometimes almost instantaneously, and what influenced the change in stance (Cancel 1997). The organizational response to the strategic communication dilemma at hand, according to the contingency theory, which has, at one end of the continuum, advocacy, and at the other end, accommodation, was, thus, “It depends”. The theory offered a matrix of 87 factors (see Table 1), arranged thematically, that the organization could draw on to determine their stance. Between advocacy, which means arguing for one’s own case, and accommodation, which means giving in, was a wide range of operational stances that influenced strategic communication strategies and these entailed “different degrees of advocacy and accommodation.” (Cancel et al. 1997: 37). Along this continuum, the theory argued that any of the 87 factors, culled from strategic communication literature, excellence theory, observations, and grounded theory (Cameron 1997: 31), could affect the location of an organization on that continuum “at a given time regarding a given public” (Cancel et al. 1991: 72; Yarbrough et al. 1998: 40). Tab. 1:Variables Variables affect an organization’s response Table 1. that that affect an organization’s response 1. Organization characteristics A. Open or closed culture B. Dispersed widely geographically or centralized C. Level of technology the organization uses to produce its product or service D. Homogeneity or heterogeneity of officials involved E. Age of the organization/value placed on tradition F. Speed of growth in the knowledge level the organization uses G. Economic stability of the organization H. Existence or non-existence of issues management officials or program I. Organization’s past experiences with the public J. Distribution of decision making power K. Formalization: Number of roles or codes defining and limiting the job L. Stratification/Hierarchy of positions M. Existence or influence of legal department N. Business exposure O. Corporate culture 4. Internal threats (how much is at stake in the situation) A. Economic loss or gain from implementing various stances B. Marring of employees’ or stockholder’s perception of the company C. Marring of the personal reputations of the company decision makers

2. Public Relations department characteristics A. Number of practitioners’ total and number of college degrees B. Type of past training: Trained in PR or exjournalists, marketing etc C. Location of PR department in hierarchy: Independent or under Marketing umbrella/experiencing encroachment of marketing/persuasive mentality D. Representation in the Dominant Coalition E. Experience level of PR practitioners in dealing with crisis F. General communication competency of department G. Autonomy of department H. Physical placement of department in building (near CEO and other decision makers or not) I. Staff trained in research methods J. Amount of funding available for dealing with external publics K. Amount of time allowed to use dealing with external publics L. Gender: Percentage of female upper-level staff/managers M. Potential of department to practice various models of public relations 5. Individual characteristics (public relations practitioners, domestic coalition, and line managers) A. Training in diplomacy, marketing, journalism, engineering, etc. B. Personal ethics C. Tolerance or ability to deal with uncertainty D. Comfort level

3. Characteristics of dominant coalition (top management) A. Political values: Conservative or liberal/open or closed to change B. Management style: Domineering or laid-back C. General altruism level D. Support and understanding of PR E. Frequency of external contact with publics F. Departmental perception of the organization’s external environment G. Calculation of potential rewards or losses using different strategies with external publics H. Degree of line manager involvement in external affairs

6. Relationship Characteristics A. Level of trust between organization and external public B. Dependency of parties involved C. Ideological barriers between organization and public.

Pure ----------------------------------------------------- Pure Advocacy               Accommodation The theory sought to understand the dynamics, within and without the organization that could affect an organization’s stance. By understanding these dynamics, it elaborated, specified the conditions, factors, and forces that under-girded such a stance, so



Contingency theory 

 145

that strategic communication need not be viewed by artificially classifying into boxes of behavior. It aimed to “offer a structure for better understanding of the dynamics of accommodation as well as the efficacy and ethical implications of accommodation” (Yarbrough et al.,1998: 1) in strategic communication practice.

2.1.1 Factors that influence adoption of stance in strategic communication Based on interviews with practitioners and literature, 87 variables were identified. Practitioners argued that there were some that featured more prominently than the others. There were factors that influenced the organization’s position on the continuum before it interacts with a public; and there were variables that influenced the organization’s position on the continuum during interaction with its publics. The former has been c­ ategorized as predisposing variables, while the latter, situational variables. Some of the well-supported predisposing factors Cancel et al. (1999) found included: (1) the size of the organization; (2) corporate culture; (3) business exposure; (4) strategic communication to dominant coalition; (5) dominant coalition e­ nlightenment; (6) characteristics of key individuals, like the CEO. These factors were supported in ­conflict literature. For instance, organizational culture had been found to be a key factor in ensuring the formulation of a sound crisis plan and excellent crisis management (Marra 1998). ­Situational variables were factors that were most likely to influence how an organization related to a public by effecting shifts from a predisposed accommodative or adversarial stance along the continuum during an interaction. Some of the supported situational factors included: (1) urgency of the situation; (2) characteristics of the other public; (3) potential or obvious threats; (4) potential costs or benefit for the organization from choosing the various stances (Cancel et al. 1999). The classification of the factors into two categories was to determine how each cluster of variables work. The situational variables could determine the eventual degree of accommodation an organization takes by “effecting shifts from a predisposed accommodative or adversarial stance along the continuum during an interaction with the external public” (Yarbrough et al. 1998: 43). At the same time, an organization may not move from its predisposed stance if the situational variables are not compelling nor powerful enough to influence the position or if the opportunity costs of the situational variables do not lead to any visible benefits (Cameron et al. 2001). Consequently, both predisposing and situational factors could move the organization toward increased accommodation or advocacy. What was important in determining where the organization situates on the continuum involved the “weighing of many factors found in the theory” (Yarbrough et al. 1998: 50). Notably, the factors explain movement either way along the continuum. Despite that, one central question needs to be answered: Can communication still take place with a morally repugnant public? In a subsequent test of the theory, Cameron et al. (2001) found that there were occasions when accommodation was not possible at

146 

 Augustine Pang, Yan Jin, Sungsu Kim and Glen T. Cameron

all, due to moral, legal, and regulatory reasons. These were labeled p ­ roscriptive variables. Six were identified: (1) When there was moral conviction that an accommodative or dialogic stance towards a public may be inherently unethical; (2) when there was a need to maintain moral neutrality in the face of contending publics; (3) when legal constraints curtailed accommodation; (4) when there were regulatory restraints; (5) when senior management prohibited an accommodative stance; and lastly, (6) when the issue became a jurisdictional concern within the organization and resolution of the issue took on a constrained and complex process of negotiation. The proscriptive variables “did not necessarily drive increased or extreme advocacy, but did preclude compromise or even communication with a given public,” argued Cameron et al. (2001: 253).

2.1.2 Identifying key factors influencing strategic communication With over 80 distinct factors identified in the contingency theory, Cameron et al. (2001: 247) acknowledged that to manage them in “any useful way”, parsimony was further needed. Reber and Cameron (2003) set out to test the construct of five thematic variables through scale building on 91 top public relations practitioners. The five thematic variables were external threats, external public characteristics, organizational characteristics, public relations department characteristics, and dominant coalition characteristics. The authors found that the scales supported “the theoretical soundness of contingency and the previous qualitative testing of contingency constructs” (Reber and Cameron 2003: 443). Significantly, for each of the thematic variables, they discovered the attitudes of public relations practitioners towards each of the thematic variables that would affect the organizations’ willingness to dialogue. Some of the key insights the authors found relating to the thematic variables included and which are further examined are: External Threats. Threats, both internal and external as identified in the original contingency factor matrix, have been commonly used to describe the state a nation, organization, or individual endures during a crisis. Jin, Pang and Cameron (2005) conceptually differentiated threats from “risk,” “fear,” and “conflict,” which are the cause and the effect of crisis. They proposed the explication of the concept by expanding, cross-fertilizing, and integrating ideas from an inter-disciplinary review of literature and enumerated the dimensionality of threats. Jin and Cameron (2007) conducted an online experiment on the effects of threat type and threat duration on public relations professionals’ cognitive appraisal of threats, affective responses to threats and the stances taken in threat-embedded crisis situations. Findings revealed the main effects of threat type on threat appraisal, emotional arousal and qualified-rhetoric-mixed accommodations, and the main effects of threat duration across all threat consequences. Interactions of these two threat dimensions revealed that external and long-term threat combination led to higher situational demands appraisal and more intensive emotional arousal. This study further examined the relationship between cognitive



Contingency theory 

 147

appraisal, affective responses and stances as key aspects of threat consequences. High cognition and stronger affect regarding threats were found to be related to more accommodating stances. External Public Characteristics. The size, credibility, commitment, and power of the external public were attributes an organization must consider in assessing their level of influence, power and legitimacy. Jin and Cameron (2004) called for attention to the role of emotions as central to public relations theory-building. Using an adapted appraisal model of emotion in public relations, crucial dimensions were added to the contingency theory that take into account emotional tone, weight and temperature with regard to contingency factors. An emotion-laden contingency model is presented on a multi­ dimensional plane, proposing that for a given public at a given time in a given public relations encounter, and across external and internal contingent factors, the public’s emotional tone, temperature and weight regarding encounter-related contingency factors will have strong effects on the public’s stance toward the organization on the accommodation continuum. Jin and Pang (2010) argued that understanding publics’ emotions should be the new frontier in research (see below for more ­elaboration). Organizational Characteristics. The past negative experiences and the presence of in-house counsel were likely to affect the organization’s position on the continuum. Jin (2010) examined the perceived crisis preparedness of a random sample of strategic communication practitioners 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. Public Relations Department Characteristics. Public relations practitioners’ membership in the dominant coalition is a critical factor to explore. Bowen (2008: 271) described public relations practitioners as the “moral conscience” and “ethics counsel” of the organization. The need for strategic communication practitioners to be represented in the dominant coalition was further emphasized in the study by Reber, Cropp and Cameron (2003) in which the authors described the tension of a hostile takeover of Conrail Inc. by Norfolk Southern Corporation. While legal practitioners’ involvement in high profile crisis was a given, the study found that the dynamism of a conflict necessitated conflicts to be fought not just on the legal front but the public relations front as well. Where regulatory, legal and jurisdictional constraints forbade dialogue and negotiations to move to a higher level, public persuasion through the utilization of strategic communication initiatives and ingenuity went a long way to assuage hostile opinion. Dominant coalition characteristics. When public relations practitioners are represented in the dominant coalition, organizations are likely to practice symmetrical communication. The theory was also applied extensively to examine public relations practice in South Korea in various studies. In their survey, Shin, Park and Cameron (2006) reinforced the earlier findings of Shin, Cameron and Cropp (2006) that

148 

 Augustine Pang, Yan Jin, Sungsu Kim and Glen T. Cameron

­ rganizational variables such as the involvement of the dominant coalition played a o dominant role in defining public relations practice. This in turn constrained public relations activities, most notably, in the release of negative information and in the handling of conflict situations.

3 Contingency theory: A theory of strategic conflict management Frandsen and Johansen (2017) argued that one of the factors that contributed to the evolution of contingency theory as a genuine theory of crisis communication was the expansion and further elaboration of the theory. In this section, we will discuss two exemplars in the expansion of the theory followed by further elaboration of the theory.

3.1 Theory expansion: Conflict positioning in crisis communication One of the factors that fueled the evolution of the theory was the factor-position-strategy model developed by Pang (2006). Called conflict positioning, Pang (2006) integrated Cameron’s contingency theory with Benoit’s image repair theory. Conflict Positioning in Crisis Communication: First introduced by Cameron, the term conflict positioning is defined as positioning the organization “favorably in anticipation of conflicts” (Wilcox and Cameron 2005: 244). Crisis planning, environmental scanning, issues management, issues tracking, Cameron argued, are sound pre-crisis preparations that organizations should undertake before crises erupt. Pang (2006) further argued that in organizational strategic thinking, it is critical to anticipate crisis; understand the factors that would impact the organization’s position, or what he terms conflict stance. An organization’s stance, or sometimes multiple stances – in its threat assessment – for different publics, would impact its response strategies during the crisis, resulting in expected outcomes that organization had prepared for. For instance, if an organization forbid communication with its publics, the conflict stance assumed would be one “marked by obstinacy and dogged resistance, or advocacy, as described in contingency theory”. The organization would most likely deny or evade responsibility in a crisis. However, if it favors a more accommodative approach, it is likely to adopt corrective action to engage with its public and work with them to resolve the crisis. To obtain a favorable stance in a crisis requires the following: Understand the factors that are critical in the organization’s ability to handle the crisis. Next, understand how under impact of these factors, identify the stance the organization will take. Thirdly, identify the strategies to be used based on the stance. Recognizing the



Contingency theory 

 149

conditions (factors) that facilitate its reaction (stance) that influence its action (strategies) allow the organization to discern the impact of its actions. This, thus, suggests that crisis factors lead to conflict stance, which leads to response strategy selection. Pang (2006) established five key factors that influence organizational stance, which are participation of the dominant coalition in a crisis; the public relations ability to act and respond freely in a crisis; legal practitioners’ strategic role in a crisis; the public’s importance in a crisis; how the organization view threat in a crisis. To establish a conflict stance, Pang (2006) suggested integrating contingency theory’s stance perspectives with image repair theory’s strategy analyses on a continuum. Both these theories, he suggested are complementary and supplementary in that contingency theory is based on analyzing an organization’s stance before it enters into communication, while image repair theory is based on analyzing an organization’s strategies as it enters into communication. Contingency theory is founded on a continuum of advocacy on one extreme with accommodation on the other; while image repair strategies can also be mapped on a continuum. As offensiveness and responsibility of an error could possibly be found in a continuum (Benoit 2004: 265), it is also possible to identify messaging strategies on a continuum. Denial, evading responsibility, corrective action, mortification and reducing offensiveness – the five general strategies in image repair theory – are found on a continuum. Denial and advocacy (maintaining one’s stance and viewpoint), have similar features, while mortification is comparable to accommodation (i.  e., where one relents). In the factor-stance-strategy conceptualization, if the C-suite (factor) is in favor of communicating with the public during a crisis, the organization may embrace an accommodative approach (stance), execute strategies such as corrective action, mortification and reducing offensiveness. However, if the C-suite (factor) is morally and legally tied by regulations and jurisdiction, less accommodative approach (stance) is expected. Less accommodative strategies like denial and evading responsibility are likely to be employed. The stance-strategy integration was lauded by Coombs (2010) to provide context and operationalization to examine organizational response. Frandsen and Johansen (2017) described it as identifying the conditions (external/internal factors) that impact an organization’s reaction in decision-making process (crisis position) influencing communicative action (strategy). Integrated Crisis Mapping (ICM) model: Developed by Jin, Pang and Cameron (2017/2012), this model – while not a direct development of the contingency theory – was constructed to better understand external publics, which is one of the key contingency factors. In particular, the model highlights a range of emotions, namely anger, fright, anxiety, and sadness publics undergo during a crisis (see Figure 1). These four negative emotions were singled out by Jin, Pang and Cameron (2007) after studying Lazarus’ (1991) appraisal model of emotion. Anger. Lazarus (1991) suggested that basis for anger comes about when there is violation against what the victim deemed as “me” and “mine”. The public react angrily in a crisis as they regard the organization’s action as being detrimental to them. In such

150 

 Augustine Pang, Yan Jin, Sungsu Kim and Glen T. Cameron

HIGH ENGAGEMENT Primary Public‘s Coping Strategy

QUADRANT 1

QUADRANT 2

Reputation

Economic/Hostile Takeovers

Technology Breakdown Natural Disasters

Industrial Matters Labor Unrest/ Protest Regulation/ Legislation

Anger

Sadness

Anxiety

Fright

Accidents

CONATIVE COPING

CONATIVE COPING

Security Issues

Anxiety

Fright

Human Resource

Anger

Sadness

Psychopathic Acts/terrorism

Transport Failure

Rumors CEO Retirement

QUADRANT 4

QUADRANT 3 LOW ENGAGEMENT

Organization‘s Issue Engagement Fig. 1

tumultuous times, the public is interested in safeguarding themselves and how they can turn things to their advantage. They assign blame to the organization because they believe that it is the duty of the organization to manage the situation before it gets out of hand. Under certain situations, while the public may appear to acquiesce to organizations’ requests, they might still harbor deep-seated anger that manifest in “passively aggressive tactics”. Fright. Threatened by a fear of the unknown (Lazarus 1991), the public tries to find meaning in their loss and the organization’s management of the crisis. In which case, if they are not able to do so, they are likely to flee the situation, instead of confronting it. Anxiety. In the face of uncertainty, and worry about the outcome (Lazarus 1991), the public may look for instant gratification to protect themselves and alleviate their anxiety. In which case, if they are unable to do so, they will similarly flee from the situation or avoid it altogether Sadness. People experience sadness when they lose something that is irreplaceable (Lazarus 1991), whether it is a loss of loved ones, health and wealth or values. They seek solace, and answers and if at any point they feel that the solution the organization offer is good and beneficial to them, they might see hope in their situation. In this instance, their action is contingent on the organization’s actions. In the appraisal model of emotion, a critical component is the degree of emotions experienced. The emotion the public experience first when faced with a crisis is the primary emotion, while those they experience later, or when the organization take



Contingency theory 

 151

action are considered secondary emotions. Secondary emotions may be derived from a ‘dominant’ emotion or experienced alongside primary ones. The ICM model is marked by a crisis matrix of two axes: Organizational engagement level can be analyzed from a scale of high and low engagement in a crisis against the public’s dealing with situation, from conative to cognitive coping. Jin et al. (2007) contended that to manage crisis effectively, the organization must discern the public’s emotions at all levels under different circumstances and to ensure appropriate communication efforts so as to assist with how the public is coping with the situation. The X-axis delineates the coping tactics of the public. Lazarus’s (1991) cognitive appraisal theory in emotion is modified, with two coping strategies: 1) problem-­ focused coping – through a course of action that seeks to transform the relationship between the public and the organization, and 2) cognitive-focused coping – altering the public’s perception of the relationship. As such, the coping strategy indicates the way the public handle the crisis: Either 1) cognitive coping – the public try to make sense of the crisis in relation to their well-being, or 2) conative coping – the public attempt to effect change or bring about a positive outcome through proactive behaviors. By setting the two coping strategies on a continuum on the X-axis, it is possible to identify the different coping strategy the public adopt when faced with different crises. The X-axis is thus made up of cognitive and behavioral efforts to deal effectively with the demands of the public. On the Y-axis is organizational engagement level suggested by Jin et al. (2007). High engagement level is denoted “as intense, consolidated, sustained”, while low engagement means that the organization commits less effort and resources to manage the crisis. The reason for low engagement could be there is little the organization can do to solve the situation, or it is not at fault, or where there is a possibility of the authority stepping in to manage the crisis. Emotions and publics’ coping mechanism. In the crisis matrix, the X and Y axis make up four quadrants: High engagement/Conative coping fills quadrant one, while High engagement/Cognitive coping makes up quadrant two. In the third quadrant is Low engagement/Cognitive coping; Low engagement/Conative coping takes up the fourth quadrant. Dominant emotions – both primary and secondary – are found in all the quadrants. These emotions are gleaned from the public’s coping strategy and the involvement of the organization in the situation. Since 2006, the ICM model has been rigorously refined (see Jin, Pang and Cameron 2007/2010a/b) and empirical tests have revealed key emotions (Jin et al. 2012). Quadrant 1: Five crises that demand the publics’ conative coping and high organizational engagement are seen here. They are industrial crisis, labor demonstration, regulatory/legislative minefield, reputational damage and technological failure. Primary emotions found are anger and anxiety, along with sadness. Here, the primary publics is more likely to participate in conative than cognitive coping.

152 

 Augustine Pang, Yan Jin, Sungsu Kim and Glen T. Cameron

Quadrant 2: Three crises that necessitate the public’s cognitive coping and high organizational engagement are accidents, hostile takeovers and natural disasters. The primary emotions are sadness and fright in varying degree, with anxiety seemingly the default emotion. The public is likely to be more engaged in conative coping. Quadrant 3: Three crises that require the public’s cognitive coping and low organizational engagement are CEO retirement, psychopathic acts and rumor. The primary emotions identified are fright and sadness. While findings indicate fright and anger, there is increasing evidence that anxiety is the default emotion. In this quadrant, conative coping was obvious. Quadrant 4: Three crises that call for the public’s conative coping and low organizational engagement are human resource issues, security problems and transport breakdown. The primary emotions uncovered are anxiety and then anger. Findings revealed different levels of sadness and anger, with anxiety the default emotion. Conative coping is identified in this quadrant. Two trends were found. One, anxiety is typically the emotion the public experience in crises. Two, even as the public process the crisis cognitively, conative coping is the strategy the public adopt, suggesting that cognitive coping kicks in before conative coping takes place (Jin et al. 2012) (see Figure 2). MODERATE ENGAGEMENT QUADRANT 1 Reputation

QUADRANT 2 Economic/Hostile Takeovers

Technology Breakdown Natural Disasters

Industrial Matters Labor Unrest/ Protest Regulation/ Legislation

Anger

Sadness Fright

Sadness

Anger

Accidents

CONATIVE COPING Security Issues Human Resource Transport Failure

CONATIVE COPING Anger

Fright

Sadness

Anger

Rumors CEO Retirement

Anxiety QUADRANT 4

Fig. 2

Psychopathic Acts/terrorism

QUADRANT 3



Contingency theory 

 153

3.2 Further elaborations of contingency theory Organizational Stances as Degree of Accommodation: In contingency theory, the stance an organization takes when making decision determines its response strategy in conflict management. To measure “stance as the organization’s degree of accommodation toward a given public at a given time in a given situation” Jin and Cameron (2006) used a multiple-item scale that they had developed and identified two categories of stance – Action-based accommodations vs. Qualified-rhetoric-mixed accommodations where action-based accommodations are seen in an organization’s proclivity to surrender to public demands; accept public proposal and propositions; agree on future action with the public; work on the solutions offered by the public. Qualified-rhetoric-mixed accommodations, on the other hand, are seen as an organization’s attempt to show regret or apologize to the public; cooperate with the public to solve the problem; to change the organization’s own position toward that of the public; to compromise and to acknowledge misdeed. The distinction between action-based stance and qualified rhetoric-mixed stance (Jin et al. 2012) is further divided where the former is undertaken by the organization to meet public demands and to resolve the crisis. While the latter is a posturing on the part of organization whereby there may be little or no action to support the stance. In essence, a “will do” stance suggest action the organization will undertake, while “is willing to do” is but posturing – all talk and perhaps no action taken. Stance measures have been used to shed light on how factors such as threats affect the level of accommodation an organization accords its public in a conflict situation. For example, it was revealed that communication professionals were more likely to utilize qualified-rhetoric-mixed accommodations when faced with external threat than internal threat (Jin and Cameron 2007). They were more likely to adopt rhetoric-based stances to improve or repair tarnished brand image or corporate reputation (Jin and Cameron 2007). Publics’ Estimate of Organizational Stances: Hwang and Cameron (2008a/b) proposed the concept of public estimation of organizational stances because they believed that organizational stances can be uncovered by direct measurement, but also by assessing the public’s expectations. This is a critical breakthrough in contingency theory development and trains the focus on viewpoint of the public in a conflict or crisis situation. In a global crisis, the audience can become a “grassroots force” that affects policy decisions (Hwang and Cameron 2008a). An example is the North Korean nuclear crisis, where “dominant coalition characteristics, external threat, and external public characteristics” indicated public assessment of government’s stance. The researchers noted that general perception of factors such as external threat and external public characteristics predict strongly the publics’ stance assessment than the perceived predisposing factors such as dominant coalition characteristics. Hwang and Cameron (2008b) also found that leadership style can affect how the public view the organiza-

154 

 Augustine Pang, Yan Jin, Sungsu Kim and Glen T. Cameron

tion stance in a crisis. Hwang and Cameron (2009) also uncovered the main effects as well as interaction effects of “perceived leadership and perceived severity of threats” on how the public assess organizational stances and response to crisis. These empirical findings showed that organizational and situational factors affect the organizational stance either adopted by organizations or estimated by its primary publics in the face of conflicts. The findings clarified the publics’ take on organizational conflict stances and explained their responses to the conflict communication strategies of an organization. Publics’ Response Continuum in Crisis Communication: To apply external publics’ perspectives into contingency theory, Kim and his colleagues (2017) proposed to develop the publics’ response continuum in the context of crisis communication. The scholars argued that publics’ views toward an organization need to be more directly addressed in crisis situations as an extension of the contingency theory. This approach is a step beyond the attempts taken by scholars to conceptualize and empirically test how external publics would estimate stances of the organization (Hwang and Cameron 2008a, 2008b, 2009). Hwang and Cameron have attempted to focus on the publics’ perception of contingency factors as predictors of their estimation of organizational stances. While Kim and colleagues (2017) suggested a more direct explication of external publics’ stances or reactions toward an organization itself. This is a corroborating winkle of seeing how the public evaluate the organization’s operations and management in crisis or conflict situations. The key construct to understanding external public’ responses toward organizations is confidence. Confidence has been a topic of interest among scholars with regard to crisis preparedness from the perspectives of organization (Fragouli, Ioannidis and Adiave-Gaisie 2013). For instance, Cloudman and Hallahan (2006) demonstrated that public relations practitioners’ confidence in their organization’s ability to respond to crisis predicted their actual crisis preparedness. Another study conducted by Wigley and Zhang (2014) showed that there was a positive relationship between perception of public relations professionals about their organizations’ use of two-way symmetrical communication and the confidence in their organization’s ability to handle crisis. Previous studies have investigated the role of crisis confidence from the perspective of an organization. Kim and his colleagues (2017) addressed the necessity of conceptualizing confidence to grasp the publics’ responses toward the organization. One way of conceptualizing and operationalizing public confidence toward an organization is to address the organization’s abilities to cope with a crisis. Confidence refers to “the belief, based on experience or evidence, that certain future events will occur as expected” and it is perceived as a positive mood (Earle, Siegrist and Gutscher 2007: 4). Confidence, by nature, is derived from trust toward an object (Earle 2010). Nevertheless, confidence and trust are treated as different from each other with regard to the viewpoint toward the organization (Earle et al. 2007). It is argued that an organization can be an object of confidence, but cannot be that of trust because individuals do not have sufficient



Contingency theory 

 155

knowledge of the organization to establish trust. Indeed, confidence is formed based on knowledge and information about the object’s performance (Siegrist, Gutscher and Keller 2007). When individuals have a past experience or information positively involved with an object, they are likely to have confidence with it. Based on the aforementioned theoretical background, a new continuum, reflecting a given public’s response or stance movement toward an organization in a given crisis can be depicted as: Total Confidence ---------------------------------------------------- Total Doubt This continuum – with one end indicating confidence and the other end doubt – captures the dynamic movement of public reactions toward an organization in crisis. As an opposite position on the continuum, doubt indicates the lack of or lower levels of confidence. This public-centered continuum may expand the contingency theory research. As stated above, this approach is capable of explaining public reactions toward the organization in the context of crisis and/or conflicts with the public. Indeed, confidence, which is future-oriented, can be investigated as a predictor of publics’ crisis responses such as supportive behaviors (e.  g., compliance with the organization’s messages, engagement in word or mouth), crisis emotions, organizational reputation, and crisis responsibility. In addition, the public-centered continuum provides a general framework for conceptualizing the interaction of an organization’s stances (movement on the accommodation-advocacy continuum) and publics’ stances (movement on the confidence-doubt continuum). As Figure 3 demonstrated, organization’s accommodation and publics’ confidence may have a spiral relationship over time. How and whether accommodation and confidence affect each other will be an agenda of future research. Accommodation

Accommodation

Confidence

Confidence

Confidence

Time 1

Time 2

Time 3

Organizations Accommodation

Publics

Fig. 3

Another potential point for extending contingency theory research with the help of publics’ confidence continuum includes an examination of how contingency factors are understood from the perspectives of publics. For example, confidence is an approach to enable a study on public-oriented threat appraisal process. Threat, which refers to “potentially negative situation involving publics,” is one of the key contingency factors to determine the organization’s accommodation level (Cancel

156 

 Augustine Pang, Yan Jin, Sungsu Kim and Glen T. Cameron

et al. 1999: 184). Under the umbrella of contingency theory, to further explicate the perception of threat in the context of conflicts between an organization and publics, threat appraisal model was developed (Jin et al. 2005). Appraisal in the model refers to the evaluation of the significance of the situations about the public-organization relationship for each actor’s benefits (Jin and Cameron 2003). Threat appraisal model used the primary and secondary appraisal derived from appraisal model of emotions to develop and propose how threat is appraised (Jin and Cameron 2003; Lazarus 1991). In the primary appraisal stage, individuals assess whether what happens is relevant to their well-being, considering factors such as goal relevance, goal congruence or incongruence, and the involvement of the individual. Secondary appraisal includes components such as blame (or credit), coping potential, and future expectancy. These components are related to whether a particular coping action prevents harm and brings about favorable consequences, and how the individual manages the demands of encounters. It is proposed that this process of primary and secondary appraisal be applied in public relations (Jin and Cameron 2003). In threat appraisal model in crisis communication, threat is assessed by two factors: situational demands and resources. Primary appraisal of situational demands includes evaluation of danger (severity), uncertainty (i.  e., lack of prediction and control; situation and familiarity), and required efforts (difficulty and duration) inherent in the situation; and ­secondary appraisal of resources include assessment of knowledge, skill, time, finance, and support from the dominant coalition, which are tied to situational performances (Jin et al. 2012). With the appraisal of the two factors, threat refers to a consequence of skewed relationship between situational demands and resources (Jin et al. 2012). In this regard, confidence is an approach to study a public-oriented threat appraisal process. When threat is perceived by publics outside of an organization, how the organization copes with crisis is an integral part of consideration. Particularly, secondary appraisal is to evaluate whether a given action can prevent harm and individuals can manage the demands of encounter (Lazarus 1991). The threat appraisal model adopts the secondary appraisal as a way of assessing whether organizations can manage the demands of relational encounters, specifically evaluating resources required for the organization to possess (i.  e., knowledge, skill, time, finance, and support from the dominant coalition) (Jin et al. 2005). Confidence in the organization’s ability to cope with a crisis should be tied to appraisal of organizational resources. Indeed, one of the components in the secondary appraisal, coping potential helps to provide a clearer connection of confidence with threat appraisal. Coping potential is defined as “whether and how the person can manage the demands of the encounter or actualize personal commitments” (Lazarus 1991: 150). Coping potential is not an actual coping, rather it is an assessment of prospectus of actions to be taken to protect the person-environment relationship. In applying this concept to threat appraisal in the context of organizational crisis, perception of whether the organization in crisis has a capability of handling situational demands of threat (i.  e., confidence) is a core factor to affect the secondary appraisal of resources. As coping potential serves as a



Contingency theory 

 157

part of publics’ confidence in organization’s capability to handle crisis, confidence continuum provides how threat, the key contingency factor, is perceived by publics. Future research may examine the relation of publics’ confidence with their evaluation of contingency factors in the context of crisis happening. Overall, there is a room for further expanding the contingency theory by examining possible spots on the continuum that explain the publics’ stances toward an organization in crisis. In addition, the novel continuum of confidence among publics provides potential directions to be taken for reaping greater insights.

3.3 Contingency theory: A theory for the age of disruption? Much has been said about the current communication landscape dominated by posttruth and fake news. Post-truth – Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year for 2016 (“Posttruth declared,” 2016) – was coined in 1992 by playwright Steve Tesich who suggested that truth has become irrelevant (Gaffey 2016) and because people associated truth with bad news, they did not want to know the truth anymore (Kreitner 2016). Fake news – news, stories or hoaxes created to deliberately misinform or deceive readers [audience] (Lohr 2018)  – which are usually spread on the Internet or other media, usually created to influence political views or as a joke – have become the current rage. How can the theory offer insights to manage disruption? We suggest one word: Dynamism. One recent study examined how satire, which is a component of fake news, impact the reputations of organizations (Lee, Chia and Pang 2019). Satire is defined by LeBoeuf (2007) as “a very powerful artistic form used to critique specific human behaviors” that may take any recorded form or speech, with three main attributes: the critique of behavioural conduct such as human follies and vices using irony, coupled with implicit methods or statements. Its aim is to ridicule and condemn negative behaviour by taking them out of context, making them sound farcical and exaggerated (LeBoeuf 2007). Lee et al. (2019) suggested that when critiqued, organizations can respond in a variety of ways, using Contingency Theory as a guide. The continuum of organizational response, which is adapted and modified from the Contingency Theory (Pang, Jin and Cameron 2010), is proposed as a response strategy for organizations or individuals who find themselves the targets of satire. Based on the continuum, organizations may select one of four types of actions to take: Join in, Do Nothing, Clarify, or Refute (see Figure 4). Organizations may select a particular action if the situation ticks at least any of the two criteria under a strategy (see Table 2). Lee et al. (2019) suggested that organizations should be cognizant of the predisposing, situational and proscriptive variables before assuming a stance. Four responses were proffered: Join In. Organizations are encouraged to join in and share satirical articles about themselves by using affiliative humor and accompanying it with a quip on social

158 

 Augustine Pang, Yan Jin, Sungsu Kim and Glen T. Cameron

Predisposing variables

Join In

Situational variables

Not do anything

Proscriptive variables

Clarify

Refute

Saturday Night Live, 2003: Paris Hilton (post-sex tape) Many companies, individuals, organizations, (E.g. Telstra, Jo Teo, Trumps) The Onion, 2013: CNN‘s Miley Cyrus article, Meredith Artley, Managing Editor of CNN Der Postillon, 2016: Frauke Petry

Not many known to have outright refute/ requestet take-down Jan Böhmermann, 2016: „Erdogate“

Fig. 4

Tab. 2: Criteria for Continuum of Organizational Response for Satire News Table 2. Criteria for Continuum of Organizational Response for Satire News Factors Predisposing Variables Culture, values, reputation, size of the organization, corporate culture, business exposure, public relations to dominant coalition, dominant coalition enlightenment, and individual characteristics of key individuals (e.g. CEO)

Join in Affiliative humor

Not doing anything Benign humor

Clarify Does confusion ensue? (Online/mainstream media)

Virality of satire article

Does it affect tangible aspects of reputation? (e.g. political voting)

Situational Variables Urgency of the situation, potential cost and benefits, characteristics of other publics and potential or obvious threats

Doesn’t help to do anything; doing something will exacerbate the situation

Minimal to acceptable extent of reputational damage Potential benefits of joining in

Proscriptive Variables Moral conviction, moral neutrality in the face of contending publics, legal constraints, regulatory restraints, senior management prohibition of response strategy and jurisdictional concerns

Virality of the confusion

Affects livelihood of people

Refute Concerns the ethics of the individual / company or company values Causes turmoil / chaos

Concerns the company’s dealings with the law



Contingency theory 

 159

media. Affiliative humor has potential benefits, such as strengthening ties between individuals by being “self-accepting” (Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray and Weir 2003). The image of an organization is strengthened when it shows that it can poke fun at itself, thus increasing its likeability among consumers (Ziv 1984). This is highly encouraged if the satire article goes viral, and reputational damage caused by the satire article is minimal to acceptable. Do nothing. Many organizations and individuals adopt this strategy when satirized. The satire article mainly expresses benign humor, where there is little to no confusion or harm done, and interest in the article will soon peter out. Thus, it would not make sense to respond to the satirical article, as doing or saying something might aggravate the situation. Clarify. If a satirical article causes widespread or persistent confusion on online or mainstream media, organizations should consider quelling rumours. Moreover, if tangible aspects of a reputation (e.  g. political voting) are affected by a satirical article, the satirized target should step up to clarify the situation. The virality of confusion is also an important factor, as it might indicate the seriousness of the situation which could possibly affect livelihoods of people. Refute. This action is highly discouraged. A majority of the situations do not require this, as there are laws that protect satire and satire news sites. However, if the satirical article published concerns the ethics of an individual or organization, an organization’s dealings with the law, or causes turmoil or chaos in public, organizations and individuals should refute the satirical article. What these all mean is that contingency theory offers a dynamic framework where organizations can consider when managing disruption. Pang et al. (2010a) argued four reasons why it is dynamic. First, the contingency theory recommends the reprogramming of thinking on how strategic communication can take place, i.  e., through the adoption of stances along a continuum instead of adhering to a set model of communication. Instead of viewing communication during crises as the practice of models, with the two-way symmetrical model held as the ideal model, organizations can consider adopting stances, or positions, ranging from advocating its case to accommodating the case to its publics. A model of practice often locks the organization or practitioner into thinking that there is only a set way(s) of communicating when more often than not, conflict situations are “dynamic” (Seeger 2006: 241). By changing the view that strategic communication can be practiced as the dynamic enactment of stances along a continuum, organizations and practitioners are better placed and in greater control to determine how they can manage situations most effectively. Second, the theory exhorts organizations to engage in strategic analyses before and as it embarks on strategic communication. Cognizance of the predisposing, situational and proscriptive variables can help organizations understand the complex realities they are working in. If strategic communication is “most effective when it is part of the decision process itself” (Seeger 2006: 236), before organizations or practitioners adopt a stance or position in communication, they have to consider how

160 

 Augustine Pang, Yan Jin, Sungsu Kim and Glen T. Cameron

key factors impact their decisions. These factors are critical in reflecting the characteristics, intents and motivations of the organization (predisposing factors) as well as the external constraints, demands and realities of the crisis (situational factors). Third, the theory calls for a strategic assessment of the nature of the publics and the multi-dimensionality of external threats. This is extrapolated against the interplay of factors internally to meet the external demands from the crises and publics. If management of publics is paramount, as Seeger (2006) argued, organizations and practitioners would want to take cognizance of the threat involved in the crisis, and the make-up and influence of the publics even as they seek to understand the interplay of factors at work before and as they embark on crisis communication. Four, given the ambiguity and uncertainty sometimes inherent in a conflict situation (Seeger 2006), organizations seek directions to help them negotiate through the minefields while understanding the options open to them. Strategic adoption of stances along the continuum affords organizations a framework to assess the motivations of their positions, and grants them a preview of the likely outcomes of their actions. In addressing fluid situations, the organization is given the flexibility of assuming different stances to different publics during crisis at a given point in time. Movement along the continuum is never meant to be static. Strategic communication may not always be a “win-win” situation, neither must be it a situation where one party wins and the other loses. It is a dynamic process of dialogue and negotiation.

4 Conclusion Contingency Theory has evolved by being modified, tested and improved consistently over the last few decades (Pang et al. 2010b). Frandsen and Johansen (2017: 117) argued that “apart from the research conducted by Pang and Jin, the contingency theory framework has not been developed further during these past few years.” Despite that, the theory remains relevant even as it continues to be applied in emerging situations and phenomena. For sure, according to Cameron, more studies could focus on qualifications of what moves organizations toward or away from accommodation. Besides being a positive theory (Pang et al. 2010a), one which “makes sense of reality (in the case of a positive, or explanatory, theory)” (Grunig 2006: 152), it is a dynamic theory. A dynamic theory that reflects practice and is informed by practice. Heath and Coombs (2006) argued that theories are developed from best practices. The dynamism of the theory is perhaps one reason that explains its continued relevance and rejuvenation.



Contingency theory 

 161

References An, S.-K., and I-H. Cheng. 2010. Crisis communication research in public relations journals: Tracking research trends over thirty years. In: W. T. Coombs and S. J. Holladay (eds.), The Handbook of Crisis Communication, 65–90. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. BBC News. 2016, November 16. ‘Post-truth’ declared word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries. BBC News. Retrieved March 8, 2017 from http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-37995600. Botan, C. 2006. Grand strategy, strategy, and tactics in public relations. In: C. Botan and V. Hazelton (eds.), Public Relations Theory II, 223–248. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Benoit, W. L. 2004. Image restoration discourse and crisis communication. In: D. P. Millar and R. L. Heath (eds.), Responding to Crisis: A Rhetorical Approach to Crisis Communication, 263–280. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Bowen, S.  A. 2008. A state of neglect: Public relations as ‘corporate conscience’ or ethics counsel. Journal of Public Relations Research 20. 271–296. Cameron, G. T. 1997. The contingency theory of conflict management in public relations. Proceedings of the Norwegian Information Service. Oslo, Norway. Cameron, G. T., F. Cropp and B. Reber. 2001. Getting past platitudes: Factors limiting accommodation in public relations. Journal of Communication Management 5(3). 242–261. Cameron, G. T., A. Pang and Y. Jin. 2008. Contingency theory: Strategic management of conflict in public relations. In: T. Hansen-Horn and B. Neff (eds.), Public Relations: From Theory to Practice, 134–157. Boston, MA: Pearson Allyn & Bacon. Cancel, A. E., G. T. Cameron, L. M. Sallot and M. A. Mitrook. 1997. It depends: A contingency theory of accommodation in public relations. Journal of Public Relations Research 9(1). 31–63. Cancel, A. E., M. A. Mitrook and G. T. Cameron. 1999. Testing the contingency theory of accommodation in public relations. Public Relations Review 25(2). 171–197. Cloudman, R., and K. Hallahan. 2006. Crisis communications preparedness among U.S. organizations: Activities and assessments by public relations practitioners. Public Relations Review 32(4). 367–376. Coombs, W. T. 2010. Parameters for crisis communication. In: W. T. Coombs and S. J. Holladay (eds.), Handbook of Crisis Communication, 17–53. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Earle, T. C. 2010. Trust in risk management: A model-based review of empirical research. Risk Analysis 30(4). 541–574. Earle, T. C., M. Siegrist and H. Gutscher. 2007. Trust, risk perception and the TCC model of cooperation. In: M. Siegrist, T. C. Earle and H. Gutscher (eds.), Trust in cooperative risk management: Uncertainty and scepticism in the public mind, 1–50. Sterling, VA: Earthscan. Fragouli, E., A. Ioannidis and A. Adiave-Gaisie. 2013. Crisis preparedness plans: What influences the preparedness level of an organization and examination whether petroleum companies have crisis management plans before crises occur. International Journal of Chemical and Environmental Engineering 4(6). Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2017. Organizational Crisis Communication: A Multivocal Approach. London: Sage. Liberman, C., D. Rodrigues and T. A. Avtgis (eds.). Casing Risk and Crisis Communication. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt. Gaffey, C. 2016. Lies, damn lies and post-truth. Newsweek Global 167(21). 57. Grunig, L. A. 1996. Public relations. In: M. B. Salwen and D. W. Stacks (eds.), An Integrated Approach to Communication Theory and Research, 459–477. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Grunig, J. E. 2006. Furnishing the edifice: Ongoing research on public relations as strategic management function. Journal of Public Relations Research 18(2). 151–176.

162 

 Augustine Pang, Yan Jin, Sungsu Kim and Glen T. Cameron

Grunig, J. E., and L. A. Grunig. 1992. Models of public relations and communications. In: J. E. Grunig (ed.), Excellence in public relations and communication management, 285– 326. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Heath, R. L., and W. T. Coombs, W. T. 2006. Today’s public relations: An introduction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Holtzhausen, D. R., B. K. Petersen and N. T. J. Tindall. 2003. Exploding the myth of the symmetrical/ asymmetrical dichotomy: Public relations models in the new South Africa. Journal of Public Relations Research 15(4). 305–341. Hwang, S., and G. T. Cameron. 2008a. The elephant in the room is awake and takes things personally: The North Korean nuclear threat and the general public’s estimation of American diplomacy. Public Relations Review 34. 41–48. Hwang, S., and G. T. Cameron. 2008b. Public’s expectation about an organization’s stance in crisis communication based on perceived leadership and perceived severity of threats. Public Relations Review 34. 70–73. Hwang, S., and G. T. Cameron. 2009. The estimation of a corporate crisis communication. Public Relations Review 35(2). 136–138. Jin, Y. 2010. The interplay of organization type, organization size and practitioner role on perceived crisis preparedness: A cognitive appraisal approach. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Communication 18(1). 49–54. Jin, Y., and G. T. Cameron. 2003. Rediscovering emotion in public relations: An adapted appraisal model and an emotion-laden contingency plane. Unpublished Manuscript. Jin, Y., and G. T. Cameron. 2006. Scale development for measuring stance as degree of accommodation. Public Relations Review 3. 423–425. Jin, Y., and G. T. Cameron. 2007. The effects of threat type and duration on public relations practitioner’s cognitive, affective, and conative responses in crisis situations. Journal of Public Relations Research 19(3). 255–281. Jin, Y., and G. T. Cameron. 2004. Rediscovering emotion in public relations: An adapted appraisal model and an emotion laden contingency plane. Paper presented at the annual conference of International Communication Association, New Orleans, LA. Jin, Y., and A. Pang. 2010. Future directions of crisis communication research: Emotions in crisis – The next frontier. In: W. T. Coombs and S. J. Holladay (eds.), The Handbook of Crisis Communication, 677–682. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Jin, Y., A. Pang and G. T. Cameron. 2005. Explicating threats: Towards a conceptual understanding of the faces and fabric of threat in an organizational crisis. Paper presented at the annual conference of International Communication Association, New York, NY. Jin, Y., A. Pang and G. T. Cameron. 2007. Integrated crisis mapping: Towards a publics-based, emotion-driven conceptualization in crisis communication. Sphera Publica 7. 81–96. Jin, Y., A. Pang and G. T. Cameron 2010a. The role of emotions in crisis responses: Inaugural test of the integrated crisis mapping (ICM) model. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 15(4). 428–452. Jin, Y., A. Pang and G. T. Cameron. 2010b. Toward a publics-driven, emotion-based approach in crisis communication: Testing the integrated crisis mapping (ICM) model. Public Relations Journal 4(1). Jin, Y., A. Pang and G. T. Cameron. 2012. Pre-crisis threat assessment: A cognitive appraisal approach. In Bolanle A. Olaniran, W. Timothy. Coombs and Augustine Pang (eds.), Pre-crisis Planning, Communication, and Management: Preparing for the Inevitable. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Jin, Y., A. Pang and G. T. Cameron. 2012. Toward a publics-driven, emotion-based conceptualization in crisis communication: Unearthing dominant emotions in multi-staged testing of the integrated crisis mapping (ICM) model. Journal of Public Relations Research 24. 266–298.



Contingency theory 

 163

Kelleher, T. 2003. PR and conflict: A theoretical review and case study of the 2001 University of Hawaii faculty strike. Journal of Communication Management 8(2). 184–196. Kim, S., Y. Jin, B. H. Reber, A. Pang and G. T. Cameron. 2017. The publics’ response continuum in crisis communication: Extending the contingency theory of strategic conflict management. Paper presented at the 5th International Crisis Communication Conference (Crisis 5), Lisbon, Portugal. Kreitner, R. 2016. Post-Truth and Its Consequences. Nation 303(25/26). 7. Lazarus, R. S. 1991. Emotion and adaptation. Vol. xiii. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Leichty, G. 1997. The limits of collaboration. Public Relations Review 23(1). 47–58. LeBoeuf, M. 2007. The power of ridicule: An analysis of satire. Retrieved from University of Rhode IslandDigitalCommons@URI. Paper 63. Retrieved from: http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/ srhonorsprog/63 Lee, L., J. Chia and A. Pang. 2019. Mocked and shamed: Satirical news and its effects on organizational reputation. Communication and Media in Asia Pacific 2(2). 1–26. Lohr, S. 2018. March 8. It’s true: False News Spreads Faster and Wider. And Humans Are to Blame. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/technology/ twitter-fake-news-research.html Marra, F. J. 1998. Crisis communication plans: Poor predictors of excellent crisis public Relations. Public Relations Review 24(4). 461–484 Martin, R. A., P. Puhlik-Doris, G. Larsen, J. Gray and K. Weir. 2003. Individual differences in uses of humor and their relation to psychological well-being: Development of the humor styles questionnaire. Journal of Research in Personality 37(1). 48–75. Pang, A. 2006. Conflict positioning in crisis communication: Integrating contingency stance with image repair strategies. University of Missouri-Columbia doctoral dissertation. Pang, A., Y. Jin and G. T. Cameron. 2010a. Strategic management of communication: Insights from the Contingency Theory of strategic conflict management. In: R. L. Heath (ed.), The Sage Handbook of Public Relations, 17–34. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Pang, A., Y. Jin and G. T. Cameron. 2010b. Contingency theory of strategic conflict management: Directions for the practice of crieisommunication from a decade of theory development, discovery and dialogue. In W. T. Coombs and S. J. Holladay (eds.), The Handbook of Crisis Communication, 527–549. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Reber, B. H., and G. T. Cameron. 2003. Measuring contingencies: Using scales to measure public relations practitioner limits to accommodation. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 80(2). 431–446. Reber, B. H., F. Cropp, and G. T. Cameron. 2003. Impossible odds: Contributions of legal counsel and public relations practitioners in a hostile bid for Conrail Inc. by Norfolk Southern Corporation. Journal of Public Relations Research 15(1). 1–25. Roper, J. 2005. Symmetrical communication: Excellent public relations or a strategy of hegemony. Journal of Public Relations Research 17(1). 69–86. Shin, J. H., A. Pang, and G. T. Cameron. 2013. Embracing the strategic management of conflict: A twenty-year review of contingency theory in public relations. In M. A.Yamanoğlu and B. P. Özdemir (eds.), Halkla İlişkilerin Kazancı Geçmiş Eğilimler Yeni Yönelimler (Turkish Public Relations), 145–160. Ankara, Turkey: DeKi Basim Yayim. Seeger, M. W. 2006. Best practices in crisis communications. Journal of Applied Communication Research 34(3). 232–244. Shin, J.-H., G. T. Cameron and F. Cropp. 2006. Occam’s razor in the contingency theory: A national survey on 86 contingent variables. Public Relations Review 32. 282–286. Shin, J.-H., J. Park and G. T. Cameron. 2006. Contingent factors: Modeling generic public relations practice in South Korea. Public Relations Review 32. 184–185.

164 

 Augustine Pang, Yan Jin, Sungsu Kim and Glen T. Cameron

Siegrist, M., H. Gutscher and C. Keller. 2007. Trust and confidence in crisis communication: Three case studies. In M. Siegrist, T. C. Earle and H. Gutscher (eds.), Trust in cooperative risk management: Uncertainty and scepticism in the public mind, 267–286. Sterling, VA: Earthscan. Wigley, S., and W. Zhang. 2014. Does planning and practice make perfect? A study of communication culture, autonomy and PR practitioners’ confidence in handling crises. Public Relations Journal 8(2). Retrieved from http://www.prsa.org/Intelligence/PRJournal/Vol8/No2/ Wilcox, D. L., and G. T. Cameron. 2005. Public Relations: Strategies and tactics. 8th edn. New York: Allyn & Bacon. Yarbrough, C. R., G. T. Cameron, L. M. Sallot and A. McWilliams. 1998. Tough calls to make: Contingency theory and the Centennial Olympic Games. Journal of Communication Management 3(1). 39–56. Ziv, A. 1984. Personality and sense of humor. New York, NY: Springer.

Robert R. Ulmer and Timothy L. Sellnow

7 Discourse of renewal: Understanding the theory’s implications for the field of crisis communication Abstract: The central idea of the discourse of renewal is that, although crises are dramatic and challenging events, they are simultaneously openings for learning, transformation, growth, and positive change. The theory’s focus on discovering opportunities for positive change is a notable departure from much of the research in crisis communication. An organization’s main focus in the renewal process is on establishing the groundwork for performing its function in a safer, more socially-responsible manner after a crisis. Attention to reputation, is subjugated by the earnest resolve to improve the organization’s safety, stability, and responsibility to stakeholders. Crisis responses applying the discourse of renewal feature an emphasis on learning from the crisis, providing an ethical response, emphasizing a prospective vision, and effective rhetoric from a community or organization’s leadership. Although the theory was introduced only two decades ago, its emphasis on positive change has impacted the definition, practice, and study of crisis communication. Keywords: risk, crisis, renewal, discourse of renewal, image repair, organizational communication, reputation management

1 Introduction Over the past 20 years, research on the discourse of renewal highlighted the potential for positive change as a result of an organizational or community crisis. The central idea of the theory suggests that although crises are dramatic and challenging events, they are at the same time openings for learning, transformation, growth, and change. From this perspective, crises can instigate a “fresh sense of purpose and direction an organization or system discovers after it emerges from a crisis” (Ulmer, Sellnow and Seeger 2019: 184). The discourse of renewal serves as a communication-based theory for organizations or communities that seek a prescriptive approach to effectively managing crises. What follows is a discussion of the origins of the theory, its key assumptions, how the theory has developed, its philosophical approach, and how the theory contributes to understanding crises and crisis management as a practice.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-007

166 

 Robert R. Ulmer and Timothy L. Sellnow

2 Origin of the discourse of renewal Crisis communication research is a fertile area of inquiry. The preponderance of crisis events followed by the need for organizations and communities to effectively prepare for and respond to crises highlight the importance of this research. Current research most often involves understanding communication failures in the wake of dramatic negative events. In these instances, studies describe and explain how a leader’s communication choices manage or protect the image of an organization. However, there are other views on how to resolve a crisis. One contrarian viewpoint is the discourse of renewal. The central tenet of this theory is that crises are not solely threatening or even image or reputation related events. Conversely, crises are opportunities for learning, growth, and transformation. The origins of the communication-based theory called the discourse of renewal can be traced back to Robert Ulmer’s dissertation directed by Matthew Seeger (Ulmer 1998). The dissertation examined three cases of effective crisis communication. At this time, the first ideas of communication and renewal were discussed in terms of how organizations can view opportunity in crisis. Similarly, the dissertation looked at effective crisis communication rather than obvious failures. With the exception of the Tylenol tampering case, the extant literature almost exclusively described and explained mistakes, short comings, and ineffective crisis communication. As a result of this initial doctoral research several publications were advanced. This early work focused on crisis responses that were different in form and content from previous crisis communication research. For instance, Ulmer (2001) examined the post crisis communication of CEO Aaron Feuerstein following a plant fire at his company Malden Mills. Mr. Feuerstein’s communication was not concerned with blame, fault, or the image of his company. Rather, he communicated his value for his employees and the community. His goal, at this most difficult time, was to articulate what he most treasured in his organization. In doing so, he voiced his deeply held values about the importance of his employees to his business success. Seeger and Ulmer (2001) took this initial case study one step further by examining the similarities between leadership responses to two plant fires: Malden Mills and Cole Hardwoods. The authors found that both CEOs deeply cared about their employees. Both immediately committed to rebuilding their organizations following the fires, and both paid employee salaries and benefits while they rebuilt their businesses. In each case, the leaders’ crisis communication did not focus on blame or responsibility, image or reputation, but rather emphasized the leaders’ core values, instinct, and key business relationships (Seeger and Ulmer 2002). Over the course of the next five years, Ulmer, Seeger, Sellnow and colleagues wrote numerous articles and book chapters emphasizing the opportunities associated with crisis (Seeger, Ulmer, Novak and Sellnow 2005; Seeger, Sellnow and Ulmer 2003; Seeger and Ulmer 2002; Ulmer and Sellnow 2002; Ulmer, Seeger and Sellnow 2006; Ulmer, Sellnow and Seeger 2007). These publications sought to better understand the



Discourse of renewal 

 167

communication processes associated with creating a renewing response to a crisis. The authors also worked to develop a coherent and consistent theoretical framework for understanding the discourse of renewal. Emerging from this research was the refinement of the idea of renewal as well as the key components of the discourse of renewal (See Pyle, Fuller and Ulmer in press). – Organizational learning – Ethical communication – Prospective versus retrospective vision – Effective organizational rhetoric The following section provides an overview of the core tenets of the theory.

3 Basic assumptions, key concepts and models of discourse of renewal The discourse of renewal is designed to provide a normative approach to effectively managing crises (Ulmer 2012). In doing so, it supports organizational and community leadership in creating a fresh sense of direction and purpose following a crisis. There are four components to the discourse of renewal: organizational learning, ethical communication, prospective rather than retrospective vision, and effective organizational rhetoric. What follows is a brief description of each aspect of the theory. Organizational learning Crises are public failures. A central part of resolving a challenge or failure is to learn from it (Simon and Pauchant 2000). Leadership following a crisis should publicly articulate learning both internal and externally. The internal learning process involves correcting ineffective practices that may have led to the crisis. This practice encompasses overcoming barriers to learning and correcting the practices. Thus, changes should be communicated throughout the organization. This process formalizes the learning throughout the organization. The goal of organizational learning is to change the attitudes, values, and beliefs of organizational members to account for new ways of working (Ulmer, Sellnow and Seeger 2019). Once this process is accomplished, learning should be communicated externally as well. This communication allows stakeholders, the industry, and the general community to understand how the organization has learned from the event. In this case, organizational learning is closely connected to the other components of organizational renewal.

168 

 Robert R. Ulmer and Timothy L. Sellnow

Ethical communication Ethical communication is central to any renewing response to a crisis. Ethical crisis communication involves engaging in positive and mutually beneficial stakeholder relationships, provisional communication, and creating significant choice under crisis induced uncertainty. Positive stakeholder relationships involve the organization’s leadership with well with internal and external partners (Ulmer 2001). Working well involves managing conflict effectively, striving for equality as best as possible in the relationship, negotiating the ups and downs of relationships, as well as effective listening. To have positive stakeholder relationships, organizations must take a long-term approach that focuses on developing a reservoir of good will over time. No relationship is perfect. However, those relationships that are successful are willing to invest in and support the relationship over time. Provisional communication is responding authentically and realistically to a crisis. Provisional communication is often contrasted with strategic communication, which is often viewed as inauthentic or manipulative. Strategic communication is often synonymous with the term “spin”. Provisional communication is often established over time concurrently with the development of a leader’s character. As a result, the leader’s post crisis communication is natural and instinctive. This type of communication also represents an accurate picture of the crisis and its inherent uncertainty. In this case, the leader is authentic in representing key information following a crisis. Central to this approach is when the leader engages in the philosophy of significant choice. Significant choice Significant choice involves creating communication that enables rational choices by the receiver (Nilsen 1974). Crisis communication that is clear and unbiased, open, and accessible is viewed as meeting the standards of significant choice. Conversely, strategic communication, misleading information, or communication that is over reassuring is not. Ultimately, meeting the standard of significant choice involves letting people know what you know, what you do not know, and what you will do to find out the information you do not currently have (Ulmer, Sellnow and Seeger 2019). In this case, the crisis communicator does not need to have perfect information about the event. Rather, he/she needs to accurately represent the uncertainty of the event and provide an honest account of the context surrounding the crisis. Building upon learning and ethical communication is the importance of crisis leadership to provide a prospective vision for resolving the crisis. Prospective rather than retrospective vision Prospective vision is an accumulation of the categories of learning and ethical communication. Prospective vision is forward-looking communication that includes what the organization has learned through the crisis, it emphasizes ethical communica-



Discourse of renewal 

 169

tion, and the communication has an optimistic quality. All of these characteristics of a prospective vision emphasize the new sense of direction and purpose that developed through the crisis. This new purpose and direction is constituted in its crisis communication. The crisis communication is often characterized by enthusiasm and hopefulness that serve to frame the crisis for those most impacted by the event. For this reason, prospective vision is closely connected to effective organizational rhetoric (Ulmer, Seeger and Sellnow 2007). Effective organizational rhetoric Effective organizational rhetoric involves crisis communication that helps the audience better make sense of the crisis. Most often the organizational rhetoric involves leadership communicating a compelling story of the events that help stakeholders move toward renewal (Seeger and Sellnow 2016). Much of organizational rhetoric involves inspiring the audience to move beyond the crisis. This communication may involve what was learned through the crisis, what values and direction guide the organization moving forward, and what the crisis means moving forward. This type of communication often necessitates a leader that can tell a compelling story about the events and what these events mean for the organization, its industry, and the community in which it operates. In terms of renewal, the communication very directly focuses on structuring reality for the audience and provides direction for the future of the organization (Ulmer, Seeger and Sellnow 2007).

4 Theory development and the discourse of renewal The initial development of the discourse of renewal began with an examination of the opportunities associated with systems experiencing a crisis. At the time, crisis communication research examined almost exclusively crisis from a threat perspective (Ulmer 2012). Discourse of renewal theory expanded definitions of crises to include opportunity alongside threat. This addition created a whole area of inquiry that did not exist before. It is also an area that has much room to investigate. This is a serious contribution to the field of crisis communication. One could imagine that more theories will populate this area in years to come. Beyond the definitional focus, the theory of the discourse of renewal, in its current form, has been applied to many different crisis contexts. Pyle, Fuller and Ulmer (in press) reviewed areas of application for the discourse of renewal. These areas include: Product failures, natural disasters, political crises, mass shootings, terrorism and war, underrepresented stakeholders and lingering crises, social media crises, international crises, and beyond. Although the theory has not grown through extension (the addition of concepts) or intension (through further development of any one of the current 4 concepts). Although many of the research articles discuss failures and successes in

170 

 Robert R. Ulmer and Timothy L. Sellnow

creating renewal, few articles have further developed the current theory. Two articles, one by Manzie (2018) and another by Reierson and Littlefield (2012) offer suggestions for renewal research to be more applicable to community settings. More recently, Fuller, Ulmer, McNatt and Ruiz (in press) developed a valid readiness for renewal survey instrument that enables more quantitative examination of an organization’s preparedness to generate a renewing response to a crisis. Similarly, Xu (2018), developed a reliable survey to assess post crisis discourse of renewal. The tool examines the impact of the discourse of renewal on organization/public relationships. The study found that the discourse of renewal has a positive impact on trust, satisfaction, and organizational commitment. As a result, recently the discourse of renewal theory has added two survey instruments to better understand an organization’s pre-crisis readiness for renewal and the impact of its post crisis discourse of renewal efforts. Over the past 20 years, the discourse of renewal theory has been through tremendous transformation. The initial theory began with the idea that threat and image repair was not the sole communication path following a crisis. This early research sought to expand the definition of crisis to include opportunity in the definition. Subsequent research developed the four key components of renewal. These components include: learning, ethical communication, prospective vision, and effective organizational rhetoric. Much of the research following the development of the theory in its current form focuses on applications in a wide variety of contexts. This is common with relatively new theories. At this time, theory building focuses on the validity and reliability of the theory in a wide variety of contexts. Through this process, there has been strong support for both the internal and external constructs of the theory. Beyond this experimentation, new survey instruments have been developed to test an organization’s readiness for renewal and post crisis discourse of renewal impact. These new instruments will do much to build the Discourse of Renewal theory and better understand the practical nature of the theory. What follows is a more complete discussion of the practical impact of the Discourse of Renewal.

5 Methodology or philosophy of science The discourse of renewal’s focus on discovering opportunities for positive change is a notable departure from much of the research in crisis communication. This novel perspective is based on two foundational principles. The first such foundational principle for a discourse of renewal is that crises serve an epistemic function. As such, crises reveal failures in even the most cautious and well-meaning organizations. Crises make failures known and thereby create a publicly visible exigence requiring a response to these failures (Ulmer, Sellnow and Seeger 2019). Certainly, organizations can and often do identify and respond to minor failures without experiencing either a crises



Discourse of renewal 

 171

or renewal. The philosophical assumptions of renewal discourse are rooted in those failures that are unintentionally overlooked and eventually advance into full-blown crises. Attending to smaller failures, although critically important to the success of organizations in both the long and short term, is not within the purview of a discourse of renewal. For renewal to occur, the organization’s stature or ability to survive must be threatened in a highly public setting. This distinction also separates a discourse of renewal from other forms of organizational change (Seeger, Ulmer, Novak and Sellnow 2005). Organizational success is, in most cases, dependent on the organization’s capacity for recognizing changes in its environment and adapting to the evolving needs or desires of its stakeholders. Many theories exist for chronicling and predicting the success or failure of such organizational change. Contrastingly, the need for organizational change in crisis situations is immediate, highly publicized, and imperative to the continuation of the organization. Crises may not reveal the advisable recalculations needed by an organization in absolute terms. They do, however, reveal the absolute need to respond and to respond publicly. Second, this process of discovery through crisis is based further on the foundational principle that actors can intentionally alter their surroundings through their actions and that these actions are justified through discourse. From this perspective, renewal discourse is based in developing and sharing widely the good reasons for prospective change. This practical reasoning is stimulated by crises. Lessons are learned and visons for improvement are explained and justified by organizations through discourse. The objective of this discourse is to convince stakeholders both within and outside the organization that: 1) change is needed; 2) the proposed changes are for the good of all stakeholders; and 3) the proposed changes will indeed create the desired results. This reasoning process does not follow a pattern of formal logic. Rather a discourse of renewal features practical explanations of good reasons why the renewal efforts are worthwhile. The merits of these arguments are evaluated by publics whose attention is highly aroused during and after crises (Ulmer and Sellnow 2002). As the principles outlined above explain, the pragmatic nature of renewal discourse makes the study of the actual arguments generated by organizations in their renewal efforts the central focus of study. Consequently, much of the research applying this theory has focused on case study analysis. The case study method allows researchers to capture the discourse generated by organizations and review it according to the criteria required for renewal, namely: prospective vision, organizational learning, ethics, and visionary leadership. Case studies ask such questions as, how did the organization seek to generate a prospective vision? Did the organization provide reasonable solutions for correcting its previous failures? Was the organization able to reflect on a code of ethics that, if amplified further, will embolden the organization to avoid similar crises in the future. Does the organization’s leader command the resources and credibility necessary to complete the promised changes? The macroscopic lens provided by case studies can provide detailed answers to these questions by studying an organization’s renewal efforts and the constraints created by the crisis

172 

 Robert R. Ulmer and Timothy L. Sellnow

for months or even years. Renewal efforts often take considerable time to complete. In some cases, communities must be rebuilt. In other instances, credibility must be re-established by following through on pledges for corrective action and compensation (Reierson, Sellnow and Ulmer 2009). The case study framework allows researchers to embrace the full context of the crisis, including the potentially competing opportunities and constraints (Ulmer and Sellnow 2002). From this perspective, scholars have completed case studies focusing on the renewal efforts of organizations representing a broad spectrum of categories. The renewal discourse shared by organizations from the food, energy, service, and construction sectors, for example, have all been studied using case study methods. Government agencies and communities responding to natural disasters with a discourse of renewal have also been the focus of case study research. This research has helped to distill and refine the expectations for successful organizational renewal. More recently, scholars have expanded the methods used for studying organizational renewal to include survey and experimental design. Survey work has generated empirical measures for determining the degree to which specific audiences respond favorably or unfavorably to renewal messages. Survey data, for example, can assess the degree to which communities impacted by crises share the optimistic or prospective vision for healing generated by agency and organizational spokespersons. In addition, early efforts to create simulations and treatment conditions for experiments testing the assumptions of renewal discourse are also underway. The evolution of these research approaches will likely contribute to the further development of the theory. Thus, they should be encouraged.

6 Discourse of renewal and the practice of crisis communication The discourse of renewal expands or contributes to the study of crisis communication by transcending reputation. Certainly, organizations manifesting renewal experience a greater likelihood that their reputation will recover from the crises they face. The focus on renewal, however, prioritizes function over form. In other words, the organization’s main focus in the renewal process is on establishing the groundwork for performing its function in a safer, more socially-responsible manner after a crisis. Attention to reputation, then, is subjugated by the earnest resolve to improve the organization’s safety, stability, and responsibility to stakeholders. This transcendent focus is evident in the optimism, ethics, learning, and leadership shown by organizations. The forward-looking optimism inherent in a discourse of renewal provides a notable departure from much of the crisis communication literature. A discourse of renewal does not deny the potential importance of post-crisis litigation. Rather, the renewal perspective accentuates optimism. Beyond, or perhaps in spite of, whatever



Discourse of renewal 

 173

litigation occurs after the crisis, organizations engaged in a discourse of renewal focus their communication on rebuilding, recreating, or advancing the organization post-crisis. Information is gathered, distributed, and retained primarily for purposes of improvement, rather to build a defense against potential financial losses related to the crisis. The discourse of renewal further expands the study of crisis communication by linking the virtuosity of organizations to their ethics. The ethics at the core of an organization’s mission and culture provide a blueprint for recognizing failure and rebuilding trust both internally and externally. Renewal is based on an organization’s capacity to recognize any failings in its ethical focus and for making a return to or re-emphasis of those ethics paramount through all phases of the post-crisis recovery. In this case, a central core of ethics establishes the intentions of the organization. For example, the well-being of the communities in which the organizations operate and dependable service to their customers or stakeholders are often foremost in such ethical cores. Conversely, organizations without a commitment to a central core of ethical practices often show little appreciation for the wellbeing of their stakeholders in normal operations. When crises occur, these callous organizations have a much more difficulty time credibly establishing a course for renewal. Conversely, organizations that are consistently considerate of the ethics at their core have an innate capacity for rediscovering and enacting the virtuous path they had intended all along. Thus, the discourse of renewal sees ethics as vital in all crisis stages. Specifically, ethical lapses may contribute to pre-crisis failures and crises reveal such lapses. A recommitment to the organization’s core ethics in the post-crisis phase contributes to the organizations new-found resilience in the new pre-crisis stage (Ulmer, Seeger and Sellnow 2007). Learning is inevitable following crises. A discourse of renewal refines advances such learning to include accountability. Failures known or unknown previously are exposed, often tragically, in the wake of crises. Addressing these failures by taking corrective action, assigning blame to others, minimizing perceptions of the crisis, denial of responsibility and other strategies for image repair are secondary or void entirely in the crisis communication featuring a discourse of renewal. Instead, renewal leadership is transformational. Leaders openly commit their organizations to positive change. This highly visible commitment invites stakeholders, internal and external, to hold the leader and the organization accountable for enacting the changes promised by the leader. Efforts focused on reputation do not necessary expose organizations to such demands for accountability (Sellnow, Iverson and Sellnow 2017). The discourse of renewal also expands our understanding of leadership in crisis communication. The discourse of renewal requires a highly visible leader with an unwavering commitment to change. Organizational renewal cannot occur without transformational leadership that endures through all stages of the crisis, including a return to pre-crisis. Other organizational spokespersons are likely to share the post-crisis spotlight in explaining technical matters related to the recovery or logistics

174 

 Robert R. Ulmer and Timothy L. Sellnow

for assisting those in need of restitution. The organization’s primary leader, however, remains the principal voice of renewal. This leader’s rhetoric creates a mantra of organizational transformation. The discourse of renewal kindles a novel perspective on crisis leadership by seeing individual leaders as central and indeed crucial for inspiring organizational transformation (Ulmer, Sellnow and Seeger 2019).

7 Summary This chapter examined the development of the discourse of renewal theory. Over the past twenty years, the theory has developed significantly. Initial conceptualizations of the theory focused on the inherent opportunities associated with crises. Subsequent theory development focused on creating the four conditions of the discourse of renewal: learning, ethical communication, prospective vision, and organizational rhetoric. Current studies investigate the application of the theory in a wide variety of contexts. Furthermore, survey instruments have recently been developed to assess an organization’s readiness for renewal as well as the impact of the discourse of renewal on the audience. Overall, the theory is still in its infancy. However, the impact of it on crisis communication has been significant. The theory has impacted the definition of crisis communication, the philosophy of science, the practice of crisis communication, and the approach to its study. Future research should continue to assess its applicability in a wide variety of contexts, utilize the new quantitative measures to assess an organization’s or community’s readiness for renewal of post crisis renewal impact. Future research should also determine the longitudinal impact of renewal on an organization or community.

References Fuller, R. P., R. R. Ulmer, A. B. McNatt and J. B. Ruiz. 2019. Extending Discourse of Renewal to preparedness: Construct and scale development of readiness for renewal. Management Communication Quarterly 33(2). 272–301. Manzie, V. D. 2018. Applying the rhetoric of renewal model in a contemporary African context: Lessons learned from the Royal Dutch Shell oil crisis in Nigeria. Journal of International Crisis and Risk Communication Research 1(2). 201–224. Nilsen, T. R. 1974. Ethics of Speech Communication. 2nd edn. Indianapolis. Bobbs-Merrill Company. Pyle, A., R. P. Fuller and R. R. Ulmer. 2020. Discourse of renewal: State of the discipline and vision for the future. In H. D. O’Hair and M. J. O’Hair (eds.). Handbook of Applied Communication. New York: Routledge. Reierson, J. L., and R. Littlefield. 2012. History, healing, and hope: Reconceptualizing crisis renewal theory by developing a model for marginalized communities. Review of European Studies 4(4). 29–44.



Discourse of renewal 

 175

Reierson, J. L., T. L. Sellnow and R. R. Ulmer. 2009. Complexities of crisis renewal over time. Learning from the case of tainted Odwalla apple juice. Communication Studies 60. 114–129. Seeger, M. W., and T. L. Sellnow. 2016. Narratives of crisis: Telling stories of ruin and renewal. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press. Seeger, M. W., R. R. Ulmer, J. M. Novak and T. L. Sellnow. 2005. Post-crisis discourse and organizational change, failure and renewal. Journal of Organizational Change Management 18. 78–95. Sellnow, D. D., J. O. Iverson and T. L. Sellnow. 2017. The evolution of the Operational Earthquake Forecasting (OEF) community of practice: The L’Aquila communication crisis as a triggering event for organizational renewal. Journal of Applied Communication Research 45. 121–139. Ulmer, R. R. 1998. Ethical responses to organizational crisis: Lessons from three successful cases. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI. Ulmer, R. R. 2012. Increasing the impact of thought leadership in crisis communication. Management Communication Quarterly 26(4). 523–542. Ulmer, R. R., T. L. Sellnow and M. W. Seeger. 2009. Post-crisis communication and renewal: Understanding the potential positive outcomes in crisis communication. In R. Heath and H. D. O’Hair (eds.). Handbook of Risk and Crisis Communication, 304–324. New York, NY: Routledge. Ulmer, R. R., T. L. Sellnow and M. W. Seeger. 2019. Effective Crisis Communication: Moving from Crisis to Opportunity. 4th edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Xu, S. 2018. Discourse of renewal: Developing multiple-item measurement and analyzing effects on relationships. Public Relations Review 44(1). 108–119.

Finn Frandsen

8 Making sense of crisis sensemaking theory: Weick’s contributions to the study of crisis communication Abstract: American organizational psychologist Karl E. Weick has made important contributions to the field of organizational crisis management and crisis communication. It is therefore difficult not to be surprised when you discover that nobody, so far, has provided us with a systematic investigation of how crisis sensemaking has emerged and developed over time as a specialized form of sensemaking. The aim of this chapter is to fill out this gap. We follow Weick’s work from the early 1960  s to the mid-2010  s, that is, from his PhD dissertation on the reduction of cognitive dissonance to his study of collective mindfulness in high reliability organizations, focusing on those publications in which organizational crises, crisis management and crisis communication have been thematized most strongly as research topics. The chapter concludes with a comparison of conventional crisis management theory and crisis sensemaking theory, including a few criticisms and suggestions for further development. Keywords: anticipation, cosmology episode, crisis management plan, crisis sensemaking, enactment, high reliability organization, mindfulness, post-decision behavior, resilience

1 Introduction In the field of crisis communication, like in many other fields of study, we are able to identify a dominant academic canon. It covers the essential readings that everybody ought to know regardless of their area of focus and approach. Since the mid-1990  s, the core of this canon has been occupied by two important crisis communication theories: image repair theory and situational crisis communication theory (Avery, Lariscy, Kim and Hocke 2010). Outside this core, we find theories that for various reasons do not enjoy the same popularity. One of these theories is the theory of crisis sensemaking. Despite the fact that the term sensemaking has been around for some time, the name of American organizational psychologist Karl E. Weick (born 1936), who is the originator of crisis sensemaking theory, does not always appear on the reading lists of current courses on crisis communication. Why not? While sensemaking as such has become a frequently used term within the broader communication discipline, this is far from being the case in the literature on crisis communication. Admittedly, many are the crisis communication scholars who refer to Weick and his theory, but only few https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-008

178 

 Finn Frandsen

of them have taken up the challenge of implementing the sensemaking perspective in their work. Seeger, Sellnow, and Ulmer (1998; 2003), Sellnow and Seeger (2013) and Seeger and Sellnow (2016) are the exceptions that confirm this rule. Weick’s absence from the academic canon in crisis communication can be explained differently. First, we can observe that crisis communication to a large extent has developed as a subdiscipline under the auspices of public relations. Viewed from a public relations perspective, Weick is first and foremost an organizational scholar, and his work is therefore mostly of interest to crisis management researchers. The distance between the study of crisis sensemaking and the study of crisis response strategies (denials, justifications, excuses, apologies, etc.), which is by far the most popular approach in the field of crisis communication (see Chapter 3 in this handbook), is simply so big that the two approaches seem to be incompatible. The collection of major works on crisis management in Boin (2008) and the corresponding collection of major works on crisis communication in Coombs (2014) support this explanation. Boin’s selection includes three of Weick’s most important publications while Weick is not represented in Coombs’ selection. Second, Weick has never defined himself as a crisis communication researcher. His field of study is sensemaking. He only studies organizational crises because the sensemaking process is more demanding under crisis conditions and therefore also of greater interest. Nevertheless, Weick’s approach to crisis sensemaking, his definition of organizational crisis as a cosmology episode, his persistent attempts to demonstrate how we can learn from high reliability organizations and transform these lessons into mindful crisis management, not to forget his case studies, all these aspects place him at the intersection of many important debates in the field of crisis management and crisis communication. In this chapter, we introduce the reader to the crisis sensemaking tradition focusing on Weick’s contributions to this tradition. The overall aim is to follow how his thinking about crises and crisis management in organizations has developed since 1962. The chapter is structured in six sections. The first section offers a brief overview of research in organizational sensemaking including some reflections about how we can define crisis in sensemaking terms. The second section provides an introduction to the theory of retrospective sensemaking in general. This introduction will serve as the theoretical background for the remainder of the chapter. The third section covers Weick’s early writings, first of all The Social Psychology of Organizing, which was published for the first time in 1969, and then again in 1979. As we shall see, the concept of crisis is almost absent in both editions. The fourth section is devoted to the late 1980  s and the early 1990  s where Weick investigates two disasters to demonstrate how the practice of crisis management sometimes leads to a worsening of the crisis. In the fifth section, we look at how Weick works with the categories of the expected and the unexpected in some of his more recent publications, first and foremost in the book entitled Managing the Unexpected. This book, perhaps one of Weick’s most accessible publications, is inspired by how high reliability organizations (HROs) manage the



Making sense of crisis sensemaking theory 

 179

unexpected. Finally, in the last section, we conclude with a comparison of mainstream crisis communication theory and crisis sensemaking theory.

2 A brief overview of sensemaking research The history of sensemaking research is short, and the history of crisis sensemaking research is even shorter. However, the number of review articles devoted to the sensemaking perspective in general is growing. Among the most important are (in chronological order): Maitlis and Sonenschein (2010), Mills, Thurlow and Mills (2010), Maitlis and Christianson (2014) and Sandberg and Tsoukas (2015). The most recent of these four articles is also the first to introduce us to the criticisms that have been directed at Weick. Review articles about crisis sensemaking are still rare but Maitlis and Sonenschein (2010) and Mallender (2016) desserve to be mentioned. Maitlis and Christianson (2014) wrote that the roots of sensemaking in the organizational literature can be traced back to American pragmatism at the beginning of the twentieth century. However, it is not until the end of the 1960  s that sensemaking becomes a distinct field of study with the publication of Harold Garfinkel’s Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967), and Karl E. Weick’s The Social Psychology of Organizing (1969). These two scholars share a common interest in studying how meaning is constructed by human beings in their attempt not only to understand but also to produce the social order in which they live. In a chapter on risk and crisis sensemaking in The Routledge Companion to Risk, Crisis and Emergency Management, Gephart and Ganzin (2019) compare Garfinkel and Weick’s approaches to risk sensemaking defined as noticing, interpreting end explaining phenomena that people encounter as risks by offering accounts and verbal explanations of events. Garfinkel (1967) is sociological in his approach which is inspired by social phenomenology (Schutz), symbolic interactionism (Mead, Blumer) and linguistics. Weick (1969) is psychological in his approach which is inspired by pragmatism, cognitive dissonance (Festinger) and organization theory. Weick (1995) tells us about his conversations with Garfinkel in the early 1960  s. The context was Garfinkel’s studies of decision making in juries. “What I found intriguing was Garfinkel’s insistence that jurors did not seem to first decide the harm and its extent, and then allocate blame, and then finally choose a remedy. Instead, they first decided a remedy and then decided the “facts”, from among alternative claims, that justified the remedy” (Weick 1995: 10). Garfinkel and Weick are far from being the only scholars who have contributed to the study of sensemaking. Similarly, other researchers, such as Brenda Dervin, Michael Pratt and Dennis Gioia, have contributed to this field of study – either by applying sensemaking theory within another area or by expanding the vocabulary of sensemaking theory with new concepts. Communication scholar Brenda Dervin,

180 

 Finn Frandsen

for example, investigated human information seeking and use based on a sensemaking methodology. Michael Pratt and Dennis Gioia, two management and organization scholars, created new concepts, such as sensebreaking and sensegiving. Sensebreaking is defined as “the destruction or breakdown of meaning” (Pratt 2000: 464). Sensegiving is defined as “the process of attempting to influence the sensemaking and meaning construction of others toward a preferred redefinition of organizational reality” (Gioia and Chittipeddi 1991: 442). Maitlis and Sonenschein (2010) was the first literature review to include a specific section on “Sensemaking in and about crises”. They divided the research on crisis sensemaking into two broad streams: (1) research on sensemaking as it unfolds during the lifecycle of a crisis. In this category we find Weick’s own work, including the studies of the Bhopal disaster (1988), the Tenerife air crash (Weick 1990), the Mann Gulch disaster (Weick 1993), and more recently, the medical disasters of Bristol Royal Infirmary (Weick and Sutcliffe 2003); (2) research on how sense is made of crises after they happen. In this category we also find the studies of public inquiries and hearings (Brown 2000; 2004; Gephart 2007) which have become one of the hall marks of crisis sensemaking research. Across these two streams of research, Maitlis and Sonenschein (2010) identified three common themes. The first theme is about how a person’s positive evaluation of a crisis situation can prevent this person from bracketing contradictory cues. For example, if the members of an organization are confident that everything will take place as planned, they will often not ‘see’ cues that could lead to another conclusion. Kayes’ (2004) study of a mountain climbing disaster on Mount Everest in 1996 where eight people died is a good illustration of how fatal such a ‘misinterpretation’ can be. The second theme is about collective sensemaking in crisis. Finally, the third theme is about how crisis sensemaking is cumulatively influenced by the institutional context of a crisis. Through a review of 147 articles from nine leading journals in the field of management and organization studies, Sandberg and Tsoukas (2015) explored what constitutes the sensemaking perspective in management and organization studies. What makes this review article particularly interesting, is the attempt to identify the areas in which the sensemaking perspective has been applied most frequently. According to Sandberg and Tsoukas, the sensemaking perspective has been most frequently applied in strategy and organizational change (23 percent), organizational identity (8 percent) and organizational learning and knowledge (5 percent). Organizational crises counts for 12 percent.



Making sense of crisis sensemaking theory 

 181

3 Defining crisis sensemaking A handful of management and organization scholars have reviewed the literature on sensemaking. So far, however, almost nobody has made a review devoted exclusively to Weick’s contribution to crisis sensemaking. What is sensemaking? According to Maitlis and Christianson (2014), sensemaking is a process, prompted by violated expectations, that involves attending to and bracketing cues in the environment, creating intersubjective meaning through cycles of interpretation and action, and thereby enacting a more ordered environment from which further cues can be drawn. (Maitlis and Christianson 2014: 67)

This compact definition, where almost each word or expression needs to be explained and made understandable, is based on recurrent themes across other definitions in the literature. Weick’s definition comes close to Maitlis and Christiansson’s (2014) definition, but there are deviations. The process of sensemaking, for example, is not broken down into more specific sequences, which means that the concept of enactment – perhaps the most important concept of them all – remains broad and partially unclear: “enacting a more ordered environment”. Are we dealing with some kind of teleological process? When we refer to crisis sensemaking, and not just sensemaking as such, we are not talking about a different kind of sensemaking (ontologically speaking) but only about something more extreme.

4 Two books in one or one book in two: Weick (1969) and Weick (1979)? The first two books published by Weick are two very different editions of what can be considered the same book (if we have to believe the title page): The Social Psychology of Organizing (1969; 1979). This book can also be read as an intertextual reference to Katz and Kahn’s The Social Psychology of Organizations (1966), which was based on an open systems framework. According to Weick, sensemaking is an ongoing dynamic process divided into sequences or elements of organizing: The first sequence or element is ecological change. Alfred Schutz wrote in The Phenomenology of the Social World (1932) that what is primordially given to the consciousness is an unbroken stream of lived experiences. In this stream of experiences there frequently are changes. These changes provide the enactable environment, “the raw material for sense-making” (Weick 1979: 130). The second sequence or element is enactment. “What is the ‘environment’?”, Weick asks in 1969. His answer to this question is running like a basso ostinato

182 

 Finn Frandsen

throughout his writings. Weick rejects the widespread understanding of the environment as a given to which people react or adapt. Instead he argues that the actions themselves create the environment to which people react or adapt. The third sequence or element is selection. Selection is about reducing equivocality by imposing what Weick calls cause maps, that is, an invention or construction of inner coherence, not a discovery. The fourth sequence or element is retention. Retention is about storing the product of successful sense-making, “Products that we call enacted environments” (Weick 1979: 131) It is important to notice that enactment is not the same as interpretation and that the process from the first sequence to the fourth sequence, from the enactable environment to the enacted environment, is not a process of interpretation. The sensemaking process begins with enactment (action), then follows selection (interpretation). You will have to read carefully, if you want to find explicit references to organizational crises or crisis management in the two editions of The Psychology of Organizing. In the 1969 book, Weick almost turns it into a joke when he argues that some organization theories could be called theories of crisis. “A large number of organization theories could legitimely be relabeled “theories of crises”. Nobody seems to know much about how organizations operate in untroubled times; the day-to-day, routine existence of orgaizations is not given much attention. In the world of the theories, organizations see, to lope along from crisis to crisis, and to do nothing very interesting in between” (Weick 1969: 34). However, if you want to take up the challenge of implementing the sensemaking perspective in your understanding of organizational crises and crisis preparedness, these two books are unavoidable. This applies in particular to the concept of environment and the process from enactable environment to enacted environment.

5 From enactment to cosmology episode: Weick (1988) and Weick (1993) It seems obvious to consider Weick’s article “Enacted sensemaking in crisis situations” (1988) as one of the foundational texts of crisis sensemaking theory. It was originally published in Journal of Management Studies as part of a special issue guest-edited by Paul Shrivastava (see Chapter 2 in this handbook). What is interesting here, is not so much the name of the journal as the title of the special issue and the year of publication. The title of the special issue was Industrial Crisis Management: Learning from Organizational Failure, and the year of publication was 1988, that is, only a year after Industrial Crisis Quarterly had been launched. We are in the early days of crisis management research, where distant place names such as Bhopal and Chernobyl suddenly began circulating in the news media. In 2001, the article was reprinted in Making Sense of the Organization in a slightly different version. The original abstract, for example, was not included in the reprinted version.



Making sense of crisis sensemaking theory 

 183

The Bhopal disaster occurred on the night between December 2 and 3, 1984, at the Union Carbide Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. In 1987, Paul Shrivastava published Bhopal: Anatomy af a Crisis, which is a detailled study of the Bhopal disaster. Today, 35 years after the disaster, it is still considered the world’s worst industrial crisis. The disaster was triggered by a gas leak incident and more than half a million people were exposed to the highly toxic methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas. The official immediate death toll was 2,259. The cause of the disaster still remains under debate. The Indian government and local activists argue that slack management and deferred maintenance created a situation where routine pipe maintenance caused a backflow of water into a MIC tank, triggering the disaster. Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) argues water entered the tank through an act of sabotage. The key concept in Weick (1988) is the concept of enactment, which refers to the socio-psychological phenomenon of someone “predicting” or expecting something, and this “prediction” or expectation comes true simply because one believes it will, and their resulting behaviors align to fulfil those beliefs. In 2010, Journal of Management Studies launched a new series entitled Classic JMS Articles inviting both the original authors and young scholars to revisit these articles. Weick contributed with “Reflections on enacted sensemaking in the Bhopal disaster” (2010), while two upcoming young scholars contributed with “Sensemaking in crisis and change: Inspiration and insights from Weick (1988)” (2010). This cluster of articles published over a period of more than 20 years makes it possible for us to get an idea of how Weick’s understanding of sensemaking has moved away from a narrow focus on cognitive alertness towards a broader focus that not only includes emotions, but also his new academic pastime: high reliability organizations (to which we shall return later in this chapter). Today, three decades later, Weick’s concept of enactment is still relevant. Galina L. Rogova is an expert on information fusion or the computer-based combination of multiple data streams into actionable knowledge in order to maintain a timely situation assessment. She emphasizes the importance of context: Context plays an important role in crisis management since it provides decision makers with important knowledge about current situations and situation dynamics in relation to their goals, functions, and information needs, to enable them to appropriately adapt their decisions and actions. Efficient context exploitation for crisis management requires a clear understanding of what context is, how to represent it and use it. (Rogova 2016)

There is only one problem: What characterizes a clear understanding of context? Five years after the publication of Weick (1988), Weick published another foundational article: “The collapse of sensemaking in organizations: The Mann Gulch disaster”. It was originally published in Administrative Science Quarterly, but has later been reprinted in Weick (2001).

184 

 Finn Frandsen

The Mann Gulch disaster occurred on August 5, 1949, in a gulch located along the Missouri River in what is today known as the Gates of the Mountains Wilderness in the state of Montana. A team of 15 so-called smokejumpers parachuted into the area to fight the fire and met with a former smokejumper who was employed as a fire guard at the nearby campground. As the team approached the fire to begin fighting it, unexpected high winds caused the fire to suddenly expand, cutting off the men’s route and forcing them back uphill. During the next few minutes, a “blow-up” of the fire covered 1,200 ha in ten minutes, claiming the lives of 13 firefighters, including 12 of the smokejumpers. Only three of the original team of smokejumpers survived. The data Weick used for his case study were seen as unusual. English professor and author Norman Maclean (1902–1990) researched the fire and its behavior for his book, Young Men and Fire (1992), which was published after his death. Maclean recounted the events of the fire and ensuing tragedy and undertook a detailed investigation of the fire’s causes. If the concept of enactment was the key concept in Weick (1988), then the key concept in Weick (1993) was the concept of cosmology episode. Weick defined a crisis as a cosmology episode: A cosmology episode occurs when people suddenly and deeply feel that the universe is no longer a rational, orderly system. What makes such an episode so shattering is that both the sense of what is occurring and the means to rebuild that sense collapse together. (Weick 1993: 633)

Weick’s definition of crisis as a cosmology episode has attracted much scholarly attention. However, as we shall see later, Weick has in fact not devoted much time and reflection to this. The last part of Weick’s article is devoted to a study of organizational resilience:

6 Properties of crisis sensemaking: Weick (1995) Sensemaking in Organizations (1995) is one of Weick’s most important books. In this book, he elaborates on the definition of retrospective sensemaking: “Sensemaking is understood as a process that is (1) grounded in identity construction, (2) retrospective, (3) enactive of sensible environments, (4) social, (5) ongoing, (6) focused on and by extracted cues, (7) driven by plausability rather than accuracy” (Weick 1995: 17). What is perhaps more important is that organizational crises and crisis management now appear as a strong and explicit research topic. The period from 1993 to 2005, from the article on the Mann Gulch disaster to the list of properties of (crisis) sensemaking, is very productive.



Making sense of crisis sensemaking theory 

 185

7 Managing the unexpected: Weick (2001, 2007, 2015) The category of the unexpected has always attracted Karl E. Weick, and this to such an extent that his theory of retrospective sensemaking sometimes looks more like a theory of the unexpected than like a theory of crisis. Of all his books, the one in which his interest in the unexpected is most evident is the book entitled Managing the Unexpected that Weick has co-authored with Kathleen Sutcliffe in 2001. This book has been revised and updated twice, in 2007 and in 2015. The conceptual framework remains the same, but the case studies vary from edition to edition. At the beginning of Managing the Unexpected (2001), Weick and Sutcliffe emphasize that the unexpected does not necessarily have to be a crisis: The unexpected does not take the form of a major crisis. Instead it is triggered by a deceptively simple sequence in organizational life: A person or unit has an intention, takes action, misunderstands the world, actual events fail to coincide with the intended sequence; and there is an unexpected outcome. People dislike unexpected outcomes and surprises. Because of that, they sometimes make situations worse. That’s the tragedy that motives this book. (Weick and Sutcliffe 2001: 2)

In their study of how organizations can manage the unexpected, Weick and Sutcliffe are inspired by two streams of research in social psychology and organizational behavior. The first stream is the theory of mindfulness, a theory developed by Ellen Langer, professor of psychology at Harvard University, author of Mindfulness (1989) and originator of the Langer Mindfulnesss Scale (LMS14). In a review article, Langer and Moldoveanu (2002) argue that mindfulness can best be understood as a process of drawing novel distinctions. This process can lead to a number of consequences, i­ncluding (1) a greater sensitivity to one’s environment, (2) more openness to new information, (3) the creation of new categories for structuring perception, and (4) enhanced awareness of multiple perspectives in problem solving. Weick and Sutcliffe use the word updating (Weick and Sutcliffe 2001: 44). The growing popularity of mindfulness has also led to a critique of foundational mindfulness research. However, Weick and Sutcliffe maintain that “mindfulness matters” (for an overview of the literature on collective mindfulness, see Kathleen M. Sutcliffe, Timothy J. Vogus and Eric Dane’s article “Mindfulness in organizations: A cross-level review 2016). The second stream of research is the study of the so-called high reliability organizations (HRO). The concept of HRO was originally coined by Karlene Roberts and her colleagues Gene Rochlin and Todd LaPorte at Berkeley in the late 1980  s and early 1990  s. It refers to organizations that have succeeded in avoiding disasters in an environment where the risk of an accident is high: an aircraft carrier, an air traffic control facility, and a nuclear power plant, wildland firefighters, and emergency medical treatment (see, for example, Roberts 1989, 1990). High Reliability Theory (HRT) has been part of

186 

 Finn Frandsen

a longstanding debate with Natural Accident Theory (NAT) (for an overview, see, for example, Shrivastava, Sonpar and Pazzaglia 2009). They have not yet intervened in this debate. Weick and Sutcliffe describe the approach of HROs as mindful, that is, an approach that is characterized by “continuous updating and deepening of increasingly plausible interpretations of what the context is, what problems define it, and what remedies it contains” (Weick and Sutcliffe 2001: 3). According to Weick and Sutcliffe, the management of the unexpected in high reliability organizations is based on five principles: Principle 1: HROs are preoccupied with failure High reliability organizations treat any lapse as a symptom that something may be wrong with the system. They encourage reporting of errors (incident review) and learn from near misses when ever possible. They create a mindful infrastructure that continually tracks failures. This principle is opposed to the leadership style where failure is attributed to external factors that are outside the control of the leader, whereas success is attributed to the leader. Under this first principle, Weick and Sutcliffe mention the opportunity to “speak up and be listened to” (Weick and Sutcliffe 2015:7), but without referring to the research on organizational voice and silence that has investigated the conditions for upward negative internal communication in organizations (see, for example, Detert and Edmonson 2011, Prouska and Psychogios 2018). Weick and Sutcliffe also claim that “people who refuse to speak up out of fear enact a system that knows less than it needs to know to remain effective” (Weick and Sutcliffe 2001: 13). Principle 2: HROs are reluctant to accept simplifications This principle seems to be opposed to conventional wisdom that if you want to stay focused on a small number of issues, it is better to simplify. “Keep it simple, stupid” as stated by an American proverb. However, it is also true that people who have more complex sets of expectations (complicated mental models), experience fewer unexpected events. Principle 3: HROs are sensitive to operations This is an area where HROs distinguish themselves by paying attention to the front line, or as Weick and Sutcliffe put it, where “the real work gets done”. They listen to the people who are doing the actual job. Under this third principle, Weick and Sutcliffe talk about “listening”, but again without referring to the research on organizational listening. (see, for example, Lewis 2019). Principle 4: HROs are committed to resilience They believe that even if the existing practice may collapse, the organization is able to bounce back and handle unexpected situation. It is here important to emphasize



Making sense of crisis sensemaking theory 

 187

that Weick and Sutcliffe see the five principles as distributed across the two positions in the debate on anticipation versus resilience. They cite Wildavsky (1991) og hans definition of anticipation “sinking resources into specific defenses against particular anticipated risks” (Wildavsky (1991: 220), and resilience “retaining resources in a form suffiently flexible – storable, convertible, malleable – to cope with whatever unanticipated harms might emerge” (Wildavsky 1991: 220). Principle 5: HROs are deferent to expertise Expertise, rather than authority, takes precedence in an High Reliability Organization. When conditions are high-risk, and circumstances change rapidly, on-the-ground subject matter experts are essential for urgent situational assessment and response. In order to defer to expertise, leaders must know who in the organization has what specialized knowledge. They also must be in the business of creating experts and helping adept employees keep their skills sharp and up to date. Taken together, Weick and Sutciffe claim, these five processes produce a collective state of mindfulness.

8 Criticisms In their comprehensive review article, Sandberg and Tsoukas (2015) emphasize how influential Karl E. Weick’s work has been and still is within the field of organization studies. Sandberg and Tsoukas also briefly discuss why so little scholarly critique has been directed to the sensemaking perspective. However, this topc is not re-addressed until later in the chapter. To what extent does this critique also apply to Weick’s contribution to the study of crisis management and crisis communiucation? According to Sandberg and Tsoukas (2015), it is possible to identify five criticisms: (1) the sensemaking perspective only enables the study of retrospective sensemaking at the expense of studying prospective sensemaking. But how can we then explain that our actions are guided by future-oriented thoughts like in crisis managements plans (CMPs)? The explanation is a Schutz/Weick classic: “when one thinks about the future, this thinking is not done in the future tense, but rather in the future perfect tense” (Weick 1969: 65); (2) Weick’s concept of process is too vague; (3) Weick’s concept of sense is not developed sufficiently; (4) Weick neglects the role of larger social, historical and institutional contexts in which sensemaking occurs. This criticism has been put forward by Weber and Glynn (2006) and concerns the relationship between sensemaking theory and neo-institutional theory (see Chapter 2 in this handbook). However, this neglect is not only about studying sensemaking at a micro-level versus a macro-level. It is also a question of differences between theoretical frameworks; (5) reality is reduced to subjective understanding.

188 

 Finn Frandsen

9 Weick’s contributions to the study of crisis ­management and crisis communication We opened this chapter by stating that Weick has made original contributions to the development of organizational crisis management and crisis communication as a field of study. It is time to bring up the question: in what exactly consists this acclaimed originality? Is it the people he is inspired by: Alfred Schutz, John Dewey, William James, etc.? Is it his interpretation of social constructivism and pragmatism? Is it his preferred field of study: for example, strategy and change? Is it the ideas he has developed himself: for example, organizing and sensemaking? It could be the people who read and follow him? Or is it his approach and way of thinking, his idea of theory construction as disciplinary imagination. “Theorists often write trivial theories because their process of theory construction is hemmed in by methodological structures that favor validation rather than usefulness. (Lindblom 1987). Too much validation takes away the value of imagination and selection in the process” (Weick 1989). In this chapter devoted to crisis sensemaking theory, we will make an attempt to put together the key elements in Weick’s understanding of crisis and crisis management and to compare his approach with a more conventional approach in crisis management. By conventional, we refer to the strategic, proactive and process-oriented approach based on three stages: a pre-crisis stage, a crisis stage and a post-crisis stage.

9.1 Defining crisis As pointed out earlier in this chapter, Weick (1993: 633) defined crisis as a cosmology episode: “A cosmology episode occurs when people suddenly and deeply feel that the universe is no longer a rational, orderly system. What makes such an episode so shattering is that both the sense of what is occurring and the means to rebuild that sense collapse together.” Almost ten years before, Weick (1985) had defined a cosmology episode as a “sudden loss of meaning”. Sense and meaning are at the heart of these definitions. Only Ian I. Mitroff has established a similar definition. Weick’s concept of cosmology episode has been re-interpreted by other scholars. Orton and O’Grady (2016), for example, conducted a qualitative meta-analysis of 164 citations of cosmology episode. They came up with three interesting findings: (1) the literature has moved towards the study of cosmology episodes at multiple levels: individual, team, organization, community and national cosmology episodes; (2) the literature has moved towards the study of cosmology episodes as resilience processes (anticipating, sense-losing, improvising, sense-remaking; and renewing); (3) the literature on cosmology episodes has diversified toward five distinct types: catastrophic, disastrous, contextualizing, ancillary and metaphorical. Taken together, these three findings represent a reconceptualization of the concept of cosmology episode.



Making sense of crisis sensemaking theory 

 189

Roux-Dufort (2007) has complemented Weick’s definition with another perspective from which crises are seen, not only as a loss of meaning, but also as an overflow of meaning: “In a situation of crisis it is not so much the loss of meaning that overwhelms the leaders, but rather the wave of meaning that cannot be processed through the traditional frameworks of interpretation” (Roux-Dufort 2007: 111). Roux-Dufort calls this a surge of meaning.

9.2 Defining crisis management Weick does not see himself as a spcialist in organizational crises and therefore he is only preoccupied with a small part of the conventional terminological repertoire of crisis management. He talks about crises, including specific crisis definitions such as the definition in Pearson and Clair (1998), but at the same time he establishes his own crisis definition. Decision making. Academics as well as practitioners often assume that management is about making the right decisions. Nonetheless, research from Herbert Simon and the Carnegie school to Gary Klein and the naturalistic decision making framework has revealed that people are often systematically irrational in their decision making processes. Instead of examining many, if not all the options and their consequences, they often examine only one. They assess the consequences in misleading ways, and, once the decisions are taken, they do not act according to these decisions (Brunson 2007). In addition to this there are certain constraints gathered under the names of bounded rationality and bounded awareness (James and Wooten 2010). According to Weick, it is more important in a crisis situation to make sense than it is to make decisions. “Decision making is such a dominant image of what managers do. Analysts pay more attention to what managers choose given whatever information they have than to the sense they make of what they have and how it constrains what they choose” (Weick 1995: 185). In his PhD dissertation from 1962 which is strongly influenced by Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance, Weick introduces the concept of post-decision. Crisis Management Plan. All three editions of Managing the Unexpected have a chapter on the expected and the unexpected. In these chapters we find definitions of both the expected and the unexpected, but it is only in the 2001 edition that the chapter on the (un)expected is followed by a chapter on “A closer look at process and why planning can make things worse”. “Plans can do just the opposite of what is intented, creating mindlessness instead of mindful anticipation of the unexpected”. Mindfulness and high reliability organizations. Weick’s re-interpretation af Roberts’ concept of high reliability organization and Langer’s concept of mindfulness and – defined as an ungoing ‘updating’ and as management of the unexpected – is the closest we get to an overall framework in crisis sensemaking.

190 

 Finn Frandsen

9.3 Enactment Enactment is the key concept of all key concepts in Weick’s theory of retrospective sensemaking in general, and his theory of crisis sensemaking in particular. “What is the ‘environment’?”, Weick already asked in 1969. His answer to this question is running like a basso ostinato throughout his writings, but before we present Weick’s answer to his own question, we better take a look at how environment, context and situation are conceptualized in mainstream crisis management and crisis communication. In conventional crisis management, what we call environment, context or situation is conceptualized as something “out there” that we have to monitor carefully because it is often from this “out there” that crises arrive. This is probably the reason why concepts such as situational awareness or situational asessment have become so popular. The new information and communication technology (ICT) only strengthen this idea of the “out there”. Galina L. Rogova is an expert on information fusion, that is, the computer-based combination of multiple data streams into actionable knowledge in order to maintain a timely situation assessment. She emphasizes the importance of context: Context plays an important role in crisis management since it provides decision makers with important knowledge about current situations and situation dynamics in relation to their goals, functions, and information needs, to enable them to appropriately adapt their decisions and actions. Efficient context exploitation for crisis management requires a clear understanding of what context is, how to represent it and use it. (Rogova 2016).

There is only one problem: What characterizes a clear understanding of context? Weick rejects the widespread understanding of the environment as a given to which people react or adapt. Instead he argues that the actions themselves create the environment to which they react or adapt. Sensemaking in crisis conditions is made more difficult because action that is instrumental to understanding the crisis often intensifies the crisis. This dilemma is interpreted from the perspective that people enact the environments which constrain them. It is argued that commitment, capacity, and expectations affect sensemaking during crisis and the severity of the crisis itself. It is proposed that the core concepts of enactment may comprise an ideology that reduces the likelihood of crisis. (Weick 1988: the abstract; this abstract has been left out in the reprinted version in Weick 2001).

If crises in organizations are enacted rather than encountered, as claimed by Maitlis and Sonenshein (2010), it is difficult not to interpret Weick’s understanding of context as a challenge to the context-oriented approaches to crisis communication such as Coombs’ situational crisis communication theory and Cameron’s contingency theory. Although these two theories differ from one another when it comes to the number of situational variables or contingency factors (SCCT is based on one variable, whereas CT is based on 87 factors), they share the same understandig of the “out there”



Making sense of crisis sensemaking theory 

 191

10 Concluding remarks In numerous handbooks and textbooks, Weick is described and categorized as an industrial or organizational psychologist. IO psychology is the study of how individuals and their behavior and interactions serve as building blocks of the various work situations in an organization. IO psychology has first and foremost developed in the United States. The individual is also important to Weick, but today he first and foremost inspires research in organizations, or to be more precise, research in organizing from a process perspective. One of the new trends in sensemaking research is the focus on collective sensemaking. Collective sensemaking is more than just sensemaking in teams and small groups. Collective sensemaking is also sensemaking in large organizations, in inter-organizational relations, and across social and cultural levels in society. We are convinced that when this new trend becomes a more integrated part of the sensemaking literature, this will also have an impact on our understanding of what Weick understand by crisis sensemaking, and how we will contribute to the field in the future.

References Avery, E. J., R. W. Lariscy, S. Kim and T. Hocke. 2010. A quantitative review of crisis communication review in public relations from 1991 to 2009. Public Relations Review 36(2). 190–192. Boin, A. (ed.). 2008. Crisis management I–III. Collection of major works. London: Sage. Brown, a.  D. 2000. Making sense of inquiry sensemaking. Journal of Management Studies 37. 45–75. Brown, a.  D. 2004. Authoritative sensemaking in a public inquiry report. Organization Studies 25(1). 95–112. Brown, a.  D. 2005. Making sense of the collapse of Barings Bank. Human Relations 58. 1579–1604. Brunson, N. 2007. The Consequences of Decision Making. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Coombs, W. T. (ed.). 2014. Crisis communication I–IV. Collection of major works. Los Angeles: Sage. Detert, J. R., and A, Edmonson. 2011. Implicit voice theories: Taken-for-granted rules and self-censorship at work. Academy of Management Journal 54(3). 461–488. Dervin, B. 1998. Sense-making theory and practice: An overview of user interests in knowledge seeking and use. Journal of Knowledge Management 2(2). 36–46. Garfinkel, H. 1967. Studies in Etnomethology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Gephart, R. P. 2007. Crisis sensemaking and the public inquiry. In C. Pearson, C. Roux-Dufort and J. Clair (eds.), International Handbook of Organizational Crisis Management, 123–160. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gephart, R. P., Jr., and M. Ganzin. 2019. Risk sensemaking. In R. P. Gephart, Jr., C. C. Miller and K. Svedberg Helgesson (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Risk, Crisis and Emergency Management, 108–126. New York: Routledge. Gioia, D. A. and K. Chettipeddi. 1991. Sensemaking and sensegiving in strategic change initiation. Strategic Management Journal 12(6). 433–448. Helms Mills, J., A. Thurlow and A. J. Mills. 2010. Making sense of sensemaking. The critical sensemaking approach. Qualitative Research in Organization and Management 5. 182–195.

192 

 Finn Frandsen

James, E. H., and L. P. Wooten. 2010. Leading under Pressure: From Surviving to Tthriving Before, During, and After a Crisis. New York: Routledge. Katz, D., and R. L. Kahn. 1966. The Social Psychology of Organizations. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Kayes, D. C. 2004. The 1996 Mount Everest climbing disaster: The breakdown of learning in teams. Human Relations 57(10). 1263–1284. Langer, E. J. 1989. Mindfulness. A Merloyd Lawrence Book. Langer, E. J. and Mihnea Modoveanu. 2002. The construct of mindfulness. Journal of Social Issues 56(1). 1–9. Lewis, L. 2019. The Power of Strategic Listening in Contemporary Organizations. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Maitlis, S., and M. Christianson. 2014. Sensemaking in organizations: Taking stock and moving forwards. The Academy of Management Annals 8(1): 57–125. Maitlis, S., and S. Sonenshein. 2010. Sensemaking in crisis and change: Inspiration and insights from Weick (1988). Journal of Management Studies 47(3). 551–580. Mallender, J. 2016. An evaluation of sensemaking in crisis contexts: An organizational perspective. The iJournal 1(1). 42–48. Orton, D., and K. O’Grady. 2016. Cosmology episodes: A reconceptualization. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion 13(3). 226–245. Pratt. M. G. 2000. The good, the bad, and the ambivalent: Managing identification among Amway distributors. Administrative Science Quarterly 45(3). 456–493. Prouska, R., and A. Psychogios. 2016. Do not say a word! Conceptualizing employee silence in a crisis context. The International Journal of Human Resource Management 29(5). 885–914. Roberts, K. H. 1989. New challenges in organizational research: High reliability organizations. Industrial Crisis Quarterly 3(2). 111–125. Roberts, K. H. 1990. Some charateristics of one type of high reliability organization. Organization Science 1(2). 160–176. Rogova, G. J. 2016. Crisis management and context. In G. L. Rogova and P. D. Scott (eds.), Fusion Methodologies in Crisis Management: Higher Level Fusion and Decision Making, 107–120. New York: Springer. Roux-Dufort, C. 2007. Is crisis management (only) a management of exceptions? Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 15(2). 105–116. Sandberg, J., and H. Tsoukas. 2015. Making sense of the sensemaking perspective: Its constituents, limitations, and opportunities for further development. Journal of Organizational Behavior 36. S6–S32. Schutz, A. 1932. The Phenomenology of the Social World. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Seeger, M. W., and T. L. Sellnow. 2016. Narratives of Crisis: Telling Stories of Ruin and Renewal. Stanford University Press. Seeger, M. W., T. L. Sellnow and R. R. Ulmer. 1998. Communication, organization and crisis. Annals of the International Communication Association 21(1). Seeger, M. W., T. L. Sellnow and R. R. Ulmer. 2003. Communication and Organizational Crisis. Westport, CT: Praeger. Sellnow, T. L., and M. W. Seeger. 2013. Theorizing Crisis Communication. John Wiley & Sons, Shrivastava, P. 1987. Bhopal; Anatomy af a Crisis. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger. Sutcliffe, K. M., T. J. Vogus and E. Dane. 2016. Mindfulness in organizations: A cross-level review. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior 3. 55–82. Weber, K., and M. A. Glynn. 2006. Making sense with institutions: Context, thought and action in Karl Weick’s theory. Organization Studies 27. 1639–1660.



Making sense of crisis sensemaking theory 

 193

Weick, K. E. 1962. The Reduction of Cognitive Dissonance Through Task Effort, Accomplishment, and Evaluation. Ohio State University: PhD dissertation. Weick, K. E. 1964. The reduction of cognitive dissonance through task enhancement and effort expenditure. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 68. 533–539. Weick, K. E. 1969. The Social Psychology of Organizing. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Weick, K. E. 1979. The Social Psychology of Organizing. 2nd edn. New York: McGraw-Hill. Weick, K. E. 1985. Cosmos vs. chaos: Sense and nonsense in electronic contexts. Organizational Dynamic 14. 50–64. Weick, K. E. 1988. Enacted sensemaking in crisis situations. Journal of Management Studies 25(4). 305–317. Reprinted in a slightly different version in Weick 2001. Weick, K. E. 1989. Theory construction as disciplined imagination. Academy of Management Review 14(4). 516–531. Weick, K. E. 1990. The vulnerable system: An analysis of the Tenerife Air disaster. Journal of Management 16(3). 571–593. Weick, K. E. 1993. The collapse of sensemaking in organizations. The Mann Gulch Disaster. Administrative Science Quarterly 38. 628–652. Weick, K. E. 1995. Sensemaking in Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Weick, K. E. 2001. Making Sense of the Organization. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Weick, K. E. 2009. Making Sense of the Organization: The Impermanent Organization. Vol. 2. Chichester: Wiley. Weick, K. E. 2010. Reflections on enacted sensemaking in the Bhopal disaster. Journal of Management Studies 47(3). 537–550. Weick, K. E., and K. M. Sutcliffe. 2001. Managing the Unexpected: Assuring High Performance in an Age of Complexity. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Weick, K. E., and K. M. Sutcliffe. 2007. Managing the Unexpected: Resilient Performance in an Age of Uncertainty. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Weick, K. E., and K. M. Sutcliffe. 2015. Managing the Unexpected: Sustained Performance in a Complex World. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Wicks, D. 2001. Institutionalized mindsets of invulnerablibility: Differentiated institutional fields and the antecedents of organizational crisis. Organization Studies 22(4). 659–692.

Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

9 Arenas and voices in organizational crisis communication: How far have we come? Abstract: The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate how rhetorical arena theory (RAT), also known as the multivocal approach to crisis communication, has developed over the past two decades. Twenty years ago, RAT was presented as an attempt to understand the communicative complexity of organizational crises. Crisis communication, we argued, did not only include the voice of the organization in crisis. Also the voices of the customers, the employees, the investors, the news media, etc. had to be included if we wanted to have a comprehensive and realistic idea of what is going on in a crisis situation. The chapter is divided into two parts. In part 1, we provide a general introduction to rhetorical arena theory. In part 2, we demonstrate how other crisis communication researchers have applied RAT including the two root metaphors arena and voice in various ways. The idea is to further theory building through a process where the ideas of others, and not necessarily our own ideas, are the driving force. Keywords: arena, complexity, multivocal approach, rhetorical arena rheory, subarena, symbolic network, theory building, voice

1 Introduction There is no such thing as ‘my’ ideas. Scholarship and notions of intellectual property are poor bedmates. I have often read things, both by critics and by enthusiasts, that seem to me to be based on a less than precise reading of what I have written; but once you publish something, you lose special access to it. The interpretations of others have as much legitimacy, if they can be defended, as yours do. In the best of all worlds, others will generate interpretations that are more interesting than the ones you had in your mind. (James G. March, 1928–2018; interview with Diane Coutu, October issue of Harvard Business Review, 2006)

The year 2020 marks the 20th anniversary of the first introduction to rhetorical arena theory (RAT), also known as the multivocal approach to crisis communication. The theory was briefly introduced at the end of an article in Danish entitled “Rhetoric and crisis communication” and published in the Scandinavian journal Rhetorica Scandinavica. This article was one of the very first articles about crisis communication as a field of research and practice, not only in Denmark, but also in Sweden and Norway (for an overview of crisis communication research in the Nordic countries, see Frandsen and Johansen 2016). However, the aim of this article was not to promote RAT, but to introduce American rhetorician William L. Benoit and discuss his image repair theory. At the time Benoit was completely unknown in the Scandinavian counhttps://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-009

196 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

tries. Some years later, we translated Chapter 4 of Benoit’s Accounts, Excuses, and Apologies (1995) into Danish and wrote a short introduction to his work, including his functional theory of political communication (Frandsen and Johansen 2008). The aim of this chapter is twofold. First, we want to demonstrate how rhetorical arena theory can contribute to the solution of some of the issues related to crisis communication research, including how we ourselves over the years have developed the framework. Every scholar who has had the opportunity to observe how complex crisis communication can be, and who think it is relevant to improve our understanding of this complexity, will find inspiration in a multivocal approach. Second, we also want to demonstrate how other crisis communication researchers have contributed to the development of RAT. Based on the analysis of 82 publications on Google Scholar that refer to Rhetorical Arena Theory, from journal articles and book chapters to MA theses and PhD dissertations, we have been able to establish a list of important questions. What is an arena? How big or how small can an arena be? What is a sub-arena? Can there be more than one arena at a time? And how is an arena structured?

2 A theory of the rhetorical arena Rhetorical Arena Theory is based on a simple observation: that when a crisis occurs, a social space opens, and multiple voices begin to communicate to, with, past, against or about each other (Frandsen and Johansen 2017: 148–149). Not only the voice of the organization in crisis, although this voice seems to attract the bulk of our attention, but also the voices of the customers and the citizens, the employees and the investors, and the news media and the politicians, not to forget the public relations experts who are asked to comment on and evaluate the strategy chosen by the organization in crisis. All these voices represent what we call the communicative complexity of crises. Our approach to communicative complexity is a social science approach. In the 2000  s, crisis communication researchers such as Priscilla J. Murphy and Dawn R. Gilpin (see Murphy 2000; Gilpin and Murphy 2006, 2008), and Matthew W. Seeger, Timothy L. Sellnow, and Robert R. Ulmer (see Seeger et al. 2003, 2010), were inspired by the natural sciences and the concepts of dissipative structures, fractals and chaos (see Chapter 4 in this handbook). Today, this evolution seems to have lost momentum, if not to have disappeared completely from the research agenda of crisis communication. We recommend that we follow Barry Turner and apply a grounded approach building up a new terminology in relation to communicative complexity The observation of communicative complexity is an observation that has already been made by many researchers. Some of these researchers made this observation a long time ago. Others only recently. Some researchers made this observation within a specific discipline such as rhetoric. Take for example Keith Michael Hearit and Jeffrey



Arenas and voices in organizational crisis communication 

 197

Courtright who warned us against reducing crisis communication to a “unitary rhetorical event, focused only on one organization’s response” and reminded us of the fact that the “discursive activities of multiple actors also must be taken into account” (Hearit and Courtright 2003: 92). Other researchers had the same experience within the discipline of political science. Take for example Uri Rosenthal, Paul ‘t Hart, and Alexander Kouzmin who talk about a “multi-actor perspective” (Rosenthal, ‘t Hart, and Alexander Kouzmin 1991: 212).

2.1 RAT and the public sphere model Some crisis communication researchers see the rhetorical arena as a new version of the public sphere theory in the tradition of Jürgen Habermas and his book on The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962) (see, for example, Vatnøy 2018 who talks about rejuvenation). Habermas defined the public sphere as a virtual or imaginary community which does not necessarily exist in any identifiable space. In its ideal form, the public sphere is made up of private people gathered together as a public and articulating the needs of society with the state. Through dialogue, the public sphere generates opinions which serve to guide the affairs of state. In ideal terms, the public sphere can be described as the source of public opinion. American communication scholar Gerard A. Hauser is one of Habermas’ most interesting critics. In his book on Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres (1999), Hauser rejects the idea of the public sphere as a single idealized public sphere populated by rational, desinterested individuals discussing the same common issues. In the introduction to his own rhetorical or discourse based model, he talks about “the multiple discursive arenas of the Public Sphere” (Hauser 1999: 58). Public Sphere refers here to the undifferentiated public domain in which conversation occurs, while public sphere refers to something more specific. Hauser views the public sphere as a web-like structure providing for interaction between numerous vernacular publics. The emergence of a public is not dependent on consensus but on the sharing of a common world: “a plurality of publics located in the multiple arenas of a reticulate public sphere” (Hauser 1999: 12). Unfortunately, Hauser does not take advantage of the difference between public sphere and arena. He just emphasizes: “For better or worse, I have adopted the stylistic convention of referring to these multiple spheres as arenas” (Hauser 1999: 41). However, whether we use Habermas’ or Hauser’s version, public sphere theory will always be about participatory democracy. The multiple voices communicating in a crisis situation, on the other hand, are not only located in a public sphere, but do also appear in semi-public and private spaces. The theoretical framework in crisis communication that comes closest to the public sphere theory is perhaps excellent crisis public relations (see, for example, Fearn.Banks 2010), but apart from a few

198 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

studies this framework based on the Excellence Theory has never been developed further within the field of crisis communication.

2.2 RAT and the stakeholder model Other crisis communication researchers see the rhetorical arena as a new version of the stakeholder (management) theory in the tradition of R. Edward Freeman and his book on Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach (1984). Freeman defines stakeholders as “groups and individuals who can affect, or are affected by, the achievement of an organization’s mission” (Freeman 1984: 52). At the beginning of his academic cursus honorum, Freeman’s approach was strategic, instrumental and organization-centric, but during the 1990  s he became more and more normative in his approach. For an overview of how the theory of stakeholder management (including strategic communication) developed and culminated with the publication of Freeman, Harrison and Wicks (2007) and Freeman, Harrison, Wicks, Parmar and de Colle (2010), see Frandsen (2018). Inspired by Michel Foucault, we define stakeholder management as a specific organizational gaze cast by an organization on its external and internal environment. That stakeholder management is about perception, is evident in Mitchell, Aigle and Wood (1997) who have based their stakeholder management on the idea of stakeholder salience (Magness 2007). In a rhetorical arena, some voices may have a stake in the organization in crisis, whereas other voices only have a stake in the crisis as such because it brings forward their own agendas (see section 2.4 in this chapter). In our 2007 version of RAT, we still talked about stakeholders in our definition of crisis communication. In our 2017 version of RAT, we talk about voices and actors.

2.3 The rhetorical arena: a two-layered model The rhetorical arena model consists of two different but integrated components: (1) a macro component that describes and explains the interaction between the multiple voices that communicate to, with, against, past or about each other in the arena of an organizational crisis, and (2) a micro component that describes and explains the individual communication processes taking place inside the arena with a focus on four parameters (context, media, genre and text) that mediate the crisis communication activities between specific sender(s) and receiver(s) inside the arena. By crisis communication we understand a complex and dynamic configuration of communicative processes which develop before, during and after an event or a situation that is interpreted as a crisis by an organization and/or by other voices in the arena. Crisis communication also includes how various actors, contexts and dis-



Arenas and voices in organizational crisis communication 

 199

courses (manifested in specific genres and specific texts) relate to each other. (Frandsen and Johansen 2017: 148).

The macro component provides an analytical and practical overview of the voices and patterns of interactions taking place among the voices in the arena (see Figure 1). The model is an antogonistic model where dissensus is the rule rather than the exception. Not all voices want dialogue or two-way crisis communication. Power, media access and differences in political, economic and symbolic capital affect the position and influence of the multiple voices in the arena.

Fig. 1: The macro component of the rhetorical arena model. Source: Frandsen and Johansen 2017: 148.

As it appears from Figure 1, the organization in crisis is not necessarily at the center of the rhetorical arena. In fact, the organization in crisis may be the actor who communicates the less. Thus, the arena is not like a stakeholder map with the organization at the center. Figure 1 shows a (non exhaustive) excerpt of voices acting in the arena communicating to, with, against, past or about the crisis. Not all voices are visible to all other voices in the arena, as the crisis communication play out in the public as well as semi-public and private spheres too. Furthermore, some voices are located in specific sub-arenas (e.  g. defined by one or more social media) that may or may not cross over to other sub-arenas (e.  g., defined by one or more print media), or may not be heard by voices from within other parts of the arena (e.g, by employees inside the organization). However, as in a game of chess, it is important to anticipate the communication of the other voices in the arena, in order to ‘play the game’. For example, if we put the blame of a product failure on the producer, what will then the producer communicate to whom and why? And what will be the reaction of the media, the investors and/or

200 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

the consumers? See Figure 3 for an example of voices present in a sub-arena during a customer complaints crisis on Facebook. The purpose of the micro component is to describe and explain the individual communication processes which take place in the arena, every time one or more senders communicate to one or more receivers in relation to the crisis (see Figure 2). (1) Context

Sender(s)

(2) Media

CRISIS COMMUNICATION

(3) Genre

Receiver(s)

(4) Text

Fig. 2: The micro component of the rhetorical arena model. Source: Frandsen and Johansen 2017: 150.

Much crisis communication research has concentrated on describing crisis response strategies (Benoit 2015, Coombs 2019), including proactive strategies such as the stealing thunder and inoculation strategies (Arpan and Pompper 2003; Clayes, Cauberghe and Leysen 2013; Wan and Pfau 2004) as overall functions. However, every time a communication process occurs during a crisis and people are communicating with one another, this crisis communication is mediated by four different parameters. To communicate at a specific point in time during a crisis include taking into account these parameters. The first parameter is located at the contextual level of the communication process. It is by far the broadest parameter, and for that reason also the most difficult to grasp during a complex crisis situation. In contrast, the three parameters of media, genre and text are all related directly to the content of the communication. The first parameter – context – consists of a specific set of internal, psychological contexts and external, sociological contexts ‘filtering’ each individual communicative process. By psychological contexts we refer to the cognitive schemata that organize our knowledge and have an impact on perceptions and interpretations of crisis types, causes and consequences. The crisis type (victim, accident, preventable crisis) has an influence on the perceptions and attributions of responsibility and influence the crisis communication (cf. Coombs 2015). By sociological contexts, we refer to the situational contexts, organisational contexts and (national/cross national) cultural contexts of the crisis communication. The situational context includes sender(s), receiver(s), time, place and message, and evolves constantly. Every time a communication process takes place in the arena, it is important to know what the situation is right now at this specific point in time of the crisis: The day of the accident? Two days later? Five months after? What kind of attacks, criticism, support and issues are raised? Who are the current and potential



Arenas and voices in organizational crisis communication 

 201

actors and voices in the arena, and what are their stakes in the crisis? And what about time? When will it be the right moment to communicate? This first parameter not only includes the situational context but also the organizational and/or professional context and communication culture of the actors and voices acting as senders or receivers in these communication processes. A private company is structured in a different way and may have another communication culture than a public institution such as a hospital or a university. In the private company a CEO can tell the employees not to speak to journalists or news media, or to leave this to a selected spokesperson, whereas in a public organization as for instance a university, the president of the university can not tell his researchers to keep quiet. Researchers are supposed to act as experts and share their knowledge about a s­ ituation with society if it is within their research area, as they are paid by the state and the c­ itizens for their job. As a profession, journalists follow specific criteria and ways to do news research (e.  g. news criteria, agenda setting), and it is ­important to know their communication culture. Finally, social structures (media system, ­political, legal and economic ­structures), values and norms (e.  g., for business ethics or for apologizing or conducting corrective action) may vary from one national culture to another. This means that, if it is a matter of a global or international crisis, or a crisis that affects a multicultural public in the home country of the organization, this part of the context may have an important impact on the crisis communication between sender(s) and receiver(s). The next parameter – media – is about the media, viewed as ‘carriers’ of crisis messages. Media type and media format are also influencing the crisis communication. Every type of media has its specific communicative characteristics and is used in specific ways in specific situations. News media, online media, social media, mobile media, corporate media, as well as the human body (body language) and the spoken and written word are all carrying messages in different ways. News media typically follow specific institutionalized norms such as news criteria, ethical press criteria, and contribute to both agenda setting and gatekeeping. Corporate media is published by the organization who chooses itself what to bring. For that reason corporate websites are often perceived as one-sided and less trustworthy. In contrast to corporate media, news media typically attempt to allow for conflicting voices, to create two-sided news stories, although a news media also has its own stance, and constitutes an actor and one or more voices framing a crisis in specific ways. Furthermore, news media texts are submitted to the scrutiny of an editor – in contrast to most social media. Social media also has its own characteristics, such as giving access to anyone who wants to speak up and make him/herself heard by others. On top of this, each social media has its own characteristics as well, e.  g. Facebook vs. Twitter vs. Instagram, to name but a few. They have different users, different formats (number or characters, use of pictures, etc.) and different overall functions. Tone of voice, level of politeness and of expressed emotions differ from the articles and texts in news media and corporate media. During crises, critical and angry voices often turn to social media to vent and

202 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

express themselves although supporters acting as co-crisis communicators may also make themselves heard (e.  g. Johansen et al. 2016). The third parameter – genre – is closely linked to the second parameter. It deals with the type of genre used in or across different media. By genre we understand a ‘family’ of texts that share the same communicative purpose and display common characteristics regarding message strategies (Frandsen and Johansen 2017: 153). Each genre has its own characteristics that influence the crisis communication. There is a huge difference between having to explain a crisis situation during a television interviews of 3 to 4 minutes and using the corporate website or a you-tube video. Press releases and press conferences are still among the most popular crisis communication genres at the beginning of a crisis when a serious accident or scandal, such as a plane crash or a huge money laundering scandal, have to be explained. Press releases are typically written in a form to be absorbed directly by news media journalists, using for instance pre-formulation strategies, point of view operations, such as self-reference in third person, imitating the structure of a news article, and with a purpose of gaining terminological control (Hearit 1994) in the news media. Press conferences are typically put up as face-to-face events where actors representing the organization in crisis, or in case of an accident involving emergency officers, such as the police, the organization and/or the police inform and answer questions from journalists about a specific crisis or accident. Later in a crisis, when cause and responsibility have to be investigated by an impartial instance, public hearings and/or inquiry or investigation reports are established, with the purpose of explaining cause and attributing responsibility (see Boudes and Laroche 2009). The launch of such reports typically lead to renewed media coverage of a crisis. It is important to know the specific characteristics of these genres in order to communicate appropriately. Finally the last parameter is about the – text – (the messages and the rhetorics) itself. The overall function of a crisis response strategy such as denial or apology or justification may be articulated in multiple ways, and not all words, visuals, artefacts, etc. are interpreted in the same way. This means that the use of rhetorics has an important influence on the crisis communication as well. From rhetorics we know that framing, narratives, metaphors, etc. may be understood in very different ways. Elements such as pitch of voice, vocal cues, body language and other non verbal elements also play a role for the interpretation of, for instance, an apology (De Waele 2018). In order to make a response strategy, e.  g. an apology, become accepted within specific socio-cultural norms, the response strategy has to live up to different expectations, and in the case of an apology, to a set of apologetic ethics of including form and manner of communication to the stakeholders (Hearit 2006). Sender(s) and receiver(s). The micro model also embraces another two elements: sender(s) and receiver(s). In the rhetorical arena as such there are multiple senders and receivers, and the many different voices, including the organization(s) hit by a crisis, may all have the role as senders as well as receivers of communication. However, again, for each microprocess, specific sender(s) and receiver(s) can be identified, and



Arenas and voices in organizational crisis communication 

 203

they have four sets of properties or competences that govern their acting (Johansen and Frandsen 2007: 283–284). (1) Interests. Every sender and receiver has one or more interests that define them as voices, and these interests have an impact on their way of thinking and acting. (2) Interpretations. Every sender and receiver interprets what is going on, and may change interpretations and attributions of meaning when influenced by the views of other actors and voices during the crisis. A crisis is socially constructed and meaning is ascribed by the various voices in the arena in a dynamic way. (3) Strategy. Every sender and receiver has the ability to strategize. They have the ability to plan their communicative behavior in a way that brings them towards their strategic goal, and to calculate and anticipate the former and future strategy of the other ‘players’ in the arena. Not only the organization in crisis but also the other voices may have a strategy, and they follow their plan consciously or inconsciously, explicitly or implicitly. (4) Communicative behavior. The last property or competence is related to the act of communicating itself. We apply a semiotic approach and understand every semiotic resource as communication, including words, images, artefacts, symbols, body language and behavior. (For a study on the use of artefacts as a rhetorical strategy, see Frandsen and Johansen 2009).

2.4 Interactions and patterns in the rhetorical arena Since we first developed RAT in 2000, we have examined communication processes between voices in the rhetorical arena to investigate and discover patterns of interaction, and learn how to anticipate the crisis communication ‘game’. The simplest pattern to identify during a crisis is a verbal attack followed by a verbal defense. When an organization is accused of wrongdoing, it usually tries to defend itself by means of one or more crisis response strategies. Silence is also considered a defense strategy, as it leaves the floor to others to comment on the crisis, or is perceived as consent in admitting guilt. Blame game is another attack-defense pattern, although used in a more dynamic version, as a defense takes the form of shifting the blame to somebody else who then again shifts the blame to somebody, and so forth (see Hood 2011). Thus, a blame game involves more voices than the simple attack-defense. In the same way, we have identified what we have named a serial apology when the same person or organization repeatedly have to give an apology to more and more critics or attackers. See Frandsen and Johansen 2010a and 2010b for the serial apologies of the Danish prime minister during the cartoon affair in 2005 to 2006, followed in 2006, by another series of apologies by the Pope Benedict XVI who on September 12, 2006, made a speech at the University of Regensburg that was misinterpreted by New York Times and the muslim world.

204 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

Another set of interactions in the arena is to be found when the crisis of an organization in a specific industry has spill-over effects on other companies in the industry and turns into a multi-crisis involving more organizations from the same industry. We studied the Bestseller crisis in 2011 where several organisations (including IC Companys and H&M) within the clothing industry following the Bestseller crisis had to defend themselves against similar attacks as people assumed that their products were also containing similar cancer-causing colors. This multi-crisis pattern also brings forward another intermediary pattern about voices in conflict within an industry, in relation to the goal and representational work of trade associations. At one and the same time, trade associations try to defend its members, including the reputation of the organization in crisis that may conflict with reputation of the whole industry, as well as its own reputation during a crisis (for more details on the Bestseller crisis and the voices in conflict, see Frandsen and Johansen 2018). Furthermore, in order to further develop the rhetorical arena framework, we have also studied sub-arenas and flows between social media sub-arenas and print media (the Lance Armstrong doping crisis), as well as the interactions of voices on social media. In the case of the Telenor Facebook customer complaints crisis, we made an analysis of the multiple voices (4,368 posts and ten responses and 30,000 likes) present in the arena from August 2 to August 2012, in order to identify the positive and negative voices present in the sub-arena, as well as the nature of tone of voice, level of emotions (hateholders and faithholders) and communication strategies (attack and defense patterns). And we found a new pattern: attack (hateholders) – defense (the organization) and attacking the accuser (faithholders). In this case faith-holders acted on their own as co-crisis communicators, but in stead of using accommodative strategies as Telenor did, they attacked the accusers. Out of 4,083 posts, 82 percent were negative and 18 percent were positive. This pattern is also found in crisis of sports organizations, where supporters, fans or faithholders seem to play an important role in attacking the attackers and supporting the club (cf. Brown and Billings 2013). As it appears from Figure 3, multiple voices were identified in the specific part of the rhetorical arena formed by the Telenor Facebook sub-arena: The angry customer, AB, who triggered the crisis, Telenor, Telenor customers (negative and positive voices), previous Telenor customers (negative voices) as well as customers from rival companies either promoting their own company or warning against their own company accusing it of the same behavior as Telenor. In that way, the attack on Telenor quickly involved other companies as well. For more details (see Johansen et al. 2016). The voices of activist groups form another interesting pattern of interactions. For instance when activist groups attack a company for wrongdoing by addressing (attacking) one or more of its partner companies in order to make the partner(s) put pressure on the wrongdoer. This kind of action may be considered “hi-jacking” interaction. We studied the case of Greenpeace’s attack on the Lego company in july 2014 where the goal of Greenpeace was to make Lego end its partnership with Shell, to put pressure on Shell to make the company stop its drilling plans in the Antarctic.



Arenas and voices in organizational crisis communication 

 205

FACEBOOK TELENOR FACEBOOK PAGE

A. Brinkmann Telenor Telenor customers

Previous Telenor customers

Customers at rival phone companies Others

Fig. 3: Voices in the Telenor Facebook sub-arena, August 2012. Source: Johansen, Johansen and Weckesser 2016: 296.

One of the Greenpeace strategies was to ask consumers and citizens to “Tell Lego to end its partnership with Shell” (cf. Greenpeace You Tube video: “Everything is NOT awesome”). In this case an activist organisation used one organization to put pressure on another organisation. Thus, the network of partners of a company may be forced to enter the rhetorical arena of an attacked company, in this case Shell, during a crisis situation. More than 6 million citizens signed the petition in support of Greenpeace. But also faithholders of Lego appeared and started attacking Greenpeace on Greenpeace’s social media sites. At least five groups of voices were present: Greenpeace, Lego, Shell, citizens supporting Greenpeace, faithholders supporting Lego and attacking the accuser: Greenpeace. Shell stayed surprisingly silent in the arena. The last important pattern in the rhetorical arena that we have studied is the role of third parties in organizational crises. Communication processes in the arena normally take part between first parties (the voice of the organization having done something wrong or who is being accused of wrongdoing), and second parties (other voices such as the victims affected by the act of the first parties), and both parties are directly involved in the crisis situation. However, the arena theory also embraces third parties. In contrast to the first and second parties, a third party does not have a stake in the organisation in crisis, but in the crisis as such, because a crisis of an organization can be exploited for their own personal agenda or just for the sake of interfering. To illustrate: an opponent politician may use a crisis of a private or public organization to promote his or her own political agenda and to attack the government or office-holders for not taking action (cf. Boin et al. 2005/2017, 2009). Today we are also witnessing more and more interventions from other kind of third parties or “unauthorized” actors such as trolls or hackers. Trolls interfere in a crisis just for the sake of interfering, to get

206 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

people to bite the bait and provoke a heated debate, by using verbal agression about an issue. In fact, at the moment we are studying characteristics and interactions in this new age or society of interferences, where people easily get access to speak up. At the moment we are also studying other patterns of interaction in the arena among voices such as investors (who sometimes behave as activists), consultants (who have the role as insider-outsiders to an organization in crisis) and public relations experts (who are asked to comment on organizational crises). As shown above, the rhetorical arena theory is based on a multivocal approach to crisis communication and applies a complexity perspective. Such an approach to crisis management and crisis communication seems to solve some of the problems raised within an organization-centric approach to crisis communication where focus typically is put on the response strategies of the organization in crisis. With the rhetorical arena theory we are able to identify, describe and explain the communicative complexity of most organizational crises. However, the process of developing the rhetorical arena is an ongoing process, and we are still ourselves constantly working on its development. Other scholars, however, also assist in furthering theory building of RAT.

3 Literature reviews as theory building In part 1 of this chapter we introduced the reader to rhetorical arena theory. In part 2 of the chapter we focus on how we can stimulate the theory building process in organizational crisis communication in general, and in rhetorical arena theory in particular, in order to make it more dynamic. Theory building is a topic seldom touched upon in crisis communication. Many researchers are conservative or protective in their approach to theory. Instead of building new theories they prefer to confirm already existing ones. Some crisis communication theories have become so popular that nobody has the courage to make any major changes. We are inspired in our approach by American sociologist and professor at Stanford University James G. March who died recently. In the extract from the interview from 2006 that you find at the very beginning of this chapter, March emphasizes that in “the best of worlds, others will generate interpretations that are more interesting than the ones you had in your mind”. Or to put it differently: it is not a good idea to read what others have written about your own writings if you are not interested in reading something that will take it to another place or another level. We have combined the inspiration from March with the concepts of literature review and theory building. What is theory building? Why is theory building important? And how can theory building be carried out? It is not an easy task to define what theory building is. It can be argued that there are as many definitions of theory building as there are definitions



Arenas and voices in organizational crisis communication 

 207

of theory. The literature on theory building has been growing since the late 1970  s. The traditional understanding of theory building began with Dubin’s book Theory Building (1978) and ended three decades later with the publication of Colquitt and Zapata-Pheland’s “Trends in theory building and theory testing: A five-decade study of the Academy of Management Study” (2007). In the 1980  s, the introduction of metaphors in the theory building process paved the way for more innovative approaches in the field of management and organization studies. The metaphor approach began with Gareth Morgan (Morgan 1983, 1986) and Karl E. Weick (1989) and was continued by Dutch management and organization scholar Joep Cornelissen (2005, 2006, 2008). He developed an alternative model of metaphor understanding, the so-called domains-interaction model. With the two root metaphors arena and voice, rhetorical arena theory could in principle have benefited from the metaphor approach. However, we have decided to move in another direction: towards using literature reviews as a tool for theory building. In the remaining part of this chapter, we will present the findings of a study of rhetorical arena theory where we first conducted a literature review which was then used as the input for theory building. Data collection We collected most of the empirical data for our study on October 8, 2019, using Google Scholar as the search engin and ‘rhetorical arena’ as the search word. The result was 527 references to publications where RAT was part of the theoretical framework. Given that we were only interested in collecting publications that made use of rhetorical arena theory to some extent and that were published between 2000 and 2020, all publications that did not live up to these two criteria were discarded. As a consequence of this the following publications were excluded from the empirical basis: (1) publications published after the year 2000 where rhetorical arena often is used as a non-technical term with a broad meaning; (2) publications published after the year 2000 but where rhetorical arena is used as a technical term, that is, as a term with a specific meaning within a specific field of expertise. Danish rhetorician Jens Elmelund Kjeldsen, for example, has written about the rhetorical arenas of multi-mediated communication defined by the social media (see for instance Kjeldsen 2018). Dutch and Finnish communication scholars Marita Vos and Vilma Luoma-aho have written about issues arenas (Vos and Luoma-aho 2010, Vos 2018). The result of this preliminary classification was a corpus consisting of 82 publications that all referred to RAT and/or the multivocal approach to crisis communication. After having been classified, the 82 publications were all coded depending on how they provided answers to three different sets of questions in a coding scheme. The first set of questions was about the identity of the author(s) (name, university, (sub) discipline) and of the publication (name, university, country, (sub)discipline), and the identity of the publication(s) (title, year of publication). The second set of questions

208 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

was all related to the academic genres used by the author(s), from journal articles and book chapters to dissertations, handbooks and textbooks. Finally, the third set of questions was about the use of RAT and/or the multivocal approach to crisis communication. Which component or aspect of the theory was used? The root metaphors arena and voice? The macro component or the micro component? And how was this component or aspect used? A simple reference? Application (the individual communication processes)? Further development? Or criticism? The last set of questions also included information about the sources used by the publications.

4 Analysis and discussion We would like to demonstrate how theory building can take place under the conditions described in the previous section. We have selected two examples: (1) sub-arena and (2) symbolic network from our corpus. Sub-arena(s) At the beginning of the 2010  s, W. Timothy Coombs and Sherry J. Holladay, Nicholson School of Communication, University of Central Florida (Orlando), the originators of situational crisis communication theory, published two papers: The first paper was entitled “Faith-holders as crisis managers: The Costa Concordia crisis rhetorical arena on Facebook” (2012). It was published in the proceedings from a EUPRERA congress held in Istanbul. The second paper was entitled “How publics react to crisis communication efforts: Comparing crisis response reactions across sub-arenas” (2014) and was published in Journal of Communication Management. The purpose of the second paper was “to provide a rationale and framework for examining stakeholder reactions to crisis communication messages in various social media channels. Stakeholders can become crisis communicators by entering various sub-arenas of a larger rhetorical arena” (Coombs and Holladay 2014: 40). The intellectual context for the two papers was the much-debated shift from a sender-orientation to a receiver-orientation, which was inherited from the apologia tradition and then again from receiver-orientation to a complex multivocal context where the ‘old’ concepts of sender and receiver are replaced by multivocality. Coombs and Holladay contribute to theory building by observing that a rhetorical arena can be divided into two or more sub-arenas which then again can be divided into “spaces”. However, they do not explain how we can identify and distinguish one sub-arena from another sub-arena; how we can distinguish a sub-arena from the rhetorical arena; in short, how we can explain the hierarchy among arenas. Coombs and Holladay only operate at the macro level (in our terminology: the macro component).



Arenas and voices in organizational crisis communication 

 209

Below you will find a list with some of the most important questions or issues brought up explicitly or implicitly by the two American crisis scholars and/or activated in our minds by the two: – What is an arena? – How big or small can an arena be? – What is a sub-arena? – How many sub-arenas are there? Can there be more than one arena at a time? Are they always presented as a hierarchy? – Coombs and Holladay (2014) argue that the rhetorical arena is composed of a number of sub-arenas, and that these sub-arenas consist of “spaces”. However, these “spaces” (depicted as “social spaces” in Frandsen and Johansen 2017: 143) are never defined. Symbolic network In 2019, German communication scholar Juliana Raupp, Institute for Media and Communication Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, published an article entitled “Crisis communication in the rhetorical arena” in Public Relations Review. She studied the Volkswagen emission crisis as a case in point and analyzed the media discourse in two German and two US-based newspapers. The study applied and extended rhetorical arena theory by adding a network analysis. Raupp calls it a model of crisis discourse based on RAT. In its 2017 version, RAT is criticized for neglecting rhetorical power. Below you will find a list with some of the most important questions or issues brought up by the German crisis scholar: – What is an arena? – What is a media arena? Raupp focuses on the size of an arena. – The many actors co-construct the crisis discourse (synonym for rhetorical arena). – “While a network approach to RAT seems to be particularly useful to examine structural features of a given crisis discourse, RAT also enables a qualitative examination of the content of the discourse at the micro-level. Larger investigations could combine the two levels – the structural macro- and the qualitative micro-level – in a meaningful way” (Raupp 2019: 11). Both examples have activated new ideas and theoretical reflections about how to develop the rhetorical arena framework. Importantly, the literature review of the 82 publications included other interesting contributions as well that we have however not been able to present in this chapter.

210 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

5 Conclusion We began this chapter by asking: How far have we come in the development of RAT and the multivocal approach to crisis communication? And the answer to this is: We have come far, but not far enough. As shown in the first part of the chapter, since 2000 we have studied the communicative complexity of organizational crises and crisis communication. We have tried to develop the rhetorical arena theory by studying the multiple actors and voices present in the arena. As demonstrated, the rhetorical arena is an antigonistic model that include actors and voice who interact in different conflicting as well as non-conflicting ways. We have been able to identify specific patterns of interaction among these voices and the concepts of arena and voice have been carefully examined. However, RAT is an open framework. There is still much to describe and explain about what is going on communicatively during a crisis. This is why we welcome the efforts of other crisis communication scholars to add to this theory building. The literature review revealed some of the work of other scholars that have tried to apply RAT or to add new theoretical or conceptual elements to the theory. In this chapter, we presented the sub-arena concept used by Coombs and Holladay, and the application by Raupp of a network-analytical rhetorical analysis based on RAT considered able to embrace “a more comprehensive examination of complex crisis communication” (2019: 10). What started as a literature review of the use of RAT may further new theory building. New eyes and new ways of using the theory are fruitful to theory building. Alone from the two examples presented in this chapter, important issues and questions have been raised for us and other scholars to bring the theory to the next level in the future.

References Arpan, L. M., and D. Pompper. 2003. Stormy weather: testing “stealing thunder” as a crisis communication strategy to improve communication flow between organizations and journalists. Public Relations Review 29(3). 291–308. Benoit, W. L. 2015. Accounts, Excuses, and Apologies: Image Repair Theory and Research. 2nd edn. Albany, NY: State University of New York. Boin, A., P. ’t Hart, E. Stern and B. Sundelius. 2005. The Politics of Crisis Management: Public Leadership under Pressure. 2nd edn. 2017. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boin, A., P. ‘t Hart and A. McConnell. 2009. Crisis exploitation: Political and policy impacts of framing contests. Journal of European Public Policy 16(1). 81–106. Boudes, T., and H. Laroche. 2009. Taking off the heat: Narrative sensemaking in post-crisis inquiry reports. Organization Studies 30(4). 377–396. Brown, N. A., and A. C. Billings. 2013. Sports fans as crisis communicators on social media websites. Public Relations Review 39(1). 74–81. Calhoun, C. (ed.). 1992. Habermas and the Public Sphere. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.



Arenas and voices in organizational crisis communication 

 211

Clayes, A.-S., V. Cauberghe and J. Leysen. 2013. Implications of stealing thunder for the impact of expressing motions in organizational crisis communication. Journal of Applied Communication Research 3. 293–309. Colquitt, J. A., and C. P. Zapata-Phelan. 2007. Trends in theory building and theory testing: A five-decade study of Academy of Management Journal. Academy of Management Journal 50. 1281–1303. Coombs, W. T., and S. J. Holladay. 2012. Faith-holders as crisis managers: The Costa-Concordia crisis rhetorical arena on Facebook. Proceedings from Euprera 2012 Congress, Istanbul, September 20–22, 2012. Coombs, W. T., and S. J. Holladay. 2014. How publics react to crisis communication efforts: Comparing crisis response reactions across sub-arenas. Journal of Communication Management 18(1). 40–57. Coombs, W. T. 2015. Ongoing Crisis Communication: Planning, Managing, and Responding. 4th edn. Los Angeles: Sage. Coombs, W. T. 2019. Ongoing Crisis Communication: Planning, Managing, and Responding. 5th edn. Los Angeles: Sage. Cornelissen, J. 2006. Making sense of theory construction: Metaphor and disciplined imagination. Organization Studies 11. 1579–1597. Cornelissen, J. 2005. Beyond compare: Metaphor in organization theory. Academy of Management Review 30(4). 756–764. Cornelissen, J., and M. Kafourus. 2008. Metaphors and theory building in organization theory: What determines the impact of a metaphor on theory? British Journal of Management 19(4). 365–379. Coutu, D. 2006. Interview with James March. Harvard Business Review. October issue. Desmarais, F., and C. Wallace. 2018. The force of the national rhetorical arena: Voices in tune against a disrespectful foreign sponsor. Sport Management Review 21(4). 443–558. Dubin, R. 1978. Theory Building. New York: Free Press. Fairn-Banks, K. 2010. Crisis communication: A review of some of the best practices. In R. L. Heath (ed.), Handbook of Public Relations, 479–511. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Frandsen, F. 2018. Stakeholder management. In R. L. Heath and W. Johansen (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Strategic Communication, 1432–1444. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2008. Klassiker-intro: Benoit. Rhetorica Scandinavica 46. 10–13. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2009. Wash and communicate: Artifacts and actions in crisis communication. In L. Louhiala Salminen and A. Kankaanranta (eds.), The Ascent of International Business Communication, 67–85. Helsinki: HSE B-90 Series. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2010a. Crisis communication, complexity and the cartoon affair: A case study. In W. T. Coombs and S. J. Holladay (eds.), The Handbook of Crisis Communication, 425–448. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2010b. Apologizing in a globalizing world: Crisis communication and apologetic ethics. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 15(4). 350–364. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2015a. Organizations, stakeholders and intermediairies: Towards a general theory. International Journal of Strategic Communication 9(4). 253–271. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2015b. ‘LEGO: Everything is not awesome’: An emergent activist practice and inter-organizational relations – The case of Greenpeace, LEGO, and Shell. Paper presented at the 18th International Public Relations Research Conference, Institute for Public Relations, Miami. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2017. Organizational Crisis Communication: A Multivocal Approach. London: Sage. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2018. Voices in conflict: The crisis communication of meta-organization. Management Communication Quarterly 32(1). 90–120.

212 

 Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

Habermas, J. 1962. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cambridge: MIT Press. Hauser, G. A. 1999. Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres. Columbia, South Carolina: South Carolina Press. Hearit, K. M. 1994. Apologies and public relations crises at Chrysler, Toshiba, and Volvo. Public Relations Review 20(2). 113–125. Hearit, K. M. 2006. Crisis Management by Apology: Corporate Responses to Allegations of Wrongdoing. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum. Hood, C. 2011. The Blame Game: Spin, Bureaucracy, and Self-Preservation in Government. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Johansen, B. F., W. Johansen and N. Weckesser. 2016. Emotional stakeholders as ‘crisis communicators’ in social media: The case of the Telenor customer complaints crisis. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 21(3). 289–308. Johansen, W., and F. Frandsen. 2000. Retorik og krisekommunikation [Rhetoric and crisis communication]. Rhetorica Scandinavica 14. 45–62. Johansen, W., and F. Frandsen. 2007. Krisekommunikation: Når virksomhedens image og omdømme er truet [Crisis communication: When the image and reputation of the company are threatened]. Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur. Kjeldsen, J. E. 2018. Vor tids retorik [Rhetoric of our time]. Praxis.dk: Praxis. Luoma-aho, V., and M. Vos. 2010. Towards a more dynamic stakeholder model: acknowledging multiple issue arenas. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 15(3). 315–331. Morgan, G. 1983. More on metaphor: Why we cannot control tropes in administrative science. Administrative Science Quarterly 28(4). 601–607. Morgan, G. 1986. Images of Organization.Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Shepherd, D. A., and R. Suddaby. 2017. Theory building: A review and integration. Journal of Management 43(1). 59–86. Vatnøy, E. 2018. Rejuvenating the public sphere – the rhetorical arenas of social media. In L. Kramp, N. Carpentier, A. Hepp, R. Kilborn, R. Kunelius, H. Nieminen, T. Olsson, P. PruulmannVengerfeldt, I. Tomanic Trivundza and S. Tosoni (eds.), Politics, Civil Society and Participation: Media and Communications in a Transforming Environment, 121–131. Bremen: edition lumière. Vos, M. 2018. Issue Arenas. In R. L. Heath and W. Johansen (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Strategic Communication, 805–814. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. De Waele, A. 2018. The Organizational Voice. The role of vocal cues in times of crisis. Leuven: Faculteit Sociale Wetenschappen, KU Leuven. Wan, H.-H., and M. Pfau. 2004. The relative effectiveness of inoculation, bolstering and combined approaches in crisis communication. Journal of Public Relations Research 16(3). 301–328. Weick, K. E. 1989. Theory construction as disciplined imagination. Academy of Management Review 14(4). 516–531.

Carmen Daniela Maier

10 Visual crisis communication Abstract: This chapter is focused on presenting a method for exploring visual news media coverage in order to reveal how viewers’ understanding can be visually channeled towards preferred interpretations of a crisis. Building primarily on insights from social semiotics, this chapter provides an analytical and explanatory framework by showcasing an examination of 103 crisis-related online news images in a qualitative case study. These images collected during three days from four major Danish n ­ ewspapers’ homepages are related to a focusing event that took place during the prolonged crisis of the biggest Danish bank involving the laundering of an enormous sum of money via a Baltic subsidiary. The detailed discussion of examples has been provided in order to both clarify the specific usage of semiotic resources in this particular case, and to demonstrate the possible validity of such methodological tools for broader domains of inquiry. Keywords: visual communication, visual crisis communication, news media, online news images, focusing event, press meeting, qualitative case study, social semiotics, semiotic resources, image-text interplay

1 Introduction Obviously, as a rich field of academic research, crisis communication continues to expand its boundaries with new empirical data, theoretical perspectives and methodologies. Still, the systematic engagement with non-verbal data is in its incipient stages. There is still a scarcity of research work related to visual crisis communication although the visual mode of making meaning plays highly relevant communicative roles during different stages of a crisis. Even the present book does not include another chapter focused on visuals despite the fact that crises can be quite visual as the realtime Internet-based communication has opened up multiple avenues of visualizing a crisis from its very inception. As it will be shown below, this situation characterizes management and organization studies in general in spite of the fact that the omnipresence and the growing salience of visuals in communication is now acknowledged by a significant number of researchers. This scarcity can be linked to the fact that visual research in general has been considered for quite a while “a place of turbulence and incoherence” (Martin 2014: 189), maybe especially because “images occupy difficult but interesting borderlands between representation and construction” (Davison 2009: 165). Consequently, the purpose of this chapter is to respond to this need of exploring systematically specific aspects of a crisis visualization. This chapter also responds to a more general call for research on crisis communication and news media (Frandsen and Johansen 2017), as it is focused on presenting https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-010

214 

 Carmen Daniela Maier

a method for exploring visual news media coverage in order to reveal how viewers’ understanding can be visually channeled towards preferred interpretations of a crisis. Building primarily on insights from social semiotics, this chapter provides an analytical and explanatory framework by showcasing an examination of 103 crisis-related online news images in a qualitative case study. These images collected during three days from four major Danish newspapers’ homepages are related to a decisive event that has took place during the prolonged crisis of the biggest Danish bank involving the laundering of an enormous sum of money via a Baltic subsidiary. The crisis of Danske Bank has been unanimously considered as being the biggest money-laundering scandal in European history. This decisive event of the crisis has been chosen for the present study due to its immediate and powerfully reverberating impact created beyond national borders, an impact that has influenced how the Danish press approached the crisis at the respective climactic point. This event can be considered as the focusing event of the crisis (Fishman 1999; Coombs 2010) because, according to Coombs, “a focusing event is ‘sudden and unpredictable’ but becomes widely known in a short period of time” (Coombs 2010: 481). See also Birkland 1997 and 2006. On the 19th of September 2018, Danske Bank discloses the devastating and unpredictable results of a year-long investigation in an 87-page report during a historical press meeting. According to this report, the enormous sum of 200 billion € in transactions flowed in the period from 2007 to 2015 through the bank’s small Estonian branch. Until that date, the actual amount of money has not been known. Børsen, a major Danish business newspaper, writes that “Wednesday was a climactic day for Danske Bank in every possible way” (21.09.2018, 09:03). The investigation had been launched in 2017 by the bank and conducted by an independent law firm because of massive international pressure from regulators and law enforcement agencies. The investigation was targeted at the bank’s branch in Estonia due to suspicions that the respective branch was used to launder a massive amount of money during several years. In Danske Bank’s online press release published on the bank’s homepage on the 19th of September 2018, it is confirmed that the bank “was not sufficiently effective in preventing the branch in Estonia from being used for money laundering in the period from 2007 to 2015” (Danske Bank homepage, 2018). The Chairman of the Board of Directors, Ole Andersen, admits in the same press release: “The Bank has clearly failed to live up to its responsibility in this matter. This is disappointing and unacceptable and we offer our apologies to all of our stakeholders – not least our customers, investors, employees and society in general. We acknowledge that we have a task ahead of us in regaining their trust” (Danske Bank homepage, 2018). The same day, Thomas Borgen, the bank’s chief executive, who has been in charge of the bank’s international operations (including Estonia) before he became CEO in 2013, resigns. He motivates his decision by making clear that: “Even though I was personally cleared from a legal point of view, I hold the ultimate responsibility” (Grønholt-Pedersen and Jensen 2018).



Visual crisis communication 

 215

So, the 19th of September is the date when, during the historical press meeting, the bank finally admitted to the true extent of the money-laundering operation (about 1500 billion Danish crowns in transactions), and this shocking disclosure reverberates both nationally and internationally. Next day, the Danish prime minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, expressed his shock at the scale of the scandal to international reporters at the European Union meeting in Salzburg, promising that further inquiries would be made and consequences would follow (The Guardian, 2018). The head of the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority, Jesper Berg, characterizes the bank’s whole crisis as “a continuation of the financial crisis”, and acknowledges that such “an obscene sum of money” makes understandable the fact that the focusing event on the 19th of September has caused “a lot of public uproar” (Financial Times, 2018). The online news visualization of this event with powerful ripple effects across various publics and stakeholders has been chosen as empirical data for the present social semiotic analysis for several reasons. Firstly, because such an analytical work can show the potential influence of the news media’s visualization of such an unexpected event upon how the various publics and stakeholders will understand and construct the meaning of the situation. According to Coombs, “crises are perceptual. If stakeholders believe there is a crisis stemming from expectation violations, a crisis exists and negative outcomes will occur if the situation is neglected” (Coombs 2010: 477). Secondly, if, for example, disaster visualization offers a wide array of thematic options, the choice of images for such focusing events from the financial world is quite reduced. Therefore, this analytical work is also meant to reveal how even a reduced range of images can have salient meaning potentials when accompanying the online news articles. Thirdly, not only the visuals but also their interplay with the accompanying texts is on the analytical agenda especially because of the above-mentioned reduced range of visual options. In this way, it is possible to uncover the actual potentials of the subtle visual choices that can go unnoticed when meaning-making processes are explored without addressing the image-text interplay too. As Kress and van Leeuwen highlight, the dynamic relations between visuals and the accompanying texts has to be addressed because “the two modes are not simply alternative means of representing ‘the same thing’” (2006: 76). More elaborate explanations of the social semiotic approach and an exemplification of its usage in analyzing crisis images in online news context follow below after an overview of literature.

216 

 Carmen Daniela Maier

2 Literature review 2.1 Visual communication in management and organization studies and in crisis communication research The above-mentioned scarcity of research in visual crisis communication is not surprising as, in general, the scholarly endeavors in the broader fields of management and organization research have been focused mostly on verbal data. Visual research has been “the blind spot” (Strangleman 2004: 179) in these research fields for years. Researchers have relegated the visuals to an “absent present” status (Meyer et al. 2013: 488) in spite of “the visual saturation and ocular centrism which characterizes contemporary organizational life” (Bell and Davidson 2013: 170). Nonetheless, researchers have repeatedly drawn attention to “visuals as exceptionally useful means to entice audiences” (Christiansen 2018: 665) and to their documenting roles. Höllerer, Jancsary, and Grafström show how several scholars have started to argue that “purely verbal discourse is both a myth and an analytical fallacy in contemporary society” (2018: 621). Furthermore, when Sørensen deplores that “organization studies still remain about 20 years behind cultural studies scholarship, where the visual is a much central theory” (2013: 46), he also calls, together with other scholars, for more visual organizational analyses. As a result, almost two decades after the proclamation of “the linguistic turn” (Alvesson and Kärreman 2000: 136), it is now increasingly recognized that the investigation of nonverbal data is about to become the new “turn” (Boxenbaum et al. 2018: 597) in management and organization studies. This emergent turn has to be understood “as a response to and reaction against the linguistic turn (Rorty 1979), which positions language at the heart of social interaction and construction of meaning” (Bell, Warren, and Schroeder 2014: 2). As such, although “scattered and fragmented” (Martin 2014:188), the articulation of the visual turn is taking shape in a myriad of studies focused on visuals in data that span from corporate reports (Höllerer, Jancsary, Meyer, and Vettori 2013; Greenwood, Jack, and Haylock 2018) and campaign materials (Christiansen 2018) to portraits of business leaders (Davidson 2010) or meeting rooms (De Vaujany and Vaast 2016). As a more extended presentation of the visual turn in management and o ­ rganization studies is beyond the focus of the present study, the following part of the chapter is dedicated to presenting some of the manifestations of this turn in crisis communication research. The crisis communication researchers interested in nonverbal data have approached the visuals’ impact in different types of crises, in different crisis stages, and from various perspectives (i.  e. crisis perception, crisis management, reputation management, agenda-setting, etc.). For example, Coombs and Holladay (2009 and 2011) use experimental designs to explore visuals as an audience perception factor. Fitrianie and Rothkrantz (2007) are more interested in crisis management and they have designed and tested a visual communication interface suitable for user diversity in language-independent contexts in times of crisis. The importance of visual nonver-



Visual crisis communication 

 217

bal cues during different crisis stages is investigated by Claeys and Cauberghe (2014) in a study related to reputation management. The interaction between visual and verbal cues of deception in the behavior of spokespersons of organizations in crisis is the subject of De Waele et al’s study (2018). Taking a comparative stance, Matilal and Höpfl (2009) focus on contrasting emotional photographs taken at the time of a disaster and the official reports documenting the respective disaster, while Allan and Peters (2015) problematize the role of citizen visual reportage in crisis situations. The “emotionalization” of disaster news reporting through multimodal rhetorical strategies is revealed by Yell (2012), while Fahmy et al. (2006), and Miller and LaPoe (2016) investigate the impact of disaster imagery from an agenda-setting perspective. Dahmen and Miller (2012) approach the same topic of disaster imagery from a longitudinal perspective. Social media impact on visuals is taken into consideration by Pantti (2017) in a study of the visual coverage of a crisis on Twitter. More recently, Höllerer, Jancsary, and Grafström (2018) examine the global financial crisis focusing on multimodal sensemaking by taking into consideration not only the verbal text but also images and other visual artifacts in their study. Paying closer attention to visualization strategies in media coverage of crisis is imperative as Halladay (2012: 161) also highlights that “systematically examining media coverage will help us understand what the public learns” about the development of the crisis. When taking this perspective upon the relevance of examining crisis communication beyond the verbal text, it is significant to add that a similar imperative marks the field of risk communication research. The closely-related forms of crisis and risk communication “share an essential purpose of seeking to limit, contain, mitigate, and reduce public harm” (Seeger   &   Reynolds, 2008:11). Certainly, there are also features that distinguish crisis and risk communication (Reynolds & Seeger, 2005; Seeger & Reynolds, 2008), among which the event-specific focus of crisis communication in comparison with the harm probability focus of risk communication might be considered as being the most important one. As such, the visualization needs and constraints might not overlap in totality, but finding methodological tools for assessing the potential of the similar and/or distinct visualization strategies existing in these closely-­ related communication fields has become an essential research endeavor today. Visual risk communication has also rarely been approached. This situation can be explained by the fact that, although “a key component of risk is risk visualization”, according to Horwitz, “risk is both very difficult to visualize and extremely challenging to describe” (2004:83). Referring to visual risk communication, Cutter also highlights that “developing a user-sensitive theoretical framework for uncertainty visualization is a complex research challenge” (2008: 314). This is why, research studies related to visual risk communication have a descriptive and practitioner-oriented prescriptive character (Lundgren and McMakin, 2013), and/or are focused on specific application fields from the visualization of natural hazard risks (Cutter, 2008) to risk-based interactive geovisualizations (Richards, 2015). Acknowledging that “visualization  – through its numerous cognitive and communicative advantages – can play an impor-

218 

 Carmen Daniela Maier

tant role in assessing and conveying risks”, Eppler and Aeshimann (2009:67) have been the first researchers to develop a systematic framework for risk visualization in risk management and communication. In what follows, a presentation of a social semiotic approach that can be applied when exploring the visuals in these close-related communication fields is provided.

2.2 The social semiotic approach to visual communication Before demonstrating that “semiotics is a way forward” when approaching corporate communication, Watts concedes that “the tradition of semiotics is not monolithic nor even an agreed body of theories and concepts” (Watts 2004: 357). Therefore, it is necessary to clarify here that the semiotic perspective adopted in this study for describing and discussing how meanings are produced visually in a crisis context is a social semiotic one. This social semiotic perspective stems from Halliday’s (1978) understanding of social semiosis and the functionality of any semiotic resource. In his theorization of language as social semiotic, Halliday identifies co-present functions that are always “generated and mapped onto one another” (Halliday 1978: 112): More specifically, language and other resources (i.  e. visual, auditory, kinesthetic and spatial resources) are conceptualized as inter-related semantic systems that realize three meta functions: – Ideational meta function for representing experience and logical relations; – Interpersonal meta function for enacting social relations (e.  g., role relations, attitudes and modality or truth value); and – Textual meta function for organizing the message. (O’Halloran and Tan 2017: 387)

All social semioticians who have drawn on Halliday’s theory are concerned with the organization of meaning that occurs according to these three meta functions and they perform in-depth and fine-grained analyses of how various semiotic resources are employed in various settings to do particular things. According to this approach, communicative choices at the level of each meta function do not only represent the world but also constitute it. As a consequence, each choice is ideologically significant and plays an essential role to create, legitimize or subvert specific social practices (Kress 2010). Furthermore, for these scholars, “choices in communication are understood in relation to other choices that are not made (but could have been) in a given instance” (Knox 2017: 441) and, therefore, each choice is a semiotic act. The methodological viability of this perspective has been demonstrated by a wide range of applications across research domains, from displayed art (O’Toole 1994), still images (Kress and van Leeuwen 1996 and 2006; Jewitt and Oyama 2001), moving images (Iedema 2001; Maier 2012), mathematical symbolism and images (O’Halloran 2005), action (Martinec 2000 and 2005), sound (van Leeuwen 1999), space (Stenglin 2009) to web design communication (Djonov and Knox 2014), etc.



Visual crisis communication 

 219

In a nutshell, “social semiotics of visual communication involves the description of semiotic resources, what can be said and done with images (and other visual means of communication) and how the things people say and do with images can be interpreted” (Jewitt and Oyama 2001: 134). In the context of visual crisis communication research, this methodological perspective is applied in a longitudinal study of disaster images with a focus on visual crisis and post-crisis framing (Maier, Frandsen, and Johansen 2019). This study demonstrates that the metafunctional investigation of images is beneficial not only for comparing visual representations over time, but also for investigating the dynamic and multivocal character of a specific rhetorical arena. The flexibility of this analytical approach is thus revealed in this study by showing how social semiotics can be fruitfully combined with other approaches, in this case with rhetorical arena theory (Frandsen and Johansen, 2013 and 2017). In the present study, the metafunctional approach to visual analysis is combined with a multimodal focus on the intersemiotic relations between text and image too. The social semiotic perspective has been chosen in this study for the analysis of images because, from this perspective, even photos do not reproduce social reality as such. Images contain aspects of social reality that have been selected to reflect particular ways of understanding the respective reality in relation to the communicative context in which the images are created and/or disseminated. Images are meant to orientate the viewer to specific views of social reality. The present chapter proposes this methodological approach also because its conceptual framework can be employed when exploring not only visuals but other semiotics resources too: “social semiotics attempts to provide accounts of meaning and meaning making, of all kinds, in all environments” (Kress 2015: 76). So, this approach makes it possible to take the next step, namely to perform full-fledged multimodal comparative analyses where patterns of meaning-making strategies can be detected across and among several modes of communication and thus contributing to “a rejuvenated research agenda” (Höllerer, Daudigeous, and Jancsary 2017: 2). Among others, van Leeuwen (2005), Martinec and Salway (2005) and Maier and Andersen (2014) have especially focused on image-text interplay.

3 Applying social semiotics to visual crisis communication in an illustrative case study 3.1 Data and coding The data selected for illustrating the potential of a social semiotic approach to analyzing still images belong to the online versions of four major Danish newspapers: Børsen, Berlinske Tidende, Jyllands-Posten and Politiken. The 103 images have been collected from the newspapers’ homepages for three days starting with the 19th of Sep-

220 

 Carmen Daniela Maier

tember 2018 when the focusing event took place. Each photo accompanies one article. Three types of still images have appeared in the newspapers during the selected period of time: photographs, cartoons and graphs. Table 1 specifies the number of images published online by the four newspapers during the three days: Tab. 1: Overview of visual data from four Danish newspapers. Newspaper Dates

Børsen

Berlinske Tidende

Jyllands-Posten

Politiken

19.08.2018

21

24

 3

 2

20.08.2018

 7

 7

 5

 7

21.08.2018

 7

10

 6

 3

19 – 21.09.2018

35

41

14

12

The analytical work has been conducted based on Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) social semiotic approach to visuals and their system networks. After being downloaded from the newspapers’ online formats, the images have been coded at the level of each meta function according to the a priori analytical categories provided by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), and van Leeuwen (2005). In order to capture the visual ­representation strategies of each image in a systematic way, a Word table has been used for each journal. At the level of the ideational meta function, the images have been coded according to choices related to how the (human or non-human) participants in the image are displayed: either doing something or being involved in an event (in narrative structures), or just being or meaning something (in conceptual structures). In narrative images, the participants’ actions are visualized by uni- and bi-transactional vectors (formed by the visible lines connecting the involved participants in the image), while their reactions are visualized by the direction of their gaze. The reactions can be transactive (when both the persons who are looking and the objects of their gaze are displayed in the image) or non-transactive (when we cannot see the respective objects that the participants look at). The images that contain no vectors are the conceptual ones. These images are meant to relate the participants in terms of part-whole structures, to classify participants (in order to show that they have something in common), or to symbolically visualize their identity or meaning. At the level of the interpersonal meta function, images have been coded according to the choices made for representing the viewers’ relation with the world displayed within the frame. Thus, as categorized by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), an image can be either a demand image (questioning the viewers through the participants’ direct eye contact with them) or an offer image (informing the viewers without having eye contact with them). In demand images, the participants can look down on the viewers or up to them establishing visually a power relation with them. The relation



Visual crisis communication 

 221

to the viewers is also visually manipulated through the distance created by the choice of frame (from close up to long shot), and by the choice of angles (from frontal to oblique). The offer images are meant to offer “the represented participants to the viewer as items of information, objects of contemplation, impersonally, as though they were specimens in a display case” (van Leeuwen 2006: 199). At the level of the textual meta function, the images have been coded according to the choices made when representing the images’ information value and salience. Using a particular type of composition (polarized or centered) or other visual clues (color, foregrounding, framing devices, etc.), the images can indicate “a hierarchy of importance” (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006: 202), namely that some elements in the image are more relevant than others. The image-text relations have been coded for each image by using the a priori analytical categories provided by van Leeuwen (2006): elaboration for the cases in which the image specifies or explains the accompanying text, and extension for the cases in which the content of the image is similar, in contrast or complements the content of the text. Table 2 illustrates a sample of the coding and analysis procedure employed for mapping the range of semiotic choices detected at the level of each meta function of each image, and the image-text interplay. Tab. 2: Example of the coding and analysis procedure of images from Jyllands-Posten. No.

Time of appearance (date & hour)

Article’s title Article’s caption Link to the article

Image

Image properties & metafunctional ­strategies

Relation image & text

3.

Date: 19.09.2018

Article’s title: Wall Street Journal om Danske Banksag: „Skandale af enorme proportioner“ (Translation: Wall Street Journal about the Danske Bank case: ‘A scandal of enormous proportions’)

Downloaded image here:

Ideational metafunction: symbolic suggestive structure

Wide shot from a frontal low angle of the bank’s headquarters in Copenhagen; the façade of the iconic building with the bank’s flag on top of it

Interpersonal metafunction: impersonal social distance

Relation of complementation through extension: the content of the symbolic image complements that of the article’s title through the distorted perspective upon the bank’s building

Time: 23:16

No caption Link: https://finans.dk/ erhverv/ ECE1088209

Textual metafunction: enhanced salience of the exaggerated low angle providing an optical illusion of the imposing building falling backwards

222 

 Carmen Daniela Maier

In what follows, the findings are presented and discussed according to the patterns of meta-functional choices identified during the social semiotic analysis of the visual representations of the Dansk Bank focus event across the four journals.

3.2 Findings As already mentioned, a bank crisis, even though it involves the biggest scandal in a country and has no match in European history, doesn’t offer a great array of images to support the ongoing process of communicating about that particular crisis. The photos selected by journalists are reduced in this particular case to images of: the bank’s buildings both in Denmark and in Estonia, the main actors involved (i.  e. the bank’s CEO and the Chairman of the Board of Directors), other actors directly or indirectly affected by the bank’s crisis (i.  e. the Danish Prime Minister, other politicians, other banks’ CEOs, the possible replacement of the Danske Bank’s CEO, etc.), groups of journalists and, more sporadically, the Danske Bank blue flag bearing their logo. There have also been published two cartoons and a graphic image during those three days. However, in spite of this scarcity, each of the strategic semiotic choices made at the level of each meta function in each image can contribute to the viewers’ meaning-making processes and has the potential to influence them in taking a certain position towards the crisis. Table 3 summarizes the main visual meta functional strategies employed in the online news media during the 19th–21st of September period.

3.2.1 The ideational meta function Apart from the images mentioned above, the journalists have also selected another image when visualizing the focusing event, but this one appears only twice: the conceptual image of a heap of Danish money, with one of the captions saying: “1000 Danish crowns banknotes – that’s how a quarter of a million Danish crowns looks like” (Berlingske, 19.09.2018, 17:04 and 18:02). The choice of such a symbolic analytic image is meant to help the viewers visualize – by comparison – the actual mass of the enormous amount of money (1500 billion Danish crowns) that the focusing event has disclosed. This choice reveals the ideational core strategy of the visual communication employed by the news media when dealing with this focusing event on the 19th of September 2018. Although the object on which the whole bank’s crisis is centered around is the laundered money, their visual representation becomes secondary to the images of the involved institution and its leaders, as the news media coverage of the focusing event deals primarily with trying to clarify for the readers the questionable responsibility of the institution and the possible involvement of the leadership. Looking closely at the other ideational choices in the images selected to accompany the online news texts about the focusing event, it becomes evident that although



Visual crisis communication 

 223

narrative structures might not be the obvious choices, there is nevertheless a constant use of narrative structures, namely non-transactive reactions. Thus, the majority of the images showing the bank’s leadership, either in single shot (one person), two-shots (two persons) or wide angles (many persons), contains the vector of the participant’s eyeline leading outside the frame of the photo as if their interest lies somewhere else. Taking into consideration the idea of the narrow field of possible ideational meanings due to a reduced number of visually represented topics, these are also images which have been used to expand this field by adding more possible interpretations to the represented visual structures. Among these images, some are swaying between two types of structures because of this scarcity of subjects to visualize the focusing event. For example, the images of the CEO, showing him either alone in close up shot, or in medium shot or in a wider framing together with the Chairman of the Board of Directors. In all these images, the CEO looks outside the frame which, by default, would place the image in the category of the narrative processes because of the powerful vector created by the eyeline. But the recurrent mask-like smile present in all of the CEO photos (with only three exceptions) pushes this kind of images into the conceptual category, becoming symbolic attributive images. The symbolic power of the rather misplaced mask-like smile is enhanced by the repetition because it is evident that the CEO is not just smiling at what is going on. He is continually posing for the viewer confirming that “human participants in Symbolic Attributive process usually pose for the viewer, rather than being shown as involved in some action” (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006: 105). Readers consistently interested in the Danske Bank’s crisis will come across the same detached smile present in almost all the CEO’s photos across all newspapers, and this visual representation is meant to influence the way in which the event’s impact upon the bank’s leadership can be understood. Still at the level of reactions, some of the mentioned images add to the field of possible meanings by employing the narrative transactive structures too. For example, in an image from the 20th of September, in Politiken, showing the bank’s CEO during the focusing event. It is a medium shot of the CEO looking apparently into the camera and, thus, at the viewers. However, at a closer look, it becomes obvious that he gazes at a camera that can be seen in the foreground on the left side of the photo. Due to the choice of this angle that creates ambiguity, the image sways between visualizing a transactive and a non-transactive aspect of a reaction narrative structure. It also expands the field of possible meanings because of the physical resemblance between some parts of the camera’s supporting system and the bars of a cage adds the meaning of “imprisonment”. Another image with an extended field of meanings is the one of the bank’s CEO sitting at a table during the focusing event (Børsen, 19.09.2018, 08:31). As it looks, the image falls into the category of reaction processes in narrative structures, because the “reacter”, the bank’s CEO, looks down at some papers on the table. What makes the image worth mentioning, is the fact that the whole image is leaning strongly on the left side. It can be argued that the camera angle as a semiotic resource is one of the inter-

224 

 Carmen Daniela Maier

personal meta function’s means of visualizing the relation with the viewers which is true as long as we consider the vertical angle. However, this image has the horizontal angle of the whole image heavily inclined towards left acquiring in this way a new level of semiosis of the ideational meta function: the whole world of the CEO is out of balance and is falling apart. A similar tilting appears in Berlingske (19.08.2018, 12:06), in a medium shot of the CEO and The Chairman of the Board of Directors walking towards the viewers while being followed by journalists. The same visual strategy of tilting the horizontal angle to show instability is used in a photo appearing in Børsen (20.09.2018, 21:30). This photo accompanies an article in which the opinion of the actor displayed in the photo, a representative of a Danish right-wing party, is debated and contradicted by the respective newspaper. His world is thus also visualized as being out of balance. The only narrative actions appear in photos where journalists are visualized. The images represent narrative visual propositions in which the participants confronting each other (namely the bank’s leadership and the journalists at the historical press meeting) are linked by vectors formed by the lines that can be drawn from the journalists´ many cameras and microphones to the bank’s representatives sitting in front of them. The sheer mass of journalists, cameras and microphones confer the semiotic space of these images the meaning of a firing squad due to the unidirectionality of the vectors that start only from one side. Through the choice of visual angle, the viewers are placed either behind the journalists implying visually that they are conferred the same role (i.  e. Politiken, 20.09.2018, 07:15), or on the sideline being given the role of impartial witnesses (i.  e. Berlingske, 19.09.2018, 19:30). When images display the unfolding of an action as, for example, when journalists are chasing the walking-away bank leadership while directing their cameras and/or microphones towards them, then the idea of an urge to escape might also be inferred (Berlingske, 20.09.2018, 06:00; Børsen, 19.09.2018,15:27 and 2.09.2018, 17:45; Politiken, 21.09.2019, 06:55).

3.2.2 The interpersonal meta function The interpersonal meta function of images is meant to construe the relations of the viewers to the represented participants and/or scenes. Only one photo chosen by the journals to be published during these three days has a visual form of a direct address “demanding an imaginary social response of some kind from the viewer” (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006: 119). In that photo, the female CEO of a Swedish bank who has been considered at that time a possible replacement of the Danske Bank’s CEO gazes directly at the viewers (Berlingske, 19.09.2018, 15:38). It is obvious that the photo was taken while she was addressing the press, but the effect of the seemingly direct eye contact with the viewers is nevertheless exceptionally powerful especially when all the other photos contain no such visual strategy. The frontal angle also increases the chances of the viewers’ symbolic involvement with her as through direct gaze “contact



Visual crisis communication 

 225

is established, even if it is only on an imaginary level” (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006: 117). As already mentioned above, all the other photos display the other participants without the viewers entering into any kind of imaginary relation with them. The viewers are always positioned as “an invisible onlooker” (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006: 119). This choice narrows the field of possible meanings of the photos of the bank’s leadership to “the represented persons feel guilty and thus ashamed to confront the viewers” or “the represented persons are not found judicially guilty yet and thus the viewers have to remain on the sidelines”.

3.2.3 The textual meta function The term textual implicates that the meaning in images is constructed through a strategic combination of ideational and interpersonal choices that allow a text to become a coherent and cohesive whole. The main resources of textual meaning employed in the analyzed images are the information value and the salience. The information value of the images is evidently enhanced from the very beginning by their recurrent placement between the title of the online news article and the text of the respective article. The readers are firstly confronted by the image due to its central placement, and this influences the way in which the article and its title are supposed to be interpreted. Jewitt and Oyama highlight that “centrality, finally, means what it is: what is placed in the centre is thereby seen as what holds the ‘marginal’ elements together” (2001: 149). But inside the frame, the information value of the images is also enhanced by strategic choices that influence the readers’ involvement and their meaning-making processes at the level of the whole online news article. For example, as already mentioned, the repeated strategy of displaying the CEO’s mask-like smile in big close up shots can become a visual indicator for the readers of how they should interpret the accompanying text of the news article. In order to counterbalance the scarcity of narrative actions, the visual communication strategies are channeled to enhance the impact of the conceptual structures in order to keep up visually with the magnitude and dynamic character of the bank’s crisis. The challenge was to bring around a new layer of meaning for two visual resources, namely the images of the Danske Bank’s building and flag, used as symbolic suggestive images. For increasing the salience of the respective images, strategic choices have been made through particular positioning and colors. Consequently, the visual appearance of the bank’s headquarters is distorted in several images by using an exaggerated low angle providing an optical illusion of the imposing building falling backwards. The salience of the flag images is enhanced both by positioning and colors. When positioning is employed, the choice of flag images encourages an association of the crumpled shape of the flag with the now distorted image of the bank

226 

 Carmen Daniela Maier

as an institution. In these images, the bank’s logo is no longer visible on the flag’s surface due to the chosen moment when the flag has been photographed. The flag appearing twice in Børsen and Berlingske, and once in Jyllands-Posten and Politiken, employs color to add an extra layer of meaning to the flag in the context of the crisis. The specific bright blue flag which is so well-known to the Danes is displayed with the bank’s logo in a very darkened version against a grey sky suggesting in this way the dark times ahead caused by the money laundering crisis. One of the captions accompanying such an image states: “On Wednesday, Danske Bank admits big mistakes and failure” (Berlingske, 20.09.2018, 10:10) Evidently, a more detailed social semiotic analysis of this meta function could extend this analytical work by considering the structure and layout of online pages when dealing with visual crisis communication in longitudinal or/and comparative studies because the online page design is supposed to communicate the relative importance of stories in online news reporting (Knox 2017).



Visual crisis communication 

 227

Tab. 3: Summary of main visual meta-functional strategies used in the online news media. Visualizations

Functions

Meta functions

Conceptual structures (symbolic analytic)

To visually represent by comparison the huge amount of money the crisis is about.

Ideational

Conceptual structures (symbolic attributive)

To visually represent the detachment of the mask-like smiling CEO from what is going on.

Conceptual structures (symbolic suggestive)

To visually represent the bank’s vulnerable present status.

Narrative structures (uni-transactional actions)

To visually represent the journalists’ active role during the focusing event.

Tilted narrative structure (non-transactional reaction)

To visually represent the CEO’s vulnerable position; To visually represent the journal’s position towards the opinion of right-wing party’s representative.

Narrative structures (non-transactional reactions)

To visually represent the possible lack of interest of the bank’s leadership in the event.

Narrative structures (misleadingly trans­ actional reactions)

To visually represent the possible future of the bank’s CEO.

Offer images with no eye contact between participants and viewers

To visually establish the distance between the bank’s leadership and the viewers.

A single demand image

To visually establish the viewers’ involvement with the possible replacement of the present CEO.

Lack of demand images

To visually establish the viewers’ present status as “invisible onlooker”.

Frontal angle

To visually establish the viewers’ involvement with the participants and/or scene.

High or oblique angle

To visually establish the viewers’ detachment from the visualized participants and/or scene.

Centred composition

To visually indicate the viewers the information value of the respective element in the photo.

Distorted positioning or color palette

To visually represent the collapse of the bank’s status and the dark times ahead.

Interpersonal

Textual

228 

 Carmen Daniela Maier

3.2.4 The relation between images and the accompanying texts The relations of elaboration between images and the accompanying texts are semiotically actualized through four main strategies: verbal labeling, metaphorical text, visual focus change and visual angle choice. The labelling strategy is employed for informing the viewer about the name and position of the person(s) visualized in a photo or/and the situation that the respective persons are involved in. Here, the text makes the image more specific. The relations of elaboration appear between images and the accompanying texts also due to strategic visual choices through which the images succeed to illustrate the respective texts. For example, a photo in which the bank’s CEO seem to approach a door on which the word “toilet” is visible. The CEO approaching that door visualizes the accompanying caption stating metaphorically that “the CEO of Danske Bank is history (Jyllands-Posten, 21.09.2018, 12:27). Another visual strategy that makes possible the same image-text interplay is given by the focus use. For example, when the captions state that the investigation’s report mentions only the CEO and the Chairman of the Board of Directors by name, only those two persons are in focus while the others are blurred in the respective images. The perspective created in an image by the chosen angle can also elaborate on the meaning of a text. For example, in a very wide shot visualizing the historical press meeting with many journalists, the high angle from which the shot is taken translates symbolically the caption of the image: “On Wednesday, Danske Bank occupied all the headlines at home and around the world” (Berlinske, 20.09.2018, 08:26). The relations of extension between images and the accompanying texts are semiotically actualized either through content divergence or visual angle choice. For example, the content of a symbolic suggestive image complements a part of the article’s title, “a scandal of enormous proportions” (Jyllands-Posten, 19.09.2018, 23:16), through the usage of an exaggerated low angle that creates a distorted perspective upon the bank’s huge building falling backward.

4 Conclusions, implications and future directions in visual crisis communication The underlining idea of this chapter is that a nuanced study of visual crisis communication can contribute to or even take charge of our understanding of a crisis even when the visualization of the respective crisis is characterized by a scarcity of possible topics. Although this chapter presents only some of the social semiotic visual analysis’ resources, the explanations of the analytical work has been meant to show that “images can tell us more than we know, or are able to express” in words (Bell, Warren, and Schroeder 2014: 5), and that “the method is effective in bringing out hidden meanings” (Jewitt and Oyama 2001: 155). The detail discussion of some examples has been



Visual crisis communication 

 229

provided in order to both clarify the specific usage of semiotic resources in this particular case, and to demonstrate the possible validity of such methodological tools for broader domains of inquiry. By showing how the semiotic choices at the level of each meta function can subtly invite the viewers to co-create the meaning of specific images that goes beyond simply illustration, the analysis demonstrates how images can subtly channel the viewers’ attention and understanding. Thus, building on the analysis in this chapter, several issues can be highlighted for the further development of this type of inquiry of news media visualizations during and/or after a crisis. A multivocal approach (Frandsen and Johansen 2017) to the present analytical endeavor could have captured more of the visual complexity sketched in this chapter by including several other actors communicating in the rhetorical arena opened by the focusing event. But, as the main scope of this analytical work was to explain in great detail the methodological potential of social semiotics, only one actor’s visual representation of the focusing event, namely that of the news media, has been selected here. As mentioned in the beginning, more systematic examinations of visual communication in a crisis context are relevant for understanding the visuals’ impact upon how meanings are processed and co-created by various publics and stakeholders. The underdeveloped empirical and conceptual agenda of research in visual crisis communication can be enriched by taking into consideration the multimodal aspects of data. Boxenbaum et al. also point out that a more systematic engagement with multimodality is necessary today especially when taking into consideration research studies dealing with nonverbal data that are in fact “inherently multimodal” (2018: 603), but do not explicitly reflect on the implications of meaning creation across several modes of communication. As shown above, exploring the dynamic interplay of verbal and visual data can grant more nuanced insights about the (lack of) feasible integration strategies of communicative modes. A focus on resemiotization (Iedema 2001), namely on tracing how meaning is translated from one semiotic mode to the other as social processes unfold, is also possible when adopting a social semiotic perspective. Furthermore, such a social semiotic approach to visuals could be fruitfully integrated in more extensive research studies where crisis and risk communication strategies are explored by using complex models such as CERC, namely the model of Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (Reynolds and Seeger, 2005). Last but not least, the present analytical and explanatory work with a social semiotic focus is necessary because “to give shape and form to semiotic analysis, a format is needed by which practitioners with little knowledge of semiotic theory can order their ideas for its application” (Watts and Krishnamurthy 2004: 385). Drawing attention to how images reflect the consequences of strategic choices at the level of each meta-function and at the level of the image-text interplay, the chapter is also meant to show how semiotics can become a tool for the practitioners’ design of visual communication strategies. Generally, a more systematic engagement with the visuals could help practitioners to better anticipate and manage the publics’ perceptions and reac-

230 

 Carmen Daniela Maier

tions to a crisis by acquiring and using a nuanced understanding of the affordances, shortcomings and potentials of visual resources. In addition to making transparent the visuals’ communicative power, a social semiotic approach to images may inspire practitioners to deepen their understanding of the elusive nature of crisis communication and its multimodal development. As Knox claims, “power no longer hinges on access to information. Rather it lies with those who are able to ascribe value to it” (2017: 449).

References Allan, S. C. 2015. Visual truths of citizen reportage: four research problematics. Information, Communication & Society 18(11). 1348–1361. Alvesson, M., and D. Kärreman. 2000. Taking the linguistic turn in organizational research. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 36. 136–158. Bell, E., and J. Davison. 2013. Visual management studies: Empirical and theoretical studies. International Journal of Management Reviews 15. 167–184. Bell, E., S. Warren, and J. Schroeder. 2014. Introduction. The visual organization. In E. Bell, S. Warren and J. Schroeder (eds.), The Routledge companion to visual organization, 1–17. London: Routledge. Berger, J. 1972. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books. Birkland, T. A. 1997. After Disaster: Policy Change after Catastrophic Events. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. Birkland, T. A. 2006. Lessons After Disaster: Agenda Setting, Public Policy, and Focusing Events. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. Boxenbaum, E., C. Jones, R. E. Meyer, and S. Svejenova. 2018. Towards and articulation of the material and visual turn in organization studies. Organization Studies 39(5–6). 597–616. Christiansen, H. L. 2018. The use of visuals in issue framing: signifying responsible drinking. Organization Studies 39. 669–693. Claeys, A.-S., and V. Cauberghe. 2014. Keeping control: The importance of nonverbal expressions of power by organizational spokespersons in times of crisis. Journal of Communication 64(1). 160–1180. Coombs, W. T. 2010. Crisis communication. A developing field. In R. L. Heath (ed.), The Sage handbook of Public Relations, 477–488. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Coombs, W. T., and S. J. Holladay. 2009. Further explorations of post-crisis communication: Effects of media and response strategies on perceptions and intentions. Public Relations Review 35: 1–6. Coombs, W. T., and S. J. Holladay. 2011. An exploration of the effects of victim visuals on perceptions and reactions to crisis events. Public Relations Review 37. 115–120. Cutter, Susan. 2008. Keep representations simple for effective communication. In Ann Bostrom, Steven P. French and Sara J. Gottlieb (eds). Risk Assessment, Modeling and Decision Support: Strategic Directions. Berlin/New York: Springer. Dahmen, N. S., and A. Miller. 2012. Redefining iconicity: A five-year study of visual themes of Hurricane Katrina. Visual Communication Quarterly 19(1). 4–19. Davison, J. 2010. (In)visible (in)tangibles: visual portraits of the business élite. Accounting, Organizations and Society 35. 165–183. De Vaujany, F.-X., and E. Vaast. 2016. Matters of visuality in legitimation practices: dual iconographies in a meeting room. Organization 23(5). 763–790.



Visual crisis communication 

 231

De Waele, A., A.-S. Claeys, V. Cauberghe, and G. Fannes. 2018. Spokespersons’ nonverbal behavior in times of crisis: the relative importance of visual and vocal clues. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 1–20. Djonov, E., and J. Knox. 2014. How-to-analyze webpages. In S. Norris and C. D. Maier (eds.), Interactions, images and texts. A reader in multimodality, 171–195. Boston/Berlin: De Gruyter. Fahmy, S., S. Cho, W. Wanta, and Y. Song. 2006. Visual agenda setting after 9/11: Individual emotion, recall and concern about terrorism. Visual Communication Quarterly 13(1). 4–15. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2013. Rhetorical arena (crisis theory). In Robert L. Heath (ed.), Encyclopedia of Public Relations, vol. II, 797–800. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2017. Organizational Crisis Communication: A Multivocal Approach. Los Angeles: Sage. Fishman, D. A. 1999. ValuJet 592: Crisis communication theory blended and extended. Communication Quarterly 47(4). 345–375. Fitrianie, S., and L. J. M. Rothkrantz. 2007. A Visual Communication Language for Crisis Management. International Journal of Intelligent Control and Systems 12(2). 208–216. Gronholt-Pedersen, J., and T. Jensen. 2018. Danske Bank CEO quits over $ 234 billion money laundering scandal. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-danske-bankmoneylaundering/danske-bank-ceo-quits-over-234-billion-money-laundering-scandalidUSKCN1LZ0QX Greenwood, M., G. Jack, and B. Haylock. 2018. Toward a methodology for analyzing visual rhetoric in corporate reports. Organizational Research Methods. 1–30. Halliday, M., and A. Kirkwood. 1978. Language as Social Semiotic. London: Edward Arnold. Holladay, S. J. 2012. Are they practicing what we are preaching? An investigation of crisis communication strategies in the media coverage of chemical accidents. In T. W. Coombs and S. J. Holladay (eds.), The Handbook of Crisis Communication, 159–181. Los Angeles: Wiley-Blackwell. Höllerer, A. M., T. Daudigeous, and D. Jancsary. 2017. Multimodality, meaning and institutions: Editorial. Research in the Sociology of Organizations 54A: 1–24. Höllerer, A. M., D. Jancsary, R. E. Meyer, and O. Vettori. 2013. Imageries of corporate social responsibility: visual recontextualization and field-level meaning. Research in the Sociology of Organizations 39B. 139–174. Höllerer, A. M., D. Jancsary, and M. Grafström. 2018. ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’: Multimodal sensemaking of the global financial crisis. Organization Studies 39. 621–648. Horwitz, Richard. 2004. Hedge Fund Risk Fundamentals: Solving the Risk Management and Transparency Challenge. New York: Bloomberg Press. Iedema, R. 2001. Analyzing film and television: A social semiotic account. In T. van Leeuwen and C. Jewitt (eds.), Handbook of Visual Analysis, 18–204. London: Sage. Iedema, R. 2003. Resemiotization. Semiotica 137(1/4). 23–40. Jancsary, D., M. A. Höllerer, and E. Boxenbaum. 2018. Institutions as multimodal accomplishments: Towards the analysis of visual registers. Research in the Sociology of Organizations 54A. 87–117. Jewitt, C., and R. Oyama. 2001. Visual meaning: a social semiotic approach. In T. van Leeuwen and C. Jewitt (eds.), Handbook of Visual Analysis, 134–157. London: Sage. Johansen, W., F. Frandsen, and C. D. Maier (submitted). Images of MS Estonia disaster: A study of visual crisis communication. Kress, G. 2010. Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. London: Routledge. Kress, G. 2015. Gunther Kress. In T. H. Andersen, M. Boeriis, E. Maagerø, and E. Seip Tønnessen (eds.), Social semiotics. Key figures, new directions, 69–93. London: Routledge.

232 

 Carmen Daniela Maier

Kress, G., and T. van Leeuwen. 2006. Reading images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge. Knox, J. S. 2017. Online newspapers. Structure and layout. In C. Jewitt (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis, 440–449. London: Routledge. Lundgren, Regina E. & Andrea H. McMakin. 2013. Risk Communication: A Handbook for Communi­cating Environmental, Safety, and Health Risks. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Maier, C. D. 2012. Closer to nature: A case study of the multifunctional selection of moving images in an environmental corporate video. Multimodal Communication 1(3). 233–250. Maier, C. D., and A. M. Andersen. 2014. Dynamic interplay of visual and textual identification strategies in employees’ magazines. International Journal of Strategic Communication 8(4). 250–275. Martin, K. N. 2014. Navigating the scattered and fragmented: Visual rhetoric, visual studies and visual communication. In E. Bell, S. Warren, and J. E. Schroeder (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Visual Organization, 188–202. London: Routledge. Martinec, R., and A. Salway. 2005. A system for image-text relations in new (and old) media. Visual Communication 4(3). 337–371. Matilal, S., and H. Höpfl. 2009. Accounting for the Bhopal disaster: footnotes and fotographs. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 22(6). 953–972. Meyer, R. E., M. A. Jancsary, and T. van Leeuwen. 2013. The visual dimension of in organizing, organization, and organization research: Core ideas, current developments, and promising avenues. Academy of Management Annals 7(1). 487–553. Miller, A., and V. LaPoe 2016. Visual agenda-setting, emotion and the BP Oil disaster. Visual Communication Quarterly 32. 53–63. Milne, R. 2018. Regulator reopens probe into Danske Bank scandal. In Financial Times https://www. ft.com/content/dc7bc692-bc2a-11e8-94b2-17176fbf93f5 O’Halloran, K. L., M. K. L. E, and S. Tan. 2017. Multimodal analytics. Software and visualization techniques for analyzing and interpreting multimodal data. In C. Jewitt (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis, 386–396. London: Routledge O’Toole, M. 2011. The Language of Displayed Art. London: Routledge. Pantti, M. 2017. The personalization of conflict reporting. Visual coverage of the Ukraine crisis on Twitter. Digital Journalism. 1–22. Reynolds, B., and M. W. Seeger. 2005. Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication as an Integrative Model. Journal of Health Communication 10(1). 43–55. Seeger, Matthew, W. & Barbara Reynolds. 2008. Crisis Communication and the Public Health: Integrative Approaches and New Imperative. In Mathew W. Seeger, Timothy L. Sellnow & Robert R. Ulmer (eds), Crisis Communication and the Public Health, 3–22. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, Inc. Strangleman, T. 2004. Ways of (not) seeing work: the visual as a blind spot in WES?. Work, Employment and Society 18. 179–192. Stenglin, M. 2009. Space odyssey: towards a social semiotic model of three-dimensional space. In Visual Communication 8(31). 35–64. Sørensen, B. M. 2013. The method of juxtaposition. In E. Bell, S. Warren, and J. Schroeder (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Visual Organization, 46–63. London: Routledge. The Guardian. 2018. Danske Bank money laundering’ is biggest scandal in Europe’. https://www. theguardian.com/business/2018/sep/20/danske-bank-money-laundering-is-biggest-scandalin-europe-european-commission. van Leeuwen, T. 2005. Introducing Social Semiotics. London: Routledge. Yell, S. 2012. Natural disaster news and communities of feeling: the affective interpellation of local and global studies. Social Semiotics 22(4). 409–428.



Visual crisis communication 

 233

Watts, R. 2004. Visualizing the message: why semiotics is a way forward. In S. Oliver (ed.), A Handbook of Corporate Communication and Public Relations, 357–372. London: Routledge. Watts, R., and S. Krishnamurthy. 2004. The application of social semiotic theory to visual elements within corporate positioning material and the development of a viable methodology. Journal of Communication Management 8(4). 384–394.

Section III – Organizational level

Michael D. Pfarrer, Jonathan Bundy, Alan Muller and Anthony R. Wheeler

11 To minimize or mobilize? The trade-offs associated with the crisis communication process Abstract: Drawing from communication and crisis management research, we theorize that a crisis generates an evaluative social process in which an organization and its stakeholders deliberate the details of the crisis. We argue that the nature of this process makes it difficult for the organization to minimize its losses while also mobilizing stakeholder support, in contrast to the prescriptions of traditional scholarship. We advance research by exposing this trade-off and by explicating the complexities associated with the crisis communication process. We also consider contingent factors that influence this trade-off, including stakeholders’ attributions of a crisis and trust in the organization. Keywords: crisis management theory, communication theory, crisis process, minimizing narratives, mobilizing narratives, contentious narratives, collaborative narritives, trade-off, dilemma

1 Introduction A crisis is an unexpected, complex, and disruptive event that engenders uncertainty among an organization and its stakeholders (Bundy et al. 2017, Coombs 2007, Fediuk et al. 2012, Pearson and Clair 1998). For example, Volkswagen’s emissions scandal, product recalls by Mattel and Toyota, data breaches at Target, Equifax, and Sony, environmental disasters by Shell and BP, financial malfeasance at Wells Fargo and UBS, and United Airlines’ forcible removal of a passenger left each organization and its stakeholders uncertain of the extent of damages and how to resolve the crisis. A common focus of research has been to investigate how an organization communicates with stakeholders to address this uncertainty in pursuit of two important crisis outcomes: minimizing organizational losses and mobilizing stakeholder support (e.  g., Benoit 1995, Coombs 2007, Elsbach 2003, Marcus and Goodman 1991, Pearson and Clair 1998, Yu et al. 2008). Minimizing organizational losses involves limiting the threat to an organization’s financial and reputational capital (Coombs 2015), while mobilizing stakeholder support involves marshaling resources to help resolve the crisis (Fediuk et al. 2012, Pfarrer et al. 2008a). Notably, a general prescription of past research is that an organization should try to achieve both of these desired outcomes simultaneously (Bundy et al. 2017). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-011

238 

 Michael D. Pfarrer, Jonathan Bundy, Alan Muller and Anthony R. Wheeler

However, while a focus on crisis outcomes is important, it has come at the expense of understanding the crisis communication process and the trade-offs associated with an organization’s ability to achieve both of its desired outcomes simultaneously. Similar to other complex organizational issues that involve multiple actors, such as corporate governance or social responsibility, the crisis communication process reflects these actors’ perspectives and may lack a singular outcome on which an organization and its stakeholders agree (Hahn et al. 2014, Stoppelenburg and Vermaak 2009, Scherer et al. 2013). For example, an organization’s emphasis on minimizing loss may resonate with some stakeholders, including investors, but it may discourage others from providing the support necessary to resolve the crisis (cf. Lamin and Zaheer 2012). In contrast, an organization’s emphasis on mobilizing resources may garner support from customers and employees, but it may also subject the organization to additional liabilities and financial obligations. In this way, a crisis can “play multiple parties’ interests against one another” (Pearson and Clair 1998: 62) and expose the trade-offs associated with this complex process. Yet, the nature of managing these trade-offs remains less understood. Thus, a deeper examination of the crisis communication process is necessary to explain how and why an organization may achieve certain crisis outcomes – but fail to achieve others. In this chapter, we draw from communication and crisis management research (e.  g., Bundy and Pfarrer 2015, Bundy et al. 2017; Coombs 2007, Koschmann et al. 2012) to theorize that a crisis generates an evaluative, social process in which an organization and its stakeholders exchange narratives to deliberate the details of the crisis (Pfarrer et al. 2008a, Rindova et al. 2004). Organizational and stakeholder narratives reflect each party’s account of the crisis, including their perceptions of the damages, attributions of responsibility, and different resolution options. We argue that the exchange of narratives between an organization and its stakeholders is a central element of the crisis communication process, and that by considering this exchange, we can better understand the trade-offs associated with minimizing loss or mobilizing stakeholder support during a crisis. In particular, we argue that stakeholders will gravitate toward one of two primary types of narratives – collaborative and contentious. Collaborative stakeholder narratives are more conciliatory, include statements of support, and mobilize stakeholder resources to aid the organization. In contrast, contentious stakeholder narratives are more antagonistic, include statements of blame, and can increase organizational losses. We then theorize that how an organization encourages or discourges different types of stakeholder narratives will have a impact on its desired crisis outcomes. Specifically, we argue that an organization’s role in the crisis communication process is reflected in two primary types of narratives – minimizing and mobilizing. A minimizing narrative is delivered quickly, is more optimistic in tone, and is less receptive to stakeholders’ narratives about the crisis. As a result, a minimizing narrative can help an organization reduce its financial and reputational losses by discouraging contentious stakeholder narratives. In contrast, a mobilizing narrative is delivered more



To minimize or mobilize? 

 239

slowly, is more realistic in tone, and is more receptive to stakeholders’ narratives. As a result, a mobilizing narrative can help an organization marshal stakeholder support by encouraging collaborative stakeholder narratives. However, we argue that both types of organizational narratives also pose challenges. Because a minimizing narrative discourages all stakeholder narratives, including collaborative ones, it risks failing to mobilize stakeholder support. Similarly, because an organization’s mobilizing narrative encourages all stakeholder narratives, including contentious ones, it risks incurring increased organizational losses. Recognizing this dilemma, we theorize that how an organization manages stakeholder narratives will set it on a path toward either minimizing losses or mobilizing stakeholder support, but not both, in contrast to the prescriptions of past outcome-based research (see Bundy et al. 2017 for a review). We also consider how two facets of the crisis communication process – stakeholders’ attributions of the crisis and their level of trust in an organization  – influence the effectiveness of an organization’s crisis narrative.

2 The outcome-based perspective of crisis communication As Figure 1 shows, past research has focused on an organization’s ability to achieve both of its desired crisis outcomes – minimizing organizational loss and mobilizing stakeholder support (cf. Bundy and Pfarrer 2017). In this way, prior research has argued that an organization’s response that is fast and credible – i.  e., that provides stakeholders with “facts, arguments, attributes, and benefits” (Woltman et al. 2003: 438) – will be effective at limiting organizational loss while also marshaling stakeholder support to resolve the crisis (Pearson and Clair 1998, Heil and Robertson 1991, Reeves and Bednar 1994).

Crisis Event

Organization Response

Desired Outcomes

• Fast and • Credible

• Less loss and • More support

Fig. 1: Outcome-based perspective.

However, a crisis is a complex event that involves multiple stakeholders, and it may lack a singular outcome on which an organization and its stakeholders agree (Hahn et al. 2014, Stoppelenburg and Vermaak 2009, Scherer et al. 2013). This complexity and multivocality often make it difficult for an organization to deliver credible information quickly. Indeed, the demands for acting “quickly, accurately, directly, and candidly”

240 

 Michael D. Pfarrer, Jonathan Bundy, Alan Muller and Anthony R. Wheeler

(Pearson and Clair 1998: 73) prescribed by the outcome-based perspective have been criticized as creating “impossible conditions” for an organization in crisis (Boin et al. 2005: 130). For example, when Blue Bell’s ice cream products were linked to a listeria outbreak in 2015, the company initially faced “impossible conditions” regarding the outcomes associated with its recall – differing reactions by customers, distributors, and regulators – while the causes associated with the outbreak were still unknown. During this time, some stakeholders praised Blue Bell’s crisis communication decisions as being “honest, transparent, and accountable” (Hemeyer 2015: 1), while others criticized Blue Bell for failing to show an “abundance of caution” in recalling its products (Dipietro 2015: 1). As a result, some stakeholders provided needed support while others remained hostile, and there was little agreement among observers whether the organization could have done more to minimize its losses and marshal needed resources (Dipietro 2015, Hemeyer 2015). The differing desired outcomes associated with Blue Bell’s crisis communication suggests a need for better understanding the process by which a crisis unfolds and the trade-offs associated with the pursuit of each outcome (Coombs 2007, Hahn et al. 2014). Below, we extend past scholarship’s outcome-based focus by explicating a process-based perspective in which an organization and its stakeholders offer narratives that reflect their accounts of the crisis. In so doing, we clarify how the process may lead to a trade-off in an organization’s ability to achieve both of its desired crisis outcomes simultaneously.

3 A process-based perspective of crisis communication Given its uncertainty and complexity, a crisis compels an organization and its stakeholders to deliberate the details of the crisis through the exchange of narratives (Koschmann et al. 2012, Kuhn 2008, Pfarrer et al. 2008a). These narratives which include conversations among stakeholders, company disclosures, interviews, and speeches, media reports and blog posts, public protests, and images (Phillips and Oswick 2012) – reflect each party’s account of the crisis and take specific identifiable forms, which we summarize in Table 1 and discuss in more detail below.



To minimize or mobilize? 

 241

Tab. 1: The crisis communication process: stakeholder and organizational narratives. The crisis communication process: An evaluative social process in which an organization and its stakeholders exchange written, spoken, and visual narratives to deliberate the details of a crisis. Crisis narratives consist of: Stakeholder narratives: Reflect stakeholders’ accounts of the crisis, including perceptions of the extent of damages, attributions of responsibility, and different resolution options.

Organizational narratives: Reflect an organization’s account of the crisis, including perceptions of the extent of damages, attributions of responsibility, and different resolution options.

Stakeholder narratives include:

Organizational narratives include:

Collaborative: Are more ­conciliatory in nature, include statements of support, and can mobilize stakeholder resources.

Minimizing: Are delivered more quickly, are more ­optimistic, and are less receptive to stakeholder narratives.

Contentious: Are more antagonistic in nature, include statements of blame, and can increase organizational losses.

Mobilizing: Are delivered more slowly, are more ­realistic, and are more receptive to stakeholder narratives.

We argue that stakeholders’ crisis perspectives are reflected in two primary narratives – collaborative and contentious. Collaborative narratives are more conciliatory and positive, and focus on crisis resolution and organizational renewal (Ulmer and Sellnow 2002). For example, stakeholders’ collaborative narratives about a fire at textile manufacturer Malden Mills included statements of support from the community, employees, and the media (Seeger and Ulmer 2002). Indeed, Malden Mills’ CEO felt that he had received “no adversarial media” (Ulmer 2001: 607). Instead, stakeholders’ crisis narratives focused on the “virtues” of the organization (Seeger and Ulmer 2002: 136). Because of its focus on crisis resolution and renewal, a collaborative stakeholder narrative can help an organization mobilize stakeholder support – including needed human capital, expertise, and financial assistance. In contrast, contentious stakeholder narratives are more antagonistic and negative, and focus on criticism and assigning blame for the crisis. For example, after BP’s initial announcement following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill claiming, “It wasn’t our accident” (Bergin 2010: 1), President Obama reflected the increasingly critical view of many stakeholders when he declared, “BP is responsible for this leak” (Champion et al. 2010: 1, NPR 2010). In contrast to the Malden Mills experience, BP felt an “adversarial” relationship with the public, government, and media (Goodman 2010: BU1). Because of its focus on criticism and blame, a contentious stakeholder narrative can exacerbate an organization’s losses by increasing the perceived responsibility and liability shouldered by the organization.

242 

 Michael D. Pfarrer, Jonathan Bundy, Alan Muller and Anthony R. Wheeler

Given that stakeholders’ crisis narratives can be collaborative or contentious, how an organization manages these narratives may affect its ability to achieve its desired crisis outcomes. Whereas past research has emphasized the outcomes of crisis management (Figure 1), our process-based perspective recognizes that an organization has a choice of how to “participat[e] vigorously in such dialogues” with stakeholders (Suchman 1995: 585). We argue that how an organization participates will set it on a path toward minimizing losses or mobilizing stakeholder support, but that achieving both will be difficult. These trade-offs reflect a dilemma that can arise from the crisis communication process, which we visualize in Figure 2. Minimizing Narrative • Faster Discourages collaborative and • Optimistic contentious stakeholder narratives • Less open Crisis Event

Mobilizing Narrative • Slower Encourages collaborative and • Realistic contentious stakeholder narratives • More open

• Less loss (P1), but • Less support (P2) • Attribution (P5) • Trust (P6) • More support (P3), but • More loss (P4)

Fig. 2: Process-based perspective.

Our process-based perspective of crisis communication depicts the characteristics of each organizational narrative, its effects on stakeholder narratives, and the benefits and challenges of an organization’s choice. We argue that there are three critical characteristics of an organization’s narrative that differentially affect stakeholder narratives and therefore lead to the likelihood of different crisis outcomes. The first characteristic is the speed by which an organization issues its narrative. Because of its high uncertainty, complexity, and multivocality, a crisis can generate an information void that “will be filled somehow and by someone” (Coombs 2015: 131). How an organization fills this void, with either a faster or more deliberative (i.  e., slower) narrative, will affect stakeholder narratives and crisis outcomes differently. The second characteristic is the nature of an organization’s narrative. An organization that presents a narrative that stakeholders perceive as more realistic and convincing will affect stakeholder narratives and crisis outcomes differently than one stakeholders perceive as more optimistic, but perhaps “in-credible.” Finally, the third characteristic is the openness of an organization’s narrative. A more open narrative encourages stakeholders to voice their views of the crisis, while a less open narrative discourages stakeholders’ accounts. Below, we consider how an organization’s choice of narrative embodies different levels of these characteristics, and how this choice generates a trade-off: It sets an organization on a path toward achieving one desired outcome while constraining its ability to achieve the other.



To minimize or mobilize? 

 243

4 A minimizing narrative: characteristics and benefits A minimizing narrative is delivered quickly, consists of optimistic statements, and is less open to stakeholder narratives. By issuing a minimizing narrative, an organization attempts to fill the information void after a crisis begins and to signal that it is in control (Dunford and Jones 2000, Kuhn 2008). A minimizing narrative also focuses on quickly diminishing the offensiveness of the event, with less regard for the veracity of the information provided (Benoit 1995, Coombs 2007). In doing so, an organization focuses on minimizing contentious stakeholder narratives while portraying itself in a positive light (Grunig et al. 2002). For example, in response to charges of selling “new” vehicles previously driven by executives, Chrysler quickly denied wrongdoing and attempted to portray the violation as a less offensive “test program” designed to enhance consumer welfare, while offering few details and soliciting little feedback (Elsbach 2003). The appeal of a minimizing narrative for both managers and stakeholders develops from individuals’ proclivity to have an optimistic view of the future as well as a desire to have simple answers to complex situations (Fiske and Taylor 2007). This rose-colored view may be manifest both in managers’ confidence in resolving the crisis (Hayward and Hambrick 1997) and in stakeholders’ expectations that managers do so as fast as possible. Research in social psychology supports this logic: Individuals who do not hold deep knowledge of a salient event such as a crisis will search for quick, simplified, and optimistic answers consistent with their expectations (e.  g., Bordia and DiFonzo 2004, Harmon-Jones et al. 1997, Rosnow 1991). Research in crisis communication also shows that an organization that is first to report on a crisis and signal its control can build optimism and reduce stakeholders’ perceptions of crisis severity (Arpan and Roskos-Ewoldsen 2005). For example, at the onset of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon crisis, when thousands of gallons of oil were leaking into the Gulf of Mexico, not only was BP optimistic that a resolution would be quick, but its crisis narrative also initially placated many of its stakeholders, including regulators, local communities, and scientists (Krauss et al. 2010, Mufson and Fahrenthold 2010). Additionally, managers and stakeholders often exhibit an aversion to quantifying complex, “black swan” events such as crises based on the optimistic belief that such events will not happen (Hilzenrath and Achenbach 2010, Firestein 2010, Taleb 2007). A minimizing narrative therefore is often viewed as a viable option for managers and is welcomed by stakeholders, both of whom are likely to underweight the probabilities of loss inherent in a crisis (cf. Kahneman and Tversky 1979). Moreover, because of stakeholders’ and managers’ optimism and loss aversion, both may prefer accounts that suggest limited damages, organizational control, and a quick resolution (Hobfoll 2001). Thus, an organization’s fast and optimistic minimizing narratives may discourage contentious stakeholder narratives about the crisis.

244 

 Michael D. Pfarrer, Jonathan Bundy, Alan Muller and Anthony R. Wheeler

In summary, on the basis of its fast and optimistic information, a minimizing narrative can mitigate negative feelings among stakeholders (Coombs 2007). In turn, by discouraging contentious stakeholder narratives, a minimizing narrative can help an organization reduce its losses. Practically, it can reduce the risk of litigation and stakeholder withdrawal, both of which can threaten an organization’s well-being (Degeorge et al. 1999, Greve et al. Pozner 2010, Schlenker 1980, Schwartz 2010, Zavyalova et al. 2012). Given these potential benefits, organizations often use minimizing narratives following a crisis. For instance, Dow Corning downplayed the complication rates associated with its breast implants to ward off litigation (Business Week 1991), Union Carbide deflected concerns about the release of poisonous gas in Bhopal by comparing it to a strong tear gas (Frewen 2010), Intel continually understated issues with its Pentium chip to avoid recalls (Hearit 1999), and Apple’s response to the iPhone 4’s antenna problems allowed it to deflect responsibility for a potential design flaw (Coulter 2010, Patel 2010). Proposition 1: An organization’s minimizing narrative will lessen organizational loss. Challenges. However, a minimizing narrative not only discourages contentious stakeholder narratives, it may also suppress collaborative ones. As such, a minimizing narrative may limit an organization’s opportunities to marshal stakeholder support during a crisis (Kuhn 2008). That is, stakeholders may not feel the need to provide assistance when faced with a narrative that expresses optimism and control (cf. Klein 1989). Given that a minimizing narrative is faster, more optimistic, and less open to stakeholders’ crisis narratives, it is also more likely to be criticized by stakeholders if conflicting information about the crisis emerges. For the same reasons, a minimizing narrative is associated with a greater likelihood that an organization will have to issue a new crisis narrative. For example, two weeks after Samsung’s initial 2016 recall and replacement of exploding cellphone batteries, it had to issue a second recall to rectify the initial, optimistic and quick response, which was based on faulty information (Cheng and McKinnon 2016). In each of these ways, a minimizing narrative can undermine the organization’s ability to mobilize stakeholder support as stakeholders begin to distance themselves from a seemingly distrustful or unreliable organization (Pfarrer et al. 2008a). Specifically, when stakeholders no longer accept an organization’s minimizing narrative, they may question the veracity of the organization’s crisis account. An organization’s issuing of a new narrative may contradict or be unrelated to its initial narrative, making it appear to lack credibility (Braithwaite 1989, Fehr and Gächter 2000). This lack of credibility can further reduce stakeholders’ willingness to provide collaborative narratives. Ultimately, a lack of credibility and the issuing of new narratives by an organization may threaten its ability to marshal support as more stakeholders withdraw from their relationships with the organization (Chaudhuri et al. 2002, Koehler and Gershoff 2003).



To minimize or mobilize? 

 245

For example, BP acted quickly and optimistically in providing an initial minimizing narrative about the Gulf oil spill, estimating a leak of 1,000 gallons or about 25 barrels per day. However, BP’s response turned out to lack credibility as the U.S. government issued a conflicting estimate of 5,000 gallons, or about 120 barrels per day. This elicited a stream of new, conflicting estimates from BP, ranging from 5,000, 12,000, and 20,000 gallons per day versus up to 53,000 barrels a day from stakeholders (Efstathiou 2010). Reinforcing the confusion, BP later announced cryptically, “Plans are being developed to further develop these systems and also for further options to provide additional containment capacity and flexibility” (BP 2010). By providing faster, more optimistic, and less open accounts of the oil spill in an attempt to minimize its losses, it appears as if BP damaged its credibility. This damage was evident in stakeholders’ contentious narratives about the crisis, including “BP’s Credibility Sank as Oil Spill Grew” (CBS 2010), “Oil Spill Taking a Toll on BP’s  … Credibility” (Bolstad 2010), and “Stopping the Oil Leak: BP Faces Credibility Crisis” (Kerley and Wong 2010). Finally, an organization’s issuance of a new crisis narrative may also consume more time and delay assistance from stakeholders to help resolve the crisis. For example, as BP continued to issue new narratives of the crisis, stakeholders remained confused about how much oil was spilling into the Gulf, how much damage had occurred, and who was ultimately responsible. This confusion impeded clean-up efforts by further inhibiting the mobilization of stakeholder support to aid BP – stakeholders could not understand what kinds of assistance was needed (Efstathiou 2010, Goodman 2010, Mufson and Fahrenthold 2010). Thus, instead of marshaling stakeholder support to address the oil spill, BP suppressed assistance while choosing to continually edit a minimizing and increasingly “in-credible” narrative. Proposition 2: An organization’s minimizing narrative will decrease stakeholder support. In contrast to a minimizing narrative, a mobilizing organizational narrative affects stakeholder narratives and crisis outcomes differently, and therefore illuminates different aspects of the dilemma associated with the crisis communication process. We address these trade-offs next. A Mobilizing Narrative: Characteristics and benefits. Given a crisis’ uncertainty and complexity, a key to an organization’s well-being may lie in its ability to marshal stakeholder support (Frooman 1999, Kuhn 2008). We argue that an organization can mobilize support by encouraging collaborative stakeholder narratives. This is primarily achieved by delivering an organizational narrative that stakeholders perceive as realistic and which involves the provision of details about the causes, consequences, and potential solutions to the crisis (Heil and Robertson 1991, Pearson and Clair 1998, Pfarrer et al. 2008a, Reeves and Bednar 1994). Such details may require an organization to deliver its narrative more deliberatively, because of the time needed to

246 

 Michael D. Pfarrer, Jonathan Bundy, Alan Muller and Anthony R. Wheeler

gather specific information about the crisis and to develop an action plan (Pfarrer et al. 2008a). In turn, the more realistic and thoughtful nature of a mobilizing narrative can encourage stakeholders to participate in the crisis communication process, and therefore can generate more collaborative stakeholder narratives that focus on crisis resolution and organizational renewal (Ulmer and Sellnow 2002). For example, in the aftermath of its industrial fire, Malden Mills’ mobilizing narrative appealed to employees and the local community for critical infrastructure and donations (Ulmer 2001). The value of a mobilizing narrative is exemplified in the concepts of strategic credibility (Barry and Elmes 1997) and fairness (Fehr and Gächter 2000). With respect to credibility, an organization must present a narrative involving “strategic realism and facticity” (Barry and Elmes 1997: 434) to encourage stakeholders to accept its explanation of a crisis, even if all the facts are not immediately known. Strategic credibility therefore refers to stakeholders’ perceptions of the organization’s crisis narrative as reliable and convincing (Connelly et al. 2011, Coombs 2007, Goldsmith et al. 2000, Mercer 2004). With respect to fairness, when stakeholders perceive objectivity in the way an organization communicates information and implements its decisions, they are more likely to engage in reciprocal behaviors (Bosse et al. 2009, Fehr and Gächter 2000). As such, a mobilizing narrative can invite stakeholders into the crisis process by providing credible rationale for the organization’s decisions. In doing so, a mobilizing narrative encourages stakeholders to allocate resources to support the organization. In addition, stakeholders often view a more realistic narrative of a crisis more positively than one that provides more optimistic or “in-credible” information (Lee et al. 2004, Marcus and Goodman 1991, Pfarrer et al. 2008a, b, Salancik and Meindl 1984, Siegel and Brockner 2005). An organization encourages such positive perceptions by structuring an open narrative that motivates stakeholders “to stay with the organization through a crisis, as well as rebuilding it better than it was before” (Ulmer et al. 2011: 219). For example, when facing a rumor that its Pampers diaper products were injuring consumers, Procter and Gamble’s mobilizing narrative rallied the support of key constituents, including influential bloggers, scientific experts, and consumers. While the narrative took time to deliver, it was generally praised as being highly comprehensive and credible (Coombs 2014). An organization’s mobilizing narrative is also less likely to be altered because it focuses on deliberatively and realistically portraying the crisis. Thus, in contrast to a faster, more optimistic narrative that fulfills stakeholders’ desire for positive news, a more thoughtful and realistic narrative may meet stakeholders’ expectations of credibility and fairness, even if the news is not overly positive. For example, technology reporters and customers shared their significant problems with Apple’s “Maps” application after the launch of the iPhone 5 (Fitzgerald 2012, Guglielmo 2012). In response, Apple CEO Tim Cook made deliberate efforts to address Apple’s failure and even directed iPhone users to competitors’ applications (Smith 2012). Despite the initial



To minimize or mobilize? 

 247

delay, Cook’s response generated collaborative stakeholder narratives (Guglielmo 2012), and Apple mobilized the help of 40,000 retail employees to fix its application (AppleInsider 2012). Proposition 3: An organization’s mobilizing narrative will increase stakeholder support. Challenges. In contrast to a minimizing narrative, the more open nature of a mobilizing narrative is likely to give rise to greater stakeholder participation in the crisis communication process, meaning it is more receptive not only to collaborative but also to contentious narratives. In turn, greater stakeholder participation can increase an organization’s losses as it attempts to maintain its credibility with multiple stakeholders. Returning to the Malden Mills example, even though the company mobilized stakeholders after its industrial fire, its “level of generosity” put considerable “strains” on its financial viability: The decision to provide employees financial support cost $2 million in the first month alone (Ulmer 2001: 606). Additionally, the deliberative nature of a mobilizing narrative may create an information void as the crisis unfolds. Stakeholders may rush to fill it with their own perspectives, including contentious narratives focused on rumor and innuendo (Bordia and DiFonzo 2004, Harmon-Jones et al. 1997, Rosnow 1991). As contentious narratives increase, an organization risks losing control of the crisis communication process. In turn, an organization may also suffer greater losses if stakeholders’ contentious narratives overwhelm the goodwill an organization generated from a credible mobilizing narrative. For example, Apple’s MobileMe email service was disrupted in 2008, leaving thousands of customers unable to access their accounts for several weeks. While Apple was deliberating a solution and crafting a credible response, its only attempt to fill the information void was a short statement: “We understand this is a serious issue and apologize for this service interruption. We are working hard to restore your service” (Chen 2011, Pogue 2008). Such a narrative, even if designed to create goodwill and buy time for a more detailed subsequent narrative, allowed for the exchange of contentious stakeholder narratives in various forums, including on Apple’s own customer support website. Stakeholders quickly labeled the issue a “MobileMess” and filled the void with their frustrations (Chen 2011, Pogue 2008). When Apple offered a detailed explanation and introduced a comprehensive fix several weeks later, many stakeholders lamented that it was too late, stating, “They didn’t get the attention they needed from Apple” (Chen 2011: 1). The service was eventually discontinued and is considered one of Apple’s biggest failures (Chen 2011). As such, because a mobilizing narrative requires time to craft but also encourages stakeholder participation in the crisis process, it can lead to a rise in contentious narratives, which can increase the likelihood that the organization experiences loss.

248 

 Michael D. Pfarrer, Jonathan Bundy, Alan Muller and Anthony R. Wheeler

Proposition 4: An organization’s mobilizing narrative will increase organizational loss. In our final section, we theorize how two facets of the crisis communication process – stakeholders’ crisis attributions and their level of trust in the organization – influence the likelihood that a given organizational narrative will either minimize organizational loss or mobilize stakeholder support.

5 Contingencies to the crisis communication process Opting between a minimizing and mobilizing narrative means weighing the trade-offs an organization is willing to incur. In turn, this choice alters the likelihood of an organization’s achieving its desired crisis outcomes. Building on this dilemma, Figure  2 illustrates the roles of two moderating mechanisms – stakeholders’ crisis attributions and their level of trust in the organization. While we acknowledge that multiple contingencies can affect the crisis communication process (Bundy et al. 2017), our focus on attributions and trust reflect their evaluative and social nature, and thus their link to the communication and crisis management foundations of our theorizing.

5.1 Stakeholders’ situational attributions Scholars have long focused on stakeholders’ situational attributions as an important part of crisis communication (cf. Coombs 2007). Stakeholders focus their attributions on a number of situational characteristics of a crisis, including its perceived severity, intentionality, controllability, and perhaps most importantly, an organization’s responsibility for the crisis (Bundy and Pfarrer 2015, Coombs 2007). Research has argued and shown that as these situational attributions increase, so does the threat of organizational loss (Bundy and Pfarrer 2015, Coombs and Holladay 2004). Additionally, the more stakeholders perceive a crisis as severe, intentional, or controllable, the more difficult it is for an organization to downplay its responsibility (Coombs 2007). For example, it is difficult for an organization to abdicate full responsibility for a deadly onsite explosion or to dismiss its role in a crisis that involves significant internal fraud. Above we argued that the optimism an organization’s minimizing narrative engenders in stakeholders is a key mechanism underlying the reduction of stakeholders’ contentious narratives, which can lessen organizational loss. Here, we argue that the effectiveness of a minimizing narrative is likely constrained by stakeholders’ situational attributions of a crisis. The more stakeholders perceive a crisis as preventable or intentional, the less likely a minimizing narrative will encourage optimism and reduce organizational losses. Indeed, in such high-attribution situations, a minimiz-



To minimize or mobilize? 

 249

ing narrative may have the opposite effect – encouraging stakeholders’ contentious narratives as they question the credibility of the organization’s posturing (cf. Bundy and Pfarrer 2015). An increase in contentious stakeholder narratives can, in turn, lead to less stakeholder support and potentially greater organizational loss. The effect of stakeholders’ situational attributions helps explain why BP’s minimizing narrative in response to the Deepwater Horizon crisis was largely viewed as ineffective. Due to a deadly onsite explosion and widespread environmental degradation, stakeholders perceived the crisis as severe, and they attributed high levels of responsibility to BP. However, BP’s fast and optimistic response focused on downplaying the crisis’ severity and its responsibility. Thus, BP’s minimizing narrative did not encourage optimism for long, as stakeholders expressed their desire for additional information and their concerns stemming from their increased attributions. In contrast, as stakeholders’ attributions decrease – i.  e., they view the negative event more as an accident or unintentional – the more likely an organization’s minimizing narrative can discourage contentious stakeholder narratives, and the less an organization will rely on stakeholder support to resolve the crisis. For example, Apple effectively used a minimizing narrative in response to its iPhone 4 antenna issues largely because stakeholders perceived the crisis as less severe, and they were unsure about Apple’s true responsibility, as many consumers reported no issues when using the phone. Proposition 5: An organization’s minimizing narrative is more likely to reduce organizational loss as stakeholders’ situational attributions decrease. Our focus on an organization’s minimizing narrative in Proposition 5 underscores the limited role for a mobilizing narrative as stakeholders’ situational attributions decrease. The slower, more realistic, and open nature of a mobilizing narrative evokes credibility in the organization, leading stakeholders to expect that it would only mobilize their support when it was really needed – i.  e., during a high-attribution crisis (Bundy and Pfarrer 2015). For lower attribution crises, stakeholders would expect an organization to be less in need of support, and thus to be less open to collaborative narratives. In such cases, stakeholders would likely view a mobilizing narrative as a mismatch to their crisis attributions (Bundy and Pfarrer 2015). That is, in lower attribution crises, a mobilizing narrative would violate stakeholders’ expectations, be less effective at encouraging collaborative stakeholder narratives, and therefore be less likely to mobilize stakeholder support.

5.2 Stakeholder Trust Trust is a “fundamental underlying process” of organization-stakeholder relations (Vezzali et al. 2012: 437) and therefore a critical component for mobilizing stakeholder

250 

 Michael D. Pfarrer, Jonathan Bundy, Alan Muller and Anthony R. Wheeler

support (Gillespie and Dietz 2009, Harris, Moriarty, and Wicks 2014, Kramer 2014, Zaheer, McEvily, and Perrone 1998). Yet trust is not a given; rather, it develops as part of the ongoing relationship between an organization and its stakeholders (Williams 2001). An organization that displays credibility in its interactions with stakeholders develops trust, and stakeholders become more comfortable in their potentially vulnerable positions (Gillespie and Dietz 2009, Pirson and Malhotra 2011). As noted above, by being open to stakeholder participation, a mobilizing narrative can increase collaborative stakeholder narratives and attract stakeholder support. By being realistic, a mobilizing narrative can generate perceptions of fairness and induce reciprocity from stakeholders, while also reducing the likelihood of issuing a new narrative of the crisis. However, the development of a mobilizing narrative may take time. This deliberative nature potentially creates an information void that may be filled with contentious stakeholder narratives. Here, we argue that stakeholders’ trust in an organization can limit contentious narratives and increase the potential for collaborative narratives to fill the information void. For an organization that has built trust with its stakeholders prior to the crisis, stakeholders will be more inclined to believe that the organization can respond to the crisis in a way that is fair to all parties – even if it takes additional time. In other words, trust enables the development of stakeholders’ positive expectations that an organization will act competently in responding to a crisis (Mishra 1996). Such positive expectations can facilitate collaborative stakeholder narratives and encourage cooperation, while decreasing stakeholders’ use of contentious narratives during an information void. As such, higher levels of organization-stakeholder trust can enhance the credibility of an organization’s mobilizing narrative and “have a positive effect on the degree to which sufficient resources are developed to deal with the crisis” (Mishra 1996: 278). For example, consumers’ low levels of trust help explain why Apple’s mobilizing narrative failed in response to its MobileMe service disruption. At that point, Apple had a long history of taking its “sweet time to respond to concerns,” and even though it eventually presented comprehensive solutions, many seemed disillusioned by the “clear pattern” of delayed responsiveness (Chen 2011: 1). As a result, many MobileMe customers likely expected a prolonged disruption, and responded by expressing their concerns in the information void left by Apple as it deliberated its response. In contrast, stakeholders’ high levels of trust in Malden Mills help explain the effectiveness of its mobilizing narrative following its industrial fire. As Ulmer (2001: 606) noted, “Because Malden Mills worked to cultivate positive relationships with both primary and secondary stakeholders prior to the … fire, these groups could be called on to help the organization overcome some of its hardships.” Prior trust in the relationship increased the perceived credibility of Malden Mills’ response, and facilitated the generation of collaborative, rather than contentious, stakeholder narratives.



To minimize or mobilize? 

 251

Proposition 6: An organization’s mobilizing narrative is more likely to increase stakeholder support as stakeholders’ trust increases. Our focus on an organization’s mobilizing narrative in Proposition 6 underscores the limited role for a minimizing narrative as stakeholders’ trust increases. A natural by-product of increased trust between an organization and its stakeholders is the expectation that there will be two-way communication during a crisis (Grunig et al. 2002). Thus, we expect that a minimizing narrative in high-trust scenarios would be a mismatch to stakeholders’ perceptions of their relationship with the organization (Bundy and Pfarrer 2015). Its unidirectional nature would signal to stakeholders that their potentially collaborative narratives are not needed or wanted. As such, a minimizing narrative would violate stakeholders’ expectations, be less effective at discouraging contentious stakeholder narratives, and therefore be less likely to reduce organizational loss.

6 Implications 6.1 Implications for research This chapter contributes to the communication and crisis management literatures in three primary ways. First, we have expanded traditional theory by highlighting the role that organizational and stakeholder narratives play in the crisis communication process, as well as by explicating how an organization’s attempts to manage the process can set it on a path such that simultaneously achieving both of its desired outcomes is difficult. We have juxtaposed the outcome- and process-based perspectives in Figures 1 and 2, and our communication perspective has provided theory and testable propositions that challenge the simultaneous, outcome-oriented assumptions of the traditional approach. Second, we have theorized that organizational losses are more likely to be minimized when an organization issues a narrative that limits contentious stakeholder narratives, and that stakeholder support is more likely to be mobilized when collaborative stakeholder narratives are encouraged. However, we also argued that each type of organizational narrative carries risks. Suppressing stakeholder narratives may limit access to vital resources, while encouraging stakeholder narratives may cause organizational losses to spiral out of control. In highlighting these trade-offs, our perspective sheds light on the crisis communication process by opening a window to the dilemma an organization faces. Third, past research on crisis communication has been coarse-grained in its explication of crisis narratives in terms of their labels, characteristics, benefits, and challenges. We have taken a more nuanced approach that emphasizes the role of

252 

 Michael D. Pfarrer, Jonathan Bundy, Alan Muller and Anthony R. Wheeler

stakeholders’ collaborative and contentious narratives as well as an organization’s minimizing and mobilizing narratives, whose dimensions we explicated above and have depicted in Table 1. Our theory and propositions expand past thinking about crisis communication by emphasizing the roles that the levels of an organizational narrative’s speed, optimism, and openness play in affecting stakeholder narratives and crisis outcomes. Finally, by explicating the roles of stakeholder crisis attributions and trust in the organization, we shed light on the conditions under which an organizational narrative strategy is likely to be more or less effective.

6.2 Implications for practice We recognize that given the complexity, uncertainty, and limited information surrounding a crisis, both managers and stakeholders may prefer faster and more optimistic organizational narratives that give them hope for a quick resolution and the chance to avoid substantial losses. Managers may feel relief by saying something quickly, and stakeholders may appreciate such a minimizing posture. Individuals’ desire to view events through rose-colored glasses may help explain why minimizing narratives are common following crises, beyond typical explanations that allude to pressures from investors and legal counsel (cf. Bundy and Pfarrer 2015). The benefits of optimism notwithstanding, a minimizing narrative may have unintended consequences. The downside of choosing optimism and minimizing losses is the likelihood that managers will remain closed to collaborative stakeholder narratives about the crisis and therefore restrict their access to stakeholder resources. Optimistic managers may also have to issue new narratives that risk triggering contentious stakeholder narratives about the crisis. As contentious narratives increase, stakeholders are more likely to withhold resources that help resolve the crisis, compounding the threat of greater organizational loss. In contrast, organizations that provide more realistic narratives may be more likely to orient stakeholders toward collaborative narratives and mobilize their support toward crisis resolution. However, such narratives take time to formulate, and they may leave crisis communication open to contentious stakeholder narratives. As these contentious narratives increase, an organization may face greater loss. As such, the time required to craft a credible narrative that appeals for assistance may also leave a void that serves to increase the organizational losses resulting from a crisis. In sum, our theoretical perspective exposes the dilemma for managers in meeting traditional strategic recommendations of simultaneously minimizing loss and mobilizing stakeholder support to resolve a crisis. It also suggests that when managers prioritize either minimizing losses or mobilizing support, they should remain cognizant of the trade-offs associated with this decision.



To minimize or mobilize? 

 253

6.3 Future directions We recognize that crisis communication is a complex process that may include other dimensions (Bundy et al. 2017), such as the specific content of crisis narratives and the salience of different stakeholder groups. In addition, narratives may vary among different stakeholder groups and for different types of crises. While these dimensions were beyond the scope of our theorizing, future research should extend our efforts here. Similarly, we recognized the impact of two evaluative and social mechanisms derived from communication and crisis management research – stakeholders’ situational attributions and trust – on the effectiveness of an organization’s narrative. Yet other factors may affect how an organization manages the crisis communication process, including the type of crisis, an organization’s crisis history, its endowment of resources, related crises, and the number of stakeholders affected by the crisis (Bundy et al. 2017). We also did not consider an organization’s attempt to use a “mixed” narrative, in which aspects of a minimizing and mobilizing narrative are combined. For example, an organization may deflect responsibility for a crisis while simultaneously making efforts to resolve the problem. However, stakeholders may experience cognitive dissonance in their interpretation of and reaction to such dual posturing. We therefore encourage future research to explore how a mixed narrative affects an organization’s ability to minimize loss or mobilizing stakeholder support. Finally, while our theory highlights the dilemma an organization faces in managing a crisis, we have not addressed the challenge of issuing different narratives to different stakeholders with conflicting interests and demands. For instance, investors are likely more concerned with an organization’s stock price as a crisis ensues, while employees are more concerned with their livelihoods. As a result, we can suppose each group may react differently to an organization’s crisis narratives. Yet, it remains unclear if an organization could target crisis narratives to certain stakeholders while not affecting others, especially at the onset of a crisis, when uncertainty is high, and in the presence of instant and incessant global communication (Bundy and Pfarrer 2015, Massey 2001).

References Achenbach, J. 2010. Spill panel presses BP on response plan. Washington Post, 28 September: A2. AppleInsider. 2012. Apple reportedly tasks retail employees with highlighting iOS 6 Maps errors. Appleinsider.com, 3 October. http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/10/03/apple-reportedlytasks-retail-employees-with-reporting-ios-6-maps-errors Arpan, L. M., and D. R. Roskos-Ewoldsen. 2005. Stealing thunder: Analysis of the effects of proactive disclosure of crisis information. Public Relations Review 31. 425–433.

254 

 Michael D. Pfarrer, Jonathan Bundy, Alan Muller and Anthony R. Wheeler

Barry, D., and M. Elmes. 1997. Strategy retold: A narrative view of strategic discourse. Academy of Management Review 22. 429–452. Benoit, W. L. 1995. Accounts, Excuses, and Apologies: A Theory of Image Restoration Strategies. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Bergin, T. 2010. Analysis: BP PR blunders carry high political cost. Reuters.com, 29 June. http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/06/29/us-oil-spill-bp-pr-idUSTRE65S3JL20100629. Boin, A., P. ‘t Hart, E. Stern, and B. Sundelius. 2005. The Politics of Crisis Management: Public Leadership Under Pressure. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. Bolstad, E. 2010. Oil spill taking toll on BP’s, government’s credibility. Huffington Post, 29 May. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/29/oil-spill-bp-government-credibility_n_594577. html. Bordia, P., and N. DiFonzo. 2004. Problem solving in social interactions on the Internet: Rumor as social cognition. Social Psychology Quarterly 67(1). 33–49. Bosse, D. A., R. A. Phillips, and J. S. Harrison. 2009. Stakeholders, reciprocity, and firm performance. Strategic Management Journal 30. 447–456. BP. 2010. Update on Gulf of Mexico oil spill response. bp.com, 14 June. http://www.bp.com/en/ global/corporate/press/press-releases/update-on-gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-response-14-june. html. Braithwaite, J. 1989. Crime, Shame, and Reintegration. New York: Cambridge University Press. Bundy, J., and M. D. Pfarrer. 2015. A burden of responsibility: The role of social approval at the onset of a crisis. Academy of Management Review 40. 345–369. BusinessWeek. 1991. Breast implants: What did the industry know, and when? 9 June. http:// www.businessweek.com/stories/1991-06-09/breast-implants-what-did-the-industry-knowand-when; http://www.businessweek.com/chapter/chap0002.htm. CBS. 2010. BP’s credibility sank as oil spill grew. CBSnews.com, 29 May. http://www.cbsnews.com/ news/bps-credibility-sank-as-oil-spill-grew/. Champion, S., K. McCarthy, and B. Blackburn. 2010. As oil spill spreads in Gulf of Mexico, blame game begins. ABCnews.com, 3 May. http://abcnews.go.com/WN/oil-spill-spreads-gulf-mexicoblame-game-begins/story?id=10542248. Chaudhuri, A., B. Sopher, and P. Strand. 2002. Cooperation in social dilemmas, trust, and reciprocity. Journal of Economic Psychology 23. 231–249. Chen, B. X. 2011. Apple’s slow and careful crisis management doesn’t always work. Wired.com, 29 April. http://www.wired.com/2011/04/apple-crisis-management/. Cheng, J., and J. D. McKinnon. 2016. The fatal mistake that doomed Samsung’s Galaxy Note. October 23. Connelly, B. L., S. T. Certo, R. D. Ireland, and C. R Reutzel. 2011. Signaling theory: A review and assessment. Journal of Management 37. 39–67. Coombs, W. T. 2007. Protecting organization reputations during a crisis: The development and application of situational crisis communication theory. Corporate Reputation Review 10. 163–176. Coombs, W. T. 2014. Applied Crisis Communication and Crisis Management: Cases and Exercises. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Coombs, W. T. 2015. Ongoing Crisis Communication: Planning, Managing, and Responding. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Coulter, A. P. 2010. Apple’s iPhone 4 reception problem and subsequent response–a recipe for organizational crisis? adampcoulter.wordpress.com, 3 May. http://adampcoulter.com/2010/ 07/03/apples-iphone-4-reception-problem-and-subsequent-response-a-recipe-fororganizational-crisis/.



To minimize or mobilize? 

 255

Degeorge, F., J. Patel, and R. Zeckhauser. 1999. Earnings manipulation to exceed thresholds. Journal of Business 72. 1–33. Dipietro, B. 2015. Crisis of the week: Ice cream recall snags Blue Bell. The Wall Street Journal, 14 April. http://blogs.wsj.com/riskandcompliance/2015/04/14/crisis-of-the-week-ice-creamrecall-snags-blue-bell/. Dunford, D, and R. Jones. 2000. Narrative in strategic change. Human Relations 53. 1207–1226. Efstathiou, J. 2010. Panel finds oil spill research paltry. Bloomberg News, 28 November. Elsbach, K. D. 2003. Organizational perception management. Research in Organizational Behavior 25. 296–332. Fediuk, T. A., W. T. Coombs, and I. C. Botero. 2012. Exploring crisis from a receiver perspective: Understanding stakeholder reactions during crisis events. In W. T. Coombs and S. J. Holladay (eds.), The Handbook of Crisis Communication, 635–656. Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons. Fehr, E., and S. Gächter. 2000. Fairness and retaliation: The economics of reciprocity. Journal of Economic Perspectives 14. 159–181. Firestein, P. 2010. Protecting your company from disaster in the DIY Era. BusinessWeek, 15 June. Fiske, S. T., and S. E. Taylor. 2007. Social Cognition: From Brains to Culture. New York: McGraw-Hill. Fitzgerald, B. 2012. Apple Map fails: 19 ridiculous glitches spotted in Apple iOS 6’s anti-Google app. huffingtonpost.com, 20 September. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/20/apple-mapfails-ios-6-maps_n_1901599.html#slide=more251885. Frewen, J. 2010. Industrial accidents and global inequity: The contrasting cases of Bhopal and BP Horizon Deepwater. globalcrisisnews.com, 31 August. http://www.globalcrisisnews.com/ environment/industrial-accidents-and-global-inequity-the-contrasting-cases-of-bhopal-andbp-horizon-deepwater-1810/. Frooman, J. 1999. Stakeholder influence strategies. Academy of Management Review 24. 191–205. Gillespie, N., and G. Dietz. 2009. Trust repair after an organization-level failure. Academy of Management Review 34. 127–145. Goldsmith, R. E., B. A. Lafferty, and S. J. Newell. 2000. The impact of corporate credibility and celebrity credibility on consumer reaction to advertisements and brands. Journal of Advertising 29. 43–54. Goodman, P. S. 2010. In case of emergency: What not to do. New York Times, 21 August. Greve, H. R., D. Palmer, and J.-E. Pozner. 2010. Organizations gone wild: The causes, processes, and consequences of organizational misconduct. Academy of Management Annals 4. 53–107. Grunig, L., J. Grunig,and D. Dozier. 2002. Excellent Public Relations and Effective Organizations: A Study of Communication Management in Three Countries. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Guglielmo, C. 2012. Apple’s apology over Maps earns praise, criticism and ‘What would Steve Jobs do’ second guessing. forbes.com, 28 September. http://www.forbes.com/sites/ connieguglielmo/2012/09/28/apples-apology-over-maps-earns-praise-criticism-and-whatwould-steve-jobs-do-second-guessing/. Hahn, T., L. Preuss, J. Pinkse, and F. Figge. 2014. Cognitive frames in corporate sustainability: Managerial sensemaking with paradoxical and business case frames. Academy of Management Review 39. 463–487. Harmon-Jones, E., L. Simon, J. Greenberg, T. Pyszczynski, S. Solomon, and H. McGregor. 1997. Terror management theory and self-esteem: Evidence that increased self-esteem reduced mortality salience effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 72(1). 24–36. Harris, J. D., B. T. Moriarty, and A. C. Wicks. 2014. Public Trust in Business. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

256 

 Michael D. Pfarrer, Jonathan Bundy, Alan Muller and Anthony R. Wheeler

Hayward, M. L. A., and D. C. Hambrick. 1997. Explaining the premiums paid for large acquisitions: Evidence of CEO hubris. Administrative Science Quarterly 42. 103–127. Hearit, K. M. 1999. Newsgroups, activist public and corporate apologia: The case of Intel and its Pentium chip. Public Relations Review 25(3). 291–308 Heil, O., and T. S. Robertson. 1991. Toward a theory of competitive market signaling: a research agenda. Strategic Management Journal 12. 403–418. Hemeyer, T. 2015. Is Blue Bell doing the right thing? Houston Business Journal, 1 May. http://www. bizjournals.com/houston/morning_call/2015/05/is-blue-bell-doing-the-right-thing.html. Herbig, P., and J. Milewicz. 1997. The relationship of reputation and credibility to brand success. Pricing Strategy and Practice 5(1). 25–29. Hilzenrath, D. S., and J. Achenbach. 2010. ‘Risk/reward equation’ used in building gulf well, BP worker testifies. washingtonpost.com, 27 August. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ content/article/2010/08/27/AR2010082702663.html. Hobfoll, S. E. 2001. The influence of culture, community, and the nested self in the stress process: Advancing conservation of resources theory. Applied Psychology: An International Review 50. 337–370. Kahneman, D., and A. Tversky. 1979. Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica 47. 263–291. Kerley, D., and K. Wong. 2010. Stopping the oil leak: BP faces credibility crisis. ABCnews.com, 30 May. http://abcnews.go.com/WN/stopping-oil-leak-bp-faces-credibility-crisis/story?id=10785372. Klein, H. J. 1989. An integrated control theory model of work motivation. Academy of Management Review 14(2). 150–172. Koehler, J. J., and a.  D. Gershoff. 2003. Betrayal aversion: When agents of protection become agents of harm. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 90. 244–261. Koschmann, M. A., T. R. Kuhn, and M. D. Pfarrer. 2012. A communicative framework of value in cross-sector partnerships. Academy of Management Review 37. 332–354. Kramer, R. 2014. Creating more trusting and trustworthy organizations: Exploring the foundations and benefits of presumptive trust. In J. D. Harris, B. T. Moriarty, and A. C. Wicks (eds.), Public Trust in Business, 203–235. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. Krauss, C., H. Fountain, and J. M. Broder. 2010. Acrimony behind the scenes of Gulf oil spill. nytimes. com, 26 August. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/us/27well.html. Kuhn, T. 2008. A communicative theory of the firm: Developing an alternative perspective on intra-organizational power and stakeholder relationships. Organization Studies 29. 1197–1224. Lamin, A., and S. Zaheer. 2012. Wall Street vs. Main Street: Firm strategies for defending legitimacy and their impact on different stakeholders. Organization Science 23. 47–66. Lee, F., C. Peterson, and L. Z. Tiedens. 2004. Mea culpa: Predicting stock prices from organizational attributions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 30. 1636–1649. Maltz, E. 2000. Is all communication created equal? An investigation into the effects of communication mode on perceived information quality. Journal of Product Innovation Management 17. 110–127. Marcus, A. A., and R. S. Goodman. 1991. Victims and shareholders: The dilemmas of presenting corporate policy during a crisis. Academy of Management Journal 14. 281–305. Massey, J. E. 2001. Managing organizational legitimacy: Communication strategies for organizations in crisis. Journal of Business Communication 38. 153–182. Mercer, M. 2004. How do investors assess the credibility of management disclosures? Accounting Horizons 18. 185–196. Mishra, A. K. 1996. Organizational response to crisis: The centrality of trust. In R. M. Kramer and T. M. Kramer (eds.), Trust in Organizations: Frontiers of Theory and Research, 261–287. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.



To minimize or mobilize? 

 257

Mufson, S., and D. A. Fahrenthold. 2010. Administration’s response to Gulf spill ill-managed, report says. Washington Post, 7 October: A6. NPR. 2010. Frustration grows over gulf oil spill. NPR.org, 23 May. http://www.npr.org/templates/ story/story.php?storyId=127074988. Patel, K. 2010. Steve Jobs looks to deflect focus from ‘Antennagate.’ adage.com, 16 July. http:// adage.com/article/digital/branding-antenna-gate-expected-sink-iphone-brand/144990/. Pearson, C. M., and J. A. Clair. 1998. Reframing crisis management. Academy of Management Review 23(1). 59–76. Pfarrer, M. D., K. A. DeCelles, K. G. Smith, and M. S. Taylor. 2008. After the fall: Reintegrating the corrupt organization. Academy of Management Review 33. 730–749. Pfarrer, M. D., T. G. Pollock, and V. P. Rindova. 2010. A tale of two assets: The effects of firm reputation and celebrity on earnings surprises and investors’ reactions. Academy of Management Journal 53. 1131–1152. Pfarrer, M. D., K. G. Smith, K. M. Bartol, D. M. Khanin, and X. Zhang. 2008. Coming forward: The effects of social and regulatory forces on the voluntary restatement of earnings subsequent to wrongdoing. Organization Science 19. 386–403. Phillips, N., and C. Oswick. 2012. Organizational discourse: Domains, debates and directions. Academy of Management Annals 6. 1–47. Pirson, M., and D. Malhotra. 2011. Foundations of organizational trust: What matters to different stakeholders? Organization Science 22. 1087–1104. Pogue, D. 2008. Apple’s mobilemess. New York Times, 24 July. http://www.nytimes. com/2008/07/24/technology/personaltech/24pogue-email.html?pagewanted=all_r=0. Reeves, C. A., and D. A. Bednar. 1994. Defining quality: Alternatives and implications. Academy of Management Review 19. 419–445. Rindova, V. P., M. Becerra, and I. Contardo. 2004. Enacting competitive wars: Competitive activity, language games, and market consequences. Academy of Management Review 29(4). 670–686. Rosnow, R. 1991. Inside rumor: A personal journey. American Psychologist 46(5). 484–496. Salancik, G. R., and J. R. Meindl. 1984. Corporate attributions as strategic illusions of management control. Administrative Science Quarterly 29. 238–254. Scherer, A. G., G. Palazzo, and D. Seidl. 2013. Managing legitimacy in complex and heterogeneous environments: Sustainable development in a globalized world. Journal of Management Studies 50. 259–284. Schlenker, B. R. 1980. Impression Management: The Self-Concept, Social Identity, and Interpersonal Relations. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole. Schwartz, J. 2010. Liability at issue in oil flow rate in Gulf. New York Times, 19 July. Seeger, M., and R.Ulmer. 2002. A post-crisis discourse of renewal: The cases of Malden Mills and Cole Hardwoods. Journal of Applied Communication Research 30(2). 126–142. Siegel, P. A., and J. Brockner. 2005. Individual and organizational consequences of CEO claimed handicapping: What’s good for the CEO may not be so good for the firm. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 96. 1–22. Smith, C. 2012. Tim Cook issues apology for Apple Maps. The Huffington Post, 28 September. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/28/tim-cook-apology-apple-maps_n_1922378.html. Stoppelenburg, A., and H. Vermaak. 2009. Defixation as an intervention perspective: Understanding wicked problems at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Journal of Management Inquiry 18. 40–54. Suchman, M. 1995. Managing legitimacy: Strategic and institutional approaches. Academy of Management Review 20. 571–610. Taleb, N. N. 2007. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. New York: Random House.

258 

 Michael D. Pfarrer, Jonathan Bundy, Alan Muller and Anthony R. Wheeler

Ulmer, R. R. 2001. Effective crisis management through established stakeholder relationships: Malden Mills as a case study. Management Communication Quarterly 14(4). 590–615. Ulmer, R. R, and T. L. Sellnow. 2002. Crisis management and the discourse of renewal: Understanding the potential for positive outcomes of crisis. Public Relations Review 28(4). 361–365. Ulmer, R. R, T. L. Sellnow, and M. W. Seeger. 2011. Effective Crisis Communication: Moving from Crisis to Opportunity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Vezzali, L., D. Capozza, S. Stathi, and D. Giovannini. 2012. Increasing outgroup trust, reducing infrahumanization, and enhancing future contact intentions via imagined intergroup contact. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 48. 437–440. Williams, M. 2001. In whom we trust: Group membership as an affective context for trust development. Academy of Management Review 26(3). 377–396. Woltman Elpers, J. L. C. M., M. Wedel, and R. G. M. Pieters. 2003. Why do consumers stop viewing television commercials? Two experiments on the influence of moment-to-moment entertainment and information value. Journal of Marketing Research 40. 437–453. Yu, T., M. Sengul, and R. H. Lester. 2008. Misery loves company: The spread of negative impacts resulting from an organizational crisis. Academy of Management Review 33. 452–472. Zaheer, A., B. McEvily, and V. Perrone. 1998. Does trust matter? Exploring the effects of interorganizational and interpersonal trust on performance. Organization Science 9. 141–159. Zavyalova, A., M. D. Pfarrer, R. K. Reger, and D. L. Shapiro. 2012. Managing the message: The effects of firm actions and industry spillovers on media coverage subsequent to wrongdoing. Academy of Management Journal 55. 1079–1101.

Mats Heide and Charlotte Simonsson

12 Internal crisis communication: On current and future research Abstract: Crisis communication research has traditionally been rather one-sided with an emphasis on external communication during a crisis. However, it is now possible to identify a trend shift where internal crisis is gaining increased interest among both many researchers and practitioners. The aim of this chapter is to present current and future research on internal crisis communication. The chapter is based on a broad, holistic perspective on internal crisis communication, where it is understood as a continuous and integrated process of organizational life. Further, the chapter takes a social constructionist perspective rather than an instrumental, functionalist perspective that characterize much of previous crisis communication research. In the chapter, four different themes will be outlined and discussed: culture, learning, coworkers and leadership. The chapter ends with concluding discussions and some brief suggestions for future research. Keywords: internal crisis communication, social constructionist perspective, coworkers, leadership, culture, learning

1 A forgotten area with potentials Crisis communication research has traditionally been oriented towards external stakeholders and aspects such as image repair and external response strategies (e.  g., Frandsen and Johansen 2011; Heide and Simonsson 2014, 2015; Strandberg and Vigsø 2016). This one-sided focus can be explained by two primary reasons (Heide 2013). First, most crisis communication scholars have their roots in public relations, which is a discipline characterized by a strong emphasis on external communication. Second, it is easier to get access to external communication activities and “products” (e.  g., news in media, communication on web and social media) than getting inside the organization and talking to employees and managers about what “really” happens before, during and after a crisis. It is not only researchers, but also practitioners who have neglected internal dimensions of crisis communication. An illustrative example is provided by Johansen, Aggerholm and Frandsen (2012) who in a survey among 465 Danish organizations found that 67 percent had explicit external policies and guidelines for crisis communication, while only 31 percent had similar documents for internal crisis communications. However, there has been increasing interest in internal crisis communication (ICC) since almost a decade ago. In the Handbook of Crisis Communication published in 2010 (Coombs and Holladay, eds), there was a special section about future research https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-012

260 

 Mats Heide and Charlotte Simonsson

directions, where Taylor argued that a stronger emphasis on internal aspects was necessary to further develop the field of crisis communication research. Just around that time, we also saw the beginning of publications which specifically addressed internal crisis communication (e.  g., Frandsen and Johansen 2011; Mazzei and Ravazzani 2011b), and since then we have seen growing interest in internal dimensions of crisis communication. There are several reasons for why it is crucial to gain a better understanding of communication taking place inside an organization in a crisis. Internal communication is, naturally, necessary for managing the crisis itself  – lack of coordinating and instructing information will apparently be a strong barrier to viable crisis management. But often internal communication is about more complex processes than just “message service” (Zaumane 2016). Taylor (2010) underlines that the external response reflects internal relationships and processes and argues for the need of a holistic approach to understanding crises. Other scholars emphasize that coworkers should not only be regarded as receivers, but also as senders – i.  e. as potentially negative or positive ambassadors (Frandsen and Johansen 2011; Heide and Simonsson 2011; Mazzei, Kim and Dell’Oro 2012). Therefore, creating employee trust and loyalty is crucial – something which always is a challenge for internal communication, but even more so in turbulent situations (Johansen et al. 2012). Furthermore, Zaumane (2016) has shown that inefficient internal communication in itself can lead to an organizational crisis. Inefficient internal communication can also easily lead to a double crisis (Frandsen and Johansen 2017: 38–39), i.  e. if there is no satisfactory internal communication about the original crisis, it may lead to an overlapping, second crisis – usually a communication crisis resulting in impoverished trust and image. It should also be noted that internal crisis communication, is not only a key to managing the acute crisis event, but also for preventing crises and learning from crises after they have occurred (David 2011; Frandsen and Johansen 2017). The aim of this chapter is to offer our perspective on current and future research on internal crisis communication. Our perspective is based on two basic premises. First, we take a broad perspective on internal crisis communication and see it as a continuous process, integrated into the everyday life in organizations. Hence, we focus on communication both before, during and after a crisis. Second, we are inspired by a social constructionist perspective rather than an instrumental, functionalist perspective that characterize much of the previous crisis communication research. In the next section, we will further present and discuss the social constructionist perspective on internal crisis communication. After that we will outline four different themes, which we find central for research on internal crisis communication: culture, learning, coworkers and leadership. These themes are of course not exhaustive of what internal crisis communication research should or could cover, but they can still be argued to capture some of the most interesting research questions. In the concluding section we will provide a summary and some brief suggestions for future research.



Internal crisis communication: On current and future research 

 261

2 Monitoring internal crisis communication It is fairly easy to conclude that ICC is a new research field, since there still are rather few publications. A complete literature review is always difficult to conduct since a subject could be covered in different disciplines and with various concepts and terms. For example, there are texts in the field of crisis management that discuss sensemaking and have an internal approach. In order to make the literature review manageable, we have restricted the search to “internal crisis communication” as title or keyword. At the time of the database search, (July 2018) we found the following somewhat meagre result: four books, one handbook chapter (Heide 2013) and 13 articles. We can due to space limitations not review the articles or the book chapter, but we will discuss some aspect of them below. However, we will shortly present the four books. The first book has the promising title Internal Communication Crisis: Impact on Organisation’s Performance written by Ieva Kukule (2014), who published her master’s thesis in a book format. In this book (or master’s thesis) internal crisis communication is narrowly defined as a crisis that is caused within an organization. The author presents different solutions to handle such a crisis, e.  g., the development of a symmetrical internal communication strategy. The second book is a PhD dissertation by Daniel Simonsen (2015) entitled in Danish Organisatorisk resiliens fra et kommunikativt perspektiv (eng. Organizational Resilience from a Communicative Perspective). It focuses on resilience, the ability of an organization to manage and cope with negative and critical incidents. The empirical material that is collected and analyzed by Simonsen consists of close-up studies of two different cases from the Danish military. It is concluded that communication is of significant processes where resilience is created in crisis. The third book is (once again) a PhD dissertation by Kim Young (2016) entitled Exploring Organizational Resilience Asset and Its Antecedents for Effective Internal Crisis Communication. This PhD dissertation has a clear managerial perspective and discusses how two-way symmetrical and transparent communication can be used strategically to communicate with employees to improve organizational resilience. Krisen inifrån (eng. The Crisis from within) is the Swedish title of the fourth book, and it is written by us (Heide and Simonsson 2016). During spring 2019 an international version of the book was published by Routledge. This book is based on a research project that we conducted 2012–2014, when we studied internal crisis communication at a large Swedish university hospital. We chose this case since the hospital was a rather new merger of two university hospitals, which was meet by heavy criticism and resistance from the employees. Another reason was that hospitals often, but not always, are instantiations of High Reliability Organizations (e.  g., Roberts 1990; Rochlin 1996), and thereby is characterized by a crisis awareness and reflective learning. The book touches upon the pre-crisis, crisis and post-crisis stages in relation to internal crisis communication. There are several ways of understanding and defining ICC. In Table 1 below, we have listed some features that characterize two ways of apprehending internal crisis

262 

 Mats Heide and Charlotte Simonsson

communication: managerialistic ICC and process ICC. One position understands that ICC embraces crises that occurs inside an organization (Kukule 2014). The other position has a broader understanding and distinguishes ICC as internal aspects of crisis communication (Frandsen and Johansen 2011; Heide and Simonsson 2015; Johansen et al. 2012). Further, there is a divide in two ways of understanding crisis (Heide and Simonsson 2014). The first, narrow and information-oriented understanding, sees crisis as an anomaly and as an isolated and distinct event that strikes an organization. The second, broad, meaning-oriented understanding, apprehends crisis as ongoing and natural stage in organizational life when sensemaking intensifies. Lastly, there is a divide between researchers that understand ICC as communication with internal stakeholders in times of crisis (Fearn-Banks 2011; Strandberg and Vigsø 2016) or ICC as internal communication before, during and after a crisis (Frandsen and Johansen 2011; Heide and Simonsson 2015). In the first version, it is presumed that employees are one important stakeholder group, and consequently this is based in an essentialistic understanding of organizations. Then, organizations are reified and perceived as natural and stable containers in which communication occurs (Putnam 1983). Internal stakeholders belong to an organization and are target groups of managerial communication. In the second version, employees enacts the organization by interactions and communication (Weick 1995). Organizations are not seen as containers. Instead, organizations are seen as continuous organizing processes (Taylor 2011). Hence, this divide is based in a different philosophy of science. The first one takes a functionalistic perspective, while the second is based in social constructionism which embraces process and communication that enacts organizations (cf. Tourish, in press). From a social constructionist perspective, communication is not conceived as one out of many variables, but as a precondition for the very existence of an organization (Varey 2000). Crisis management is therefore not possible without communication (cf. Gilpin and Murphy 2008), and we do not perceive communication as an isolated phenomenon, but as a process that is highly interrelated with the organizational context. In the managerialistic approach, it is assumed that clear boundaries exist between the organization and the environment. In the process approach it is emphasized that internal and external communication has a mutual dependence and that it is impossible to separate them. How an organization reacts to and manages a crisis is the result of internal processes such as sensemaking and sensegiving (Heide 2013). Finally, the two approaches have different goals. The managerialistic approach tend to focus on effective internal crisis communication in order to return to equilibrium. Often this research ends up with normative advices how to communicate with internal “publics” (Frandsen and Johansen 2011). The process approach has a wider knowledge focus and does not primarily conduct research to help managers become more efficient. Research within the process approach tries to explain and understand internal crisis communication from both a managerial and an employee perspective.



Internal crisis communication: On current and future research 

 263

Tab. 1: Two approaches of internal crisis communication. Managerialistic ICC

Process ICC

Crisis

Crisis as an anomaly

Crisis as a natural stage

Source of crisis

Internal or external

Complex relationship

Communication focus

Communication with internal ­stakeholder

Communication and enactment

Philosophy of science

Functionalism

Social constructionism

Communication borders

Clear border of internal and external communication

Mutual relationship of internal and ­external communication

Goal

Achieving effective communication during a crisis. Return to equilibrium.

Understanding communication ­ rocesses in organization before, under p and after a crisis. A natural phase of organizational development.

As a consequence of the different positions described above, there exists different ways of defining ICC. We will here present one definition that we find exemplary: ICC refers to “the communicative interaction among managers and employees, in a private or public organization, before, during and after an organizational or societal crisis” (Johansen et al. 2012: 271). It is important to acknowledge that the communicative interactions and processes are influenced by the organizational context (Heide and Simonsson 2015).

3 Research themes to be developed from a process approach We agree with Ravazzani (2016), who concludes that ICC is a growing field where there is a need of theoretical development and empirical investigation. In the following section, we will present and discuss four research themes that we find interesting and worthwhile. Since we follow the social constructionist epistemology, we will only cover themes from a process approach: culture, learning, coworker and leadership. Culture In the traditional way of managing crises there is a grand belief in rational procedures and that it is possible to anticipate all form of crises that may affect an organization. This belief involves large energy in scenario constructions and extensive, detailed and long crisis plans. Nevertheless, newer research criticizes the excessive belief in crisis

264 

 Mats Heide and Charlotte Simonsson

and crisis communication plans and consequently all time and energy that is put in developing the optimal Plan (with a capital letter). The problem is that a crisis plan can (a) produce a false sense of security, (b) delay the organizational reaction time and decision processes, and (c) is rarely updated and contains often non-relevant information (Falkheimer, Heide and Larsson 2009). Marra (1998; 2004) concludes that it is not the actual crisis plan that determines whether the crisis preparedness and crisis management is excellent. Rather, way more important is aspects like the culture in the organization and the dominating leadership. Marra (2004) even claims that organizations with a grand crisis plan manage crises worse than organizations without plans. This claim is of course a bit provoking, but the point is that organizations tend to invest too much time in designing the crisis plan than implementing it in the organization. Hence, the focus is on the product (that is easy to show and evaluate), rather on the process of implementing and practicing what the plan states. So, the ideal is to develop a short plan that can help organizational members to take the first step in the beginning of a crisis (it functions then like a comfort blanket), and then trust the actions and improvisations of organizational members (cf. Heide and Simonsson 2014). An alternative way to handle crisis is follow the High-Reliability Organization theory (HRO) and focus on developing a crisis awareness culture together with a crisis leadership (see below). A crisis awareness culture entails an understanding of mistakes as occasions for learning and an organizational ability to early capture weak signals of upcoming crises (Simonsson and Heide 2018). An important starting point for HRO is that organizations exist in a culture that is characterized by trust and where organizational members feel safe and comfortable. First when such a culture exists is it possible to internally discuss and reflect upon risks, mistake and near-mistakes that have occurred. A crisis culture is composed of common norms, shared understandings, work practices and informal traditions when it comes to crisis and security management. According to Sutcliffe (2011) such organizational cultures have a high degree of flexibility and interest in learning and development. While traditional, rational models assume that the organizational surrounding is rather stable and easy to understand, the HRO theory understand the reality as a social construction. Hence, the socially constructed reality is enacted through sensemaking and communication by organizational members. The sensemaking process is influenced by the culture (or cultures) that make up an organization, and the culture offers rules of how organizational members ought to perceive and interpret information in order to act accordingly. The traditional models presume that it is the management group that should define and identify organizational crises. The cultural perspective emphasizes that it is important to scan coworkers’ understanding of what they perceive as a crisis. Our study at a university hospital clearly showed that there often is a large divide between the official management understanding of crisis and how and what coworkers see as a crisis (Heide and Simonsson 2015). The official definition of crisis at the hospital focused only on medical aspects and whether the organization



Internal crisis communication: On current and future research 

 265

could offer hospital care to potential patients. This means that the organization did not include for example issues related to work environment, the large numbers of employees leaving the organization and problems of trust in the hospital. In our case study we found examples of the latter problems. As a result of the merger in combination with cost saving programs employees found it impossible to fulfill their tasks and hence they perceived the organization to be in a crisis. However, while there were employees interpreting the current situation of the organization as a crisis and also acting correspondingly (e.  g., by putting up demonstrations and forwarding critique and problem to press and media), the management team did not really seem to recognize that and did not respond to the employees’ crisis perception. Another aspect that influence the dominating culture at the hospital are the strong professions in the organization – a hospital is a typical professional organization (Mintzberg 1999). A professional organization entails that the professions primarily identify with their profession, e.  g., as a doctor, rather than with the organization. The organizational interest concerns the professionals to a lesser extent than the professional interest. As a doctor the main focus is to diagnose, help and cure patients, rather than to help the organization. Information about issues and actions is interpreted within the framework of a medical logic, which means that it may also be difficult for management and administrators (HR-specialist, communicators etc.) to engage medical staff in issues and projects related to an overall organizational perspective (Heide and Simonsson 2015). An important concept that is related to culture is anticipation, which implies an ability to forecast danger and to prevent that they occur. Anticipation is part of the formal preparedness of the unexpected (Weick and Sutcliffe 2007). In practice, anticipation means that organizational members pay attention to mistakes, simplifications and actions. Further, it involves an ambition to foresee negative consequences of weak signals of changes within or outside the organization. According to Weick and Sutcliffe, organizations with a culture that advocates anticipation have better prerequisites to avoid fully developed organizational crisis. Another important aspect in this regard is a leadership that facilitate coworkership and understands the value of an open communication climate where coworkers’ voice, knowledge and experience is valued and used (cf. Ulmer 2012). Learning The second research area that is important for the study of internal crisis communication from a social constructionist perspective is learning. Nicolini and Meznar (1995: 738) pinpoints that: “learning is a continuous process which is inherent in the very being of organizations”. Thus, all organizations learn all the time and cannot prevent learning. Organizational members that make decisions, test ideas, take actions and reflect will in some sense produce new knowledge. A crisis is a good occasion for learning since old ideas, norms and values will be questioned in a situation that we

266 

 Mats Heide and Charlotte Simonsson

do not understand or have experienced before. Weick (1993) describes crisis as cosmological episodes, and he believes that the only way to recover from a crisis is intensive organizational learning. Crisis can thus be understood as an optimal driver for learning since we do not want to experience a crisis again. Also, the HRO theory emphasize that organizations have large possibilities to learn from earlier mistakes, which prerequisite a crisis culture (La Porte 1996; Weick 1987). Organizational learning is a process when coworkers revise dominating beliefs, which lead to improved organizational performance (Huber 1991). An effect of the new knowledge that is constructed in the learning process, are new response repertoires that improve the organizational ability to handle a future, similar situation (Christianson, Farkas, Sutcliffe and Weick 2009). In other words, organizational learning gives better preconditions to handle future crises. Learning is closely related to sensemaking. In order to understand and learn, humans must first make sense of the situation. An important part of sensemaking is communication with fellows. If we dissect the Latin word for dialog – dialogos, we understand the close relation between communication and learning. Dia means jointly, and logos is equivalent with produce knowledge. Communication is both important for understanding and making sense, but also for sharing experiences, ideas, views and knowledge within the organization. Hence, it is through communication that individual learning can be transformed into collective learning (Weick and Ashford 2001). High reliable organizations are resilient because there is an awareness and expectation that crisis can occur. Consequently, this type of organizations put a lot of energy in training and crisis exercises. Further, there is an understanding that flawless organizations do not exist, and therefore emphasize organizational learning. Resilience is a factor that is closely related to learning. As a concept, resilience was introduced to crisis management by Wildavsky (1988) in the book Searching for Safety, and he defines it as: “the capacity to cope with unanticipated dagers with unanticipated dangers after they have become manifest, learning to bounce back” (Wildavsky 1988: 77). A large part of resiliemce and learning is to embrace and accept the equivocality that characterizes complex situations (Weick 2015). Understanding a complex and equivocal situation starts with sensemaking (Barton, Sutcliffe, Vogus and DeWitt 2015). All humans want to understand what is happening around them, and if there are no clear answers or20 too many interpretations, they start to discuss, trying to make sense of the situation (Carroll 2015). The trick in equivocal situations is not to find or construct the correct answer, but to reach an acceptable level of equivocality. Even if crises are optimal occasions for learning, it is not always that organizational learning takes place. Research also shows that it is unclear what is learned (Boin, McConnell and ’t Hart 2008). Boin et al (Boin, ’t Hart, Stern and Sundelius 2005) even question if organizational crises trigger or rather prevent learning and development. Learning is almost always related to something positive: “[l]earning is a golden concept; everybody is for it” (Wildavsky 1988: 245). However, there are many obstacles that prevent organizational learning to happen.



Internal crisis communication: On current and future research 

 267

One obstacle is power and dominance structures that often also are reflected in micro-level learning processes (Collien, in press). Coworkers or managers can, for example, use micro-politics to strategically prevent learning that does not support their interests. As mentioned above, there are often clashes between professional and organizational goals. Another major obstacle to learning is the normalization process that often happens during a crisis. Roux-Dufort (2000) argues in an interesting article, Why organizations don’t learn from crises, that mangers and decisions makers during a crisis often get engaged in a normalization process. Normalization means that wellknown and acceptable norms and frames are used to manage the crisis. This process makes it easier to handle the crisis with old understanding and tools but gives bad prerequisites for learning. The normalization process does not open up for internal analysis of deep structural or cultural problem in the organization, that could be an explanation of the actual crisis. Yet another obstacle is that learning by crisis only leads to knowledge within a work group or department, but the new knowledge are rarely distributed throughout the organization (Simonsson and Heide 2018). Coworker All too often, coworkers have primarily been regarded as more or less passive receivers who are to be informed, instructed and reassured – this applies to internal communication in general but specifically for internal communication in a crisis situation. However, coworkers should also be recognized as senders and active agents in the communication arena of an organization (Frandsen and Johansen 2017; Mazzei 2010, 2014; Simonsson and Heide 2018) – both internally and externally and also during all the phases of a Simonsson 2015, 2016). Before a crisis, coworkers are an important resource since they can detect weak signals of what might lead to a crisis and mitigate the effects of a crisis or even prevent it from materializing (Snoeijersbegore 2018; Weick and Sutcliffe 2007). In most cases, coworkers are close to both core business and external stakeholders and are therefore well equipped to detect weak signals. In a recent article (Simonsson and Heide 2018), we have suggested that errors and error management should be considered as an import part of pre-crisis internal crisis communication. Errors and the reporting of them can be valuable learning opportunities, but our results showed that it requires a culture and a leadership that constantly have crisis on the agenda and perceive errors as something positive. A continuous meta-message  – “it is the system that makes errors and not persons” – had been a key driver in the development towards a willingness to report and communicate about errors. Previous research has further shown that internal crisis communication cannot be started once the crisis is there but needs to be considered as an ongoing work. Mazzei and her colleagues (Mazzei and Ravazzani 2011; Mazzei, Kim and Dell’Oro 2012) has shown the importance of establishing trust and positive relationships between managers and coworkers before the crisis occurs. For example, Mazzei and Ravazzani (2011) have found that even

268 

 Mats Heide and Charlotte Simonsson

extensive, well-planned and continual communication efforts by senior management during the crisis can be met with skepticism and misinterpretations by employees. This is explained by lack of active listening during the crisis but also lack of manager-employee trust before the crisis occurred. During the crisis, coworkers are usually those who are to realize management decisions and actively solve the situation. Employees are also the most effective advocators of an organization’s reputation, and hence it is important to maintain their loyalty and support (Mazzei, Kim, Dell’Oro 2012). In the acute phase, we find a very complex interplay between external and internal communication. External media is often an important information source for employees during a crisis. While some research indicates that employees place more trust in external media reporting (e.  g., Mazzei and Ravazzani 2011), there are other studies (e.  g. Korn and Einwiller 2013) which show that employees find external media coverage as biased. In our own study of the university hospital, we found that it was difficult, if not to say impossible, for internal communication to compete with the speed and magnitude of external media coverage in a crisis situation (Heide and Simonsson 2015). Negative media coverage is a “natural” part of a crisis and difficult to avoid. This does not mean that internal communication efforts are meaningless. At the studied university hospital, the negative media coverage was problematic, but it became even more problematic when the external media picture was not commented internally by the managers. In a similar vein, Korn and Einweller (2013) argue that fast and transparent internal communication also has proven to be helpful after the media has reported on the issue. Internal communication can reduce employees need to search for more news in media and make them feel better prepared to meet external stakeholders’ reactions. They also found that colleagues are both an important information source and support to each other during a crisis. Similarly, Strandberg and Vigsø (2016: 95) found that coworkers – often conceived as receivers by managers – created meaning together: “[…] the information did not become true to the employees before it had been inserted into the context and then discussed within the group.” Another aspect of the complex interplay between internal and external communication, is that failures in the former may mean that employees choose to go public with their critique. Employees at the university who felt that they were not listened chose to talk to regional press and media. There was also a public Facebook group with thousands of followers where employees criticized responsible managers and politicians (Heide and Simonsson 2015, 2016, see also Zaumane 2016). In the post-crisis phase, coworkers’ experiences are often vital for organizational learning, i.  e. to create new knowledge and strategies for preventing future crises. As organizational learning has already been discussed in a section above, we will not go more into detail about it here.



Internal crisis communication: On current and future research 

 269

Leadership Some researchers (e.  g., Muffet-Willett and Kruse 2009) state that crisis leadership is clearly distinct from leadership in stable, “normal” situations. Seeger, Sellnow and Ulmer (2003) argue that a more authoritarian leadership style may be appropriate for crisis situations. Leaders need to take control, act quickly and ensure that employees have a clear sense of the chosen response. They further argue that employees often are willing to accept more control during a crisis and it may also be beneficial to create an impression of decisiveness in an uncertain situation. In line with the process approach outlined above we are more skeptical towards such a command and control approach. There are of course critical situations when leaders need to make quick decisions, but an authoritarian leadership does not match the increasing number of complex and knowledge-intensive organizations. Gilpin and Murphy (2008) argue that complex organizations require crisis leaders who are less focused on directing people and more concerned about cultivating organizations whose members can self-organize and take actions in critical situations. In a similar vein, Muffet-Willet and Kruse (2009) propose that collaborative leadership  – characterized by engaging employees in organizational direction and values – means that coworkers know how to act appropriately in times of crisis. It should also be noted that in the general leadership literature, there is an increasing critique against the idea of the manager as a lonely hero, and a call for paying more attention to leadership as a social, mutual process (e.  g., Alvesson and Spicer 2011; Raelin 2016). In line with the process perspective, crisis leadership is considered as a continuous activity where a trustful relationship between managers and employees needs to be established long before the actual crisis occurs (James and Wooten 2005; Mazzei and Ravazzani 2011b). Thus, being a crisis leader is not only linked to the situation when the crisis is already a fact. As discussed above, it is also about encouraging a crisis awareness culture and a resilient, learning organization. The emphasis on leadership as a collaborative process is also linked to the notion of communication as a mutual process of sensemaking rather than an act of transmitting information and instructions with a “fixed” meaning. However, the notion of mutuality does not mean that managers should abdicate from their leadership function. It is more a matter of leaders intervening, affecting and interacting in a multi-directional process rather than controlling and commanding in a unidirectional way (Baran and Scott 2010; Gilpin and Murphy 2008). From a process perspective on internal crisis communication, facilitating the process of sensemaking and hence enable action is a crucial part of crisis leadership. Unexpected and uncertain events such as natural disasters, accidents and product recalls trigger an active search for meaning. Crises are inherently ambiguous phenomena that must be actively interpreted and discussed in order to answer questions like: What is going on here? Why is it happening? What shall I do? Leaders may facilitate sensemaking in several different ways. One way is to encourage conversations and give time to employees to interact (Strandberg and Vigsø 2016). Sensemaking is a

270 

 Mats Heide and Charlotte Simonsson

social process, which according to Weick (2002: 31), means that people “need conversations with others to move toward some shared idea of what meanings are possible.” Another important leadership act is to question dominant interpretations (Baran and Scott 2010) by asking questions such as: What is taken for granted, what assumptions should we question? What alternative interpretations can be made? Similarly, Weick (2002) argues that leaders should help people expand the variety of cues they include in their sensemaking. This may of course contribute to further confusion, but also faciltate a richer understanding of a complex situation. Of course, leaders can also more actively try to influence the sensemaking of others by framing an event in a certain way. The words and other symbols leaders choose to describe a situation is a way to influence others towards a preferred definition of organizational reality (Fairhurst 2011). But again this is not a pure one-way process. Leaders need to listen to their coworkers in order to better understand what words, symbols and narratives they are willing to listen to. Strandberg and Vigsø (2016: 100) argue that “framing the incident in the wrong way, i.  e. in a way not recognized ny the employees, will not only produce internal insecurity within the organization, it might also blok organizational post-crisis learning.” However, research has shown that managers do not always prioritize to listen and that they also tend to neglect opportunities to frame events (Mazzei and Ravazzani 2011; Heide and Simonsson 2016). In the case study of the university hospital, we found some examples of this problematic. As mentioned above, some employees experienced the organization as a whole to be in a crisis. Thus, the employees were talking about an organizational crisis and severe problems, but the managers did not respond to that narrative and they avoided the crisis-word. In some sense it is understandable that managers do not want to fuel the feeling of a crisis, but at the same time they do not take the worries of the coworkers seriously and leave them alone with their questions and anxiety. As a consequence, the leaders leave the floor open to other actors such as the media, politicians and unions to fill the vacuum (Heide and Simonsson 2016; Maitlis 2012. The role of communication professionals Crisis management and crisis communication is an important practice for communication professionals (Falkheimer and Heide 2006; Verhoeven, Tench, Zerfass, Moreno and Verčič 2013). Research has also shown that expertise in crisis management and crisis communication is the primary route into the dominant coalition in organizations (Bowen 2009). There is still too few studies of communication professionals and their crisis communication practices. We suggest that the dominating view of crisis in organization – a narrow or broad – influence the role and work of communication professionals. A narrow, traditional understand with a strong information orientation involves an emphasis on operational and tactical communication aspects (i.  e. the technician role) such as writing press releases, disseminating rapid information to key stakeholders, designing crisis communication plans, etc. (Heide and Simonsson



Internal crisis communication: On current and future research 

 271

2014). The broader, meaning oriented view includes also operational work, but also more managerial and strategic aspects such as planning, consulting and facilitating managers and coworkers’ communicative task. Our study of internal crisis communication at a university hospital indicates that communication professionals did not work strategically when it comes to the internal aspect of crisis communication (Heide and Simonsson 2014). The main focus of these communication professionals was information distribution via intranet, even if they were invited to the management group once there was an actual crisis. We drew the conclusions that communication professionals where called for when there was a need of delivering information, which we call “communication on demand”. The role of communication professionals in crisis management in this organization can be explained by the absence of a strategic crisis management thinking and discourse. Rather, the main focus was on operational, tactical aspects of crisis management, and an exclusive focus on medicine and healthcare issues. This tactical emphasis was further reinforced by a decentralized crisis management function. Another problem that we detected in our study is the self-perception of communication professionals when it comes to internal crisis communication (Heide and Simonsson 2014). There was in the studied organization a lack of a general idea among communication professionals what role they have, and which tasks their profession is expected to conduct. A related problem is that some communication professionals find it difficult to formulate and communicate what competence and abilities they can offer the organization in crisis, apart from traditional operational tasks, e.  g. media contacts and text production. We find it essential for communication professionals to reflect on, discuss and explain what it really means to work strategically with crisis communication. Yet another problem is that communication professionals may not have a clear picture of the purpose of internal crisis communication. Too often the transmission view of communication dominates which influence the idea of internal crisis communication; the main focus is then on instructional communication such as getting the right people at the right place to do the right things. From a sensemaking perspective, the main focus would be to frame the understanding of the crises, i.  e. internalizing communication (Barton et al. 2015). Since we would like organizations to take internal crisis communication seriously and also adopting a broader, sensemaking view of crisis, we would also like to communication professionals to increase their role in organizations and go beyond the traditional operational and tactical roles in the acute phase of a crisis. We have suggested some roles that communication professionals can take to reinforce the role (Heide and Simonsson 2014). In the precrisis phase, communication professionals should emphasize anticipation and detections of weak signals of negative changes. This is mainly reached by facilitating a crisis awareness culture where employees contribute with information that are discussed in the nearest working group and then reported to senior management. In the crisis phase, the initial focus must be on providing employees with fast information through all form of media, even messenger that dis-

272 

 Mats Heide and Charlotte Simonsson

tribute information in the organization. A bit later in the process, there will be a need of discussion of the situation in order to make sense of the situation. This is important both for employees as private persons, but also in their role as organizational ambassador in external interactions. Yet another role for communication professionals in the crisis phase is to help and advice managers and other key persons who needs to communicate with different stakeholders. In the postcrisis phase, resilience will be in the limelight, i.  e. “to be mindful about errors that have already occurred” (Weick and Sutcliffe 2007: 68). Sensemaking is likewise important in this phase – employees want to know what has happened, what went wrong and what can be done to prevent a similar crisis in the future. Communication professionals should facilitate learning processes within the organization, not at least by helping managers in the process, and, setting up discussion groups on the intranet where employees can share experiences of the crisis and hopefully also produce new understanding and knowledge.

4 Conclusions and future research suggestions The advantage of taking a broad perspective on crisis communication and internal crisis communication is that it embraces a deeper and more profound understanding of crisis as such. Traditional research on crisis tends to focus on the exceptional and the unnormal situation, which reduces the focus to exception management (Roux-Dufort 2007). Roux-Dufort maintains that most crises have long incubation times that start long before the issue or event that triggered off a crisis, and we must correspondingly approach organization theory to better understand organizational crises. Kersten (2005: 546) has the same idea, and means that a crisis could be a sign of a “sick” organization, and a natural result of organizational dysfunctions: “What needs to be acknowledged is that ‘irrationality’ may not be random, incidental or even correctable but could be systematic.” She is suggesting that psychodynamic literature is useful to handle the idea of systemic dysfunction in organizations. Additionally, Kersten (2005) emphasizes that internal processes and aspects such as structure, culture, leadership, and practices can be sources of a crisis. One might in accordance with the reasoning above conclude that internal crisis communication from a broad perspective is confusingly close to or even the same as regular internal communication. So, if that is the case, should one even bother to talk about internal crisis communication? We believe that it is the perspective and interest that determines what should be counted as internal crisis communication research. And as Vigsø (2016) correctly notes, crisis communication research needs to develop a more holistic perspective on organizations’ communication and understand it as multifunctional with several purposes. While organizational crises are deeply complex phenomenon, we as researchers must be open to other and alternative ways



Internal crisis communication: On current and future research 

 273

of understanding and explaining the phenomenon, and we believe that there is especially much to learn from and be inspired of in organizational studies and research in organizational change. We have in this chapter pointed out four areas that we find especially interesting and rewarding – culture, learning, coworker and leadership. In this closing paragraph, we would like to suggest some future research within these areas. We would like to call for more research on informal and horizontal communication between coworkers in times of crises. We need a better understanding of the characteristics and conditions of the communication processes where coworkers create meaning together. A large part of anticipation and organizational learning, that both are related to organizational culture, can be explained and understood by informal communication. How does informal and horizontal communication facilitate anticipation? Another important area to focus is how coworkers communicate on social media – both as professionals and as private persons – and how coworkers’ communication on social media is related to internal communication. Rasmussen and Ihlen (2017) has conducted a systematic review of seven years’ research on social media use in risk and crisis communication and also discussed previous literature reviews in this area. Their review clearly indicate that the internal communication perspective/the coworker perspective is more or less absent in this growing research area, but as often is the case in crisis communication research, it is neither recognized not problematized. Opitz, Chaudhri and Wang (2018), who have investigated the impact of employee social-mediated crisis communication on organizational reputation, is one example of an exception to this pattern. Although there is a growing interest in manager-employee communication in relation to crisis (Mazzei and Ravazzani 2011a), crisis leadership is still not a salient topic within crisis communication research. Of course, there is a lot of research – not least within the broader field of crisis management – focusing on what managers should do in crisis situations, but most of it is characterized by a top down-orientation advising managers to provide timely, accurate and adequate information to employees. What we miss is research on the actual communication practices of crisis leaders and the complexity of manager-employee relations in times of crises (cf. Baran 2010; Haddon, Loughlin and McNally 2015).

References Alvesson, M., and A. Spicer. 2011. Metaphors we lead by: Understanding leadership in the real world. New York, NY: Routledge. Baran, B. 2010. Organizing ambiguity: A grounded theory of leadership and sensemaking withon dangerous contexts. Military Psychology 22(January). 42–69. Baran, B. E., and C. W. Scott. 2010. Organizing ambiguity: A grounded theory of leadership and sensemaking within dangerous contexts. Military Psychology (Taylor & Francis Ltd) 22. 42–69.

274 

 Mats Heide and Charlotte Simonsson

Barton, M. A., K. M. Sutcliffe, T. J. Vogus, and T. DeWitt. 2015. Performing under uncertainty: Contextualized engagement in wildland firefighting. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 23(2). 74–83. Boin, A., P. ’t Hart, E. Stern, and B. Sundelius. 2005. The Politics of Crisis Management: Public leadership under pressure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boin, A., A. McConnell, and P. ’t Hart. 2008. Governing after crisis: The politics of investigation, accountability and learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bowen, S.  A. 2009. What communication professionals tell us regarding dominant coalition access and gaining membership. Journal of Applied Communication Research 37(4). 418–443. Carroll, J. S. 2015. Making sense of ambiguity through dialogue and collaborative action. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 23(2). 59–65. Christianson, M. K., M. T. Farkas, K. M. Sutcliffe, and K. E. Weick. 2009. Learning through rare events: Significant interruptions at the baltimore & ohio railroad museum. Organization Science 20(5). 846–860. Collien, I. In press. Critical–reflexive–political: Dismantling the reproduction of dominance in organisational learning processes. Management Learning. Coombs, W. T., and S. J. Holladay (eds.). 2010. The Handbook of Crisis Communication. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. David, G. 2011. Internal communication – essential component of crisis communication. Journal of Media Research 2(10). 72–71. Fairhurst, G. T. 2011. The power of framing. Creating the language of leadership. San Fransisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Falkheimer, J., and M. Heide. 2006. Multicultural crisis communication: Towards a social constructionist perspective. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 14(4). 180–189. Falkheimer, J., M. Heide, and L. Larsson. 2009. Kriskommunikation ([Crisis communication]). Malmö: Liber. Fearn-Banks, K. 2011. Crisis communications: A casebook approach. New York: Routledge. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2011. The study of internal crisis communication: Towards an integrative framework. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 16(4). 347–361. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2017. Organizational crisis communication. London: Sage. Gilpin, D. R., and P. J. Murphy. 2008. Crisis communication in a complex world. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Haddon, A., C. Loughlin, and C. McNally. 2015. Leadership in a time of financial crisis: What do we want from our leaders? Leadership & Organization Development Journal 36(5). 612–627. Heide, M. 2013. Internal crisis communication: The future of crisis communication. In A. Thiessen (ed.), Handbook of crisis management. Berlin: Springer. Heide, M., and C. Simonsson. 2011. Putting coworkers in the limelight: New challenges for communication professionals. International Journal of Strategic Communication 5(4). 201–220. Heide, M., and C. Simonsson. 2014. Developing internal crisis communication: New roles and practices of communication professionals. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 19(2), 128–146. Heide, M., and C. Simonsson. 2015. Struggling with internal crisis communication: A balancing act between paradoxical tensions. Public Relations Inquiry 4(2). 223–255. Heide, M., and C. Simonsson. 2016. Krisen inifrån. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Huber, G. P. 1991. Organizational learning: The contributing processes and the literatures. Organization Science 2(1., 88–115. James, E. H., and L. P. Wooten. 2005. Leadership as (un)usual:. How to display competence in times of crisis. [Article]. Organizational Dynamics 34. 141–152.



Internal crisis communication: On current and future research 

 275

Johansen, W., H. K. Aggerholm, and F. Frandsen. 2012. Entering new territory: A study of internal crisis management and crisis communication in organizations. Public Relations Review 38(2). 270–279. Kersten, A. 2005. Crisis as usual: Organizational dysfunction and public relations. Public Relations Review 31(4). 544–549. Korn, C., and S. Einwiller. 2013. Media coverage about organisations in critical situations: Analysing the impact on employees. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 18(4). 451–468. Kukule, l. 2014. Internal communication crisis: Impact on organisation’s performance. Lambert Academic Publishing: Lambert Academic Publishing. La Porte, T. R. 1996. High reliability organizations: Unlikely, demanding and at risk. Journal of Contingencies & Crisis Management 4(2). 60–71. Maitlis, S., and T. B. Lawrence. 2007. Triggers and enablers of sensegiving in organizations. Academy of Management Journal 50(1). 57–84. Marra, F. J. 1998. Crisis communication plans: Poor predictors of excellent crisis public relations. Public Relations Review 24(4). 461–474. Marra, F. J. 2004. Excellent crisis communication: Beyond crisis plans. In D. P. Millar and R. L. Heath (eds.), Responding to crisis: A rhetorical approach to crisis communication, 311–326. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Mazzei, A. 2010. Promoting active communication behaviours through internal communication. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 15(3). 221–234. Mazzei, A. 2014. Internal communication for employee enablement. Strategies in american and italian companies. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 19(1). 82–95. Mazzei, A., J.-N. Kim, and C. Dell’Oro. 2012. Strategic value of employee relationships and communicative actions: Overcoming corporate crisis with quality internal communication. International Journal of Strategic Communication 6(1). 31–44. Mazzei, A., and S. Ravazzani. 2011a. Manager-employee communication during a crisis: The missing link. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 16(3). 243–254. Mazzei, A., S. Ravazzani. 2011b. Manager-employee communication during a crisis: The missing link. Corporate Communications: an international journal 16. 243–254. Mintzberg, H. 1999. Structure in fives: Designing effective organizations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Muffet-Willett, S.  D., and S.  D. Kruse. 2009. Crisis leadership: Past research and future directions. Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning 3(3). 248–258. Nicolini, D., and M. B. Meznar. 1995. The social construction of organizational learning: Conceptual and practical issues in the field. Human Relations 48(7). 727–746. Opitz, M., V. Chaudhri, and Y. Wang. 2018. Employee social-mediated crisis sommunication as opportunity or threat? Corporate Communications: An International Journal 23(1). 66–83. Putnam, L. L. 1983. The interpretive perspective: An alternative to functionalism. In L. L. Putnam and M. E. Pacanowsky (eds.), Communication and organization: An interpretive approach, 31–54. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Raelin, J. A. 2016. Imagine there are no leaders: Reframing leadership as collaborative agency. Leadership 12(2). 131–158. Rasmussen, J., and Ø. Ihlen. 2017. Risk, crisis and social media: A systematic review of seven years’ research. Noridcom Review 38(2). 1–16. Ravazzani, S. 2016. Exploring internal crisis communication in multicultural environments. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 21(1). 73–88.

276 

 Mats Heide and Charlotte Simonsson

Roberts, K. H. 1990. Some characteristics of one type of high reliability organization. Organization Science 1(2). 160–176. Rochlin, G. I. 1996. Reliable organizations: Present research and future directions. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 4(2). 55–59. Roux-Dufort, C. 2000. Why organizations don’t learn from crises: The perverse power of normalization. Review of Business 21. 25–30. Roux-Dufort, C. 2007. Is crisis management (only) a management of exceptions? Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 15(2). 105–114. Seeger, M. W., T. L. Sellnow, and R. R. Ulmer. 2003. Communication and organizational crisis. Westport, CT: Praeger. Simonsen, D. M. 2015. Organisatorisk resliliens fra et kommunikativt perspektiv (Vol. Ph.D. Ph.D.). Aarhus: Aarhus Universitet, Institut for Erhvervskommunikation. Simonsson, C., and M. Heide. 2018. How focusing positively on errors can help organizations become more communicative: An alternative approach to crisis communication. Journal of Communication Management 22(2). 179–196. Snoeijers, E. M., K. Poels. 2018. Factors that influence organisational crisis perception from an internal stakeholder’s point of view. Public Relations Review 44. 65–74. Strandberg, J. M., and O. Vigsø. 2016. Internal crisis communication. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 21(1). 89–102. Sutcliffe, K. M. 2011. High reliability organizations (hros). [10.1016/j.bpa.2011.03.001]. Best Practice & Research Clinical Anaesthesiology 25(2). 133–144. Taylor, J. R. 2011. Organization as an (imbricated) configuring of transactions. Organization Studies 32(9). 1273–1294. Taylor, M. 2010. Towards a holistic organizational approach to understanding crisis. In W. T. Coombs and S. J. Holladay (eds.), The handbook of crisis communication, 698–704. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Tourish, D. In press. Is complexity leadership theory complex enough? A critical appraisal, some modifications and suggestions for further research. Organization Studies. Ulmer, R. R. 2012. Increasing the impact of thought leadership in crisis communication. Management Communication Quarterly 26(4). 527–547. Varey, R. J. 2000. A critical review of conceptions of communication evident in contemporary business and management literature. Journal of Communication Management 4(4). 328–340. Verhoeven, P., R. Tench, A. Zerfass, A. Moreno, and D. Verčič. 2013. Crisis? What crisis? Public Relations Review. Vigsø, O. 2016. Kriskommunikation. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Weick, K. E. 1987. Organizational culture as a source of high reliability. California Management Review 29(2). 112. Weick, K. E. 1993. The collapse of sensemaking in organizations: The mann gulch disaster. ­Administrative Science Quarterly 38(4). 628–652. Weick, K. E. 1995. Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Weick, K. E. 2002. Leadership when events don’t play by the rules. Reflections 4(1). 30–32. Weick, K. E. 2015. Ambiguity as grasp: The reworking of sense. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management. Weick, K. E., and S. J. Ashford. 2001. Learning in organizations. In F. M. Jablin and L. L. Putnam (eds.), The new handbook of organizational communication: Advances in theory, research, and methods, 704–731. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Weick, K. E., and K. M. Sutcliffe. 2007. Managing the unexpected: Resilient performance in an age of uncertainty, 2nd edn. San Francisco, CA: Wiley. Wildavsky, A. B. 1988. Searching for safety. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.



Internal crisis communication: On current and future research 

 277

Young, K. 2016. Exploring organizational resilience asset and its antecedents for effective internal crisis communication. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University. Zaumane, I. 2016. The internal communication crisis and its impact of an organization’s performance. Journal of Business Management 12. 24–33.

Alessandra Mazzei and Silvia Ravazzani

13 Whistleblowing in organizations Abstract: This chapter offers a critical overview of the phenomenon of whistleblowing, which represents a rising issue in contemporary organizations. The chapter first defines whistleblowing and its key characteristics, and examines how organizations can manage it through dedicated arrangements that bring benefits to both organizations and society at large. Second, it reviews recent developments in the whistleblowing field, and in particular considers comparative studies focusing on the influence of national cultures on whistleblowing attitudes and practices. Third, it connects whistleblowing to crisis prevention and management, which contributes to the understanding of specific kinds of organizational crises and related corporate strategies. Finally, it discusses how to address whistleblowing through a deliberate managerial strategy for crisis prevention and the creation of a climate of voice. Specifically, it recommends adopting the strategic and the CCO perspectives for the proactive development of corporate voice systems and of corporate cultures open to employee dissenting voice. Keywords: whistleblowing, corporate whistleblowing arrangements, crisis communication, crisis management, voice systems, employee voice, employee dissent, strategic management, CCO perspective

1 Introduction Whistleblowing in organizations is a rising issue with a number of internationally famous whistleblowers such as W. Mark Felt (known as Deep Throat), Frank Serpico, Peter Buxtum, Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden. In 2002, Time named three whistleblowers (Cynthia Cooper, Coleen Rowley, and Sheron Watkins, former employees at Worldcom, FBI, and Enron) as persons of the year. Wikipedia offers a long list of whistleblowers starting from the 18th century to nowadays. Whistleblowing is crucial to prevent and solve wrongdoing in organizations, creating benefits for individuals, companies, and society at large. In many cases, only people inside organizations can discover frauds, bribery, discrimination, unfair treatments, and the likes. Only if people have “enough fire in the belly to be the boat-rockers and (when circumstances compel) whistleblowers” (Redding 1985: 257), they will stand up and blow the whistle to voice those misconducts. As society depends on insiders to identify organizational wrongdoing, many countries are adopting legal frameworks to protect whistleblowers from retaliation or oblige organizations to adopt specific procedures. For example, the False Claim Act 1986 and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002 in the United States; the British Public Interhttps://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-013

280 

 Alessandra Mazzei and Silvia Ravazzani

est Disclosure Act 1998 in the United Kingdom; the Anticorruption Law 2012 for civil servants and the Whistleblowing Act 2017 in Italy; the 2010 guidelines regarding the notification of whistleblowing systems by the Danish Protection Agency in Denmark. This statutory approach to whistleblowing is far from the scope of this chapter. To us, whistleblowing is a multidimensional communicative practice, and in particular an aspect of internal communication and organizational crisis management that requires a strategic management approach. The chapter is organized as follows: first, it offers an overview of the phenomenon of whistleblowing in organizations, presents a definition, and discusses how organizations can manage it through whistleblowing arrangements; second, it deals with recent developments in the whistleblowing research field, and more specifically studies comparing different countries to understand the effect of national cultures on whistleblowing attitudes and practices; third, it connects whistleblowing to crisis prevention and management; and finally, it discusses the strategic and the CCO perspectives, in the effort to stimulate future research on and practice of whistleblowing in organizations.

2 Whistleblowing in organizations Internal communication includes all communication processes and flows intentionally managed by a dedicated department relying on communication experts. These processes encompass both corporate information about decisions and developments broadcasted to employees across the organization, and communication between managers and subordinates (Cornelissen 2017). That part of internal communication is leader-centered communication, focuses for example on statements about the company vision and values (Heide and Simonsson 2011), and considers employees as receivers. Beside, there exists employee-centered communication: it consists in the communication behavior acted by employees, intentionally or not, in their role as active communicators (Mazzei 2010, 2014; Frandsen and Johansen 2011; Heide and Simonsson 2011; Kim and Grunig 2011; Kim and Rhee 2011; Rensburg and de Beer 2011; Yeomans 2008; Zerfass and Franke 2013). Employee communication behavior can consist both in voice and silence. “Voice is the discretionary communication of ideas, suggestions, concerns, or opinions about work-related issues with the intent to improve organizational or unit functioning” (Morrison 2011: 375). Whereas silence consists in conscious withholding (Morrison 2011). Among this array of communication behaviors, we find whistleblowing. Whistleblowing is “the disclosure by organizational members (former or current) of illegal, immoral or illegitimate practices under the control of their employers, to persons or organizations that may be able to effect action” (Near and Miceli 1985: 4). It



Whistleblowing in organizations 

 281

is a dissent act related to phenomena such as freedom of speech, employee resistance, voice, and silence (Kassing 2011; Morrison 2011; Milliken and Morrison 2000; Near and Miceli 1985; Near and Miceli 1995; Miceli, Near and Dworkin 2008). Whistleblowing can be formal, implemented by an organization through official arrangements, or informal, implemented through trusted colleagues and managers; internal, directed to audiences inside the organization, or external (Frandsen and Johansen 2017). It is a process including four elements: the whistleblower, the whistleblowing act, the receiver, and the targeted organization (Near and Miceli 1985). The whistleblower is an observer and could be a current or former member of the targeted organization. She/he does not have the authority to prevent or correct the questionable situation and relies on informal power and personal credibility. In certain cases, the whistleblower could hold a prescribed role, for example internal auditor. The observer has to decide whether the observed act is illegal, immoral or illegitimate. The decision to report is easier if the questionable act is clearly wrongful, effective reporting channels are available, the observer perceives limited personal risks and that reporting will be effective. The whistleblowing act is a dissenting voice behaviour triggered by a prosocial aim to benefit the organization or other people. It could imply breaching organizational rules, for example information secrecy. The receiver is the party receiving the complaint and could be an individual or a body of persons. The targeted organization can react in different ways: ignoring the reporting, although this entails the risk of transforming the internal reporting into an external crisis; evaluating and taking actions to solve the problem; or abandoning if the reporting is invalid. Very often the consequences for the whistleblower are negative in terms of retaliation, individual career damages, demotion, firing (Near and Miceli 1995; Miceli, Near and Dworkin 2008). For the organization, the consequences are negative if the whistleblowing is external, thus resulting in a crisis. On the contrary, positive consequences arise from internal whistleblowing, leading to positive changes and termination of malpractices, which improve organizational performance (Near and Miceli 1995; Miceli, Near and Dworkin 2008). When an organization responds to whistleblowers in a proper manner, it diminishes its exposure to lawsuits and damages and the probability to lose a valuable employee (Miceli, Near and Dworkin 2008). The interruption of wrongdoing creates advantages also for society (Miceli, Near and Dworkin 2008). On the contrary, unreported malpractices continue to threat the organization, and become embedded into organizational routines (Cassematis and Wortley 2012). Whistleblowing can also cause negative consequences on organizational climate, for example in case of malicious reporting (Near and Miceli 1995). An employee observing questionable actions has therefore to decide whether to blow the whistle or not. According to the prosocial model of whistleblowing, the basic motivation for whistleblowing is to prevent detrimental actions, and the decision is influenced by individual, socio-cultural and organizational factors (Miceli, Near and Dworkin 2008).

282 

 Alessandra Mazzei and Silvia Ravazzani

Individual factors include personality (affectivity, locus of control, self-esteem, proactivity, relativism, idealism, authoritarianism and self-righteousness), moral judgement and values, demographic characteristics (age, gender, marital status, education, tenure, race), job situation characteristics (rank, pay, commitment, satisfaction, job performance, supervisory status). Employee engagement positively affects the extent to which employees voice their ideas, suggestions and concerns (Morrison 2014; Albrecht et al. 2015; Mazzei 2018a). Socio-cultural factors include national culture and legal system, and will be discussed in section five. Organizational factors include characteristics of the perceived wrongdoing (seriousness, magnitude, type of wrongdoing, wrongdoer power or status, supervisor support, quality of evidence) and characteristics of the organization (organizational climate or culture of supportiveness for whistleblowing, justice perceptions, industry type). In order to gain the benefits of voicing dissent, organizations can enable employee voice by means of formal systems such as grievance procedures, suggestion systems, ombudsman services, quality circle, work councils, non-management task forces, open-door policies (Miceli, Near and Dworkin 2008; Morrison 2011; Pinder and Harlos 2001). Organizations can also implement informal voice systems as employee-management meetings, participative management, confidential advices, upward communication (Pinder and Harlos 2001). In particular two aspects are relevant to enable employee voice: communication climate and existence of formal reporting systems (or whistleblowing arrangements). Sometimes silence is pervasive within an organization, and reflects widely shared beliefs that speaking up about certain issues is futile and/or dangerous (…). The decision not to speak up when one has a concern is often shaped by perceptions that the organizational culture or structure is not supportive of upward communication. (Morrison 2011: 387)

A climate of silence is related to the presence of organizational policies and structures such as centralization of decisions; managerial practices like the habit to ignore negative reporting; and degree of demographic dissimilarities between employees and top management in terms of gender, age, race and ethnicity (Morrison and Milliken 2000). These three factors related to the climate of silence affect the reporting decision of potential whistleblowers (Park and Keil 2009). Clearly, an organization should create a communication climate of voice to sustain voice behavior and whistleblowing. A climate of voice is the shared perception of the extent to which voice behaviors are encouraged (Frazier and Bowler 2015; VanDyne and LePine 1998).



Whistleblowing in organizations 

 283

3 Corporate whistleblowing arrangements To enhance voice behavior and in particular whistleblowing, an organization can strategically implement a formal whistleblowing arrangement: “a simple and clear set of internal and external channels and procedures for employees who want to raise a concern” (Vandekerckhove and Commers 2004: 232). The voluntary adoption of a whistleblowing procedure encourages the signaling of malpractices at the very beginning, prevents external whistleblowing and the rising of crises, facilitates the wrongdoing interruption and related organizational changes, discourages future wrongdoing (Near and Miceli 1995). At a personal level, ­effective whistleblowing implies the easy identification of wrongdoing and the decision to report, the effective reporting, the social recognition of whistleblower (Near and Miceli 1993). A strategic approach to whistleblowing reduces the negative effects and enhances the positive ones. Internal whistleblowing arrangements encourage internal reporting for many reasons: they show the commitment of the company to listen to the employee reporting wrongdoing and to correct wrongdoing; increase the awareness of employees about channels to report malpractices; lessen the fear of retaliation and the probability of external whistleblowing if employees perceive the organizational responsiveness to their concern (Barnett et al. 1993). Several studies analyzed reporting systems voluntarily adopted by companies (Barnett et al. 1993; Lewis 2002, 2006; Hassink et al. 2007; Roberts 2008; Moberly and Wylie 2011) and guidelines issued by official bodies (Schmidt 2005; Vandekerckhove and Lewis 2012). They allow identifying some principles for an effective whistleblowing procedure (Mazzei 2015). Observers invited to report can be all employees or only some groups, external constituencies as suppliers, or former employees. Their explicit mentioning motivates observers to report wrongdoing and give them power. The scope of the procedure indicates what the company considers wrongdoing and therefore is crucial for the observers. A top management statement and the reference to the company values and code of conduct signal the relevance of the arrangement and motivate observers to report wrongdoing. The receivers of the reporting should preferably be a collective body instead of a single person to make more difficult to ignore the reporting and to retaliate against the whistleblower. The receivers should also be accessible to the observers, have a proper hierarchical or power status, be an expert, and independent from the dominant coalition. Finally, it would be effective having multiple levels of receivers that can be chosen by the observers. The reporting channels should be outside the manager line, possibly with dedicated channels as hotline and online forms in specific websites. Reporting should be preferably confidential, as this increases the credibility of the whistleblower although it gives power to the receivers. The possibility of anonymity should be allowed,

284 

 Alessandra Mazzei and Silvia Ravazzani

although it weakens the credibility of the whistleblower and the power of the receivers because it does not allow seeking for additional information. The procedure should assure protections to the whistleblower against any types of retaliation to balance the power between employer and employee. Protections reduce the fear of retaliation and therefore the risk of external reporting. At the same time, the arrangements should include negative consequences for malicious allegations. The procedure should indicate who evaluates, the involvement of different departments, and the feedback to reporters to reassure about the change in managerial attitudes. The communication style of the documents presenting the whistleblowing procedure should call for reporting and invite to participation, while avoiding orders and duties. An internal communication program is necessary to make employees aware about the whistleblowing arrangement and signal that the management desire to correct wrongdoing. Training is necessary to support sensitiveness and a proper culture and increase the competence of doing a correct reporting. In order to signal the effectiveness of the corporate reporting system and encourage internal whistleblowing, an organization should periodically report about the number of reported wrongdoing, the kinds of reports, and the corrective actions implemented. All these elements contribute to legitimate and institutionalize the whistleblowing arrangement, making it part of the strategic management systems and culture of an organization (Frandsen, Johansen and Mazzei 2013). The whistleblowing arrangement itself is part of the strategic actions aimed to build a voice communication climate and prevent crises. From a corporate strategy point of view, a whistleblowing arrangement is an institutional sign necessary to create a cultural framework where shortly it will not be necessary anymore (Mazzei 2015).

4 Voice systems and whistleblowing arrangements in organizations: Evidence from field studies Considered the strategic relevance of whistleblowing arrangements, it would be interesting knowing how much voice systems and whistleblowing arrangements are spread in companies. Data from a survey on a sample of large companies operating in Italy1 show that both formal and informal voice systems and practices are not considered particularly 1 The survey (Mazzei et al. 2017; Mazzei 2018b) was carried out by the Centre for Employee Relations and Communication @IULM University between October 2016 and February 2017 as part of the study “Silence and voice in Italian companies. How to prevent employee disengagement”.



Whistleblowing in organizations 

 285

relevant: dialogue between managers and employee (3.79 on a scale 1–5), open-door policy (3.67), anti-retaliation and anti-discrimination policies (3.32), communication on these policies (3.32), and whistleblowing arrangements (2.67). In particular, whistleblowing arrangements are the least relevant. A study on employee communication practices and trends2 on a convenience sample of companies operating in Italy reveals that the relevance of bottom-up communication practices implemented by companies and voluntarily activated by employees to voice suggestions, opinions and dissent are the least relevant (2.59 on a 1–5 scale) after pull, push, and participatory communication practices. A preliminary qualitative study on whistleblowing arrangements in Denmark and Italy (Frandsen, Johansen and Mazzei 2013) shows that in both countries companies are at the beginning of the process; the functions related to whistleblowing arrangement are mostly CSR, corporate governance, and risk management; and whistleblowing arrangements are devoted to both employees and external constituencies. On the whole, these studies show that, despite the limited awareness about the relevance of employee voice systems and whistleblowing arrangements, the number of companies implementing a specific procedure is growing.

5 Developments in the whistleblowing research field: A focus on cultural differences Many studies delve into what triggers whistleblowing in organizations, focusing in particular on socio-cultural factors and proposing a comparison among different countries in order to understand the effect of national cultures on whistleblowing. Some of them point their attention to the attitudes towards whistleblowing in different countries. Others look at the national cultural preferences for specific characteristics of the whistleblowing arrangements. The general aim is to understand how to customize whistleblowing arrangements in the local branches in coherence with cultural and non-cultural national aspects, in order to improve the overall effectiveness of internal reporting systems. When it comes specifically to national cultures and attitudes towards whistleblowing, a stream of literature has paid attention to the influence of cultural dimensions from the well-known Hofstede’s model on whistleblowing tendencies. On the whole, these studies confirm that national culture dimensions can offer relevant insights but cannot explain in total the attitudes towards whistleblowing (Schultz et al. 1993; 2 The survey “Employee practices and trends: The state of the art of internal communication in Italian companies” (Mazzei et al. 2018; Mazzei 2019) has been conducted in 2018 by the Centre for Employee Relations and Communication @IULM University in partnership with the CCI @Baruch College/CUNY and has been supported by the Department of Business LECB “Carlo A. Ricciardi” @IULM University.

286 

 Alessandra Mazzei and Silvia Ravazzani

Cohen et al. 1995; Sims and Keenan 1999; Keenan 2002; Tavakoli et al. 2003; Keenan 2007; Skivenes and Trygstad 2010). Comparing the influence of national cultures with other factors, the non-cultural factors playing a relevant role are organizational culture (Schultz et al. 1993), national competitive conditions of the audit market (Cohen et al. 1995), organizational encouragement, enough information and knowledge about how to blow the whistle (Keenan 2002), organizational climate and practices (Keenan 2007), participatory model of labor relations (Skivenes and Trygstad 2010). When it comes specifically to national cultures and whistleblowing arrangements, studies focus on the impact of national culture on ethical perceptions, attitudes and behavioral intentions of employees towards reporting systems. Studies show relevant differences between the ethical perceptions across countries regarding the inclination to blow the whistle, approach a superior, and collect a large amount of evidence of the wrongdoing (Brody et al. 1998), probability to engage and more accepting of engaging in whistleblowing (Patel 2003). These studies highlight that multinational companies should implement whistleblowing arrangements compatibly with national cultures and values in order to improve their effectiveness. Only a few studies have addressed the issue of other national aspects than culture on the attitude towards whistleblowing arrangements. Non-cultural explanations affecting the attitudes towards the form of whistleblowing systems are the legal system, the labor market, and the economy (Park et al. 2008). The managerial implication of this finding is that multinational companies seeking to increase the likelihood of employees reporting wrongdoing should adjust at the local level their internal reporting systems and plan specific training about cross-cultural awareness of unethical practices. The comparative studies reviewed so far, largely based on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, have also received criticism. On one hand, Hofstede’s model does not completely explain the attitudes of managers in different countries because some common practices interfere with cultural dimensions (Sims and Keenan 1999). On the other hand, different authors have interpreted in different ways the impact of a cultural dimension on the whistleblowing tendencies. For example, Broody et al. (1998: 16) stated that collectivist cultures (like Japan), which place high value on protecting group members and “saving the face”, are comparatively less inclined to whistleblowing. On the opposite, Sims and Keenan (1999: 148) assumed that collective cultures support the individual and thus encourage whistleblowing behaviors, which protects the group at the expense of the individual. In the end, it is not clear whether collectivism supports or weakens whistleblowing attitude. Other critics point to the fact that Hofstede’s cultural dimensions operate in relations among them. This implies that it is incorrect to consider one dimension without taking into account its relations with the others. For example, the individualism/collectivism dimension suggests that, compared to Americans, Croatian managers will be more likely to blow the whistle because, according to the collectivism of their culture, they would be more concerned with the group welfare. At the same time, the Croatian



Whistleblowing in organizations 

 287

culture has a high level of power distance tolerance, therefore managers would tend not to approach their supervisors, resulting in a less likely tendency to report wrongdoing (Tavakoli et al. 2003: 61). Another common critic is that the concept of “nation” is too broad to entail some particular cultural features and, furthermore, many countries are multicultural societies, like the U.S. and China. This consideration limits the validity of studies carried out under the assumption that different national cultures necessarily lead to different whistleblowing behaviors (Keenan 2007: 93). In conclusion, a more careful analysis of cultural and comparative studies reveals that organizational and communicational factors (e.  g., Keenan 2002: 86 and 2007: 93; Skiveness and Trygstad 2010) as well as non-cultural national characteristics (e.  g., Park et al. 2008) can, in many cases, better explain the whistleblowing attitudes, behaviors and results compared to merely considering national cultural aspects.

6 Whistleblowing in connection to crisis prevention and management A number of scholars have dealt with whistleblowing when investigating the nature, types, and consequences of organizational crises, even though this phenomenon has not been traditionally included as a central area of interest within the field of crisis management and crisis communication (Frandsen and Johansen 2017). As illustrated in the following, in the few existing studies examining the link between whistleblowing and organizational crises the former is explicitly listed among relevant crisis triggers and types, and is closely connected to crisis prevention, crisis management and post-crisis renewal. The topic of whistleblowing and crisis has been touched upon in relation to various organizational contexts and crisis forms, from major health crises (e.  g., Chong and Lee 2009; Learly and Diers 2013) to academic misconduct (e.  g., Decoo 2002). Whistleblowing arrangements, or more in general, internal channels to detect wrongdoing (Decoo 2002) and errors (Heide and Simonsson 2014), have been mentioned in some studies about crisis management and prevention. Millar (2004) mentions whistleblowing among the 16 categories of crisis types that can embody newsworthy events that become prominent in popular and business press. He points out how the majority of crises are neither accidental nor abrupt, like fires or chemical and oil spills; rather, they mainly consist in smoldering crises which are very often related to “questionable, illegal, or unethical activity by someone within the organization frequently involving other members of the organization or people who routinely interact with organizational personnel” (Millar 2004: 28). Such business problems may remain hidden and not be proactively addressed by organizations even when employees and managers are aware of their existence. However, as soon as they happen to be overtly exposed and come under the critical scrutiny of news media, regulatory agencies, and the

288 

 Alessandra Mazzei and Silvia Ravazzani

general public, they can quickly turn into more impactful and uncontrollable crises. In this context, Millar’s study reveals that “attention to procedures which expose an organization to fraud, embezzlement, and other forms of theft” (Millar 2004: 25) is significantly growing. Interestingly, Millar’s analysis also shows that while the number of crises caused by a disclosure of internal problems outside the organization has not significantly increased, so have the class actions lawsuits that follow the wrongdoing. This fact clearly indicates a growing receptiveness and willingness by society to get involved into internal organizational issues and to side with affected parties to seek remedial justice. This produces a phenomenon that Millar labels as “after-shocks” hitting an organization when the original crisis seems only apparently over. Therefore, whistleblowing appears as one of the possible triggers of externally visible organizational crises, which can emerge when active whistleblowers (Demir 2013) decide to voice and report the organization’s misconduct outside its formal boundaries, and this public revelation generates high media attention and intense public debate (van der Sluijs 2002). In a similar way, some corporate reputation literature (e.  g., Vandekerckhove 2006; Schultz and Werner 2011) reflects upon whistleblowing instances, and in particular upon those that become public and attract harsh criticism on the organization involved, presenting whistleblowing as a case that “can become very much like an organizational crisis” (Richardson 2016: 903). It is worth to note here that, in the past recent years, employees increasingly engage in online dissent to publicly criticize their organization through the use of social media (Ravazzani and Mazzei 2017). Such virtual outlets provide a degree of anonymity and sense of safety unavailable to dissenters and whistleblowers in face-to-face interactions. However, by engaging other stakeholders in online spaces where polarization of views and information distortions can easily thrive, the legitimacy of the organization is seriously threatened and this can lead to substantial reputational and economic damage. In addition to whistleblowing being a crisis trigger, it can also represent, when still embryonic or divulged internally in the first place (Demir 2013), a type of signal detection that may be used by organizations for crisis prevention to address negative events in their pre-crisis stage (Frandsen and Johansen 2017). Already in 1988, Mitroff, Pauchant and Shrivastava included whistleblower programs under long-term, preventative organizational crisis actions, but also pointed out how other limited, shortterm, technical actions usually predominate in organizations. Vinten, when dealing with incidents and disasters, relates whistleblowing to “latent failures” and risk management issues: “there are always potential whistleblowers in such latent situations, with the time to reflect and decide whether to go ahead and take the personal risk of external disclosure” (1993: 101). He illustrates several cases in which warnings from whistleblowers about the vulnerabilities and dangers in corporate actions went ignored, with the only consequence of inflicting severe penalties to these employees for speaking up their concerns. As also Chang stresses, “blowing the whistle on unethical behavior could mean the difference between a better work environment or unemployment” (2002: 54).



Whistleblowing in organizations 

 289

Other studies highlight this critical link between internal whistleblowing and prevention of negative consequences at the individual, organizational and societal level, but also the personal risks for whistleblowers. Chong and Lee discuss these aspects in the context of the SARS epidemic in 2002 in China. They discuss the asymmetric information problems and explain that “the lack of ‘psychological safety net’ in reporting and whistleblowing” (2009: 243) led hospital officials to underreport or conceal the issue because of the fear of losing their jobs and retaliations from the authorities. However, not blowing the whistle put at risk people who were healthy, due to a lack of transparency and timeliness in the dissemination of information about the incidence and severity of the epidemic. Similarly, in the context of the large hepatitis C infection occurring in Nevada in 2008, Learly and Diers (2013) show how several healthcare professionals witnessed yet failed to report the unsafe medical practices and the incidents leading to the outbreak. This, again, was due to fears of whistleblower retaliation and loss of job. In the light of experiences like these, Chong and Lee mention “irrational behaviors and disruptions in business and economic activities” and “at the very extreme (…) a complete breakdown of markets” (2009: 239) among the potential organizational and societal costs linked to a lack of proper signaling on important issues through whistleblowing. Frandsen and Johansen explicitly link whistleblowing to employee voice and to the idea of employees as “active crisis communicators who often behave on their own – for better or worse” (2017: 218). In a negative scenario, frustrated employees may follow their own agenda, produce their own crisis messages and, as a consequence, trigger an organizational crisis, as in the case of external whistleblowing directed to audiences outside the organization. Shaia and Gonzenbach (2007) outline that employees often miss to blow the whistle and to express minority or unpopular viewpoints in the organization driven by fear of isolation and reprisal, highlighting the influential role played by relational and cultural factors in organizational settings. Tan et al. highlight the risks of not having an organizational climate open to dissent, as “those dissenting employees who are ignored could behave in ways that harm their companies’ reputation, or they could become whistle-blowers and potentially damage their organization” (2012: 197). This typically takes the form of displaced dissent in which employees bring their disagreement to external parties that are not a part of the organization, such as family and friends but also the media and political sources. Thus, to facilitate crisis prevention and reputational risk management (Schultz and Werner 2011), effective whistleblowing procedures as well as cultural and voice mechanisms in the workplace appear as essential to encourage employees to safely report ethical issues and problematic, unfair, and illicit practices to their management through internal, upward “crisis communication” (Frandsen and Johansen 2017). Especially in those cases in which internal whistleblower arrangements fail or external whistleblowing takes place disregarding the possibility to voice problems internally, organizations are confronted with designing and implementing effective

290 

 Alessandra Mazzei and Silvia Ravazzani

crisis responses within their crisis management efforts. Literature in this area outlines how proactive crisis management planning and management are paramount to protect an organization’s competitive advantage and to limit financial and public relations harm (Barton 1994) as long as allegations of organizational wrongdoing from a disgruntled insider surface and find an echo in the media (King III 2006; Jung, Graeff and Shim 2011). In particular, Barton cites whistleblowing as one of the occurrences in which “regulators, news reporters, or activists may use the moment of perceived organizational vulnerability to seek and often achieve previously unavailable access to critical data” (1994: 31), and which particularly affects competitive liability. In these instances, organizations are faced with the challenge to counteract and effectively respond to the allegations of wrongdoing by a whistleblower through various image restoration strategies, from denial to apology, followed by renewal communication strategies. Research in this area (e.  g., King III 2006; Jung, Graeff and Shim 2011) indicates that the crisis management team, when devising an appropriate response strategy, should consider the characteristics of the wrongdoing, the general perceptions of key stakeholders, as well as other evaluative elements that influence the attribution of responsibility such as past actions and conduct of the organization on similar occasions. Jung, Graeff and Shim (2011) report the experience of Samsung that faced, in 2007 in its home country South Korea, a whistleblowing corruption scandal in which a former director of the legal department publicly accused the organization of bribery activities. The organization recurred to defensive strategies (e.  g., denial) to protect itself at the early stages of the whistleblowing crisis, followed by an attempt to justify its questionable behavior as in the interest of the national economy to protect it from aggressive global competition, and by a mortification s­trategy only in the final stage. Findings on the renewal strategies adopted also reveal that Samsung did not implement significant and visible actions to correct the problems, thus indicating that the promised changes may be superficial and conducive to similar allegations in the near future. Other research underlines the risks of self-justifying and defensive strategies in the event of an organizational wrongdoing, especially in terms of threat to the credibility and legitimacy of the organization in the long-run (King III 2006). In relation to restoration and renewal after a whistleblowing crisis, Demir (2013) specifies that whistleblowers should be considered major figures not only in the contexts of crisis prevention and of crisis management, but also after a crisis. As a matter of fact, they may be helpful in making sense of underlying factors and causes of negative events from within, and therefore in facilitating recovery and learning for the future. Implementing effective management and communication strategies during a whistleblowing crisis to restore one’s image and credibility is not enough (Ross and Benson 1995). Organizations are expected to take adequate post-crisis corrective actions, but also to communicate to their stakeholders the concrete efforts undertaken to address the disclosed problem and to renovate the organizational culture (Jung, Graeff, Shim 2011). Ross and Benson (1995) illustrate how an organization, facing



Whistleblowing in organizations 

 291

federal charges of fraud followed by a serious crisis, embarked on an internal cultural change: from a culture based on defense and disrespect for ethical boundaries, to a more ethical, communicative and healthy culture. Their study shows that, since crises tend to be cyclical, a significant change in the organizational culture is needed to move from current (and potentially future) crisis to definitive resolution, passing through the implementation of concrete whistleblowing programs and voice systems, internal communication, training, and management’s visible commitment. On a more general level, scholars in this area recognize that, both in government and business, crises originated by whistleblowing can give rise to reforms (Demir 2013) and to more sensitive workplace practices thanks to the internalization of dissent (Ravazzani and Mazzei 2017) and the proactive revision of internal voice procedures and/or of those specific practices that triggered questionable actions, conflict, and dissent in the first place.

7 Reflections: Whistleblowing from strategic and constitutive perspectives We suggest two possible frameworks that are meant to inspire and advance future research on and practice of whistleblowing in organizations: first, a strategic (and organization-centered) perspective oriented towards the protection of the organization through the proactive development of adequate internal tools and procedures; and second, a CCO (and employee-centered) perspective placing more emphasis on internal culture and co-creation of meaning, where openness to employee voice and dissent become fundamental premises to internal whistleblowing efficacy and prevention measures. The first reflection is related to a strategic perspective as a way to frame and delve into whistleblowing theory and practice. Such a perspective espouses an organization-centered view focused on the protection of and potential benefit for the organization through the voluntary, proactive development of corporate whistleblowing procedures and solutions. Existing literature in the whistleblowing area stresses the role of the State and official bodies in developing whistleblowing rules and enforcing them on organizations (e.  g., Schmidt 2005; Bjorn-Liebenau 2006; Vandekerckhove 2006; Vandekerckhove and Lewis 2012). Such studies relate the spread of top-down, authorities-driven guidelines with the general lack of detailed, specialized, and safe procedures developed internally by organizations, despite the fact that internal whistleblowing policies and procedures appear generally (and often vaguely) mentioned in corporate governance codes. In this context, more and more studies highlight that a whistleblowing approach developed by organizations themselves (i.  e. proactive, bottom-up) is preferable compared to a statutory approach (i.  e. reactive, top-down) spurred by law-driven resolutions and external reporting of wrongdoing.

292 

 Alessandra Mazzei and Silvia Ravazzani

For example, Near, Dworkin and Miceli (1993) show how legal procedures and sanctions are not that effective in encouraging whistleblowing and adequate organizational measures and responses, whereas legalistic responses devised by the organizations themselves (and influenced only in part by legal constraints) have more positive effects in changing the behavior of both whistleblowers and organizations. Along the same lines, Schmidt affirms that “notifications to institutions outside an organization (…) can aggravate negative effects since one cannot preclude the incentive for individuals to blow the whistle for purely opportunistic reasons” (2005: 164). Thus, the risks of external whistleblowing can be used as an incentive for a company to more proactively and prudently adopt corporate reporting systems that encourage internal disclosure and active communication behaviors of employees in critical situations (Mazzei, Kim and Dell’Oro 2012; Frandsen and Johansen 2017). On the whole, studies in this area suggest to combine legal measures with voluntary corporate whistleblowing arrangements that induce employees to disclose questionable, illegal, and unethical practices to bodies and experts within the organization, which embodies a more strategic, preventive and self-monitoring (Dworkin and Miceli 1997) approach to the phenomenon and its related risks. In the light of this opportunity, more research is needed to further assess the costs and inadequacy of external whistleblowing and of authorities-driven rules and enforcement mechanisms; the benefits and concrete operational modalities of internal whistleblowing approached from a strategic, proactive perspective; the actual consistency between formal management’s commitment and internal whistleblowing codes and policies, and their application to and real impact on the contended corporate behaviors. Additional reflections emerge from adopting a CCO (communicative constitution of organization) perspective (Ashcraft, Kuhn and Coreen 2009). A communication-centered conceptualization of organization embraces the significant and constitutive importance of communication for organization (as an entity) and organizing (as a process), where “organizations come into existence primarily in and through practices of language use” (Blaschke and Schoeneborn 2017: xiii). The CCO perspective encourages to go beyond contemplating an organization as a mere collection of individuals regulated by hierarchical relationships and formal contracts, and communication as a simple transmission of messages; but rather to adopt a more employee-centered view in which communication is considered a shared and continuous process of interaction, sensemaking, meaning generation and negotiation (Scherer and Rasche 2017). When applied to the instance of whistleblowing in organizations, and of internal whistleblowing more specifically, this perspective helps to understand the crucial relationship between whistleblowing and organizational culture, and the key role employees could and should play in the planning, implementation and evaluation of whistleblowing procedures and systems. In relation to this, much research has placed attention on the dichotomy between voice and silence in organizations (Morrison 2014). Studies in this area reveal how tolerance for freedom of expression varies from organization to organization, and how dissenting or critical voice is acknowl-



Whistleblowing in organizations 

 293

edged and appreciated differently. Research has found that, too often, employee voice is ignored or punished with reprisal (Kassing 2002) and whistleblowing and voice systems often denote espoused arrangements detached from actual changes (Harlos 2001). This underlines how the efficacy of whistleblowing arrangements relies as much on the presence of formal procedures as it does on nurturing an organizational culture based on visible management’s commitment, open consultation with employees, training at all levels, and focused internal communication to ensure staff awareness and understanding (Ross and Benson 1995). Thus, the adoption of internal whistleblowing tools that truly solicit employees’ perspectives and incorporate suggestions for improvement clearly demands a shift in perspective. In adherence to the CCO principles, this shift implies the acknowledgment of the value of co-creation of meaning between managers and employees and of the usefulness of dissent inherent in its open expression and negotiation (Ravazzani and Mazzei 2017). Such a perspective, and tools, would ensure that active constructive voice (Gorden 1988) is openly expressed and properly recognized in the workplace as a kind of prosocial voice aimed at improving a situation (Van Dyne, Ang and Botero 2003). This is particular relevant in relation to organizational crises, as discussed in the previous section, where whistleblowing arrangements properly designed function as crisis prevention and management systems in which problems but also solutions can come to light, and employees are seen by managers as active sensegivers and communicators (Ravazzani 2016). However, more research and especially empirical studies are needed in this regard in order to investigate how, in organizational contexts of various kinds, the processes of formulating, negotiating, and reformulating whistleblowing arrangements, and the simultaneous interplay between unity and disruption, order and disorder created by employee voice and sensemaking, constitute and modify organizational reality.

8 Conclusion In several cases, only insiders can detect organizational wrongdoing: employees who witness questionable actions and take the courage to blow the whistle to voice their concerns. This brings clear benefits to the society at large. When reporting occurs inside the organization to people that can solve the problem, also the organization obtains benefits in terms of wrongdoing and crisis prevention, and interruption of malpractices. However, the whistleblower often suffers from retaliation, demotion, career damages. Organizations can take strategic actions to enable employees to voice their concerns safely. They can implement a number of formal and informal voice systems, create a climate of voice, increase employee engagement, and in particular adopt a whistleblowing procedure. These arrangements signal the commitment of the

294 

 Alessandra Mazzei and Silvia Ravazzani

company against the wrongdoing and its appreciation for employee voice. They institutionalize a strategy for the creation of a climate of voice that will not need in the future whistleblowing procedures. Whistleblowing is an effective strategy for crisis prevention. Its implementation is affected by cultural and societal factors, among them the more relevant to mention are organizational climate, communication culture, management style, labor relations model, legal system and economy. This implies that multinational companies should adapt the characteristics of their whistleblowing arrangements to local situations. From the crisis management point of view, whistleblowing is a crisis trigger when people observing wrongdoing report to external subjects as media. Whereas whistleblowing arrangements voluntary implemented by organizations constitute a type of signal detection useful for crisis prevention. Promising research advancements are a strategic perspective oriented towards the protection of the organization through the proactive development of corporate voice systems, including whistleblowing arrangements; and an employee-centered perspective placing more emphasis on organizational culture and co-creation of meaning, where dissent is a premise for prevention measures. The most relevant conclusion of this chapter is that implementing whistleblowing arrangements is a managerial strategy for crisis prevention and the creation of a climate of voice. Above all, we should remind that whistleblowing is about dissent expression and freedom of speech, and we should put these principles in the spotlight of teaching and researching: we have “to realize that unless more organizational members (regardless of rank) have both the skill and the courage to speak up, the organizational status quo is going to be with us for a very long time – a status quo described by Ewing’s unforgettable metaphor: ‘an organizational world where, all too often, employees make about as much noise as fishing swimming’” (Redding 1985: 257).

References Albrecht, S.  D., A. B. Bakker, J. A. Gruman, W. Macey and A. M. Saks. 2015. Employee engagement, human resource management practices and competitive advantage: An integrated approach. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance 2(1). 7–35. Ashcraft, K. L., T. R. Kuhn and F. Cooren. 2009. Constitutional amendments: “Materializing” organizational communication, Academy of Management Annals 3(1). 1–64. Barton, L. 1994. Crisis management planning: The ultimate weapon in protecting competitive advantage. Competitive intelligence review 5(2). 31–34. Bjorn-Liebenau, R. A. 2006. Whistleblowing rules: Best practice – Assessment and revision of rules existing in EU institutions. Study for the European Parliament, vol. 14. Available at http://www. europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?reference=IPOL-JOIN_ET(2006)373735. Blaschke, S., and D. Schoeneborn. 2017. Introduction. In S. Blaschke and D. Schoeneborn (eds.), Organization as Communication: Perspectives in Dialogue, XIII–XXII. New York, NY: Routledge.



Whistleblowing in organizations 

 295

Chang, J. 2002. Breaking the silence. Sales and Marketing Management 154(12). 54. Chong, B. S., and Lee, C. H. 2009. Crisis management – dealing with asymmetric information problems. Thunderbird International Business Review 51(3). 239–248. Decoo, W. 2002. Crisis on Campus: Confronting Academic Misconduct, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Demir, I. 2013. Whistle blowers. In K. B. Penuel, M. Statler and R. Hagen (eds.), Encyclopedia of crisis management, Vol. 1, 997–999. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd. Dworkin, T. M., and J. P. Near. 1997. A Better Statutory Approach to Whistle-Blowing. Business Ethics Quarterly 7(1). 1–16. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2011. The Study of Internal crisis communication: Towards an integrative framework. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 16(4). 347–361. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2017. Managers and employees: Inside the organization. In Organizational Crisis Communication: A Multivocal Approach, chapter 12, 206–221. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Frandsen, F., W. Johansen and A. Mazzei. 2013. Whistleblowing. An emergent aspect of internal crisis management and crisis communication in Italy and Denmark. Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Crisis Communication – Crossing Boundaries in Crisis Communication, Erfurt, Germany, October 2–5, 2013. Frazier, M. L., and W. M. Bowler. 2015. Voice climate, supervisor undermining, and work outcomes. A Group-Level Examination. Journal of Management 41(3). 841–863. Gorden, W. I. 1988. Range of employee voice. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal 1(4). 283–299. Harlos, K. P. 2001. When organizational voice systems fail: More on the deaf-ear syndrome and frustration effects. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 37(3). 324–342. Heide, M., and C. Simonsson. 2011. Putting Coworkers in the Limelight: New Chal-lenges for Communication Professionals. International Journal of Strategic Communication 5(4). 201–220. Heide, M., and C. Simonsson. 2014. Developing internal crisis communication: New roles and practices of communication professionals. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 19(2). 128–146. Jung, T., R. Graeff, and W. Shim. 2011. Good for Samsung is good for Korea: Image restoration strategies used by Samsung after a whistle-blowing corruption scandal. The Open Communication Journal 5. 23–28. Kassing, J. W., and T. A. Armstrong. 2002. Someone’s going to hear about this: Examining the association between dissent-triggering events and employees’ dissent expression. Management Communication Quarterly 16(1). 39–65. Kim, J. N., and E. J. Grunig. 2011. Problem Solving and Communicative Action: a Situational Theory of Problem Solving. Journal of Communication 61(1). 120–149. Kim J. N., and Y. Rhee. 2011. Strategic Thinking about Employee Communication Behavior (ECB) in Public Relations: Testing the Models of Megaphoning and Scouting Effects in Korea. Journal of Public Relations Research 23(3). 243–268. King III, G. 2006. Image restoration: An examination of the response strategies used by Brown and Williamson after allegations of wrongdoing. Public Relations Review 32. 131–136. Learsy, E., and D. Dears. 2013. The silence of the unblown whistle: The Nevada Hepatitis C public health crisis. Yale Journal of Biological Medicine 86(1). 79–87. Mazzei, A. 2010. Promoting Active Communication Behaviours through Internal Communication. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 15(3). Mazzei, A., J.-N. Kim and C. Dell’Oro. 2012. Strategic value of employee relationships and communicative actions: Overcoming corporate crisis with quality internal communication. International Journal of Strategic Communication 6. 31–44.

296 

 Alessandra Mazzei and Silvia Ravazzani

Mazzei, A. 2014. Internal communication for employee nablement: Strategies in American and Italian Companies. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 19(1). 82–95. Mazzei, A. 2015. La comunicazione difficile: voce, silenzio, dissenso e whistleblowing. In Allessandra Mazzei (ed,), Strategia e management della Comunicazione d’impresa. Milan: FrancoAngeli. Mazzei A., L. Quaratino, S. Ravazzani, A. Butera, C. Fisichella and V. Pedrazzini. 2017. Employee Engagement and Disengagement: The Role of Employee Voice Approaches, Organizational Justice Climate, and HRM, CCI Conference on Corporate Communication 2017, Conference Proceedings. Mazzei, A. 2018a. Employee engagement. In R. L. Heath and W. Johansen (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Strategic Communication. John Wiley & Sons. Mazzei, A. 2018b. Engagement e disengagement dei collaboratori. Comunicazione interna e valorizzazione delle risorse umane per un contesto di voce. Milan: FrancoAngeli. Mazzei A., A. Butera and V. Pedrazzini. 2018. Employee Communication Practices and Trends. A Comparison of Previous Studies and Possible Advancements, CCI Conference on Corporate Communication 2018, Conference Proceedings. Mazzei A. 2019. Rapporto sulla comunicazione interna nelle aziende italiane. Comunicazione e relazioni organizzative per il vantaggio competitivo, forthcoming. Miceli, M. P., J. P. Near and T. M. Dworkin. 2008. Whistleblowing in Organizations. New York: Routledge. Millar, D. P. 2004. Exposing the errors: An examination of the nature of organizational crises. In D. P. Millar R. L. Heath (eds.), Responding to crisis. A rhetorical approach to crisis communication, chapter 2, 19–32. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Morrison, E. W. 2011. Employee voice behavior: Integration and directions for future research. The Academy of Management Annals 3(1). 373–412. Morrison, E. W. 2014. Employee Voice and Silence. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior 1. 173–197. Near, J. P., T. M. Dworkin and M. P. Miceli. 1993. Explaining the whistleblowing process: Suggestions from power theory and justice theory. Organization Science 4(3). 393–411. Ravazzani, S. 2016. Exploring internal crisis communication in multicultural environments. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 21(1). 73–88. Ravazzani, S., and A. Mazzei. 2017. Employee anonymous online dissent: Dynamics and ethical challenges for employees, Targeted organisations, online outlets, and audiences. Business Ethics Quarterly. 1–27. Redding, W. C. 1985. Rocking boats, blowing whistles, and the teaching speech communication. Communication Education 34(3). 245–258. Rensburg. R., and E. de Beer. 2011. Stakeholder engagement: A crucial element in the governance of corporate reputation. Communitas 16. 151–169. Richardson, B. K. 2016. Whistleblowing. In C. E. Carroll (ed.), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Corporate Reputation, 903–904. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Ross, D. L., and J. A. Benson. 1995. Cultural change in ethical redemption: A corporate case study. Journal of Business Communication 32(4) 345–362. Scherer, A. G., and A. Rasche. 2017. Organization as communication and Habermasian philosophy. In S. Blaschke and D. Schoeneborn (eds.), Organization as Communication: Perspectives in Dialogue, 3–26. New York, NY: Routledge. Schmidt, M. 2005. “Whistle blowing” regulation and accounting standards enforcement in Germany and Europe – An economic perspective. International Review of Law and Economics 25. 143–168.



Whistleblowing in organizations 

 297

Schultz, H. B., and A. Werner. 2011. Reputation and ethics management. In P. S. Nel, A. Werner, P. Poisat, H. B. Schultz, T. Sono, P. du Plessis and T. Ngalo (eds.), Human Resources Management. 8th edn. Cape Town: Oxford University Press Southern Africa. Shaia, J. S., and W. J. Gonzenbach. 2007. Communications with Management in Times of Difficulty and Crisis: Silence Explained. International Journal of Strategic Communication 1(3). 139–150. Tan, Y., Y. N. Seow, H. Chia, H. J. Kim and S.  S. Chaidaroon. 2012. Differences in perceived effectiveness of upward dissent strategies between employees and managers: Evidence from Singapore. Proceedings of the Conference on Corporate Communication, June 5–8, New York, NY. Van Dyne, L., and J. A. LePine. 1998. Helping and voice extra-role behaviors: Evidence of construct and predictive validity. Academy of Management Journal 41(1). 108–119. Van der Sluijs, J. P. 2002. A way out of the credibility crisis of models used in integrated environmental assessment. Futures 34(2). 133–146. Van Dyne, L. V., S. Ang and I. C. Botero. 2003. Conceptualizing employee silence and employee voice as multidimensional constructs. Journal of Management Studies 40(6). 1359–1392. Vandekerckhove, W. 2006. Whistleblowing and Organizational Social Responsibility: A Global Assessment. Hampshire, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited. Vandekerckhove, W., and D. Lewis. 2012. The Content of whistleblowing procedures: A critical review of recent official guidelines. Journal of Business Ethics 108(2). 253–264. Vinten, G. 1993. Whistleblowing on crises and disasters. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 1(2). 101–110.

Sabine A. Einwiller and Christine Korn

14 Employee reactions to negative media coverage Abstract: Employees are not only recipients of media reports about their employer but also subjects, because of their affiliation with the organization and because the content of the coverage affects them personally. This is especially the case when the reporting is negative. This chapter discusses the reactions of employees to negative media coverage on their employer, which are crucial for organizations when managing a critical situation or crisis. The reciprocal effects model (Kepplinger 2007) serves as the main theoretical underpinning, and findings from several empirical studies provide empirical evidence for the effects. Because internal communication plays an important role for employees to cope with negative external coverage on their employer the chapter furthermore discusses the role of internal communication in such critical situations. Keywords: employee behavior, crisis management, internal peer communication, line manager communication, internal corporate communication, media coverage, reciprocal effects, emotions

1 Introduction Whether management mistakes, downsizing or a looming bankruptcy, the list of everyday negative media reports about organizations is long. Compared to routine incidents, such critical incidents are more likely to be picked up by the news media because of their newsworthiness and the attention they attract by those who are affected by the critical situation, but also by those observing it (e.  g., Fearn-Banks 2011). Mass media is an important source of information, particularly in the case of surprising and critical events that trigger ambiguity and insecurity (Schenk 2007) and when the information is personally relevant. “When people hear messages that affect them in important ways, they pay more attention to the messages and put more mental energy into considering their content” (Perse 2001: 88). Therefore, for the stakeholders in an organization, those who are its potential beneficiaries and/or risk bearers (Post, Preston, and Sachs 2002), negative news on this organization is attention-grabbing. This is particularly true for an organization’s employees who belong to the stakeholder group that is emotionally and cognitively closer to the organization than most of the other stakeholders (Frandsen and Johansen 2011). They are often directly affected by a critical situation as it may destabilize their workplace and threaten their source of work and income (Pincus and Acharya 1988). The public criticism conveyed in the negative coverage may also shake their basis of organizational identification, i.  e. employees’ perception of belongingness to the organization they work for (Mael https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-014

300 

 Sabine A. Einwiller and Christine Korn

and Ashforth 1992; Dutton, Dukerich and Harquail 1994). Thus, negative media coverage about an organization can cause strong cognitive and emotional reactions in employees (Pincus and Acharya 1988). Employees’ reactions to negative media coverage are crucial for organizations when managing a critical situation or crisis. After all, it is employees who provide the organization with the important resources of work and knowledge (Schmid and Lyczek 2008) and thus form the basis for an organization’s ability to act and perform. Especially in critical and crisis situations, it is important for an organization that employees behave loyally and, ideally, actively support their employer. To achieve this, internal communication plays an important role (Frandsen and Johansen 2011; Heide and Simonsson 2014; Korn and Einwiller 2013; Mazzei, Kim and Dell’Oro 2012). In this chapter we discuss the reactions of employees to negative media coverage on their employer and the role of internal communication in such situations theoretically and empirically. The focus is on journalistic news media as communicators using different communication channels including print, online, radio as well as TV broadcasting. We refer to this as external media coverage because the source of the information is an entity outside the organization, which employees clearly notice. Internal communication, on the other hand, whose sources are within the organization, is also considered important. Despite making this distinction between external and internal communication based on the information source, we consider the linkages between external and internal communication to be strong. For example, a CEO’s statement in the news media can be viewed by external and internal stakeholders, and a manager’s information to his or her employees will likely be communicated by employees to their family and friends. This is even more likely in turbulent times, when people outside the organization question employees about what is happening internally because they perceive them as credible insider sources. As theoretical underpinning we mainly draw on the reciprocal effects model by Kepplinger (2007), which addresses the effects of media reports on individuals featured in the coverage. As members of the organization, employees have been shown to respond to media coverage on their employer as if they were featured in the coverage themselves (Korn and Einwiller 2013). When discussing the different dimensions of the employee reciprocal effects model, we strongly refer to our own empirical findings in this area: A qualitative study among employees from 14 different German organizations whose employer was negatively covered in the news during a crisis (Korn and Einwiller 2013), a survey among 287 employees in various types of German organizations, whose employer had been the subject of negative news coverage in the past, yet the situations were mostly not full-blown crises (Korn 2018; Korn and Einwiller 2016), and thirdly, a qualitative study among 18 internal communication managers from different large German and Swiss companies on how they manage communication with their employees in critical situations (Korn and Einwiller 2016). We adapt a broad understanding of crisis management that entails a staged approach including a pre-crisis stage, the crisis event, and post-crisis stage (Coombs



Employee reactions to negative media coverage 

 301

2014; Frandsen and Johansen 2011) when addressing questions on the influence of negative media coverage on employees. In the following, we speak of media coverage about critical situations, which comprises any type of event that can evoke negative consequences for an organization, including pre-crisis situations such as conflicts, scandals and what Coombs and Holladay (2012) call paracrisis, as well as full-blown crises.

2 Negative media coverage about organizations Negative events attract a lot of attention both from the individuals concerned and from outside observers, including the media (Schwarz 2010). This is because people tend to weight negative information more than positive information (e.  g., Klein 1996, Skowronski and Carlston 1987). This negativity bias means that “in most situations, negative events are more salient, potent, dominant in combinations, and generally efficacious than positive events” (Rozin and Royzman 2001: 297). It has been found that people react more strongly and lastingly to bad than to good events, as bad events produce more emotion and have bigger effects on adjustment measures (Baumeister et al. 2001). Because of this negativity bias and the attention negative information attracts from media recipients, negativity is a factor that influences journalistic news selection as it enhances the news value of a story. News value pertains to the judgments of journalists concerning the relevance of certain story characteristics (Kepplinger and Ehmig 2006). Based on theories of cognitive and social psychology as well as biological evolution Shoemaker and Cohen (2006) differentiate news factors of deviance (including conflict, controversy, aggression, and unexpectedness) and social significance (including social relevance and proximity). Thus, negative events in an organization clearly contain high news value for journalists and are likely to be seized and put on the media agenda. Because the news media are influential interpreters of critical situations, they can intensify any effects a critical situation has on the affected organization (Pearson and Clair 1998; Fearn-Banks 2009). The amplifier role of the media in the public opinion-building process is accompanied by the fact that they are often the main source of information on a particular topic. According to dependency theory (Ball-Rokeach and DeFleur 1976; Ball-Rokeach and Jung 2009), the mass media is used as a source of information to satisfy specific needs, to understand situations and to orient oneself. “[E]very individual has a need for orientation […] to be familiar with his surroundings, both his physical and cognitive environment” (McCombs and Weaver 1973: 3). The need for orientation increases with uncertainty, i.  e. personal insecurity with regard to an issue, and relevance of the issue for the individual. Thus, employees generally have a high need for orientation in the case of negative coverage on critical and

302 

 Sabine A. Einwiller and Christine Korn

surprising events in their workplace as that triggers ambiguity and insecurity. If this need is not met internally with adequate internal information and communication, employees turn to other sources in their attempt to reduce their uncertainty, and the news media are one of the key sources in this attempt (Korn 2018). This increases the influence of the external media on employees’ perceptions and emotional reactions to the situation. Aside from turning to the news media when they are already aware of a critical event, employees in an organization may encounter bad news about their employer by routinely consuming the news, since they are consumers of news media just as everybody else. They receive everyday news – on whatever channel – and may thereby encounter information about their employer. Because of the heightened relevance for them, any news on the employer attracts their attention. This way, employees may be surprised by unexpected news on what is going on at their workplace, good or bad.

3 The role of news media coverage for employee’s relationship with the organization The news media are not only a source of information to find out about what is going on in the organization and to gain understanding, reduce uncertainty and to orient oneself in case of a critical situation. The mediated representation of an organization in the media also constitutes a critical influence on the construction and deconstruction of organizational identity (Chouliaraki and Morsing 2010), which is members’ or employees’ “beliefs about the distinctive, central, and enduring attributes of the organization” (Dutton, Dukerich and Harquail 1994: 244; see also Albert and Whetten 1985). Information conveyed by the news media furthermore gives employees an idea of how others outside the organization think about their employer thereby acting as a substitute for public opinion (Kepplinger 2007). Therefore, media coverage has an effect on employees’ image construction of their employer, i.  e. on their construed external image, which consists of the mental associations that members believe others outside the organization hold about their organization (Dutton, Dukerich and Harquail 1994; Brown et al. 2006). These beliefs about others’ appraisal of the organization influence how employees themselves see and respond to their organization (e.  g. Dutton, Dukerich and Harquail 1994; Smidts, Pryun and van Riel 2001). The way employees see their organization, i.  e. their perceived organizational identity, and how they believe others see it, i.  e. their construed external image, shapes their cognitive connection with their organization (Dutton, Dukerich and Harquail 1994), which represents their organizational identification. Mael and Ashforth (1992) have defined organizational identification as members’ or employees’ perceived oneness with an organization. Therefore, as the media influence employees’ external image construed and the organizational identity perceived, an employee’s organiza-



Employee reactions to negative media coverage 

 303

tional identification is also influenced by what and how the news media report on an organization. Mael and Ashforth’s (1992) conceptualization of organizational identification also contains the experience of the organization’s successes and failures as one’s own. Accordingly, their six item scale to measure organizational identification with ones alma mater includes an item concerning this aspect: “If a story in the media criticized the school, I would feel embarrassed” (Mael and Ashforth 1992: 122). This suggests that negative news coverage about an organization’s failure affects an employee or member personally. In their study on how employees make sense of their organization’s response to a critical issue, Dutton and Dukerich (1991: 548) showed that the damage the organization suffered because of this issue hurt employees personally, especially when “actions that affect the organisation’s image are public and irrevocable.” Similarly, Korn (2018) found that employees who identify with their employer experience strong emotions when they read or hear something negative about the organization in the media. These research findings indicate that news media coverage on an organization affects its employees emotionally and personally. This implies that employees show what has been termed reciprocal effects.

4 Reciprocal effects to media coverage 4.1 The protagonists The term ‘reciprocal effects’ was coined by Lang and Lang (1953) who used it to describe the direct effects of the media on the behavior of those appearing in the media. They found people who were attending a parade showed vivid reactions like cheering, waving and shouting, which were triggered by their awareness of being filmed by the television camera. The reactions of those who became aware of their own media presence and of being exposed to a large audience were referred to by the authors as reciprocal effects. While Lang and Lang focused on immediate behavioral responses, further developments of the approach take all effects, cognitive affective and behavioral, into account that mass media have on individuals who are the subjects of media coverage. According to Kepplinger (2007: 3), reciprocal effects refer to “the impact of the mass media on those who [are] depicted by the media” who Kepplinger names the ‘protagonists’. He states that the reciprocal effects are based on personal concern and on the individual media use of the respective protagonists. However, being personally affected does not only come about when a person is personally shown or when his or her name is explicitly mentioned in the media, but also when the individual is implicitly referred to. Thus, Hufnagel (2015) distinguishes between explicit and implicit protagonists. Explicit protagonists are named in the media report and are thus recognizable by their name or their function (e.  g.,

304 

 Sabine A. Einwiller and Christine Korn

press officer or CEO of organization XYZ). Often, these people are media savvy and used to being mentioned in the news. Implicit protagonists, on the other hand, feel concerned about the reporting because they are particularly close to the person or organization featured in the report. Usually, these individuals do not have experience with media appearances; they also lack the contacts and connections to influence the coverage (Daschmann 2007). Employees who do not have an official communication function belong to this group of implicit protagonists. They are not only recipients of the media reports but also subjects, because of their affiliation with the organization and because the content of the coverage affects them personally. This is especially the case when the reporting is negative, as this can threaten not only the reputation and potentially the existence of the organization but also harm their own reputation and wellbeing.

4.2 The reciprocal effects model In his reciprocal effects model, Kepplinger (2007) differentiates between three types of variables: (1) Primary variables comprise different types of mass media as the source of information and the content of the media coverage. Usage is influenced by the accessibility of the source, the intensity of the coverage as well as its perceived informational and emotional value. (2) Secondary variables refer to people’s awareness of the media reports and their cognitive and emotional responses to them. Awareness is raised by the relevance of the content which goes along with enhanced involvement. Research on the negativity effect suggests that negative content and topics that evoke emotional reactions have a particularly strong impact on recipients (Baumeister et al. 2001). Negative reports may appear unfair and biased which fosters negative emotions. (3) Tertiary variables include the decisions and behavioral consequences. In situations of negative news coverage, individuals can either remain inactive in the hope that the situation calms down quickly, or they can become active in different ways, for example by trying to correct the story in their conversations with others. The model of reciprocal effects was first applied in the legal and political context. In a survey among politicians, Marx (2009) found an increase in their media use after the media had negatively covered the politician’s party. Kepplinger and Zerback (2012) discovered reciprocal effects in judges and prosecuting attorneys, after the judicial hearing on which they were working was covered by the media. The coverage influenced their perceptions and behavior which consequently had an effect on the course and outcome of the court proceeding. Hufnagel (2015) analyzed effects of critical media coverage on public relations managers in organizations. Results show that the managers used the media more intensively during the critical situation and many reacted emotionally with anger or concern. Asked about the effects on ‘normal’ employees, the PR managers assumed that employees used internal media more intensively and that the external media coverage had a strong effect on them.



Employee reactions to negative media coverage 

 305

4.3 Reciprocal effects on employees Korn and Einwiller (Korn 2018; Korn and Einwiller 2013, 2016) applied the model to employees as the implicit protagonists of news media coverage with a focus on the effects of media coverage on critical situations and during crises. In two studies, a qualitative study among employees whose employer had been the subject to critical media coverage due to a crisis situation (Korn and Einwiller 2013) and a survey among employees in various types of German organizations, whose employer had been the subject of negative news coverage in the past (Korn 2018; Korn and Einwiller 2016), we found clear evidence for reciprocal effects in employees. The findings furthermore suggested that the original model by Kepplinger (2007) needs to be expanded by the influence of internal corporate communication and interpersonal internal communication as well as with regards to effects of organizational identification. Next, we will outline the employee model of reciprocal effects in critical situations, which is depicted in Figure 1, along the different variables. Primary Variables

Secondary Variables

Tertiary Variables

Media and Content

Perception and Processing

Decisions and Consequences

Sources

Content

Cognitions

Emotions

Primary Effects Secondary Effects

external awareness

anger

mass media interpersonal

internal internal media interpersonal

topic

need for information

reduced work motivation

outrage

worry intensity

information search

appraisal of content and situation

employee communication behavior

absenteeism

intention to quit job

helplessness consonance

third-person effect

perception of behavioral changes

shame

bewilderment

organizational identification

Fig. 1: Employee model of reciprocal effects in critical situations.

perception of unity

306 

 Sabine A. Einwiller and Christine Korn

4.3.1 Primary variables: Sources of information Employees receive information about their organization from external as well as internal sources, which can be media-based or interpersonal. The external media-based sources include the traditional news media like newspapers, TV or radio and their online channels. Internally, the intranet, employee magazine or other official channels of internal corporate communication play a role. Our research (Korn and Einwiller 2013) suggests that, aside from direct media exposure, other media recipients can also be important sources of information. Externally these include family, friends and customers, internally these are colleagues and supervisors or managers. Findings of the survey among employees whose employer had been covered negatively by the media (Korn 2018; Korn and Einwiller 2016) show that half of the respondents had received the initial information about the critical situation from the external mass media. The study further reveals that nearly a third of respondents had heard of the critical situation from an internal source. However, only 17 percent of these cases involved official internal information from the employer. The other 15 percent named their colleagues as a source of information. The high proportion of those who learned about the negative event through external mass media reveals that the credo to inform employees first is rarely implemented in practice. Also, it shows a high media dependency on external media for the initial information on critical events, even for employees of an organization. Research furthermore reveals that internal corporate communication plays an important role in the case of negative media coverage (we elaborate on this in section 5). It shows that employees feel a lesser need to extensively search for information in external media when internal communication is fast and transparent. Even if the first source of information was an external one, good internal communication reduced employees’ need to search for more information on the issue externally (Korn and Einwiller 2013). Thus, internal communication can at least partly control the information search behavior by employees. Yet, colleagues were perceived as even more important (Korn 2018; Korn and Einwiller 2016). Aside from being a source of information, colleagues are also a resource of support during the critical situation. The exchange of thoughts and worries with others who are in the same situation is an important way to cope with the situation. Our survey furthermore shows that team meetings, works assemblies and the intranet were considered important. Interestingly, personal conversations with supervisors or managers were seen as least important during the critical situation, almost as unimportant as personal letters or emails (Korn 2018; Korn and Einwiller 2016). The topics of negative coverage are manifold. In our research, misconduct by managers and downsizing were the most commonly reported topics that employees became aware of (Korn 2018). While employees may be able to dissociate themselves from reports on management misconduct, topics that affect the workforce directly, like downsizing, can trigger strong effects because of their direct threat to job security



Employee reactions to negative media coverage 

 307

(Pincus and Acharya 1988). Reciprocal effects also turn out stronger the more negative the reporting and the higher its intensity. During a full-blown crisis the intensity of the coverage is generally higher than in critical situations, as the news value is enhanced and media attention is on the negative event. Furthermore, consonant reporting, because of its uniformity, is considered more impactful on the protagonists than reporting that shows a situation from different perspectives (Daschmann 2007).

4.3.2 Secondary variables: Awareness, cognitions and emotions The secondary variables are a consequence of the primary variables. In order to experience cognitive, emotional or behavioral effects, an employee has to become aware of the media reports. Awareness is greatly influenced by people’s involvement in the topic, which is high when the media reports about oneself or about ones employer. Due to their heightened involvement in the topic and a high need for orientation during the critical situation, employees actively search for more information, while the stress that is triggered by the negativity of the information promotes selective attention on the very topic. As a consequence, employees are exposed to significantly higher media doses than the group of uninvolved observers. This may lead to an overestimation of media’s attention to the topic (Kepplinger 2010). It furthermore leads employees to overestimate the effects the reporting has on others. The so-called ‘third-person effect’ implies that people tend to overestimate the effect of the media on others as compared to the effect it has on themselves (Phillips Davison 1983). Research shows that people who are particularly involved and therefore may have additional information and background knowledge are less likely to be persuaded by media content, while at the same time they assume that others are more likely to be influenced (Andsager and White 2007). The further the social distance, the more influence is assumed, which is corroborated by our research. Respondents in our survey assumed the influence on the general public to be the highest, while acquaintances, friends and family were seen to be the least influenced by the negative media coverage on their employer. Employees with high organizational identification experienced this ‘third-person effect’ more strongly (Korn 2018). As employees assume effects on others, they are vigilant to behavioral changes in their social environment. The most obvious behavior of outsiders is to ask employees whether the reporting is correct and what they think about the situation in their organization. Research shows that employees are frequently approached by outsiders to provide further insights, which indicates that outsiders see employees as an insider information source. In our research, only 16 percent of respondents were never approached by outsiders as a result of the media reporting, and employees with a leadership function were approached more often than those without (Korn 2018; Korn and Einwiller 2016).

308 

 Sabine A. Einwiller and Christine Korn

Employees assess media reports on the basis of their own knowledge and information, and they compare the depiction of events with their own perception of the situation. In contrast to outsiders, they can resort to further sources of information, for example their own experiences. The journalists who author the media reports are also part of these outsiders; Kepplinger (2003: 134) calls them “professional observers”. They usually consult different sources, but still have a different perspective on the event than the employees who are directly involved and affected. As external observers they tend to see the reasons for misconduct more in the ‘personality’ of the organization or protagonists, which is due to the fundamental attribution error. The protagonists themselves tend to attribute failures more to circumstances. This difference in attribution leads to different perspectives and can make employees perceive the reporting as false or biased (Kepplinger 2010). Our qualitative research reveals a strong tendency among employees to perceive the information provided by mass media as biased, hyped and exaggerated. Although most of the interviewees did not generally disagree with the facts reported by the media, many criticized how the issue was presented (Korn and Einwiller 2013). Our survey research, on the other hand, showed a more moderate picture in that respondents perceived media coverage mostly as appropriate (Korn 2018). This could be due to the fact that the survey referred to critical situations while the cases in the qualitative study were invariably full-blown crises. Emotional reactions are often the direct consequence of cognitive processes and can thus be classified as direct media effects. Weiner (1986) defines emotions as a complex syndrome with positive or negative qualities of a certain intensity that frequently are preceded by an appraisal of a situation and give rise to a variety of actions. Accordingly, appraisal theories assume that the appraisal of a situation or event causes an emotional response (e.  g., Smith and Kirby 2009). The evaluation of how important the situation is to the person is a central component of the appraisal, and the intensity of the emotional reaction increases with the appraised importance or relevance of the situation (Smith and Kirby 2009). Therefore, employees’ evaluation and appraised importance of the coverage is decisive for the emotion that is triggered by the media reception. Since the personal relevance of negative reporting on the employer is high for employees, strong emotions can be expected from the protagonists. About two thirds of the respondents in our survey (Korn 2018) stated that they cared about what was written in the news reports. The negative emotion that occurred most frequently was anger, and about a quarter of the employees also felt outraged or worried. It showed that the more people identified with their employer, the stronger their anger and outrage about the negative news. Anger was also triggered by perceiving the media reports as unfair and false. About every fifth employee in our survey felt helpless, ashamed or bewildered. They were the ones who actively searched for more information. These more passive emotions also came along with perceived tensions in the direct working environment; interestingly, this correlation did not occur when employees felt anger and outrage. In Johansen, Aggerholm and Frandsen’s (2012)



Employee reactions to negative media coverage 

 309

survey among communication managers in Danish companies, respondents stated that they observed a higher level of frustration, more insecurity and a need for information among employees during crises.

4.3.3 Tertiary variables: Behavioral consequences The negative media coverage can ultimately have behavioral consequences. The direct effects include an active search for information as well as word-of-mouth communication during interactions with others, because employees are also active senders in the communication arena of an organization (Heide and Simonsson 2019). In a positive way, search behavior can take the form of what Kim and Rhee (2011) termed ‘scouting’, which means an employee’s volunteered information behaviors like attending and seeking of information as well as sharing and forwarding this information with the organization. Employees’ communication behaviors (ECB), positive and negative, have been termed ‘megaphoning’, which is “employees’ voluntary information forwarding or information sharing about organizational strengths (accomplishments) or weaknesses (problems)” (Kim and Rhee 2011: 246). ECB is powerful, because for many people employees are credible sources of information, more than top managers and also more than journalists (Edelman 2018). In a crisis scenario, online ECB has furthermore been shown to have a stronger effect on an organization’s reputation than online communication by consumers (Opitz, Chaudhri and Wang 2018). Especially through the interactive nature of online channels where all Internet users have the opportunity to engage in online discussions, everyone – including employees – can exercise their communicative power easily and to a large audience. Positive ECB includes explaining the situation, denying what has happened or defending the organization. Ideally, employees say what their organization wants them to say in such a situation, i.  e. the strategically drafted message. However, to do so, they need to be informed about their organization’s stance. If this is not the case, and if they are taken by surprise by the negative information and also don’t identify with their organization, employees likely show negative reactions, which range from evading interactions with others, becoming irritated to even fueling the criticism with more negative insights. Korn (2018) showed that interpersonal communication about the negative media coverage occurred very frequently with colleagues and with family and friends. However, only few respondents stated to have voiced their opinion about the situation on the Internet. Employees mainly responded to direct approaches by others rather than to general discussions online. Findings by Kim and Rhee (2011) indicate that a good relationship between the organization and their employees increases the likelihood of scouting and positive megaphoning behavior. Similarly, our qualitative study (Korn and Einwiller 2013) reveals that when identified employees were approached by outsiders during a crisis they tried to explain how things really were, as opposed to less identified employees who just felt uncomfortable and did not know how to

310 

 Sabine A. Einwiller and Christine Korn

respond. These findings are corroborated by the quantitative data which show that organizational identification positively influences supportive reactions by employees (Korn 2018). A positive influence could also be revealed for internal communication. The more positive the internal corporate communication was evaluated, the more employees showed positive ECB when outsiders addressed the negative news topic in a conversation. By contrast, the worse the internal communication was perceived, the more employees tried to evade interactions with outsiders. Indirect behavioral effects are less obviously linked to the media criticism as direct effects. Pincus and Acharya (1988) elaborate that the stress employees experience during a crisis situation may inhibit and distort individuals’ ability to process information. It can furthermore result in reduced work motivation, absenteeism and the intention to quit the job. This can severely impair the organization’s performance. Aside from these negative indirect effects, positive effects are also possible. Negative coverage, and thus hostility experienced from outsiders, can create the perception of unity among colleagues, which can support the working climate in a difficult situation. Results from our qualitative research (Korn and Einwiller 2013) show that conversations with colleagues created an atmosphere of unity; the perception that the media content was biased and exaggerated served as a unifying element in this situation.

5 The role of internal communication in situations of negative news “Internal communication is a lever that helps to prevent crises, supports appropriate reactions, minimizes damage and eventually produces positive results” (Mazzei, Kim and Dell’Oro 2012: 32). Thus, internal communication plays an important role for employees to cope with external coverage that negatively reports on their employer and therefore constitutes a primary variable in the employee model of reciprocal effects. If individuals gain information from internal sources and exchange thoughts and ideas with them their media dependency and thus the influence of external mass media on the formation of ideas about reality is reduced (Ball-Rokeach 1998). However, as has been shown in this chapter so far, internal communication is often not meeting the standards it sets for itself, like informing employees about negative events before they are broken in the external news (Korn 2018; Korn and Einwiller 2016). Internal communication occurs permanently within organizations. It includes the informal conversations and the ‘grapevine’ as well as managed communication (Welch and Jackson (2007). Drawing on the differentiation of structural levels within an organization (Cheney and Christensen 2001), Welch and Jackson (2007: 184) define “internal communication as the strategic management of interactions and relationships between stakeholders within organizations across a number of interrelated dimensions including, internal line manager communication, internal team peer



Employee reactions to negative media coverage 

 311

communication, internal project peer communication and internal corporate communication.” Based on this definition, we differentiate three dimensions of internal communication that are relevant to consider in the context of negative media coverage. First, the communication between peers, be in within a team, a project or on any other level in the organization. Second, the communication between line managers and their coworkers. And last but not least, internal corporate communication, which is the communication between an organization’s strategic managers and its internal stakeholders planned by internal communication professionals. In critical situations, when the media reports negatively about an organization, employees turn to their colleagues as the primary source of information and exchange (Korn 2018; Korn and Einwiller 2013, 2016), because an important part of sensemaking is communication with fellows (Heide and Simonsson 2019). Internal peer communication in critical situations is even more important and pronounced when there are no clear answers or the interpretations are too varied, so employees engage in discussions in order to make sense of the situation (Carroll 2015). In this way, colleagues are also a resource of support during the critical situation, which helps to cope with the situation (Korn and Einwiller 2013). Despite the positive effects of internal peer communication, rumors about doomsday scenarios can fan fears and undermine workplace morale. The uncertainty created by such rumors can hamper employees’ cognitive abilities and negatively impact their emotional wellbeing (Pincus und Acharya 1988). Therefore, it is essential that managers and internal communication professionals pay close attention to the office grapevine and take the worries of employees seriously as active listening is an important part of internal crisis communication (Heide and Simonsson 2019). Worries and rumors can then be addressed by internal line manager communication in team meetings and by internal corporate communication in internal corporate media or works assemblies. Line managers play an important role in helping employees make sense of the situation. Because of their closeness to top management they should have better knowledge about the situation, which they can use in the discussions with employees to resolve uncertainties as much as possible. Our survey research shows that – besides conversations with colleagues – team meetings are an important source of information for employees, while, however, personal conversations with supervisors or managers were considered rather unimportant (Korn 2018; Korn and Einwiller 2016). This indicates that employees prefer to discuss the issue within a collective of colleagues, and leadership by line managers can be an important facilitator in this social process of sensemaking (Heide and Simonsson 2019). Heide and Simonsson elaborate leadership in crisis situations in their chapter on internal crisis communication. Apart from encouraging and facilitating conversations, leadership acts include raising questions and framing the event in a certain way. This requires that managers or team leaders are well informed to be able to facilitate discussions and respond to questions from employees appropriately. Our study among 18 internal communication managers of large European companies indicates that communication managers are aware of the

312 

 Sabine A. Einwiller and Christine Korn

importance of personal communication by line managers, especially when issues are critical and in need of explanation (Korn and Einwiller 2016). Yet, it is essential that line managers not just talk but also listen to their coworkers in order to take their worries seriously and to adapt to their narrative. Research shows, however, that they not always do so and thus talk past their employees. Consequently, employees feel left alone with their questions and anxiety, which allows other actors such as the news media to fill the vacuum (Heide and Simonsson 2019). Besides internal peer and line manager communication, internal corporate communication by internal communication professionals plays a crucial role in critical situations. Mazzei and Ravazzani (2011) found that internal communication that is continuous, timely, truthful and complete greatly helps in crisis situations. Importantly, internal communication can help to manage employees’ reactions when communicating with others (Mazzei et al. 2012). Results of our qualitative study (Korn and Einwiller 2013) show that good internal communication during times when the news media reports negatively has an influence on employees’ emotions as well as their behavior. When internal communication had prepared employees well they felt better and were less insecure when people outside their organization confronted them with the media criticism. They also felt less of a need to consult external media. The survey research (Korn 2018) furthermore revealed that a positive evaluation of internal corporate communication (credible, informative, soothing, open, fast, balanced and sufficient) correlates with positive ECB when outsiders addressed the negative news topic in a conversation. By contrast, the more negative the internal communication was evaluated, the more employees tried to evade interactions with outsiders. Respondents in the survey were divided regarding the helpfulness of their employers’ internal communication. About one third felt well prepared by their employer to respond to questions from outsiders; yet almost half did not feel prepared at all. Accordingly, about one third found the internal media to be more helpful to keep up to date in the situation compared to almost the same number of people who found external media more helpful. Ideally, internal communication manages to inform employees about a critical situation before the news media break the story. However, as our results show, this is often not the case. Interviewees in our study among communication professionals (Korn and Einwiller 2016) explain that in times of information overload it is increasingly difficult to convey relevant information to employees. Additionally, they perceive that employees find external media more credible than internal communication. Representatives of listed companies furthermore mentioned the problem that stock market rules do not allow employees to be informed before stockholders. Yet, even when external media is first to report, it is important that internal communication professionals communicate quickly, openly and comprehensively to help employees understand the situation and the stance of their organization in order to reduce uncertainty and to help them respond confidently to outsiders. The intranet is an appropriate medium to provide quick, precise but also in depth information on the issue.



Employee reactions to negative media coverage 

 313

However, as it is a pull medium, it is less well suited for the quick and simultaneous initial information of all employees on a critical topic. In the case of very critical topics, this must rather be done as push information directly, for example via specially convened team meetings, works assemblies or via push emails or handouts at the entrances and exits to the organization. Social intranet features can then be used to answer questions and to lead discussions with a broader employee base. Additionally, it is the task of internal communication professionals to advise managers regarding what and how to personally communicate with their coworkers. Aside from direct effects in the critical situation, continuous good internal communication is effective by building favorable relationships between the organization and its employees. Mazzei, Kim and Dell’Oro (2012) found that favorable ECB effects during a crisis are likely when the organization has managed to build good quality relationships with employees beforehand. Similarly, Kim and Rhee (2011) showed that the perceived quality of the employee-organization relationship mediates the positive effect of internal communication efforts on ECB. They argue that if “members of an employee public have experienced good-quality long-term relationships with their employer organization, they are likely to consider organizational problems as their own” (Kim and Rhee 2011: 251). Thus, they show more positive megaphoning behavior, i.  e. serve as an advocate, and show less negative megaphoning, i.  e. abstain from acting as an adversary. According to Kim and Rhee it is particularly symmetrical internal communication that fosters the development of positive employee-organization relationships, which in turn drives positive scouting and megaphoning behaviors. Thus, establishing trust and positive relationships between organizational leaders, managers and employees in ‘normal’ times is essential to win the support from employees when a critical situation arises. As Mazzei and Ravazzani (2011) showed, even good communication efforts can be met with skepticism when trust is lacking and management does not actively listen to employees during and before a crisis situation.

6 Conclusion and suggestions for further research Employees are the stakeholder group that is emotionally and cognitively closer to the organization than most other stakeholders (Frandsen and Johansen 2011). Because of this closeness and their concernment by a critical situation in their organization, employees exhibit reciprocal effects just as a person who perceives media coverage about himself or herself. This means that the negative media coverage leads to a cognitive appraisal of the situation which triggers emotional reactions like anger, outrage or helplessness and shame. This in turn influences employees’ behavioral reactions in the form of modified work engagement and verbal responses to outsiders, who frequently inquire information about the reported situation. Employees’ behavioral

314 

 Sabine A. Einwiller and Christine Korn

responses are influenced by their level of organizational identification, which has been built beforehand, as well as by their appraisal of internal communication. The reactions of employees can have a significant influence on how the critical situation evolves. If employees stand by their organization and defend it against criticism, chances are that the situation takes a more favorable turn than if employees retreat into apathy, or worse, fuel the criticism. Internal communication plays a major role whether employee reactions to negative media coverage are favorable or unfavorable for the organization. Internal communication must meet the increased need for information and orientation of their employees, which is triggered by uncertainty but also by the fact that the employees are often approached by outsiders regarding the negative reporting. In the situation itself, it is important that employees are informed quickly and openly about the events the media has picked up. Ideally, employees learn about the situation from official internal sources, like from their managers or through channels of internal corporate communication. Yet, far too often employees receive first knowledge that something is wrong in their organization from external media, which leads to irritation and enhanced uncertainty. If this happens, internal corporate communication needs to not just communicate quickly with employees but also listen to their worries, to be able to respond adequately. Importantly, good internal communication is not only necessary during the critical situation, but also beforehand, and it includes listening as much as communicating. Communication professionals need to be vigilant to weak signals that indicate nuisances in the organization or even a luring crisis, and negative media coverage may be one such weak signal. As media monitoring is generally not done by internal corporate communication, it is essential that the different functions within corporate communication follow an integrated communication approach of coordination and collaboration. This facilitates a fast response to external coverage by internal communication, in order to reduce media dependency of employees and to win interpretational sovereignty during the critical situation, at least internally. By providing employees with drafted answers to critical questions, the organization gets the opportunity to communicate strategic messages in a credibly way, as outsiders see employees as highly credible sources for internal information. Inquiring how employees experienced the situation and how they communicated internally and with outsiders is important in order to learn from the situation after it has cooled down. Extant research has focused on the effects of news media coverage on employees and has shed light on effects on cognitions, emotions and certain behavioral reactions. Yet, many questions still remain unanswered, opening various avenues for future research. First of all, the influence of internal communication on employees’ cognitions, emotions and behavior needs more exploration. In our interviews with communication professionals (Korn and Einwiller 2016), middle managers were mentioned as key communicators in critical situations. Exploring their role as the hinge or mediator between top management and employees and investigating what helps them



Employee reactions to negative media coverage 

 315

to reduce their own uncertainty and to make sense of the situation would generate a deeper understanding of the internal line manager communication function in critical situations. As they are often surprised by negative news themselves, their coping mechanism as leaders in such critical situations is worthwhile exploring. Associated with this, research should focus on manager-employee relations in critical situations (see also Heide and Simonsson 2019) and how line managers facilitate sense making within internal team communication based on how they are supported by top management or internal corporate communication respectively. Gaining a more differentiated view on the effects of negative media coverage on employees’ emotions is another fruitful avenue for further research. While research on emotions of external stakeholders in crisis situations is increasing (e.  g., Jin et al. 2014), knowledge on the emotions of employees is scarce. Our research shows that employees exhibit different types of emotions that are either very active, like anger and outrage, or rather passive, like shame and bewilderment. A more in depth analysis on what influences different emotions to arise and which behavioral reactions are elicited would enhance or understanding of emotions in critical situations. Another avenue for future research derives from the differentiation of the media landscape, particularly online. Due to the interactive nature of the internet, non-professional communicators can generate content, user-generated-content, which can potentially reach a large audience. News media sites often allow their readers to comment articles. So, when employees read an online news article about their employer they may also be confronted with the opinions of other external observers but journalists. A differentiated analysis of the influence of other readers’ opinions in addition to journalistic reporting on employees’ cognitions, emotions and their own communication behavior will generate more comprehensive knowledge on media effects in todays interconnected world. Mainly as private persons, employees are also users of social media like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Communication in these social media are generally customized to each user, which creates a so called filter bubble (Pariser 2011). Thus, critical information about an organization may appear more prominently to the employee. This could enhance the third-person effect, i.  e. the perception that others are strongly influenced by the negative information. Analyzing such and similar effects in the social media environment would enhance our understanding of social media influences on employees.

References Albert, S., and D. Whetten. 1985. Organizational identity. In L. L. Cummings and B. M. Staw (eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 7, 263–295. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Allgäuer, J. E., and M. Larisch (eds.). 2011. Public Relations von Finanzorganisationen: Ein Praxishandbuch für die externe und interne Kommunikation (Public relations in financial organizations: A practice guide for external and internal communication). Wiesbaden: Gabler.

316 

 Sabine A. Einwiller and Christine Korn

Andsager, J. L., and H. Allen White. 2007. Self versus others. Media, messages, and the thirdperson effect. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Ashforth, B. E., and F. A. Mael. 1989. Social identity theory and the organization. The Academy of Management Review 14(1). 20–39. Ball-Rokeach, S. J. 1998. A theory of media power and a theory of media use: different stories, questions, and ways of thinking. Mass Communication and Society 1(1&2). 5–40. Ball-Rokeach, S. J., and M. L. DeFleur. 1976. A dependency-model of mass-media effects. Communication Research 3(3). 3–21. Ball-Rokeach, S. J., and J.-Y. Jung. 2009. The evolution of media system dependency theory. In R. L. Nabi and M. B. Oliver (eds.). The Sage handbook of media processes and effects, 531–544. Los Angeles: Sage. Baumeister, R. F., E. Bratslavsky, C. Finkenauer, and K. D. Vohs. 2001. Bad is stronger than good. Review of General Psychology 5(4). 323–370. Brown, T. J., P. A. Dacin, M. G. Pratt, and D. A. Whetten. 2006. Identity, intended image, construed image, and reputation: an interdisciplinary framework and suggested terminology. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 34(2). 99–106. Carroll, J. S. 2015. Making sense of ambiguity through dialogue and collaborative action. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 23(2). 59–65. Cheney, G., and L. T. Christensen. 2001. Organizational identity linkages between internal and external communication. In F. M. Jablin and L. L. Putnam (eds.), The New Handbook of Organizational Communication, 231–269. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Chouliaraki, L., and M. Morsing. 2010. Introduction: towards an understanding of the interplay between media and organizations. In L, Chouliaraki and M. Morsing (eds.), Media, Organizations and Identity, 1–24. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Coombs, W. T. 2014. Ongoing Crisis Communication. Planning, Managing, and Responding. 4th edn. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Coombs, W. T., and S. J. Holladay. 2011. An exploration of the effects of victim visuals on perceptions and reactions to crisis events. Public Relations Review 37(2). 115–120. Coombs, W. T., and S. J. Holladay. 2012. The paracrisis: The challenges created by publicly managing crisis prevention. Public Relations Review 38(3). 408–415. Daschmann, G. 2007. Der Preis der Prominenz. Medienpsychologische Überlegungen zu den Wirkungen von Medienberichterstattung auf die dargestellten Akteure (The price of being famous: thoughts on the psychological effects of media coverage on its subjects). In T. Schierl (ed.), Prominenz in den Medien. Zur Genese und Verwertung von Prominenten in Sport, Wirtschaft und Kultur (Prominence in the Media. On the formation and exploitation of prominence in sports, economy and culture), 184–211. Köln: Halem. Dutton, J., and J. Dukerich. 1991. Keeping an eye on the mirror: Image and identity in organizational adaptation. Academy of Management Journal 34(3). 517–554. Dutton, J., J. Dukerich, and C. Harquail. 1994. Organizational images and member identification. Administrative Science Quarterly 39. 239–263. Edelman. 2018. Edelman Trust Barometer 2018. Executive Summary. Retrieved 1 September 2018. from https://cms.edelman.com/sites/default/files/2018-01/2018%20Edelman%20Trust%20 Barometer%20Executive%20Summary.pdf Fearn-Banks, K. 2011. Crisis Communications: A Casebook Approach. 4th edn. New York: Routledge. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2011. The study of internal crisis communication: towards an integrative framework. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 16(4). 347–361. Heide, M., and C. Simonsson. 2020. Internal crisis communication: On current and future research. In F. Frandsen and W. Johansen (eds.), Crisis Communication, Handbook of Communication Science HOCS, Vol. 23. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.



Employee reactions to negative media coverage 

 317

Heide, M., and C. Simonsson. 2014. Developing internal crisis communication. New roles and practices of communication professionals. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 19(2). 128–146. Hufnagel, A. 2015. Der Einfluss der Medien auf Unternehmensentscheidungen. Wie Unternehmen die Medienberichterstattung beobachten, beurteilen und berücksichtigen. (The influence of the media on corporate decisions. How companies observe, evaluate and consider media reporting). Baden-Baden: Nomos. Jin, Y., B. F. Liu, D. Anagondahalli, and L. Austin. 2014. Scale development for measuring publics’ emotions in organizational crises. Public Relations Review 40(3). 509–518. Johansen, W., H. K. Aggerholm, and F. Frandsen. 2012. Entering new territory: A study of internal crisis management and crisis communication in organizations. Public Relations Review 38(2). 270–279. Kepplinger, H. M. 2007. Reciprocal effects: Toward a theory of mass media effects on decision makers. The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 12. 3–23. Kepplinger, H. M. 2010. Medieneffekte (Media effects). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. Kepplinger, H. M., and S. Ehmig. 2006. Predicting news decisions. An empirical test of the two component theory of news selection. The European Journal of Communication Research 31(1). 25–43. Kepplinger, H. M., and T. Zerback. 2012. Direct and indirect effects of media coverage. Exploring the effects of presumed media influence on judges, prosecutors, and defendants. Studies in Communication/Media 1(3–4). 473–492. Klein, J. G. 1996. Negativity in impressions of presidential candidates revisited: the 1992 election. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 22(3). 288–295. Korn, C. 2018. Wenn Medien Negatives über den Arbeitgeber berichten. Reaktionen der Mitarbeiter und die Rolle der internen Kommunikation (When the media reports negatively about the employer. Reactions of employees and the role of internal communication). Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Korn, C., and S.  A. Einwiller. 2013. Media coverage about organisations in critical situations – Analysing the impact on employees. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 18(4). 451–468. Korn, C., and S.  A. Einwiller. 2016. Negative Medienberichterstattung über Organisationen – Ihre Bedeutung für Mitarbeitende und interne Kommunikation (Negative news media coverage about organizations – Its significance for employees and internal communication). In S. Huck-Sandhu (ed.), Interne Kommunikation im Wandel. Theoretische Konzepte und empirische Befunde, 123–141. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Lang, K., and G. Engel Lang. 1953. The unique perspective of television and its effect: a pilot study. American Sociological Review 18(1). 3–12. Mael, F. A., and B. E. Ashforth. 1992. Alumni and their alma mater: A partial test of the reformulated model of organizational identification. Journal of Organizational Behavior 13(2). 103–123. Marx, D. 2009. Landtagsabgeordnete im Fokus der Medien: Ihre Sicht auf Entstehung, Wirkung und Qualität landespolitischer Berichterstattung (Members of State Parliament in the Focus of the Media: Their View on the Development, Impact and Quality of Media Coverage of Regional Politics). Baden-Baden: Nomos. Mazzei, A., and S. Ravazzani. 2011. Manager-employee communication during a crisis: the missing link. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 16(3). 243–254. Mazzei, A., J.-N. Kim, and C. Dell’Oro. 2012. Strategic value of employee relationships and communicative actions: Overcoming corporate crisis with quality internal communication. International Journal of Strategic Communication 6(1). 31–44.

318 

 Sabine A. Einwiller and Christine Korn

McCombs, M. E., and D.  H. Weaver. 1973. Voter’s need for orientation and use of mass communication. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association (ICA). Montreal, April 25–28. Opitz, M., V. Chaudhri, and Y. Wang. 2018. Employee social-mediated crisis communication as opportunity or threat? Corporate Communications: An International Journal 23(1). 66–83. Pariser, E. 2011. The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You. New York: Penguin Press. Pearson, C., and J. Clair. 1998. Reframing crisis management. The Academy of Management Review 23(1). 59–76. Perse, E. M. 2001. Media Effects and Society. Mahwah, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Pincus, J. D., and L. Acharya. 1988. Employee communication strategies for organizational crises. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal 1(3). 181–199. Rozin, P., and E. B. Royzman. 2001. Negativity bias, negativity dominance, and contagion. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 5(4). 296–320. Schenk, M. 2007. Medienwirkungsforschung. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Schmid, B. F., and B. Lyczek. 2008. Die Rolle der Kommunikation in der Wertschöpfung der Unternehmung. In M. Meckel and B. F. Schmid (eds.), Unternehmenskommunikation. Kommunikationsmanagement aus Sicht der Unternehmensführung, 3–150. Wiesbaden: Gabler. Schwarz, A. 2010. Krisen-PR aus Sicht der Stakeholder: Der Einfluss von Ursachen- und Verantwortungszuschreibungen auf die Reputation von Organisationen. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. Shoemaker, P. J., and A. A. Cohen (eds). 2006. News Around the World. Content, Practitioners, and the Public. New York: Routledge. Skowronski, J. J., and D. E. Carlston. 1987. Social judgment and social memory: The role of cue diagnosticity in negativity, positivity, and extremity biases. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 52(4). 689–699. Smidts, A., A. T. H. Pryun, and C. B. M. van Riel. 2001. The impact of employee communication and perceived external prestige on organizational identification. The Academy of Management Journal 44(5). 1051–1062. Smith, C. A., and L. D. Kirby. 2009. Putting appraisal in context: toward a relational model of appraisal and emotion. Cognition and Emotion 23(7). 1352–1372. Welch, M., and P. R. Jackson. 2007. Rethinking internal communication: a stakeholder approach. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 12(2). 177–198.

Marya L. Doerfel, Jack L. Harris, Melanie Kwestel and Minkyung Kim

15 Crisis communication and organizational resilience1 Abstract: Organizational resilience is defined using a multi-theoretical, multi-level framework of relational communication that addresses the intertwined physical, social, and organizational elements that contribute to organizational survivability. Incorporating disaster into a relational model of crisis communication theory, this chapter uses community ecology, institutional, and stakeholder theories to discuss the role of resilience work in organizational survivability as a function of evolving social networks, social capital, and institutionalized practices that happen in the context of interorganizational relationships. Resilience work includes external partnering as well as internal organizing processes and is as much a function of how an organization is embedded in a community as it is of an organization’s internal characteristics. Resilience work describes the practices and processes that organizations and organizational members engage in as a response to a current disaster or as part of planning activities designed to insulate, buffer, or lessen the shock of a future disaster. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the emerging science of resilience that includes a view of resilient organizations as human systems that coordinate, organize, and communicate in ways that ward off threats from their environments. Keywords:  resilience, resilient organizations, interorganizational communication, social networks, community ecology, stakeholder theory, institutional theory, social capital, organizational survival, disaster

1 Introduction Organizational crisis and organizational resilience are two sides to the same coin. Whether organizations prepare in anticipation or respond as a result of a crisis, the event is a stimulus that spurs the need for organizations to engage in activities that develop and support their resilience. Resilience is especially evident when crisis occurs- the focal organization communicates in ways to reduce the negative impacts some crisis may bring upon them. In this paper, we focus on wide-scale natural disasters as a particular form of crisis that impacts organizations and their extended communities. We situate resilience as a multi-level networked process and position 1 This work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1760512 and the NetSCI Lab at Rutgers University. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-015

320 

 Marya L. Doerfel, Jack L. Harris, Melanie Kwestel and Minkyung Kim

resilience science using a multi-theoretical framework. Adopting both a multi-level and multi-theoretical framework reflects calls to honor the complexities inherent in organizational communication because organizations do not act in isolation (Monge and Contractor 2003; Yang and Taylor 2015). Rather, organizations are nested in and interdependent with social systems that include interorganizational networks (Doerfel 2018; Provan and Milward 1995; Proven, Fish, and Sydow 2007) and communities of nonprofits, government agencies, and citizen activists (Ganesh and Stohl 2014; Heath, Bradshaw, and Lee 2002; Johnston 2010; Maskrey 2011). Resilient organizations, therefore, communicate across levels to engage with external stakeholders while also adopting and adapting internal functions to work around and through work disruptions caused by crisis. Resilient organizations are able to endure disruptive events by mitigating potential interruption to routine functioning. In policy and related disaster literature, resilience has been associated with an organization’s robustness (its social structures are difficult to interrupt), the degree to which the organization has redundancy built into work processes, is resourceful in terms of identifying and prioritizing the problems at hand then being able to mobilize relative to those problems, is rapid in its response, which minimizes the interruption the organization faces (Kendra and Wachtendorf 2003; Kendra and Wachtendorf 2016), and is externally available for stakeholders to find them through internet and communication technologies (ICTs) (Doerfel, Lai, and Chewning 2010). The five features of resilience are only as effective as the ongoing organizing and coordination inside and among organizations. Organizing and communicating uphold robustness, build in redundancy, coordinate rapidity, and engage in ways to be externally available. It therefore involves relationships, requires adapting to circumstances, is supported by communication and coordination between people, and is a function of contexts (institutions, organizations and communities) being resilient themselves (Agarwal and Buzzanell 2015; Buzzanell 2018; Doerfel and Harris 2017). These manifold qualities reflect the complexity that comes with the fact that organizations have internal and external relationships that are simultaneously at play in supporting their resilience. As such, we present a multi-theoretical relational framework that helps identify the underlying communicative mechanisms that support resilient organizations. This chapter draws on community ecology, institutional, and stakeholder theories that explain aspects of the recursive organization-level and community-wide communication processes that contribute to organizational and community resilience. Organizational resilience can be seen, then, through the examination of organizational communication processes at multiple levels and is constituted through dynamic communication that flows among organizations, interorganizational relationships, and across the broader stakeholder universe. We conclude the chapter with commentary on the emerging science of resilience that includes a view of resilient organizations as human systems that coordinate, organize, and communicate in ways that ward off threats from their environments.



Crisis communication and organizational resilience 

 321

2 Resilience work In recent decades, organizations have faced a variety of challenges in their communities that expand the idea of crisis to larger-scale incidents like floods, hurricanes, fires, tornadoes, and cyberattacks. Such threats to organizations’ survival have sparked a cottage industry in the research about and design of resilient organizations. We are deliberate in using the concept resilience work because resilient organizations are not a thing or a static trait but engage in communicative processes and actions (Buzzanell 2018). The idea of resilient organizations is entirely predicated on the fact that organizations do organizing and communicating to leverage resources, relationships, and information to mitigate the impact unplanned interruptions can have on routine functioning. Such major catastrophic events amplify and enlarge the organizing and communicating processes of systems in general which then provide opportunities for theory building about organizational communication (Kreps 1984). We view disaster as crisis, events that become a focal point against which organizations are challenged to work in preparation for, communicate through, and negotiate around. In contrast, non-resilient organizations are rigid, stuck in a set of practices, rules, and standard operating procedures (SOPs) and/or lack meaningful relationships that can be leveraged to support aspects of resilience (robustness, resourcefulness, rapidity, redundancy, and external availability). We thus begin with an overview of crisis as an interruption-point that punctuates the space through which resilience processes are magnified.

3 Crisis communication as stimulus for resilience work Crisis communication refers to the communication processes organizations employ in anticipation of and in response to events that interrupt routine workflows. Crisis is predominantly viewed as a public relations problem that happens unexpectedly and can have the potential to damage a focal firm’s reputation, operations, and financial status (Coombs 2007). Crisis may also involve and can threaten relationships with stakeholder groups. Arguably, crises that are not resolved can endanger the survival of a company or at least threaten its reputation and financial value. Organizations that have built up strong reputations, however, can insulate themselves from external shocks. A particular crisis may be forgiven when seen as out of character with the organization’s existing practices or the organization’s reputation (Coombs and Holladay 2006). Crisis communication theories and strategies arose from the need to attend to stakeholder relationships during internal crises using public relations strategies (Botan 2006). Earlier work focused largely on crises that involved an organization and some internal breakdown. Product recalls like Johnson & Johnson’s tainted Tylenol

322 

 Marya L. Doerfel, Jack L. Harris, Melanie Kwestel and Minkyung Kim

in 1982 (Snyder 1983), executive misbehavior that lead to Enron’s demise (Seeger and Ulmer 2003), environmental disasters resulting from organizational activity or ­criminal wrongdoing such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 (Harrald, Cohn and Wallace 1992) and most recently, a spate of scandals associated with the #metoo movement where businesses from Hollywood’s Weinstein Company to Fox News had to fire leaders and rainmakers from their high profile posts out of fear of backlash from consumers (Krishna, Kim and Shim 2018) were vastly different events that caused internal crises that threatened varied stakeholder groups. More recent trends recognize the larger societal context of crisis (Heath 2013). A community-encompassing view opens the ability to add disaster to crisis communication’s repertoire. We thus expand crisis communication to encompass disaster-based events, which impact entire regions and the organizations that exist in them. Disasters stress organizations and their communities to breaking points due to lack of capacity when employees, consumers, and clients must evacuate or are suffering personally such that supporting the organization and its work-force or client-base is put on hold (Doerfel 2016; Doerfel and Haseki 2013; Harris and Doerfel 2017). Disasters become a communication problem where communicating organizational and community status is just one aspect of the work that needs to be done. Regardless of the emergence of a community-level, ecological view (Yang and Taylor 2015), one of the most common communication issues addressed in public relations focuses on organizational image repair strategies in order to preserve organizational reputation (Benoit and Drew 1997). Repair strategies focus on messages generated by organizations to communicate to particular external stakeholders. Trends that focus on relational qualities of organization-public relations still limit their scope to the dyadic relationship (Yang and Taylor 2015). One approach that recognizes the interdependent relationships organizations have is Coombs’ (2007) situational crisis communication theory (SCCT). SCCT describes crisis situations as interactions among multiple stakeholder groups that not only attribute responsibility to the organization, but also experience emotional responses that affect assignation of responsibility. To minimize long term damage to reputation, organizations have to respond to the event based on the situation and to the emotions they evoke (Coombs 2007). SCCT delineates four elements of crisis situations: responsibility, severity, crisis history and relationship history (Coombs 2006; Coombs and Holladay 1996). Within this are three clusters that escalate from victim to intention. Intensifying factors play a role in how stakeholders perceive and respond to crises, and thus how management must respond as well. The severity of the event in the public eye can magnify or diminish the crisis. For example, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is perceived as major corporate crisis because of its environmental impact as well as its leaders’ initial responses to the tragedy. An organization’s track record in addressing crisis or other disruptive events may also impact an organization’s reputation. Organizations that have good relationships with their stakeholders accumulate reputational capital that can be spent in times of



Crisis communication and organizational resilience 

 323

crisis (Coombs 2012; Coombs and Holladay 2006). Reputational capital helps buffer or insulate the organization from the adverse consequences of the crisis, disaster, or even its own actions in response to crisis, disaster, or disruption. Organizational response to crisis or disruption can involve actions ranging from blaming others to drawing in allies. In the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, for example, BP blamed Transocean and Halliburton while also implicating their own engineers (Carroll and Polson 2010). When a crisis is a result of environmental disasters, however, the event evokes a sense of victimhood for organizations and the communities in which they are physically located. While organizations often strive to accommodate different groups of stakeholders during some crises, disasters are a particular form of crisis that amplifies the salience of stakeholder relationships (Harris and Doerfel 2017). Disaster-based crises draw in leadership and rank and file employees alike, in addition to the communication professionals who employ public relations in their everyday work responsibilities. Echoing recent trends in crisis communication in particular and stakeholder relationships in general (Heath 2013; Yang and Taylor 2015), disasters also generate multiple level problems because they impact entire regions of communities. In such circumstances, resilient organizations turn to their partners and stakeholders for support (Doerfel 2016). But those stakeholders, themselves, have relationships, too (Rowley 1997; Strand and Freeman 2015) and may also be impacted by the disaster. Therefore, when crisis impacts an organization and its entire region, perceptions are very different from crisis caused by an organization’s employees or that are viewed as something the organization could have avoided by choosing a different course of action. When the crisis situation is a disaster, organizations are viewed as victims and their ability to leverage their social networks is a key element to engaging in the organizational resilience processes that may enable an organization, interorganizational relationships, or a community to survive (Agarwal and Buzzanell 2015; Doerfel, Chewning, and Lai 2013; Doerfel et al. 2010; Harris and Doerfel 2017b). Given the complexities of social relationships that exist outside the focal organization’s control, we turn next to social networks theory as a way to situate resilience work as part of a larger set of communication practices that support an organization’s resilience.

4 Social network theory and resilient organizations Before the language of resilience became trendy, organization science drew on community ecology and biology’s evolutionary theory to understand how organizations come to survive as a social species (Hannan and Freeman 1977; Johnson and Stinchcombe 2007; Monge and Contractor 2003). Community ecology theory identifies co-evolutionary communication processes that explain how organizational rela-

324 

 Marya L. Doerfel, Jack L. Harris, Melanie Kwestel and Minkyung Kim

tionships and associated communities made up of those relationships are created, change, and survive over time (Lee and Monge 2011). Community ecology as a social network theory models the dynamic, flexible, and constitutive nature of organizational partnering and relationships (Monge and Contractor 2003; Shumate and Contractor 2014). But organizations can also become rigid in their forms and structures, where communication and organizing recursively generate the same system, resulting in institutionalized forms and practices (DiMaggio and Powell 1983; Lammers and Barbour 2016). The resulting inertia is a puzzle that institutional theory has addressed as a way to understand how social processes perpetuate inertia in organizations and in interorganizational networks that make up communities of practice (Brown and Duguid 1991). Recent advances in both community ecology and institutional theory focus on communication processes and therefore offer a theoretical basis for continued development of a science of organizational resilience. We next overview community ecology and institutional theories in order to explain how organizations and their communities engage in processes that can support or undermine resilience.

5 Community ecology theory and resilience Communication applications of community ecology theory point to the density of a system’s network and the relative fitness (quality) of relationships that lead to enduring organizational forms within sectors (Monge, Heiss and Margolin 2008; Weber and Monge 2014). Interorganizational communities can have dense networks in two ways, competitor-based density and interaction-based density. The types of density loosely align with the evolutionary stages of a system. Competitor-based density. In early stages of a professional sector’s (community’s) development when there is relatively a good deal of slack in the system (e.  g., more customers than businesses to serve them or system-needs that organizations might capitalize on), that the system has opportunities for more firms to enter/exit it in order to serve the system’s needs. When there is slack in the system, there is a greater chance that similar organizations (i.  e., those that produce the same service or product) support each other and engage in cooperative relationships (Bryant and Monge 2008; Schermerhorn 1975; van de Bunt and Groenewegen 2007). As the system evolves, its competition-based density increases because more organizations that deliver the same services or products enter the system, which decreases slack (Bryant and Monge 2008). Organizations that continue to thrive as the system evolves and competition increases are viewed as resilient, or in the parlance of community ecology theory, are fit. In disasters, early stages of recovery can be similarly structured revealing organizations that are resilient because the social structure supports them. As the system grows, density is about interactions, not just how many organizations exist within a particular sector.



Crisis communication and organizational resilience 

 325

Interaction-based density. A second form of density has to do with interactions among organizations in the field. Whereas competitor-based density is about how many organizations vie for the same resources, interactional density is about how connected an overall system is based on which organizations communicate with each other. At early stages of a sector’s evolution, there are fewer organizations and those organizations are more willing to communicate with each other as they develop. They are likened to a community of practice with relatively greater interactional density, driven by a spirit of mutual learning and resource sharing (Brown and Duguid 1991). As competitive density increases because more organizations enter the system, competitors’ interactional density decreases as the organizations turn to more complementary alliance partners. In disaster, the system’s profile can mimic early evolutionary stages, which was observed when New Orleans organizations slowly returned after their mandatory evaluations in 2005. For example, Doerfel’s Hurricane Katrina research (c.f. Doerfel et al. 2010) revealed slack in resources such that the city had more people wanting to go to restaurants than there were restaurants ready to serve them. Restaurants that reopened early in the city’s recovery cooperated when owners helped each other get fresh ingredients from local farmers. The farmers had produce but were unable to deliver it, so one restaurant owner went to the farm region and loaded his vehicle with produce. He shared the produce with a few of the other restaurants in town (informant interview, March, 2006). Restaurant resilience was partly a function of their own adaptive behaviors and partly because they were cooperating in a system plump with needed resources (people looking for dinner). In the early stages of recovery, the New Orleans restaurant sector had lower competitive density. After disaster, these resilient restaurants formed networks within-sector through coordinated efforts (delivering fresh ingredients) within a resource-rich context (more patrons than restaurants ready to serve). Competitive density increased as more organizations returned. Interactional density decreased as the overall system evolved because of more competitors and also because those relationships no longer fit the needs of the partners. These social networks provide the “cement of civil society” (Diani 2015), which emerges out of organizations providing services and resources to particular populations and communities (Guo and Acar 2005; Lai, Tao, and Cheng 2017; Provan and Milward 1995; Taylor and Doerfel 2011). Social networks also provide the basis of the social capital accessed by organizations as they respond to crisis or disruption and engage resilience (Aldrich and Meyer 2015; Doerfel et al. 2010). From a community ecology perspective, the ties engage and disengage and through these trial-and-error processes, some ties endure because they do something for the focal organization. In the language of community ecology, the variation-selection-retention processes weed out unfit ties while fit ties remain intact. But not all fit ties are the same. Bridging and bonding social capital are types of ties that, when leveraged relative to needs, support organizational resilience. Social capital theory suggests that strategic social networks are seen when an organization strikes a balance of both types (Burt 1992; Lin 1999).

326 

 Marya L. Doerfel, Jack L. Harris, Melanie Kwestel and Minkyung Kim

Bridging capital links disparate parts of a social organizational or network together. Bridging capital, often accessed or provided by, the gatekeepers or brokers within the system allows individuals, families, groups, organizations, or communities to reach out beyond their immediate set of personal and organizational connections and tie together different parts of the same community or organizational network or connect new networks of people, organizations, and resources into their existing network (Aldrich and Meyer 2015; Doerfel et al. 2010; Harris and Doerfel 2017a). Bridging capital facilitates access to unique information that flows through networks of networks, which is particularly helpful when disaster generates equivocal circumstances and the “victim” organizations need unique resources to support their recovery processes. Bonding capital “cements” partners and may be a source of social cohesion and resilience (Aldrich 2012; Aldrich and Meyer 2015; Diani 2015) between organizations and aggregate up to build community-level cohesion (Yang and Taylor 2015). Bonding capital involve qualities associated with strong ties in one’s network (Granovetter 1983). Bonding capital is fostered in networks that have qualities including shared deep trust, candor, competition and collaboration, and access to indirect partners (Kelton, Fleischmann, and Wallace 2009; Lin 1999) and may provide access to emotional and spiritual support, and participation in policy advocacy activities among individuals, families, communities and organizations grappling with crisis or disaster. Doerfel et al. (2010) showed the ways bonding social capital supported resilient organizations in early stages of Katrina recovery. Networks rich in bonding social capital were vital in mobilizing material and financial resources. For example, when victim organizations needed temporary space and technology, bonding facilitated flows of such resources (Doerfel 2016; Doerfel et al. 2010). Interestingly, as such basic material needs were addressed, organizations that then switched to bridging social capital were able to leverage information-based resources to facilitate their recovery. For example, professional associations and within-sector peers brokered information that supported particular sectors to recover. In the museum sector, colleagues from other cities’ museums reached out to some New Orleans museum to offer support. The museums outside New Orleans bridged the sector’s network through sharing their insider-knowledge with the disaster-struck museums. From the community ecology perspective, then, resilience is a function of social networks where organizations gain support through material and financial resource exchange in early stages of disaster recovery and as recovery evolves, through information exchange facilitated by bonding social capital. In post disaster contexts, the information resources, in particular, are vital in supporting those organizations that do not have capacity to problem-solve on their own because the situation is overly complex, because leadership may not be thinking clearly because of the extreme circumstances, or because they simply do not have human capacity to accomplish the necessary work on their own (Doerfel et al. 2013, 2010; Kendra and Wachtendorf 2003). Community ecology provides a framework for how organizations that strike a



Crisis communication and organizational resilience 

 327

balance in bridging and bonding social capital relative to timing of recovery facilitate resilience in terms of rapidity, robustness, and resources. Some organizations, however, may become relatively stable and difficult to change, rendering the organization and the system it exists in relatively inert (Hannan and Freeman 1984; Schumpeter 1934; Shumate and O’Connor 2010). That stability could be seen as the antidote to organizational resilience. For example, some organizations invest time and resources into coordinating and building up interorganizational relationships. These conveners (Wood and Gray 1991) are often viewed as prominent and become highly central in the overall interorganizational networks (Danowski, Barnett, and Friedland 1987; Flanagin, Monge, and Fulk 2001). These central organizations become recognized for their early influence on the system and therefore their prominent reputations generate greater centrality (Doerfel and Taylor 2017; Flanagin et al. 2001; Taylor and Doerfel 2003). However, such “stabilized” centrality can come at a cost, such that the more central an organization becomes, the more capacity it needs to attend to the growing number of relationships the organization must manage (Bennett and Segerberg 2013; Doerfel and Taylor 2004). For example, the American Red Cross and FEMA are considered leaders in disaster planning and mitigation in the United States. But their prominence and centrality in the work of disaster recovery means their capacity can be strained by heightened requests from their stakeholders and the general public (Harris and Doerfel 2017b). As interorganizational systems evolve, other pressures in the community can reify such stability or exert pressure to transform, but these organizations are so stabilized in their forms and functioning that they are difficult to change. Red Cross and FEMA lack capacity to support their highly central position, which leads to more bureaucratized approaches to manage external relationships (e.  g., use of forms and standard operating procedures). Such large organizations maximize efficiency at the cost of relational quality with external partners. They build bridging capital with less evidence of and capability to nurture bonding capital in the communities. The result is diminished resilience for both Red Cross and the community it aims to serve. Institutional theory provides a framework to understand how organizations solidify their positions and practices with implications for their communities and organizational networks.

6 Institutional theory and resilience Institutional theory, like community ecology, aims to explain how organizations and their systems come to take on recognizable and difficult to change qualities. Organizational communication scholars have drawn on three processes of institutional theory that lead to common (institutionalized) practices among organizations, including normative, coercive, and mimetic influences (DiMaggio and Powell 1983; Lammers and Barbour 2016; Meyer and Rowan 1977). Normative influences come from social

328 

 Marya L. Doerfel, Jack L. Harris, Melanie Kwestel and Minkyung Kim

expectations stakeholders – be they consumers or partners – have of organizations. Coercive influences come from legal and policy-based expectations along with certifications required for companies to uphold their practice. Mimetic influences are seen when organizations copy peers who have demonstrated that certain business practices work well. In disaster, organizations are expected to protect their employees through closing offices and canceling work (normative), have insurance to cover costs of associated damage and out-of-work interruptions (coercive), and may time reopening and their public response to the disaster event in line with what peers and competitors may do (mimetic). Institutionalized aspects of resilient organizations can be seen in the way many larger corporations prepare for disaster. Companies like Deloitte help shape corporate crisis and disaster response practices by offering disaster-preparedness consulting. Large corporations’ resilience work is often folded into human resource departments. With the increased frequency of disasters, some2 businesses have disaster response or business recovery teams made up of executives along with representatives drawn from across firm divisions that coordinate with each other in advance of potential disruptive events. In the nonprofit sector, some coalitions that serve communities in need have similar subgroups made up of representatives across the coalition who routinely meet and plan for disaster. For example, Houston’s Coalition for the Homeless reports that they are working actively with partner agencies in preparation for future disaster events (Coalition for the Homeless 2018). A search of Internet-based resources for businesses returns resources from institutions like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the American Red Cross, blogs like www.business.com, and business-focused news that feature articles listing steps for “disaster-proofing” business (c.f. Federal Emergency Management Agency, n.d.; House 2018; Whitten 2016). Likewise, professional associations are generating best practices and information resources for professional communities that grapple with preparedness. For example, HR Houston in Houston, TX, featured multiple workshops, talks, and round tables at their 2018 Symposium meetings about resilience and disaster preparedness. Beyond the United States-centric experience, global initiatives to support resilience such as the Association for Organizational Resilience (https://ores.online/en/) and Barcelona’s work on building more resilient cities (c.f. http://urbanresiliencehub.org/action/) are developing ways for organizations and their communities to proactively engage resilient processes. The European Commission published corporate social responsibility guidelines that loosely reflect the contributions larger corporations are expected to make in supporting local communities’ resilience. Point number seven in the document focuses on social and employee-related matters and states:

2 We do not know of any existing estimates regarding how many corporations have disaster teams.



Crisis communication and organizational resilience 

 329

… respect for the right of workers to be informed and consulted, respect for trade union rights, health and safety at work and the dialogue with local communities, and/or the actions taken to ensure the protection and the development of those communities (emphasis added, European Union 2014).

The wide scope of organizational resources (coercive influences) and practices (mimetic influences) help shape the way organizations and their communities view (normative influences) resilience and contribute to collective opinions about what processes constitute resilience. These coercive, mimetic, and normative influences explain the institutionalization of resilience processes over time and the establishment of different types of resilience work that organizations enact in order to ensure organizational survivability.

7 Organizational resilience as communicative practice in networked communities Although resilience practices may be more institutionalized in larger organizations, organizational size is less of a factor than the ability for organizations to leverage social networks in a community that has resources and social capital (Doerfel et al. 2013; Harris and Doerfel 2017a). The research we have conducted includes in-depth interviews with and observations of over 200 organizations across four different major disasters. Related, the extant disaster literature used in this chapter points to a lack of institutionalized practices regarding preparedness, recovery, and rebuilding, among small and medium-sized organizations. Regardless of what planning and structures organizations have in place, their leaders and employees unwittingly learn the ropes of resilience when they find themselves impacted by a community-wide disastrous event. For those who don’t have organized teams anticipating disruption, employees find themselves drawn into their “new” job, anyway: Whether planned or not, when disaster strikes, all of these organizations are doing resilience work. Community ecology and institutional theories explain that resilience work involves both internal organizational functioning and external partnerships. Resilience is also a characteristic of the entire community, not just a particular localized organization. And communities are made up of cross-sector partnerships that involve government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and businesses, alike. Indeed, community ecology and institutional theories underscore mechanisms of resilience by: – Building relationships through bonding ties early in disaster to access material and financial resources and bridging ties – Bridging social capital across networks to access professional knowledge in communities of practice

330 

 Marya L. Doerfel, Jack L. Harris, Melanie Kwestel and Minkyung Kim

– Keeping flexibility in institutions that can become overly rigid due to coercive, normative, and mimetic forces – Decentralize communities to counter the problems that emerge when few organizations are overly relied upon as centralized actors in recovery. While community ecology and institutional theories examine particular populations of organizations within sectors, stakeholder theory recognizes that interorganizational networks are made up of cross-sector relationships. We thus turn next to stakeholder theory, which considers particular issues like disasters that bring communities of organizations together through their joint interest in a problem at hand.

8 Stakeholder theory and resilient work Stakeholder theory was initially associated with understanding the extent of a firm’s relationship with its external environment and the role played or impact made by a firm’s stakeholders; customers, suppliers, labor unions, professional associations, the media and interest groups such as environmental or civil rights organizations (Freeman 1984; Freeman, Harrison, Wicks, Parmar, and de Colle 2010). Recent extensions of stakeholder theory emphasize: (a) the networked nature of these relationships; (b) the balancing of competing interests; and (c) the importance of participation and collaboration among stakeholders addressing complex issues such as a crisis or disaster (Deetz 1992, 1995; Rowley 1997; Strand and Freeman 2015). Deetz argued for a stakeholder framework that moves beyond value chains and strategic alliances (Porter and Kramer 2011) to a focus on collaborative communication across sectors, with each stakeholder considering the interrelated set of organizational issues, interorganizational relationships, and social concerns on which each stakeholder is focused. These multi-stakeholder relationships may generate more collaborative and participative processes of decision-making and governance (Deetz 1992, 1995). Stakeholders engage each other through a network of communication practices including meetings, digital communication, and face to face encounters. These communication practices in turn initiate connections or relationships among organizations with different sets of skills, expertise, competencies, information, or material resources (Monge and Contractor 2003). When organizations engage in relationships with other organizations, those relationships are inherently networked because each organization may have a set of partnerships and those partners, themselves, have their own unique partnerships in a series of overlapping and expanding social networks that make up an overall cross-sector stakeholder community (Rowley 1997). These relationships may create a set of practices within a community or organizational population that reflect shared values or norms, adoption of best or common practices, or even coercive control by key organizations such as funders (Doerfel,



Crisis communication and organizational resilience 

 331

Atouba, and Harris 2016). Different cities or communities may have different norms and practices that reflect the particular experiences or expertise of the community or its civic networks. The adoption of specific practices may also be driven by key funders or prominent nonprofits. So, communities may engage in institutionalized processes in much the same ways organizations do (as discussed in the above section). To wit, the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities Program has advocated for particular resilience strategies (“Resilience,” 2016; Rodin 2014). The program recommends and funds the appointment of Chief Resilience Officers in large cities, providing training for the officers and supporting institutionalized practices across cities. These officers share planning backgrounds and emphasize municipal or county-level resilience strategies or plans and are shaped to some extent by a funding organization, in this case the Rockefeller Foundation. Resilience work in these communities is thusly driven by public sector and foundation priorities and initiatives rather than by cross-sector priorities and experiences. Supporting such a social structure reflects communities of practice where best practices are shared, but can be overly rigid if they do not incorporate the voice of community stakeholders (Deetz 1995). Every community has some version of a civic network which emerges from a community’s cross-sector social and organizational relationships (Diani 2015; Galaskiewicz 1979, 2016). These existing civic networks play an important role in long-term recovery after disasters. Stakeholders active in existing civic networks may already have knowledge of each other’s expertise, resources, and working styles. They may also be aware of gaps in their community’s resources or expertise that requires outside organizations to fill. These outside organizations may be either regional or national disaster relief organizations or even new organizations that “pop-up” in neighborhoods and communities to address local needs that are not being addressed by larger government or nonprofit disaster response agencies. In disasters, organizations send and receive information to internal and external stakeholders to reduce uncertainty (Doerfel and Haseki 2013). They need to be efficient in generating useful and clear messages with the hope that the transmission reaches its intended audience. Moreover, organizations expect the recipients of their messages to trust the integrity of messages- is the information factual, accurate, and reliable? Finally, organizations aim to effect a response or action in direct response to the messages they send out. For example, when a community is under threat, brief text notifications are used to urge residents to take cover, evacuate, or stay alert for unfolding conditions. Likewise, employers reach their employees to announce decisions about closing, reminders about employee safety, and plans for reopening. Yet research has shown that intended audiences see such messages as equivocal, confusing, hard to believe, and not personally relevant (Bean et al. 2016). Not surprisingly, then, relationally oriented messages that are more personal and offer extended information have greater compliance by recipients, though they are limited in their efficacy since meaningful information is difficult to put into few words (e.  g., a Tweet) and is not always seen as personally salient (Wood et al. 2017). In other words, having intact

332 

 Marya L. Doerfel, Jack L. Harris, Melanie Kwestel and Minkyung Kim

relationships with stakeholders improves the efficacy of messages organizations generate. Building relationships in advance of disaster is one way organizations do resilience work before a crisis occurs (Doerfel et al. 2013; Harris and Doerfel 2017). Such a relational orientation can be perpetuated through dialogic use of social media (Kent and Taylor 2002, 2014), corporate social responsibility partnering (Deetz 1995), communities of practice (Brown and Duguid 1991), and cross-sector partnering (Shumate and O’Connor 2010). It is no surprise, then, that organizations that treat communication as information transfer without engaging relationally risk undermining their intended effects (Doerfel 2018). This is especially evident when it comes to emergency response, since people experience message fatigue, ignoring communication about the unfolding events (Stephens, Barrett, and Mahometa 2013; Stephens et al. 2017). In personal communication with a major Houston builder, for example, informants reported that many employees still came to the offices despite the office being closed and emergency alerts from myriad news outlets in addition to their employer saying ‘stay home’  – an apparently clear and unequivocal message. In explaining why employees ignored directives, an HR executive invoked those sense-making mechanisms Weick and colleagues articulated (Weick 1988, 1993; Weick and Sutcliffe 2001): the employees drew on their histories with the firm and past disasters, the firm’s cultural norms, and the firm’s reputation as a leader in its field (Informant interview, June 14, 2018). In this case, employees drew on their relationship with the firm and the culture and history of their experiences supported their interpretation of information. While the firm announced a closing, the employees interpreted that as but if you can get to work, you will act in line with our corporate culture. This behavior reflects robustness, or the ability to carry on work functioning despite threats to usual routines. Stakeholder theory underscores tensions inherent in organizational resilience: – Professionalizing resilience work through institutionalized best practices may isolate local communities and citizen voice. – Building relationships in advance of disaster mitigates stakeholders’ misinterpretation of messages but may also foster individual action that runs counter to the apparent clarity embedded in the message. This chapter has reviewed three core mechanisms of organization resilience that addresses multiple levels of interaction using the social networks theory of community ecology, institutional theory, and stakeholder theory. We next draw on the multi-theoretical and multi-level framework to describe the emerging science of resilience and its importance. The section extends crisis communication by focusing on relational processes among interorganizational networks rather than on the public relations functions normally of focus in the crisis communication literature.



Crisis communication and organizational resilience 

 333

9 The emerging science of resilience In managing resilience, organizations plan, coordinate, and mobilize networks, which, in turn, co-evolve with community infrastructures that attempt to do the same (Chewning, Lai, and Doerfel 2013; Doerfel et al. 2010; Mendonca and Wallace 2015; Monge et al. 2008). Institutional theory asserts that organizations are constituted by formally designed, often legal, relationships that bind organizations together in systems of coercive, normative, and mimetic influences. Community ecology recognizes that mechanisms that shape networks are also informal and social, including relationship quality and ability to sustain relations (Monge and Contractor 2003; Vangen and Huxham 2003). Stakeholder theory is about the coordination and communication among particular managers and decision makers who represent their organizations. These theories show how some organizations can enact resilience through professionalizing and planning resilience (institutionalization) while also fostering relationships that add to adaptability. Adaptability can be informed by bridging and bonding capital with work-arounds that interorganizational partners can help victim organizations do. Linked partners that are insiders within a field have intimate knowledge of the work the victim organizations must do. Through bridging ties, then, victim organizations glean creative information that helps them manage red tape and procedures along with engaging in other casual information sharing that occurs when relationships develop between people (Lin 1999). This chapter uses theory to explain how organizations and their communities can be resilient by employing communication strategies through social networks. Disruptions change networks, heightening communication intensity at all levels (Buzzanell 2018; Doerfel et al. 2013; Doerfel and Haseki 2013). Relational quality and the extent to which partners already know each other impact system-wide information flows and related, the way stakeholders make sense of information. The multi-theoretical approach in this chapter informs thresholds of resilience and breaking points for resilient organizations and communities. The thresholds are sustained by communication networks and organizing structures that adapt around situational needs. There is clear importance of social networks, but organizations often are stretched in their capacity to sustain those relationships. Attempting to have continuity of work in addition to working on their other disaster-related tasks can lead to breaking points for the organizations. Manufacturing companies shut down their lines; information workers may lack power and internet access to be productive; schools close, adding another layer of responsibility to the working parent’s day. For example, in the case of the construction firm described earlier in this chapter, the core disaster team conducted eight conference calls per day because information and coordination were changing that quickly. The large firm needed team members to mobilize their own units from across the firm, identify the safety of employees, and check back in with new reports and new assessments collected throughout the day. Moreover, the firm’s disaster team was connecting with stakeholders and gleaning information from public news and

334 

 Marya L. Doerfel, Jack L. Harris, Melanie Kwestel and Minkyung Kim

information sources (e.  g., neighborhood groups; community organizers) and folding that information into meaningful resources for their impacted employees. Although the team was working to support the firm, their coordinated efforts mobilized disaster response while mission-based work was set aside. Relationships that directly support and influence information availability within an organization’s community is critical, particularly when organizations are threatened by uncertainty tied to disaster recovery. When social systems experience heightened stress from disaster, resilience is a function of the workers’ ability to access information from the network (as well as to be empowered to make decisions). But those access points are relational and need to be fostered long before the disaster strikes. Resilient systems must be able to make sequential use of information and communication technologies to manage public information (Bean et al. 2016; Chewning et al. 2013; Doerfel and Haseki 2013; Stephens et al. 2017). Different organizations and individuals are responsible for different types of operations and an organization’s recovery. The strength of stakeholder relationships, as observed by a firm’s social networks, influences their knowledge of other organizations’ or individuals’ actions during recovery. Stronger social networks decrease the uncertainty (or, equivalently, increase the information level) within an organization’s decision-making environment, thus enabling better recovery decisions to aid in overall recovery. However, information overload can blur the ability to recognize useful and reliable information and sources of that information (Stephens et al. 2017). As with post-Katrina research (Doerfel et al. 2013, 2010), in Houston some organizations found success in far more efficiently structured relationships while others appeared to “leave no stone unturned” in seeking out informational support yet reaped little; their networks were over-populated with minimally useful information. This illustrates the assertion that striking a balance between bridging and bonding social capital allows organizations to avoid the inefficient and ineffective “leaving no stone unturned” approach to managing the disaster situation. Effective stakeholder relationships help insulate and buffer organizations from the uncertainty and disruption surrounding crisis and disaster. These relationships are often established through a process of observation and evaluation in which organizations assess the similarities, characteristics, and working styles of potential organizational partners (Atouba and Shumate 2010, 2015). That is, in the language of community ecology, fit links “stick” while unfit ones dissipate. The “flexibility” of a social network to reorganize after a disruption is a key component of that network’s strength, but flexibility can be overloaded when individuals lack the capacity to sustain those relationships. The breaking points can be caused by information and communication technology outages but also when leaders and employees of the organization, themselves, must divert their attention to their own families (Doerfel et al. 2010). Information overloads that stress the networks, which in turn, stress the organizations impacted by disaster can include equivocality of information from emergency response agencies and organizations, prioritizing short rather



Crisis communication and organizational resilience 

 335

than long term thinking, or lacking the personnel to perform daily organizational tasks because the personnel, themselves, are managing their own resilience. These breaking points reflect the multi-level organizing mechanisms of resilience and the blending of physical, social, and organizational processes needed for organizational survival. Critical infrastructure needs to be in place (do phones work?), employees’ homes and families must be stabilized (is everyone accounted for?), but an organization’s external relationships must be supportive as well.

10 Conclusion This chapter adopted a multi-theoretical framework to explain the underlying mechanisms that support resilient organizations. We use theory and cases to show how communication and networked processes support resilience work or can instead generate inert and rigid organizations and communities which in turn, are less resilient. There are inherent tensions to this framework. On one hand, professionalizing and institutionalizing best practices provides organizations, communities, and their constituents plans and guidelines in anticipation of future disaster. Such plans and frameworks, however, are as beneficial as the stakeholder relationships within which those plans get enacted. As such, resilience is not a static state. Resilient organizations do resilience work that is communicative, dynamic, and interdependent with stakeholders through communities that embody resilience in similarly communicative and dynamic ways.

References After Hurricane Harvey. 2018. Retrieved November 25, 2018, from http://www.homelesshouston.org/ after-hurricane-harvey/anniversary/ Agarwal, V., and Buzzanell, P. M. 2015. Communicative Reconstruction of Resilience Labor: Identity/ Identification in Disaster-Relief Workers. Journal of Applied Communication Research 43(4). 408–428. Aldrich, D. P. 2012. Building resilience: social capital in post-disaster recovery. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. Aldrich, D. P., and Meyer, M. A. 2015. Social Capital and Community Resilience. American Behavioral Scientist 59(2). 254–269. Atouba, Y. C., and Shumate, M. 2010. Interorganizational networking patterns among development organizations. Journal of Communication 60(2). 293–317. Atouba, Y. C., and Shumate, M. 2015. International nonprofit collaboration: examining the role of homophily. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 44(3). 587–608. Bean, H., Liu, B. F., Madden, S., Sutton, J., Wood, M. M., and Mileti, D. S. 2016. Disaster Warnings in Your Pocket: How Audiences Interpret Mobile Alerts for an Unfamiliar Hazard. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 24(3). 136–147.

336 

 Marya L. Doerfel, Jack L. Harris, Melanie Kwestel and Minkyung Kim

Bennett, W. L., and Segerberg, A. 2013. The logic of connective action: Digital media and the personalization of contentious politics. New York: Cambridge University Press. Benoit, W. L., and Drew, S. 1997. Appropriateness and effectiveness of image repair strategies. Communication Reports 10(2). 153–163. Botan, C. H. 2006. Grand strategy, strategy and tactices in public relations. In C. H. Botan and V. Hazleton (eds.), Public relations theory II, 223–247. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Brown, J. S., and Duguid, P. 1991. Organizational learning and communities-of-practice: Toward a unified view of working, learning, and innovation. Organization Science 2(1). 40–57. Bryant, J. A., and Monge, P. R. 2008. The evolution of the children’s television community, 1953–2003. International Journal of Communication 2. 160–192. Burt, R. S. 1992. Structural holes:The social structure of competition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Buzzanell, P. M. 2018. Organizing resilience as adaptive-transformational tensions. Journal of Applied Communication Research 46(1). 14–18. Carroll, J., and Polson, J. 2010, September 8. BP says Transocean, Halliburton share blame in spill. Retrieved November 24, 2018, from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-09-08/ bp-says-transocean-halliburton-have-to-share-blame-for-gulf-oil-explosion Chewning, L. V., Lai, C.-H., and Doerfel, M. L. 2013. Communication technologies to rebuild communication structures. Management Communication Quarterly. Coombs, W. T. 2007. Protecting Organization Reputations During a Crisis: The Development and Application of Situational Crisis Communication Theory. Corporate Reputation Review 10(3). 163–176. Coombs, W. T. 2012. Ongoing crisis communication: Planning, managing, and responding. 3rd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Coombs, W. T., and Holladay, S. J. 2006. Unpacking the halo effect: Reputation and crisis management. Journal of Communication Management 2. 123–137. Danowski, J. A., Barnett, G. A., and Friedland, M. H. 1987. Interorganizational networks via shared public relations firms’ centrality, diversity, media coverage, and publics’ images. In M. L. McLaughlin (ed.), Communication yearbook 10, 808–830. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Deetz, S.  A. 1992. Democracy in an age of corporate colonization: Developments in communciation and the politics of everyday life. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Deetz, S.  A. 1995. Transforming Communication Transforming Business: Building Responsive and Responsible Workplaces. Cresskill NJ: Hampton Press Inc. Diani, M. 2015. The Cement of Civil Society: Studying Networks in Localities. New York: Cambridge University Press. DiMaggio, P. J., and Powell, W. W. 1983. The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review 48(2). 147–160. Doerfel, M. L. 2016. Networked forms of organizing, disaster-related disruptions, and public health. In T. R. Harrison and E. A. Williams (eds.), Organizations, communication, and health, 365–383. New York: Routledge. Doerfel, M. L. 2018. Community engagement: Organizing and communicating in interorganizational networks. In K. Johnston and M. Taylor (eds.), Handbook of communication engagement, 233–252. John Wiley & Sons. Doerfel, M. L., Atouba, Y., and Harris, J. L. 2016. (Un)Obtrusive Control in Emergent Networks. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 0899764016664588. Doerfel, M. L., Chewning, L. V., and Lai, C.-H. 2013. The evolution of networks and the resilience of interorganizational relationships after disaster. Communication Monographs 80(4). 533–559.



Crisis communication and organizational resilience 

 337

Doerfel, M. L., and Harris, J. L. 2017. The communication and social network FLOWS approach for disruption preparedness. In Proceedings for the International Conference on Disaster Management. Seville, Spain. Doerfel, M. L., and Haseki, M. 2013. Networks, disrupted: Media use as an organizing mechanism for rebuilding. New Media & Society. Doerfel, M. L., Lai, C.-H., and Chewning, L. V. 2010. The evolutionary role of interorganizational communication: Modeling social capital in disaster contexts. Human Communication Research 36. 125–162. Doerfel, M. L., and Taylor, M. 2004. Network dynamics of inter organizational cooperation: The Croatian civil society movement. Communication Monographs 71. 373–394. Doerfel, M. L., and Taylor, M. 2017. The story of collective action: The emergence of ideological leaders, collective action network; eaders, and cross‐sector network partners in civil society. Journal of Communication 67(6). 920–943. European Union. 2014, October 22. Directive 2014/95/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council. Retrieved November 25, 2018, from https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/ HTML/?uri=CELEX:32014L0095&from=EN Federal Emergency Management Agency. n.d. Emergency preparedness resources for businesses (20). Retrieved November 23, 2018, from https://www.fema.gov/media-library/collections/357 Flanagin, A. J., Monge, P. R., and Fulk, J. 2001. The value of formative investment in organizational federations. Human Communication Research 27. 69–93. Freeman, R. E. 1984. Strategic management: A stakeholder approach. Boston, MA: Pitman. Freeman, R. Edward, Harrison, J. S., Wicks, A. C., Parmar, B. L., and de Colle, S. 2010. Stakeholder Theory: The State of the Art. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Ganesh, S., and Stohl, C. 2014. Community organizing, social movements, and collective action. In L. L. Putnam and D. K. Mumby (eds.), The Sage Handbook of organizational communication: Advances in theory, research, and methods, 3rd edn., 743–766. Los Angeles: Sage. Granovetter, M. S. 1983. The strength of weak ties: A network theory revisited. Sociological Theory 1. 201–233. Guo, C., and Acar, M. 2005. Understanding Collaboration Among Nonprofit Organizations: Combining Resource Dependency, Institutional, and Network Perspectives. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 34(3). 340–361. Hannan, M. T., and Freeman, J. 1977. The population ecology of organizations. The American Journal of Sociology 82. 929–964. Hannan, M. T., and Freeman, J. 1984. Structural inertia and organizational Change. American Sociological Review 49(2). 149–164. Harrald, J. R., Cohn, R., and Wallace, W. A. 1992. “We were always re-organizing …”: some crisis management implications of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Industrial Crisis Quarterly 6(3). 197–217. Harris, J. L., and Doerfel, M. L. 2017a. Interorganizational resilience: Networked collaboration in communities after disasters. In E. C. Jones, and A. Faas (eds.), Social Network Analysis of Disaster Response, Recovery, and Adaptation. 1st edn. London: Elsevier. Harris, J. L., and Doerfel, M. L. 2017b. Resilient Social Networks and Disaster-Struck Communities. In J. P. Fyke, J. Faris, and P. Buzzanell (eds.), Cases in organizational and managerial communication: Stretching boundaries. New York: Routledge. Heath, R. L., Bradshaw, J., and Lee, J. 2002. Community relationship building: Local leadership in the risk communication infrastructure. Journal of Public Relations Research 14. 317–353. Heath, Robert L. 2013. The journey to understand and champion OPR takes many roads, some not yet well traveled. Public Relations Review 39(5). 426–431. House, B. 2018, March 8. Is your small business prepared for disaster. Retrieved November 23, 2018, from https://www.inc.com/bob-house/is-your-small-business-prepared-for-disaster.html

338 

 Marya L. Doerfel, Jack L. Harris, Melanie Kwestel and Minkyung Kim

Johnson, M. T. J., and Stinchcombe, J. R. 2007. An emerging synthesis between community ecology and evolutionary biology. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 22(5). 250–257. Johnston, K. A. 2010. Community engagement: Exploring a relational approach to consultation and collaborative practice in Australia. Journal of Promotion Management 16(1). 217–234. Kelton, K., Fleischmann, K. R., and Wallace, W. A. 2009. Trust in digital information. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 59(3). 363–374. Kendra, J., and Wachtendorf, T. 2003. Elements of resilience after the World Trade Center disaster: Reconstituting New York City’s Emergency Operations Centre. Disasters 27(1). 37–53. Kendra, J., and Wachtendorf, T. 2016. American Dunkirk: The Waterborne Evacuation of Manhattan on 9/11. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Kent, M. L., and Taylor, M. 2002. Toward a dialogic theory of public relations. Public Relations Review 28. 21–37. Kent, M. L., and Taylor, M. 2014. Dialogic engagement: Clarifying foundational concepts. Journal of PUblic Relations Research 26. 384–398. Kreps, G. A. 1984. Sociological inquiry and disaster research. Annual Review of Sociology 10. 309–330. Krishna, A., Kim, S., and Shim, K. 2018. Unpacking the Effects of Alleged Gender Discrimination in the Corporate Workplace on Consumers’ Affective Responses and Relational Perceptions. Communication Research, 0093650218784483. Lai, C.-H., Tao, C.-C., and Cheng, Y.-C. 2017. Modeling Resource Network Relationships Between Response Organizations and Affected Neighborhoods After a Technological Disaster. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations. Lammers, J. C., and Barbour, J. B. 2016. An institutional theory of organizational communication. Communication Theory 16(3). 356–377. Lee, S., and Monge, P. R. 2011. The coevolution of multiplex communication networks in organizational communities. Journal of Communication 61. 758–799. Lin, N. 1999. Building a network theory of social capital. Connections 22(1). 28–51. Maskrey, A. 2011. Revisiting community-based disaster risk management. Environmental Hazards 10(1). 42–52(11). Mendonca, D., and Wallace, W. A. 2015. Factors underlying organizational resilience: The case of electric power restoration in New York City after 11 September 2001. Reliability Engineering and System Safety 141. 83–91. Meyer, J. W., and Rowan, B. 1977. Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. Journal of Sociology 83(2). 340–363. Monge, P. R., and Contractor, N. S. 2003. Theories of communication networks. New York: Oxford University Press. Monge, P. R., Heiss, B. M., and Margolin, D. B. 2008. Communication Network Evolution in Organizational Communities. Communication Theory 18(4). 449–477. Porter, M. E., and Kramer, M. 2011. Creating Shared Value. Harvard Business Review (January– February). 4–17. Provan, K. G., and Milward, H. B. 1995. A preliminary theory of network effectiveness: A comparative study of four community health systems. Administrative Science Quarterly 40(1). 1–33. Proven, K. G., Fish, A., and Sydow, J. 2007. Interorganizational networks at the network level: A review of the empirical literature on whole networks. Journal of Management 33(3). 479–516. Resilience: Helping cities, organizations, and communities better prepare for, respond to, and transform from disruption. 2016. Retrieved July 14, 2016, from https://www. rockefellerfoundation.org/our-work/topics/resilience/ Rodin, J. 2014. The Resilience Dividend: Being Strong in a World Where Things Go Wrong. New York: PublicAffairs.



Crisis communication and organizational resilience 

 339

Rowley, T. J. 1997. Moving beyond dyadic ties: A network theory of stakeholder influences. Academy of Management 22(4). 887–910. Schermerhorn, J. R. 1975. Determinants of Interorganizational Cooperation. The Academy of Management Journal 18(4). 846–856. Schumpeter, J. A. 1934. The theory of economic development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Seeger, M. W., and Ulmer, R. R. 2003. Explaining Enron: Communication and Responsible Leadership. Management Communication Quarterly 17(1). 58–84. https://doi. org/10.1177/0893318903253436 Shumate, M., and Contractor, N. S. 2014. Emergence of multidimensional social networks. In L. L. Putnam and D. K. Mumby (eds.), The SAGE handbook of organizational communication: Advances in theory, research, and methods, 3rd edn., 449–474. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Shumate, M., and O’Connor, A. 2010. The Symbiotic Sustainability Model: Conceptualizing NGO– Corporate Alliance Communication. Journal of Communication 60. 577–609. Snyder, L. 1983. An anniversary review and critique: The tylenol crisis. Public Relations Review 9(3). 24–34. Stephens, K. K., Barrett, A. K., and Mahometa, M. J. 2013. Organizational Communication in Emergencies: Using Multiple Channels and Sources to Combat Noise and Capture Attention. Human Communication Research 39(2). 230–251. Stephens, K. K., Mandhana, D. M., Kim, J. J., Li, X., Glowacki, E. M., and Cruz, I. 2017. Reconceptualizing communication overload and building a theoretical foundation. Communication Theory 27(3). 269–289. Strand, R., and Freeman, R. E. 2015. Scandinavian cooperative advantage: The theory and practice of stakeholder engagement in Scandinavia. Journal of Business Ethics 127. 65–85. Taylor, M., and Doerfel, M. L. 2003. Building inter organizational relationships that build nations. Human Communication Research 29(2). 153–181. Taylor, M., and Doerfel, M. L. 2011. Evolving network roles in international aid efforts: Evidence from Croatia’s post-war transition. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Non Profit Organizations 22. 311–334. van de Bunt, G. G., and Groenewegen, P. 2007. An Actor-Oriented Dynamic Network Approach: The Case of Interorganizational Network Evolution. Organizational Research Methods 10(3). 463–482. Vangen, S., and Huxham, C. 2003. Nurturing Collaborative Relations: Building Trust in Interorganizational Collaboration. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 39(5). 5–31. Weber, M. S., and Monge, P. R. 2014. Industries in Turmoil: Driving Transformation During Periods of Disruption. Communication Research. Weick, K. E. 1988. Enacted sensemaking in crisis situations. Journal of Management Studies 25(4). 305–317. Weick, K. E. 1993. The collapse of sensemaking in organizations: The Mann Gulch disaster. Administrative Science Quarterly 38. 628–652. Weick, K. E., and Sutcliffe, K. M. 2001. Managing the unexpected: Assuring high performance in an age of complexity. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Whitten, S. 2016, March 15. 4 Steps to disaster-proof your business. Retrieved from https://www. cnbc.com/2015/08/27/4-steps-for-disaster-proofing-your-business.html Wood, D. J., and Gray, B. 1991. Toward a comprehensive theory of collaboration. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 27(2). 139–162. Wood, M. M., Mileti, D. S., Bean, H., Liu, B. F., Sutton, J., and Madden, S. 2017. Milling and Public Warnings. Environment and Behavior 50(5). 535–566.

340 

 Marya L. Doerfel, Jack L. Harris, Melanie Kwestel and Minkyung Kim

Yang, A., and Taylor, M. 2015. Looking over, looking out, and moving forward: Positioning public relations in theorizing organizational network ecologies. Communication Theory 25(1). 91–115. https://doi.org/10.1111/comt.12049 100 Resilient Cities: Helping cities, organizations, and communities better prepare for, respond to, and transform from disruption. 2016. Retrieved July 14, 2016, from https://www. rockefellerfoundation.org/our-work/topics/resilience/

Section IV – Interorganizational level

Shari R. Veil and Kathleen L. Ambrose

16 Fixing the broken link: Communication strategies for supply chain crises Abstract: This chapter examined exemplar supply chain crises to determine what contextual factors affected the communication strategies available to organizations and the resulting impact of those strategies on stakeholder perceptions and the organization’s reputation. The factors identified included whether (1) there were multiple suppliers; (2) the supply chain was part of the brand identity; (3) market competition shared suppliers; (4) the supply chain was national or global; and (5) consumers were directly harmed by the supply chain crisis. The analysis revealed that crises that manifest from the same supply chain risk do not necessitate the same crisis response. Due to the varying perceptions of responsibility by both the stakeholders and organizations involved in supply chain crises, communication response strategies must address both perceived and actual crisis responsibility. Keywords: supply chain, crisis responsibility, attribution theory, stakeholder theory, reputation management

1 Introduction Current business trends show growing reliance on supply chains to meet consumer demands (Natarajarathinam, Capar and Narayanan 2009). While supply chains reduce lead-time and inventory costs, they also open organizations to risk, as direct control is lost over product manufacturing and outcomes (Campi 2013). Reliance on supply chains make businesses more vulnerable to crises and loss of revenue (Masullo 2017; Powell 2011). A recent survey conducted with senior supply chain professionals found that over half of business crises were directly linked to supply chain disruptions and were predicted to continually increase (Masullo 2017). Powell (2011) found supply chain disruptions to be the most dangerous risk to an organization’s revenue drivers. The fragility of a supply chain is due to the already thin margin and schedule suppliers face—any delay or disruption has serious ramifications for organizations several steps down the chain, as well as the end users (Manuj and Metzer 2008).  Managing supply chain risk is growing in importance as organizations recognize the interdependent nature of supply chain operations and the domino effect of one disruption in the supply chain (Ritchie and Brindley 2009). Long supply chains, including global supply chains, further increase supply chain complexity and risk (Manuj and Metzer 2008) and can limit organization flexibility (Natarajarathinam et al. 2009). Identifying exactly where product failure occurred and who is responsible in a complicated supply chain can take considerable time and extend the length of a crisis. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-016

344 

 Shari R. Veil and Kathleen L. Ambrose

Due to the varying perceptions of responsibility by both the stakeholders and organizations involved in supply chain crises, crisis response strategies for these types of crises must consider both perceived and actual responsibility. Despite an organization’s lack of control over the practices and timelines of all suppliers, stakeholders will hold the organization selling the end product responsible for any product failings. Organizations must therefore communicate with stakeholders regarding perceived responsibility while determining the actual cause of the supply chain failure. This chapter argues that crisis communication in a supply chain crisis requires a more nuanced approach because the context uniquely challenges stakeholder attributions of responsibility. Research on supply chains originates mostly from business and management journals, offering insight into proper management of supply chains (Blackhurst and Wu 2009; Powell 2011; Zuckerman 2002), risks inherent in the use of supply chains (Chapman, Christopher, Jüttner, Peck and Wilding 2002; Ritchie and Brindley 2009; Natarajarathinam et al. 2009), and other internal organizational objectives regarding supply chain management (Blackhurst and Wu 2009; Gaudenzi and Borghesi 2006; Ritchie and Brindley 2009; Zuckerman 2002). However, research thus far does not account for stakeholder perceptions of organizational responsibility or offer communication strategies for responding to a supply chain crisis. Hittle and Leonard (2011) call for further examination of supply chain crisis management to improve organizational functioning and stakeholder relations. This chapter answers that call by critically examining exemplar supply chain crises to determine what factors, specific to each organization’s supply chain, affected the communication strategies available to the organization and the resulting impact of those strategies on stakeholder perceptions and the organization’s reputation. In the following section, we discuss supply chain risk and the applicable theories that highlight the distinct communication challenges of supply chain crises.

2 A theoretical framework for understanding supply chain crisis communication Supply chains function to meet customer demand through an interconnected system of suppliers, production facilities, and related systems working toward production of a final product (Stock and Boyer 2009). Prioritizing efficiency, supply chains attempt to meet consumer demands while maintaining low inventory costs. Despite the clear benefits of supply chains, financial executives in both the United States and Europe rank supply chains as one of the top three business risk areas (Ritchie and Brindley 2009). A global supply chain introduces further complexity with greater numbers of suppliers to manage and various international constraints (Manuj and Mentzer 2008).



Fixing the broken link: Communication strategies for supply chain crises 

 345

Risks to supply chains can be divided into internal, external, and network risks (Chapman et al. 2002). Examples of internal risk include production issues, structural defects, labor concerns, and IT-related incidents. External risks include political and legal influences, natural disasters, social factors and marketing risks. Network related risks are the interactions among the organizations involved in the supply chain (Chapman et al. 2002; Natarajarathinam et al. 2009). Each risk type has the potential to result in a supply chain disruption, and potentially a supply chain crisis for which an organization must answer. Crisis communication research explores the role of communication before, during and after a crisis to better understand the impact of organizational response on the onset of and recovery from a crisis (Coffelt, Smith, Sollitto and Payne 2010). Effective crisis management involves operational recovery or sustainment, minimizing stakeholder and organizational losses, and learning from past experiences (Miller and Horsley 2009; Pearson and Clair 1998). Crises also require a communicative response to address stakeholder concerns. According to Heath and Millar (2004), “each crisis has an actual dimension and a perceived dimension” (Heath and Millar: 6). Individuals are active in interpreting the interactions and events that occur and engage in sensemaking (Weick and Sutcliff 2001). The process of interpretation is done in order to both garner understanding, as well as establish control of the environment in which the individual exists. In the instance of an organizational crisis, impacted stakeholders are likely to engage in interpretation to make sense of the changing environment and determine at-fault parties (Coombs 2007). 

2.1 Stakeholder theory For an organization to successfully manage a crisis, it must consider critical relationships with stakeholders, or publics with an actual or perceived tie to the organization (Freeman and Gilbert 1987). Such a perspective can “mean the difference between continued organizational successes and organizational failures” (Pearson and Clair 1998: 71). Waymer and Heath (2007: 88) suggest a greater focus on the “voices of the affected publics, those whose interests are part or most of the reason why the subject organization is suffering a crisis and in need of responding to public and media inquiry.” A stakeholder approach is utilized for both strategic and moral reasons. Strategically, consideration of all stakeholders can lead to better crisis outcomes. Morally, a consideration of all stakeholders, not just those recognized as impactful to the bottom line, is a more ethically strong organizational practice (Ulmer 2001). An understanding of stakeholder perceptions regarding the attribution of responsibility and control in the crisis is necessary for successful crisis response.

346 

 Shari R. Veil and Kathleen L. Ambrose

2.2 Attribution theory Heider (1958) developed attribution theory to examine the human tendency to attach meaning to individual behaviors both within oneself and others. When an individual deems a cause to their own or others’ behaviors, they determine an attribution (Littlejohn, Foss and Oetzel 2017). A focus on attribution of responsibility deviates from the perceiver seeking cause of an action and focuses more on the human desire to assign responsibility for the behavior or outcome (Manusov and Spitzberg 2008). The more responsibility an organization is perceived to have in regard to the crisis, the greater the negative stakeholder perception of the organization (Coombs 2007; Manusov and Spitzberg 2008).  The stakeholders’ perception of organizational responsibility in a supply chain crisis is more important than the actual responsibility the organization has for the cause of the crisis. After all, it is stakeholders’ perception of the crisis that will ultimately affect the organization’s reputation.

2.3 Organizational reputation Reputation is formed through “interactions and communication between organizations and stakeholders” (Coombs and Holladay 2006: 124; Fombrun and van Riel 2003), but if an organization is not forthcoming regarding their reliance on a supply chain, stakeholders may not include suppliers in their perception of the organization. Organizations may be perceived as singular entities even though the realities of an increasingly outsourced world should provide for an expanded view of the organization. In a supply chain crisis, organizations must answer as the sole responsible party for multiple entities’ actions that impact reputation. Barnett and Hoffman (2008) called for research regarding reputation beyond the traditional definition of singular corporate action. They examined reputation in relation to other organizations, asserting that the actions of one organization can impact another organization’s reputation since “the company you keep affects the company you keep” (Barnett and Hoffman: 1). Veil, Dillingham, and Sloan (2016) described this specific type of reputation threat as a spillover crisis: when “events in an external organization create concern, uncertainty, or perceptions of harm for another organization” (Veil et al. 2016: 317). In a spillover crisis, an organization receives reputational damage, or negative spillover, due to a similar organization’s actions (see Chapter 17 in this handbook).  While both supply chain crises and spillover crises deal with stakeholder perceptions of organizational responsibility, it is important to note a key distinguishing factor between the two, the element of control. In a spillover crisis an organization is unable to control the happenings of an outside but related organization. A supply chain crisis, on the other hand, is directly related to the organization as a member of its supply chain has caused the crisis. Responding to crises that involve supply chains



Fixing the broken link: Communication strategies for supply chain crises 

 347

and multiple identities that could create negative spillover effects complicates theory predicated on a singular organizational identity and reputation, such as situational crisis communication theory (SCCT).

2.4 Situational crisis communication theory Organizations can engage in crisis response strategies to frame attributions of crisis responsibility, influence stakeholder perceptions, and reduce the negative reputational effects generated by crisis (Coombs 1995, 2007). Grounded in attribution theory, SCCT offers a communication framework to manage reputational effects of crisis on an organization (see Chapter 5 in this handbook). According to SCCT, individuals consider an organization’s crisis history, prior relational reputation, and initial crisis responsibility when attributing crisis responsibility (Coombs 2007). The greater the level of responsibility attributed to an organization, the more damaging the crisis will be to organizational reputation (Coombs 1995, 2006). A poor prior relational reputation with stakeholders and/or a history of similar crises will intensify attributions of responsibility and further increase reputational threat (Coombs 2007).  Coombs (2006) suggests that “an appropriate crisis response strategy matches the level of reputational damage generated by the crisis situation with the ‘protective powers’ of the crisis response strategies” (Coombs 2006: 245). These protective powers refer to the “ability to create perceptions of the organization taking responsibility for the crisis and aiding victims” (Coombs 2006: 255). In other words, if crisis response strategies are selected according to stakeholder perceptions of responsibility, the aligned response has the potential to positively impact the organization’s reputation and improve the crisis situation. Accordingly, organizations that select strategies that do not align with stakeholder assessments of control and responsibility will not benefit from the “protective powers” that would be offered by an aligned response strategy. While SCCT offers an effective framework to determine crisis response, the theory does not account for crises where responsibility is obscured. Supply chain crises are generally not under the direct control of an organization, but if the organization does not attune to the unique stakeholder perceptions regarding the organization as the at-fault party, the correct crisis response strategy will not be selected. This next section critically examines exemplar supply chain crises to determine what factors, specific to each organization’s supply chain, affected the communication strategies available to the organization and the resulting impact of those strategies on the organization’s reputation. The cases were selected for analysis because they were relatively current, represented varying industries and supply chain risk types, and were newsworthy at their time of occurrence.

348 

 Shari R. Veil and Kathleen L. Ambrose

3 Exemplar supply chain crisis cases To establish timelines and understand key elements and themes in the cases, a Google News search was initiated for articles regarding the impacted products and brands in each supply chain crisis. The articles retrieved were reviewed for relevant information and links to additional articles with new information were followed until no new information was uncovered. A case summary was written and then modified based on additional case evidence from organizational press releases and government documents. The cases were categorized into the supply chain risk types and then analyzed to identify factors affecting the communication strategies available to the organization and the resulting impact of those strategies on stakeholder perceptions and the organization’s reputation.

3.1 Internal supply chain risks According to Chapman et al. (2002), internal supply chain risks include production issues, structural defects, labor concerns, and IT-related incidents. The following supply chain crises experienced by King Nut and Kellogg, Chipotle, and Samsung were all caused by internal supply chain risks and resulted in faulty products endangering the health and wellbeing of consumers. However, the nuances of each case demonstrate how contextual factors such as having multiple suppliers, a brand identity inclusive of the supply chain, and shared suppliers in an intense market competition may determine the communication strategies available to organizations in crisis and affect stakeholder perceptions of crisis responsibility and organizational reputation.

3.1.1 King Nut and Kellogg In 2009, a Salmonella outbreak resulted in a recall of over 3,900 peanut products from more than 200 brands. The cause of the outbreak was peanut paste produced by Peanut Corporation of America (PCA), which supplied peanut paste to a wide-range of companies all over the world (Andrews 2012). PCA, a link in each impacted organization’s supply chain, failed to maintain proper facilities and follow through on safety checks, resulting in widespread Salmonella contamination (McCoy 2015). PCA’s failings forced companies to recall products and address stakeholder perceptions of crisis responsibility. King Nut, the first organization implicated in the Salmonella outbreak, released a statement saying “King Nut does not supply any of the ingredients for the peanut butter distributed under its label” and that all recalled peanut butter was “manufactured by Peanut Corporation of America” (CNN 2009). Because PCA was the sole supplier for the contaminated peanut butter, King Nut was able to name PCA as the



Fixing the broken link: Communication strategies for supply chain crises 

 349

at-fault party, deflecting blame and framing King Nut as a victim of a supply chain crisis in its first statement. Kellogg, one of the largest companies affected, was unable to immediately distance itself from the crisis due to having multiple peanut paste suppliers for its products (Kellogg 2009a). Kellogg had to engage in a multi-phased response including a precautionary hold and voluntary recall before an expanded recall was issued. Similar to King Nut, Kellogg named PCA as the responsible party and utilized victim rhetoric to diminish crisis responsibility. However, Kellogg was forced to deal with the outbreak longer than King Nut. Kellogg’s multiple suppliers for the same ingredient complicated and extended the process of identifying which products should be recalled. Having multiple suppliers allows for flexibility within a supply chain, an objective Gaudenzi and Borghesi (2006) identify as important to supply chain management. If one supplier is unable to produce the necessary product, another supplier of the same product can pick up the slack. However, as demonstrated by Kellogg, the comingling of suppliers leads to additional complications and greater risk when a supply chain crisis occurs and the source of the crisis must be identified. The amount of time an organization must spend associated with the supply chain crisis increases while the source of the crisis is correctly identified within the intermixed supply chain. The extended length of the crisis increases stakeholder perceptions of crisis responsibility and negative impacts on organizational reputation.

3.1.2 Chipotle Chipotle faced a similar supply chain crisis involving foodborne illness and multiple suppliers. However, as a franchise with more than 2400 locations, locally owned and supplied with local products, Chipotle also experienced negative spillover effects wherein an outbreak in one franchise location affected the reputation of other franchise locations even though the locations used completely different suppliers for produce. Late in 2015 the Chipotle brand experienced what Veil and Anthony (2017: 141) describe as a compounding crisis, “a crisis that occurs in close succession to another (potentially unrelated) crisis before an organization has had the opportunity to rebuild legitimacy.” The crisis started with a norovirus outbreak at a California Chipotle franchise location in August 2015. Then, in September, 22 Chipotle locations in Minnesota used tomatoes contaminated with Salmonella (Zuraw 2015). In November, an E. coli outbreak affected consumers in 11 states in the US. Despite food and environmental testing done by Chipotle and the US Food and Drug Administration, no link was ever discovered regarding where in the supply chain the E. coli originated (Brumfield, Sutton, Kounang and Christensen 2015). Finally, in December 2015 another norovirus outbreak originated from a Boston, Massachusetts Chipotle. In contrast to Chipotle’s tagline “Food With Integrity” and claims differentiating the chain from other fast food options with quality, “real” ingredients, Chipot-

350 

 Shari R. Veil and Kathleen L. Ambrose

le’s response to the crisis involved conditional claims of responsibility. Restaurants were closed “out of an abundance of caution” while Chipotle continued to follow “its already high standards for food safety” (Chipotle 2015). SCCT recommends diminishing strategies should only be used when organizations have low attributions of crisis responsibility and no history of similar crises (Coombs 2007). The series of outbreaks and the crisis response were not in line with Chipotle’s brand reputation, creating an expectation gap when stakeholders’ expectations for food quality and organizational transparency were not met (Coombs 2007). Finally, the CEO of Chipotle, Steve Ells, made an appearance on the Today Show and issued a full page letter in news outlets distributed around the country publically apologizing to those who had fallen ill and informing stakeholders of a food safety program he claimed would exceed industry norms (Berfield 2015). In addition to the new food safety initiatives, the organization held a Food Safety Day in February 2016. Stores around the country shut down to train employees on the improved food safety techniques (Williams 2016). Despite these corrective actions, in July 2017 Chipotle experienced another norovirus outbreak in Virginia that sickened over 130 customers (Peterson 2017). Market analysts deemed Chipotle stock as high-risk in the restaurant category “in part due to the health-related challenges that clearly have not fully dissipated” (Peterson 2017). Chipotle’s reputation was shaped by their choice of supply chain and the brand identity of using local suppliers and ingredient transparency. Even though the compounding crisis was caused by multiple breaks in the supply chain at unrelated franchise locations, because the localized supply chain was part of Chipotle’s identity, stakeholders perceived Chipotle as the cause of the crises and were not satisfied until Chipotle took full responsibility for the compounding crisis events.

3.1.3 Samsung Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 also fell under the category of internal supply chain risk, but differed in industry and outcome from King Nut, Kellogg, and Chipotle as it did not deal with foodborne illness issues. In August 2016 the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was released in the United States and South Korea. Less than one week after being placed on the market, reports surfaced regarding batteries overheating and phones exploding (Pak and Young 2016). The United States Federal Aviation Association and the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a ban on all Galaxy Note 7  s on aircrafts and suggested consumers discontinue use of the phone (Dolcourt 2017). Samsung issued a global recall for over 2.5 million phones and offered customers a replacement phone that was built using a different battery supplier. However, Samsung yet again faced reports of batteries overheating and phones exploding (Pak and Young 2016). Samsung discontinued the production of the Galaxy Note 7 and advised consumers to stop using the device. Estimations show the company



Fixing the broken link: Communication strategies for supply chain crises 

 351

lost upwards of $5 billion due to this supply chain crisis (Brody 2016; Dolcourt 2017). Samsung’s own manufacturing company, Samsung SDI, was responsible for about two thirds of the batteries used in the initial release of the Galaxy Note. Samsung SDI also supplied batteries to other top brands, including Apple (Spieler 2016), whose devices were not overheating. The replacement Note 7  s used a battery made by different supplier but still overheated. Thus, Samsung could not say for certain that the battery was the root cause of the exploding phones. The fact that two different battery suppliers resulted in the same defect disabled the corporation from placating stakeholders that the issue was that of a supplier (Lopez 2017). In January 2017, Samsung’s President of Mobile Communications Business offered apologies on behalf of the company to consumers, distributors, mobile operators and all others impacted by the Galaxy Note 7 incidents (Samsung 2017a). The consistency of defect across suppliers indicated “either an engineering mistake or lack of specificity at play within the product design level” (Lopez 2017, para. 5). Further blame was placed on Samsung as other phone makers that utilized the SDI battery did not experience similar issues. In addition, the release date of the Galaxy Note 7 was presumed to be rushed in order to beat the competing iPhone 7 release date and be on the market for holiday buyers, leading to reduced quality control measures (Brody 2016). Lopez and McKevitt (2017) cite just-in-time production, pressures from competition and poor quality control as the downfalls in the Galaxy Note 7 production. “Rather than leveraging their supply chain as a competitive advantage, Samsung’s speed-to-market ended up costing them customer loyalty, brand reputation, and sales” (Brody 2016, para. 4). In a press release announcing the Galaxy Note 8 features, Samsung included a safety reassurance to potential customers stating “The Galaxy Note 8’s battery has undergone Samsung’s 8-Point Battery Safety Check—the most rigorous in the industry” (Samsung 2017b). In September 2017, Samsung announced greater Note 8 sales in the United States than previous Note devices in the same time period (Samsung 2017c). While Samsung was limited in its ability to identify a cause for the overheating, the organization never specifically named suppliers and accepted responsibility for the crisis. The organization’s use of corrective action, through publicized enhanced safety measures, seemed to assuage loyal Note users to continue use of Samsung products.

3.2 External supply chain risks External risks include political and legal influences, natural disasters, social factors, and marketing risks (Chapman et al. 2002). The two supply chain crises examined with this risk type were both caused by natural disasters. 2017’s Hurricane Harvey in Houston, Texas negatively impacted the energy sector and the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that impacted Fukashima, Japan strained the automobile sector.

352 

 Shari R. Veil and Kathleen L. Ambrose

The gulf area near Houston is responsible for almost one third of the United State’s capacity to “turn oil into gas, diesel and other products” while Fukashima, Japan, a hub for the automobile production industry, produces 60 percent of the world’s supply of critical auto parts (Disis, Egan and Isidore 2017). Both disasters demonstrated the increased risk of reliance on one region for production in an industry. The responses were also similar for both crises, prioritizing compassion for impacted lives and employee safety before discussing production concerns. However, media coverage of stakeholders’ response to delays caused by the crises differed considerably. Following Hurricane Harvey, despite rising gasoline prices nationwide and shortages of essential chemical products, public response focused more on the impact of the disaster with the shortages as a minor side note. Following the Tohoku earthquake, however, public response focused on the production delays Toyota was experiencing and the impact on Toyota inventory. The stakeholder responses to Harvey and Tohoku point toward differing expectations for national versus global supply chains.

3.2.1 Hurricane Harvey Hurricane Harvey made landfall in south-central Texas as a Category 4 hurricane with 130-mph winds that threatened the Gulf Coast energy sector (Disis, Egan and Isidore 2017). Impacted areas, including Houston and Corpus Christi, contained key oil drilling, refining, and chemical manufacturing facilities, as well as some of America’s largest seaports. Two of the largest oil refineries in the United States, Motiva’s Port Arthur refinery and Exxon Mobil’s Baytown refinery were shut down due to flooding (DiChristopher 2017; Disis, Egan and Isidore 2017). Other major corporations including Shell, Phillips 66, Marathon, Valero, Citgo and Petrobras also shut down refineries, suspended production or operated at reduced capacity in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey (DiChristopher 2017). With the energy sector localized in one region, the impact of the disaster caused major disruptions along the supply chain as gas prices increased (Koenig 2017). Facility shutdowns also led to a shortage of a major petrochemical component essential for the production of plastics and industrial goods, ethylene. Texas produces nearly three quarters of the United States supply of ethylene (Kaskey 2017). Ethylene and its subsidiary products account for a huge portion of the global chemical sales so even a slight disturbance to the supply chain “will dramatically tighten supply-demand balances” (Kaskey 2017). One such impact can be seen with Newell Brands, makers of such products as Rubbermaid containers, Elmer’s Glue, Sharpies and Coleman Grills. The corporation announced a projected drop in 2017 earnings due to a resin shortage and soaring resin prices, a result of ethylene shortages (Terlep 2017). Responses from impacted corporations such as ExxonMobil, Shell, Citgo, Phillips 66, Marathon, and Valero were uniform in response strategy of first expressing condolences for impacted stakeholders and employees before discussing refinery



Fixing the broken link: Communication strategies for supply chain crises 

 353

shutdowns and distribution issues, if such issues were mentioned at all. Corporations also took to expressing compassion for communities through donations of millions of dollars to Harvey relief efforts and implementation of employee volunteer involvement programs. While corporations released statements regarding Harvey, the acceptance of responsibility for the supply chain crisis, as previously seen in other supply chain crises, was replaced by expressions of condolences to affected stakeholders and promises of assistance to those impacted in the area. Stakeholder responses included phrasing of compassion in the face of the natural disaster with such reminders as “the effect on energy commodities does not compare to the devastation to the lives of millions” and “as we pay more at the pump, perhaps we will think of those who are rebuilding in Houston, Rockport and Corpus Christi and remember to help as we can” within articles chronicling rising gas prices and supply chain disruptions (Wald 2017). A Market Watch article that detailed dropping energy stocks in the face of Harvey, first acknowledge the deceased and displaced residents and the image supporting the article was one of flood victims at a Houston shelter with a compassionate caption underneath (Assis 2017). The force majeure clause, included in supplier contracts, relieves one or both parties of obligations for fulfillment in the case of an “act of God” such as a natural disaster. During Hurricane Harvey, it seemed the stakeholder response adhered to a similar clause of relieving corporations of responsibility for fulfillment when a natural disaster strikes. Both public and corporate responses utilized compassionate rhetoric toward the impacted lives of those in the Gulf Coast area and refrained from placing blame on the refineries unable to meet public need for gasoline. While clear that stakeholders demand an identifiable source of blame during a supply chain crisis, in the case of Hurricane Harvey, the storm itself was an acceptable source of blame for the supply shortages and rising prices of gasoline.

3.2.2 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami On March 11, 2011 a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami struck Japan’s northeast coast, endangering millions and killing tens of thousands (CNN 2011; CNN 2017). In addition to the devastating impact on human lives and the environmental concerns of radioactive elements, supply chains around the world faced major strains (Newswise 2012). Experts stated the disaster in Japan presented a first-of-its kind challenge for global supply chains, as multiple suppliers were located in the same impacted region (Lohr 2011; Tajitsu and Yamazaki 2016). In particular, the city of Fukashima contained several manufacturing facilities for the production of motor vehicles. Toyota faced devastating financial impacts following the Tohoku earthquake. In efforts to reduce inventory and costs, Toyota pioneered the just-in-time manufacturing model in which manufacturers maintain low levels of inventory and rely on the supply

354 

 Shari R. Veil and Kathleen L. Ambrose

chain to deliver the necessary parts “just in time” for production (Power 2011; Tajitsu and Yamazaki 2016). This lean production model has been adopted by many global manufacturers but proved to be risky and particularly vulnerable to crises, especially natural disasters. A leading supply chain consultant, Bob Ferarri, questioned if “the quest of lowest-cost production and hyper-lean supply chains [had] overridden and exposed vulnerability to significant business risk” following the earthquake and tsunami (Powell 2011, para. 8). Lohr (2011) suggested the aftermath of Tohoku would prompt companies to re-evaluate their manufacturing methods and perhaps switch to a lower risk supply chain with additional inventory and backup suppliers. Due to the large number of factory shut downs and the lean inventory approach, by the end of May Toyota had lost the production of almost one million vehicles, 550,000 in Japan and 350,000 overseas, and saw January-March profits fall by over 75 percent (Kageyama 2011). Overall, Toyota faced over “$1.3 billion in losses attributed to production delays and losses from its suppliers” (Newswise 2012: para. 15). Corporate response following the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami was similar to corporate responses seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in the expressions of condolences and compassion to those impacted and prioritizing employee safety. Similarly to the CEO of Shell publishing an open letter to those impacted by Harvey, the president of Toyota released a letter offering his sympathies in the aftermath of the disaster (Toyota 2011a). These responses differed, however, in the immediacy of reporting on supplier delays and the regularity of updates on production delays and status of facilities. Information regarding North American production and dealership delays was particularly recurrent. The first press release from Toyota, on the day of the earthquake and tsunami, reported plant shut downs, the safety of their employees and that the corporation was “currently assessing the situation at our suppliers, dealers and the impact on North American import vehicles” (Toyota 2011b: para. 7). Similar to those released by energy corporations following Harvey, Toyota press releases highlighted the altruistic donations of millions of dollars to relief efforts and encouraged volunteerism. These statements, however, differed again from impacted Harvey corporations by acknowledgement of production delays and concern for supplier issues, particularly those that would impact North American production. On April 15, 2011 Toyota offered apologies to consumers “for not being able to build every vehicle to meet their desire specifications due to limited parts” (Toyota 2011c). The corporate response regarding production delays and shortages following a natural disaster differed for Toyota as compared to Shell, Citgo, and other impacted energy corporations, indicating differing expectations of stakeholders regarding domestic natural disasters versus international natural disasters and the tolerance level for product delays as a result of these disasters. The apologetic tone Toyota adopted toward North American production delays greatly differed from anything offered by impacted corporations during Harvey. Despite Harvey’s resulting rising gasoline prices and shortages of essential chemicals such as ethylene, corporations



Fixing the broken link: Communication strategies for supply chain crises 

 355

did not need to offer timelines or apologies for delays as Toyota did following Tohoku, an arguably more severe natural disaster.

3.3 Network related risks Network related risks are caused by the interactions among the organizations involved in the supply chain (Chapman et al. 2002; Natarajarathinam et al. 2009). Both o.b. Tampons and KFC experienced supply chain crises caused by network related risk. Both cases also resulted in product shortages. Rather than the consumer receiving a faulty product, as was the case for the supply chain crises caused by internal risk, in both of these supply chain crises the consumer did not receive any products at all. Since the organization was harmed the most by the supply chain break, both organizations decided to use humor to respond to consumers regarding the missing products.

3.3.1 o.b. Tampons In 2010, o.b. Tampons began disappearing from drug store shelves. A spokesperson from o.b.’s parent company, McNeil-PPC, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, released the following statement: “o.b. tampons experienced a temporary supply interruption that has resulted in some stores being out of stock. We are working hard to bring supply back in line with demand and expect these stores to be restocked soon. We apologize to o.b. customers who may have been inconvenienced” (Binlot 2010: para. 7). Women began directly emailing the company asking where the product was and how to go about obtaining it while prices for the product skyrocketed online. A consultant and loyalty expert, Diane Durkin, offered abcNews insight as to why this product disappearance was especially sensitive, “What happens is that people get really committed to a particular comfort level and in this case it’s not only with the brand but with the product itself. This is also a very personal item, and because it’s so personal people want the comfort. This is not something you fool around with” (Cohen 2010). In response to the outrage, o.b. Tampons came out with a customizable apology video that utilized popular culture romantic clichés of love and deep regret to apologize to customers for their inconvenience as well as offering a two dollar discount on their next purchase. The video enabled customers to write their name before playing so that the video was directed specifically at them. The video went viral and not only placated disgruntled customers but also exposed new consumers to o.b. products (Morgan 2018).

356 

 Shari R. Veil and Kathleen L. Ambrose

3.3.2 KFC chicken shortage In a similar case, in February 2018, hundreds of KFC restaurants in the United Kingdom were shut down because they ran out of chicken (Petroff 2018). The organization stated the shortage was due to the recent switch to a new delivery company and cautioned consumers the issue with the vendor would continue to affect hundreds of UK stores as it was straightened out (Bomey 2018). KFC identified the at-fault vendor and jokingly commented on the shortage on Twitter stating “We’ve brought a new delivery partner onboard, but they’ve had a couple of teething problems – getting chicken out to 900 restaurants across the country is pretty complex!” (Bomey 2018: para. 6). The company also took out a full page advertisement in British newspapers apologizing for the supply chain issues and placing “an empty bucket with the chain’s initials scrambled to say ‘FCK’ on it” (Petroff 2018: para. 2). Despite 900 restaurants being closed across the UK, KFC employed humor in responding to consumers, making light of the fact that Kentucky Fried Chicken had run out of chicken. The newspaper advertisement began by stating “A chicken restaurant without any chicken. It’s not ideal.” before offering an apology for the shortage and explanation of the efforts being made to ensure chicken returned quickly to the impacted restaurants. The humorous response to the supply chain crisis was considered advertising gold and resulted in significant positive media attention for the brand (Morgan 2018).

4 Conclusions By examining exemplar supply chain crises to determine what factors affected the communication strategies available to each organization and the resulting impact of those strategies on stakeholder perceptions and the organization’s reputation, this chapter demonstrates that communication in a supply chain crisis requires a nuanced approach based on the contextual factors of the crisis and should not be considered a distinct crisis type that warrants a prescriptive crisis communication response. Even more, while risks to supply chains can be divided into internal, external, and network risks (Chapman et al. 2002), crises that manifest from the same risk do not necessitate the same crisis response. Due to the varying perceptions of responsibility by both the stakeholders and organizations involved in supply chain crises, response strategies must consider both perceived and actual responsibility. The tenets of SCCT still apply in supply chain crises. However, organizations must consider that even when a supplier is entirely at fault, stakeholders will hold the seller of the end product accountable for the crisis, particular if the organization’s identity is tied to the supply chain structure, as was the case for Chipotle.



Fixing the broken link: Communication strategies for supply chain crises 

 357

While the results of the analysis presented in this chapter cannot be generalized across all types of supply chain crises, the examination of the exemplar cases did identify factors that could affect communication responses and resulting stakeholder perceptions and organizational reputation in a supply chain crisis. The factors identified included whether (1) there were multiple suppliers; (2) the supply chain was part of the brand identity; (3) market competition shared suppliers; (4) the supply chain was national or global; and (5) consumers were directly harmed by the supply chain crisis. The cases examined demonstrate the inherent challenges of communicating in a supply chain crisis. In some cases, particularly when consumers have been hurt or there is a history of crises, only a full apology and corrective action will assuage stakeholders. In other cases, when there are alternatives for the end product and consumers are not directly harmed by the supply chain crisis, self-deprecating humor is entirely appropriate. Ultimately, this chapter recognizes that organizations must examine the contextual factors that could influence the communication strategies available and the affect of those strategies on stakeholder perceptions and organizational reputation.

References Andrews, J. 2012, April 16. 2009 peanut butter outbreak: Three years on, still no resolution for some. Food Safety News. Retrieved from http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/04/2009-peanutbutter-outbreak-three-years-on-still-no-resolution-for-some/#.WbgNysiGOUk Assis, C. 2017, August 29. Energy stocks pummeled again as Harvey dumps more rain on Texas. MarketWatch. Retrieved from http://www.marketwatch.com/story/energy-stocks-slammedafter-hurricane-harvey-strikes-heart-of-us-oil-industry-2017-08-28 Barnett, M. L., and A. J. Hoffman. 2008. Beyond corporate reputation: Managing reputational interdependence. Corporate Reputation Review 11(1). 1–9. Berfield, S. 2015, December 22. Inside Chipotle’s contamination crisis. Bloomberg. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-chipotle-food-safety-crisis/. Binlot, A. 2010, December 28. Women in dismay over o.b. Tampon shortage. CBS. Retrieved from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/women-in-dismay-over-ob-tampon-shortage/ Blackhurst, J., and T. Wu. 2009. Book introduction. In T. Wu and J. Blackhurst (eds.), Managing supply chain risk and vulnerability tools and methods for supply chain decision makers. New York: Springer. Bomey, N. 2018, February 19. KFC is suffering from a chicken shortage in the U.K. Yes, you read that right. USA Today. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/02/19/ kfc-chicken-shortage-u-k-restaurants-close-amid-delivery-mishaps/350698002/ Brody, A. 2016, November 1. Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 recall: Lessons for procurement and supply chain teams. Supply Chain 247. Retrieved from http://bravosolution.us/blog/samsungs-galaxynote-7-recall-lessons-procurement-supply-chain-teams/ Brumfield, B., J. Sutton, N. Kounang, and J. Christensen. 2015, November 4. Chipotle shutters dozens of locations as more confirmed E. coli cases emerge. CNN. Retrieved from http://www.cnn. com/2015/11/01/health/chipotle-closings-e-coli-scare/index.html Campi, J. P. 2013, February 1. Supply chain risk- your supplier’s supplier. Firestorm. Retrieved from https://www.firestorm.com/supply-chain-risk-your-supplier-s-supplier/

358 

 Shari R. Veil and Kathleen L. Ambrose

Chapman, P., M. Christopher, U. Jüttner, H. Peck, and R. Wilding. 2002. Identifying and managing supply chain vulnerability. Logistics & Transport Focus 4(4). 59–70. Chipotle. 2015. Chipotle moves aggressively to address issues in Washington and Oregon. [Press Release]. Retrieved from http://ir.chipotle.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=194775&p=irolnewsArticle&ID=2106211 CNN. 2011, March 12. Japan earthquake and tsunami: Timeline. Retrieved from http://www.cnn. com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/12/quake.tsunami.timeline/index.html CNN. 2017, March 5. 2011 Japan earthquake-tsunami fast facts. Retrieved from http://www.cnn. com/2013/07/17/world/asia/japan-earthquake---tsunami-fast-facts/index.html Coffelt, T. A., F. L. Smith, M. Sollitto, and A. R. Payne. 2010. Using sensemaking to understand victims’ responses to a natural disaster. Northwest Journal of Communication 39(1). 11–35. Cohen, E. 2010, January 19. Shortage of O.B. Tampons causes rush, boosts prices. Online. ABCNews. Retrieved from https://abcnews.go.com/Business/ob-tampon-shortage-women-upset-payingpremium/story?id=12648760 Coombs, W. T. 1995. Choosing the right words: The development of guidelines for the selection of the “appropriate” crisis-response strategies. Management Communication Quarterly 8(4). 447–476.  Coombs, W. T. 2006. The protective powers of crisis response strategies: Managing reputational assets during a crisis. Journal of Promotion Management 12(3/4). 241–260.  Coombs, W. T. 2007. Protecting organization reputations during a crisis: The development and application of situational crisis communication theory. Corporate Reputation Review 10(3). 163–176. Coombs, W. T., and S. J. Holladay. 2006. Unpacking the halo effect: Reputation and crisis management. Journal of Communication Management 10(2). 123–137. DiChristopher, T. 2017, August 30. Harvey shuts down largest US oil refinery, bears down on Louisiana plants. CNBC. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/30/harvey-shutsdown-largest-us-oil-refinery-bears-down-on-louisiana-plants.html Disis, J., M. Egan., and C. Isidore. 2017, August 28. 10 refineries close as Harvey drenches Texas energy hub. CNN Money. Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/27/news/economy/ tropical-storm-harvey-texas-oil-gas/index.html Dolcourt, J. 2017, April 16. Samsung Galaxy Note 7 recall: Here’s what happens now. CNET. Retrieved from https://www.cnet.com/news/samsung-galaxy-note-7-return-exchange-faq/ Freeman, R. E., and D. R. Gilbert. 1987. Managing stakeholder interests. In S. P. Sethi & C. M. Fable (eds.), Business and society: Dimensions of conflict and cooperation, 379–422. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Fombrun, C. J., and C. B. M. van Riel. 2003. Fame & Fortune: How the World’s Top Companies Develop Winning Reputations. New York, NY: Pearson Education. Gaudenzi, B., and A. Borghesi. 2006. Managing risks in the supply chain using the AHP method. The International Journal of Logistics Management 17(1). 114–136. Heath, R. L., and D. P. Millar. 2004. A rhetorical approach to crisis communication: Management, communication processes, and strategic responses. In D. P. Millar and R. L. Heath (eds.), Responding to Crisis: A rhetorical approach to crisis communication, 1–18. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Heider, F. 1958. The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. New York: Wiley. Hittle, B., and M. K. Leonard. 2011. Decision making in advance of a supply chain crisis. Management Decision 49(7). 1182–1193. Kageyama, Y. 2011, May 11. Toyota quarterly profit slides on quake disruption. The Seattle Times. Retrieved from https://www.seattletimes.com/business/toyota-quarterly-profit-slides-onquake-disruption/



Fixing the broken link: Communication strategies for supply chain crises 

 359

Kaskey, J. 2017, September 1. Hurricane Harvey has endangered the supply of the world’s most important chemical. Independent. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/ business/news/hurricane-harvey-ethylene-supply-endanger-chemical-world-most-importantgulf-detroit-car-parts-a7923551.html Kellogg. 2009a. Kellogg Company announces precautionary hold on Austin and Keebler branded peanut butter sandwich crackers [Press Release]. Retrieved from http://newsroom. kelloggcompany.com/news-releases?item=76244 Kellogg. 2009b. FDA confirms salmonella in previously-recalled Austin sandwich cracker product [Press Release]. Retrieved from http://newsroom.kelloggcompany.com/news-releases?item= 76273 Koenig, D. 2017, September 1. Gas prices spike nationwide after Hurricane Harvey. TIME. Retrieved from http://time.com/4925539/hurricane-harvey-gas-price-increase/ Littlejohn, S. W., A. K. Foss, and J. G. Oetzel. 2017. Theories of human communication. 11th edn. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press. Lohr, S. 2011, March 19. Stress test for the global supply chain. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/business/20supply.html?pagewanted=all Lopez, E. 2017, January 23. Samsung reveals cause of Galaxy Note7 defects, unveils new quality control checklist. Supply Chain Dive. Retrieved from https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/ Samsung-supplier-Galaxy-Note7-recall-quality-report/434496/ Lopez, E., and J. McKevitt. 2017, January 9. Samsung weathered the Galaxy Note 7 recall by ramping up production downstream. Supply Chain Dive. Retrieved from https://www.supplychaindive. com/news/samsung-components-recall-galaxy-note-7-supply-chain/433567/ Manuj, I., and J. T. Mentzer. 2008. Global supply chain risk management strategies. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management 38(3). 192–223. Manusov, V., and B. Spitzberg. 2008. Attribution theory. In L. A. Baxter and D. O. Braithwaite (eds.), Engaging theories in interpersonal communication: Multiple perspectives, 37–51. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. Masullo, K. 2017, August 25. Harvey threatens significant business disruption. Firestorm. Retrieved from https://www.firestorm.com/harvey-threatens-significant-businessdisruption/ McCoy, K. 2015, September 21. Peanut exec in salmonella case gets 28 years. USA Today. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2015/09/21/peanut-executivesalmonella-sentencing/72549166/ Miller, B. M., and J. S. Horsley. 2009. Digging deeper: Crisis management in the coal industry. Journal of Applied Communication Research 37(3). 298–316. Morgan, B. 2018, October 4. 10 powerful examples of corporate apologies. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2018/10/24/10-powerful-examples-of-corporateapologies/#50a37e4540de Natarajarathinam, M., I. Capar, and A. Narayanan. 2009. Managing supply chains in times of crisis: A review of literature and insights. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management 39(7). 535–573. Newswise. 2012, March 2. One year later, impact of ‘Great Tohoku’ quake still being felt. Retrieved from https://www.newswise.com/articles/one-year-later-impact-of-great-tohoku-quake-stillbeing-felt Pak, N., and S. Young. 2016, October 12. Timeline: Samsung electronics’ Galaxy Note 7 recall crisis. Reuters. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/samsung-elec-smartphones/timelinesamsung-electronics-galaxy-note-7-recall-crisis-idUSL4N1CG1KB Pearson, C. M., and J. A. Clair. 1998. Reframing crisis management. Academy of Management Review 23(1). 59–76.

360 

 Shari R. Veil and Kathleen L. Ambrose

Peterson, H. 2017, July 21. Chipotle’s latest illness outbreak threatens to scare diners away. Business Insider. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/chipotle-norovirus-outbreak-willscare-diners-away-2017-7 Petroff, A. 2018, February 27. KFC apologizes for chicken shortage with a hilarious hidden message. CNN Money. Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/23/news/kfc-apology-adshortage-chicken/index.html Powell, B. 2011, December 12. The global supply chain: So very fragile. Fortune. Retrieved from http://fortune.com/2011/12/12/the-global-supply-chain-so-very-fragile/?iid=sr-link3 Ritchie, B., and C. Brindley. 2009. Effective management of supply chains: Risks and performance. In T. Wu and J. Blackhurst (eds.), Managing supply chain risk and vulnerability tools and methods for supply chain decision makers. New York, NY: Springer.  Samsung. 2017a, January 22. [Video] Galaxy Note7: Why it happened. Samsung. Retrieved from https://news.samsung.com/us/video-galaxy-note7-happened/ Samsung. 2017b, January 22. [Infographic]. Galaxy Note7: 8-point battery check and multi-layer safety measures. Samsung. Retrieved from https://news.samsung.com/us/infographic-galaxynote7-8-point-battery-check-multi-layer-safety-measures/ Samsung. 2017c, September 8. Samsung sees its best note preorders with the new Galaxy Note8. [Press Release]. Retrieved from https://news.samsung.com/us/galaxy-note8-best-notepreorders/ Spieler, G. 2016, September 15. Samsung battery supplier also distributes to other smartphones. Supply Chain Dive. Retrieved from https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/Samsung-batterysmartphone-visibility/426414/ Stock, J. R., and S.  D. Boyer. 2009. Developing a consensus definition of supply chain management: A qualitative study. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management 39(8). 690–711. Tajitsu, N., and M. Yamazaki. 2016, April 17. Toyota, other major Japanese firms hit by quake damage, supply disruptions. Reuters. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/ us-japan-quake-toyota/toyota-other-major-japanese-firms-hit-by-quake-damage-supplydisruptions-idUSKCN0XE08O Terlep, S. 2017, September 6. Newell squeezed by resin shortage after Hurricane Harvey. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/newell-squeezed-by-resinshortage-after-hurricane-harvey-1504707780 Toyota. 2011a. Akio Toyoda: To all those affected by the Tohoku earthquake [Press Release]. Retrieved from http://corporatenews.pressroom.toyota.com/releases/akio+toyoda+statement +tohoku+earthquake.htm Toyota. 2011b. Toyota statement regarding earthquake and tsunami in Japan [Press Release]. Retrieved from http://corporatenews.pressroom.toyota.com/releases/toyota+earthquake+tsun ami+japan+2011.htm Toyota. 2011c. Toyota to move forward with Japan car production for most of May [Press Release]. Retrieved from http://corporatenews.pressroom.toyota.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=2976 Ulmer, R. R. 2001. Effective crisis management through established stakeholder relationships: Malden Mills as a case study. Management Communication Quarterly 14(4). 590–615. Veil, S. R., and K. E. Anthony. 2017. Exploring public relations challenges in a compounding crisis: The pariah effect of toxic trailers. Journal of Public Relations Research 29(4). 141–157. Veil, S. R., L. L. Dillingham, and A. G. Sloan. 2016. Fencing out the Jones’s: The development of response strategies for spillover crises. Corporate Reputation Review 19(4). 316–330. Wald, E. R. 2017, August 28. Hurricane Harvey impacts crude oil and gasoline: What you need to know. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenrwald/2017/08/28/ hurricane-harvey-impacts-crude-oil-and-gasoline-what-you-need-to-know/#374c20504a2d



Fixing the broken link: Communication strategies for supply chain crises 

 361

Waymer, D., and R. L. Heath. 2007. Emergent agents: The forgotten publics in crisis communication and issues management research. Journal of Applied Communication Research 35(1). 88–108. Weick, K. E., and K. M. Sutcliff. 2001. Managing the unexpected. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Williams, L. C. 2016, January 16. Chipotle is closing all its restaurants February 8 to focus on food safety. Will it work? Think Progress. Retrieved from https://thinkprogress.org/chipotle-isclosing-all-its-restaurants-february-8-to-focus-on-food-safety-will-it-work-52e2475140f2/ Zuckerman, A. 2002. Supply Chain Management. Oxford, UK: Capstone Publishing. Zuraw, L. 2015, December 15. A timeline of Chipotle’s five outbreaks. Food Safety News. Retrieved from http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2015/12/a-timeline-of-chipotles-five-outbreaks/#. Wd0BM2hSyUl

Shari R. Veil and Lindsay L. Dillingham

17 Reputational interdependence and spillover: Exploring the contextual challenges of spillover crisis response Abstract: a spillover crisis occurs when events in an external organization create concern, uncertainty, or perceptions of harm for another organization. While crisis spillover can result from a direct relationship with an organization in crisis, being in the same industry or market category as an organization in crisis can also lead to negative spillover effects due to reputational interdependence. This chapter provides a conceptual overview of reputational interdependence and spillover crisis and outlines communication response strategies that, when effectively applied, can not only limit the negative effects of crisis spillover but also increase an organization’s competitive advantage within an industry. Spillover crisis is further explored through three crisis cases that present distinct contextual challenges and offer additional insight for crisis communication research and practice. Keywords: spillover effects, reputation management, crisis response strategies, trade associations

1 Introduction As discussed in the previous chapter, relationships among organizations can quickly become burdensome if a related organization experiences a crisis. In the case of supply chains, a crisis in one organization can spillover to organizations further down the chain. Crisis spillover can also result from extensions within the same brand family (Lei, Dawar and Lemmink 2008), sponsorship contracts (Kahuni, Rowley and Binsardi 2009), and company—nonprofit partnerships (Lee and Rim 2016). However, a direct relationship with an organization in crisis is not a necessary prerequisite for crisis spillover. Merely being in the same industry or market category as an organization in crisis can also lead to negative effects (Veil, Dillingham and Sloan 2016). Organizations in the same industry share a sort of ‘‘reputation commons’’ in that the reputation of one organization is positively related to that of its rivals (King, Lenox and Barnett 2002). Due to this reputational interdependence, when one organization is embroiled in a crisis, the other organizations in the market category can experience spillover effects. This chapter provides a conceptual overview of reputational interdependence and spillover crisis and outlines communication response strategies that, when effectively applied, can not only limit the negative effects of crisis spillover but also increase an organization’s competitive advantage within an industry. Spillover https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-017

364 

 Shari R. Veil and Lindsay L. Dillingham

crisis is further explored through three crisis cases that present distinct contextual challenges and offer additional insight for crisis communication research and practice.

2 Conceptualizing reputational interdependence and spillover crisis As scholars have noted (see chapter 11), corporate reputation can only exist in the presence of a comparison alternative. In other words, stakeholders will compare the actions of one organization to another to evaluate the merits of each (King et al. 2002). Marketing scholars describe this interconnectivity in terms of Feldman and Lynch’s (1988) accessibility-diagnosticity framework. Roehm and Tybout (2006) explain, “concepts, such as brands, their product attributes, and categories to which they belong, reside in a network and can activate one another when the links between them are strong” (Roehm and Tybout 2006: 366). In effect, the reputations of organizations in the same industry rise and fall alongside the actions of their competitors (King et al. 2002; Winn, MacDonald and Zietsma 2008). While this association can generate positive outcomes as certain product categories become trendy or attract positive attention, the downside of reputational interdependence is the potential for stakeholders to erroneously link the bad fortune or misdeeds of one company to another, triggering a spillover crisis. A spillover crisis occurs when “events in an external organization create concern, uncertainty, or perceptions of harm for another organization” (Veil et al. 2016: 317). Research has shown that stakeholders group competitors and industry counterparts via mental associations (see Borah and Tellis 2016; Roehm and Tybout 2006). Stakeholders typically lack the information needed to disentangle an organization in crisis from the other organizations in the same market category. Organizations that are geographically proximate, structurally equivalent, or have similar product attributes to the organization in crisis are more likely to experience a spillover crisis (Gao, H. Zhang, X. Zhang and Knight 2015; Lei et al. 2008; Paroli and Huang 2018; Roehm and Tybout 2006; Yu and Lester 2018). Gao et al. (2015) used assimilative and contrastive associations to demonstrate the opportunity for competitive advantages for some organizations in spillover crisis. According to Gao et al. (2015), an assimilation effect occurs “when negative context information regarding the product category leads consumers to negatively evaluate a non-contaminated brand (“guilt by association”) in the same product category” (Gao et al. 2015: 93). Alternatively, a contrast effect occurs “when the same negative information regarding the product category leads consumers to positively evaluate some non-contaminated brands” (Gao et al. 2015: 93). Due to the combined effects of assimilation and contrast, organizations that consumers perceive to be relevant but distinct



Reputational interdependence and spillover 

 365

from the organization in crisis can actually capitalize on spillover crisis. Examining crisis spillover across domestic brands versus imported brands of milk during the 2008 Sanlu milk contamination crisis, the scholars found that erosion of trust in contaminated brands significantly decreased trust in non-contaminated domestic brands and moderately increased trust in non-contaminated imported brands. Thus, if organizations in a related market category (imported milk) can present their products as a safe alternative to the perceived contaminated market category (domestic milk), they can effectively capture industry market share from the category suffering negative spillover effects. Poroli and Huang (2018) employed situational theory of problem solving (STOPS; Kim and Grunig 2011) to explore spillover effects and the role of communication in the formation of stakeholder behavioral attitudes. They found that crisis spillover has a social dimension. That is, stakeholders will talk about the crisis and discuss whether or not the same crisis could happen to other organizations. Social media communication (Borah and Tellis 2016) and intermediaries’ interpretations of the crisis (Yu, Sengul and Lester 2008) also affect crisis spillover. Borah and Tellis (2016) found that an online conversation about an automobile recall for a particular model can increase negative online chatter about a competitor model that is not undergoing a recall. Recognizing the opportunity to engage in the social dimension, this next section outlines communication response strategies identified in spillover crises.

3 Spillover crisis response strategies Some organizations, seeking to maintain a low profile and limit further association with the organization in crisis, are reticent to communicate at all during a spillover crisis (Dillingham and Ivanov 2017). However, this strategy of silence allows other actors to control the crisis narrative, which could further damage not only the organization’s reputation, but also the legitimacy of the industry. Legitimacy is bestowed by stakeholders who perceive an organization or industry to be in line with regulative, normative, or cognitive norms (Deephouse and Carter 2005). When all organizations in an industry are “tarred with the same brush,” a spillover crisis can call into question the legitimacy of the entire industry. Winn et al. (2008) refer to collective reputation management as “all activities and behavior undertaken by members of a collective to deliberately alter judgments about the reputation of the collective” (Winn et al. 2008: 37). Conversely, they define competitive reputation management as “activities undertaken by a single firm to enhance its own reputation and competitive position vis-a`-vis other members of the industry’’ (Winn et al 2008: 37). Barnett (2007) suggests the motivation to engage in collective reputation management activities that maintain industry legitimacy typically outweighs the costs and incentives for individual organizations to compete for reputation.

366 

 Shari R. Veil and Lindsay L. Dillingham

The actions of industry organizations help form the assumptions of stakeholders about what is considered legitimate (Suchman 1995). Early research on reputational interdependence posited that trade associations can be “critical to recovery from crises that face entire industries” (Barnett 2006: 1756). More recent research suggests it is actually counterproductive when trade associations act as an intermediary in the social dimension of a spillover crisis (Veil et al. 2016). When trade associations communicate in an effort to protect the collective legitimacy of the industry, they also reinforce stakeholders’ mental associations of the organizations in the industry, and thereby increase the potential for spillover crises to occur. Comprehensive crisis communication frameworks, like situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) (see chapter 5 in this handbook), call for crisis response strategies to align with the level of crisis responsibility attributed to the organization in crisis. Spillover crises represent a paradox in which an organization finds itself facing reputational and legitimacy threats without any responsibility for causing the crisis (Veil et al. 2016). And yet, other aspects of SCCT are pertinent to spillover crises. Crisis history (Poroli and Huang 2018), prior reputation (Yu and Lester 2018), and trust (Lee and Rim 2016) all influence stakeholders’ mental associations of organizations in a spillover crisis. Veil and colleagues (2016) examined a spillover crisis in the peanut industry that spread from a small peanut paste supplier to completely unrelated jarred peanut butter brands. Their analysis revealed a series of five crisis response strategies that seemingly defied SCCT recommendations, but, when employed in the case, limited the negative effects of the spillover crisis and created a competitive advantage for the organizations that sought to distance themselves from the rest of the industry. The strategies identified included (1) disassociation, clearly stating that the organizations have no relational business ties; (2) denial, denying any involvement in the cause of the crisis and specifically naming and blaming the organization responsible for the crisis; (3) ingratiation, thanking stakeholders for ongoing patronage and support; (4) reminding, using bolstering statements to draw stakeholder attention to the organization’s positive attributes; and (5) compensation, offering coupons and discounted rates to entice stakeholders back to the organization and industry. Comparing a spillover crisis to a hoax, in which “the paradox involves convincing an alarmed public that the organization has made a substantial response to an unsubstantiated claim” (Veil, Sellnow and Petrun 2012: 330), the authors further suggested that if the spillover crisis illuminates vulnerability, the organization should take corrective action and present the strategy as a competitive advantage. In doing so, the organization denies any part in the original crisis and then explains what actions were taken to make sure the organization would not face a similar crisis. The organization can then present itself as more resilient and thus a better alternative to other organizations in the industry



Reputational interdependence and spillover 

 367

4 Exemplar spillover crisis cases To further examine the intricacies of crisis spillover, we next explore three distinct crisis cases in the food, automotive, and airline industries. Each case presents distinct contextual challenges and offers additional insight for crisis communication research and practice.

4.1 Spinach sales and the E. coli outbreak The 2006 spinach contamination crisis resulted in 200 reported cases of E. coli, 100 hospitalizations across 26 states, 31 cases of kidney failure, and four deaths (Hallman, Cuite, Nucci, Pleasant and Chess 2006). On September 14, 2006, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advised consumers to avoid fresh spinach. By the next day, all fresh spinach was removed from store shelves. Spinach began to reappear in stores on September 23, and by September 29, only 15 days after the initial report, the outbreak had been traced back to Natural Selections Foods, LLC, in California and the FDA deemed “spinach on the shelves as safe as it was before this event” (Hallman et al. 2006: 5). Though the FDA quickly contained the E. coli outbreak, the recall had long-lasting ramifications on the spinach industry. In the weeks following the outbreak, spinach sales fell 63 percent (Arnade et al. 2010). Though spinach sales recovered somewhat after the crisis period, in 2010, four years after the crisis, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported that spinach sales still had not completely recovered from the 2006 outbreak. The USDA offered that there was a “longer term drop in retail expenditures on fresh spinach” (Arnade et al. 2010: 1). Furthermore, by comparing spinach sales data with that of other leafy green vegetables, the USDA ascertained that many consumers had simply made long-term replacements of spinach purchases with similar leafy green vegetables (e.  g., iceberg and romaine lettuce).

4.2 The Chevrolet Volt fire In December 2010, amidst rising gas prices and the Obama administration’s push for electric vehicles, the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf were both released to an American public hesitantly interested in the concept of an electric car (Wald 2012). Car pool lane restrictions in California limited early sales of the Chevy Volt, giving the Nissan Leaf an early lead in the U.S. market (Wahlman 2012). Then, in November 2011, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched an investigation after a Chevy Volt battery pack caught fire three weeks after being damaged in a crash test. The Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf each used different kinds of battery packs and Nissan encased its battery pack in steel while Chevrolet did not (Bunkley 2011). Therefore,

368 

 Shari R. Veil and Lindsay L. Dillingham

the Nissan Leaf did not pose the same fire risk as the Chevy Volt (Hirsch 2012). Yet insiders reported that, “Chevy Volt battery fires threaten all electric vehicle makers” (Henry 2011: para. 1). Both Volt and Leaf sales plummeted after release of the investigation report (LeVine 2012). Nissan’s product safety director, Bob Yakushi, was quoted as saying that the problems that caused the Chevy Volt fire simply “don’t exist in the Nissan Leaf” (Berman 2011: para. 2), but he chose not to publically address the widespread concern about electric cars or explain how the Nissan Leaf’s battery pack was different (Henry 2011; Hirsch 2012; LeVine 2012). In January 2012 Chevy announced fixes to its battery casing to prevent future fires (Archer 2012). Two months later the Chevy Volt overtook the Nissan Leaf in U.S. sales (Wahlman 2012).

4.3 United Airlines’ re-accommodation crisis On April 9, 2017, United Airlines tried to bump passengers already seated on an overbooked flight from Chicago to Louisville to make room for four flight crewmembers. When no passengers volunteered, United selected passengers who were instructed to deplane. One passenger, David Dao, refused to give up his seat. After a verbal altercation, three Chicago Department of Aviation security officers violently removed Dao from his seat while other passengers shouted in protest. Videos of the incident, showing a bloody, screaming man being dragged through the aisle went viral on social media (Paul 2017). United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz initially tried to downplay the situation, suggesting that Dao’s belligerent behavior caused the incident. After media and social media criticism, Munoz apologized for having to “re-accommodate customers” without explicitly apologizing for treatment of Dao. The next day, after United stock dropped by $1.4 billion (Shen 2017), Munoz issued a full apology and promised a re-evaluation of United’s overbooking policies and procedures. In the aftermath of the crisis, shares of Southwest Airlines, Delta, and JetBlue dropped roughly 1 percent, compared to United’s 4 percent loss. Shares of American Airlines actually rose nearly 2 percent after it released an unrelated favorable outlook for the first quarter (Shen 2017). While no organization came out in support of how United handled the incident, even news and financial analysts affirmed, “airlines have a right to refuse boarding to any passenger for any reason” (Shen 2017: para 7). Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said, “It’s not a question in my opinion as to whether you overbook. It’s how you manage overbooked situations … The key is managing it before you get to the boarding process” (Yamanouchi 2017: para 2). By time legislators summoned airline executives and industry leaders to appear before Congress to discuss overbooking procedures a month later, United had settled with Dao and its stock price was at an all time high (Zumbach 2018).



Reputational interdependence and spillover 

 369

5 Case analysis The cases described demonstrate that each spillover crisis presents distinct contextual challenges that must be considered in the response. Thus, the lessons derived from the cases do not provide for additional prescribed response strategies but recognition of the contexts in which decisions must be made during spillover crises. The analysis reveals specific challenges related to brand confusion and contrast association, collective protection of an emerging market, and the need for corrective action when a spillover crisis exposes industry vulnerability.

6 Brand confusion and contrast association The 2006 E. coli outbreak in spinach represents both a supply chain crisis and a spillover crisis. The contaminated spinach was harvested by Mission Organics at the Paicines Ranch in central California, processed by Natural Selection Foods doing business as Earthbound Farm, and packed mostly into bags of Dole Baby Spinach (The Food Industry Center 2009). While the end user most likely purchased a bag of contaminated lettuce with a Dole logo on it, the number of brands along the supply chain involved added to the confusion of the recall. U.S. restaurants and grocery stores often buy produce from the same major food processors, sometimes under the same brand name, but most often under different brand names. This brand flexibility enables sellers to provide a consistent retail presence by sourcing product from multiple growing regions. The down side of this process is that a given brand can come from multiple processing facilities packaging multiple brands. As a result, “it is more difficult to determine the source of suspect product and to confine a recall to that brand without implicating other labels” (The Food Industry Center 2009: 7). In the case of the 2006 E. coli outbreak in spinach, rather than attempting to wade through the brand confusion, grocers and consumers alike surmised that all spinach was contaminated. All raw spinach products were pulled from the shelves and consumers simply replaced the spinach on their shopping list with another product. The case reveals that consumers perceived other leafy vegetables to be relevant but distinct from spinach. Due to the combined effects of assimilation and contrast (Gao et al. 2015), trust in all brands of spinach decreased while trust in other leafy vegetables went up, even if the substitution product was sold under the same brand as the contaminated spinach (e.  g., Dole). The spinach industry as a whole experienced negative spillover effects and the intermingling of brands along the supply chain limited the ability of any one organization to set itself apart from the rest of the market category. By time spinach was once again considered safe to eat, market share had been irreversibly lost to products in other market categories.

370 

 Shari R. Veil and Lindsay L. Dillingham

7 Collective protection of an emerging market In 2011 the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt were operating in an unsteady, developing U.S. electric vehicle market. In the midst of the Chevy Volt fire investigation, Nissan could have engaged in the full gamut of spillover crisis response strategies including disassociation, denial, ingratiation, and compensation (Veil et al. 2016). In fact, across the three spillover crises presented in this chapter, Nissan had the greatest opportunity to use spillover crisis response strategies to demonstrate competitive advantage and increase market share. Instead, Nissan chose to engage in simple denial by stating that the problems that caused the Chevy Volt fire “don’t exist in the Nissan Leaf” (Berman 2011: para. 2). The contextual challenge of operating in an emerging market may have influenced Nissan’s decision to remain relatively silent during the Chevy Volt crisis. Despite the informal sales race in the East meets West matchup for the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt, industry experts argue that, “in a broader sense they’re on the same team” (Cobb 2014: para 3). Nissan needed the electric car market in the United States to grow and likely didn’t want to draw additional attention to safety concerns for an already hesitant consumer base unsure of the technology. The collectivist culture of the Japanese car manufacturer may also have contributed to Nissan’s reticence to use competitive reputation management strategies (Winn et al. 2008). Nissan decided to stay out of the headlines to protect the collective reputation of the emerging market rather than capitalize on Chevy’s misfortune. The result was that the Chevy Volt crisis spilled over to the Nissan Leaf and both companies’ sales figures dipped. In hindsight, we now know the developing electric car market was strong enough to withstand the growing pains of early models. This was made evident when the Volt returned to the market with its additional safety features, capturing significant media coverage and a percentage of the Nissan Leaf’s market share in the United States (Archer 2012; Wahlman 2012). As the electric car market has grown, other manufacturers, Tesla in particular, have enthusiastically thrown shade over industry stalwarts to gain competitive advantage (Cobb 2013). Now that the viability of the industry is secure, organizations may be more willing to engage in competitive reputation management strategies if threatened by a spillover crisis.

8 Corrective action for exposed vulnerabilities United Airlines’ re-accommodation crisis exposed vulnerability for all airlines that practiced overbooking. While no airline executive was fool enough to come out in support of how United handled the incident, most large airlines supported the practice of overbooking and did not want to see additional congressional oversight of the practice. The airlines also likely recognized that cell phone cameras and disgruntled



Reputational interdependence and spillover 

 371

passengers are daily challenges for gate agents and customer service representatives. United’s crisis therefore elicited an industry-wide response as airlines re-examined their own policies related to overbooking and bumping passengers. Southwest Airlines said it stopped overselling flights completely, while United and Delta Air Lines raised limits on the amount of compensation crews can offer as an incentive for passengers to volunteer their seat. At check-in passengers can now write in how much they are willing to accept to get bumped from their flight, allowing airlines to choose the lowest bidder. Strategies for determining who gets bumped from a flight also now depend on the original cost of the passenger’s ticket, connection time, and inconvenience. After legislators criticized airlines’ tough-to-read contracts spelling out passengers’ rights, American Airlines revised its contact, cutting 3,000 words and incorporating a more conversational tone (Zumbach 2018). According to Department of Transportation statistics, in the year following the highly publicized incident, the share of passengers bumped against their will dropped nearly 60 percent across 12 major mainline U.S. carriers compared with the same period a year earlier (Zumbach 2018). While each airline implemented an individualized plan, the industry as a whole engaged corrective action to address the vulnerability exposed by United’s re-accommodation crisis. As brutal as the media and social media coverage of the incident was, one would expect the crisis to have a more lasting effect on United’s reputation. However, United’s stock price and the number of passengers flown in 2018 both surpassed the previous year’s record. Industry analysts observe that for most consumers, airfare purchase decisions are based on price and availability and not customer service (Zumbach 2018). The rise of discount airlines like Allegiant and Wow Air show that, when they have multiple options, consumers are willing to forgo customer service, loyalty programs, and passenger perks in favor of a cheep ticket. Thus, the corrective actions taken by airlines likely did more to placate legislators threatening to regulate overbooking practices than the consumers who will ultimately benefit from the more accommodating policies. This case demonstrates that contextual factors of some industries limit the extent to which reputational threats manifest into legitimacy crises.

9 Conclusion This chapter provided a conceptual overview of reputational interdependence and spillover crisis and outlined communication response strategies that, when effectively applied, have the potential to limit the negative effects of crisis spillover and increase an organization’s competitive advantage within an industry. In addition, the analysis of three varying spillover crisis cases revealed specific contextual challenges related to brand confusion and contrast association, collective protection of an emerging market, and the need for corrective action when a spillover crisis exposes industry vul-

372 

 Shari R. Veil and Lindsay L. Dillingham

nerability. Further exploration of these contextual challenges can assist practitioners in determining whether to employ collective or competitive reputation management strategies in a spillover crisis.

References Archer, J. 2012, January. Chevrolet announces fixes to stop Volt fires. Autotrader. Retrieved from https://www.autotrader.com/car-recall/chevrolet-announces-fixes-stop-volt-fires-144124 Arnade, C., Calvin, L., and Kuchler, F. 2010, March. Consumers’ response to 2006 foodborne illness outbreak linked to spinach. United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service. Retrieved from https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2010/march/consumersresponse-to-the-2006-foodborne-illness-outbreak-linked-to-spinach/ Barnett, M. L. 2006. Finding a working balance between competitive and communal strategy. Journal of Management Studies 43(8). 1753–1773. Barnett, M. L. 2007. Tarred and untarred by the same brush: Exploring interdependence in the volatility of stock returns. Corporate Reputation Review 10(1). 3–21. Berman, B. 2011, December 12. Nissan and Ford respond to Chevy Volt fire issue. Retrieved from https://www.plugincars.com/nissan-ford-safety-volt-fires-110873.html Borah, A., and Tellis, G. J. 2016. Halo (spillover) effects in social media: Do product recalls of one brand hurt or help rival brands? Journal of Marketing Research 53(2). 143–160. Bunkley, N. 2011, December 21. Tsunami reveals durability of Nissan’s Leaf. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/business/tsunami-reveals-durability-ofnissans-leaf.html Cobb, J. 2014, December 10. Retrospective: Four years of Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt. HybridCars. Retrieved from https://www.hybridcars.com/retrospective-four-years-of-nissan-leaf-andchevy-volt/ Cobb, J. 2013, August 23. Chevrolet Volt marketer responds to Tesla’s slight. HybrindCars. Retrieved from https://www.hybridcars.com/chevy-volt-marketer-responds-weakly-to-teslas-insults/ Deephouse, D. L., and Carter, S. M. 2005. An examination of differences between organizational legitimacy and organizational reputation. Journal of Management Studies 43(2). 329–360. Dillingham, L. L., and Ivanov, B. 2017. Inoculation messages as a pre-emptive financial crisis communication strategy. Journal of Applied Communication Research 45(3). 274–293. Feldman, J. M., and Lynch Jr., J. G. 1988. Self-generated validity and other effects of measurement on belief, attitude, intention and behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology 73(3). 421–435. Gao, H., Zhang, H., Zhang, X., and Knight, J. G. 2015. Spillover of distrust from domestic to imported brands in a crisis-sensitized market. Journal of International Marketing 23(1). 91–112. Hallman, W. K., Cuite, C. L., Nucci, M. L., Pleasant, A. F., and Chess, C. 2006. Examining the 2006 spinach crisis from multiple perspectives. Rutgers University Food Policy Institute http://www.personal.psu.edu/lfl5/blogs/penn_state_food_safety/FPI_2006_Spinach_ Crisis.pdf Henry, J. 2011, December 12. Chevy Volt battery fires threaten all electric vehicle makers, not just GM. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimhenry/2011/12/12/chevy-voltbattery-fires threaten-all-electric-ve/#3bb1c6056d5c Hirsch, J. 2012, January 20. NHTSA ends Chevrolet Volt probe, endorses GM remedy. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://vista.sahafi.jo/art.php?id=33be456dfeffabc2d73310a7c49636e4 fd0e26fb



Reputational interdependence and spillover 

 373

Kim, J. N., and Grunig, J. E. 2011. Problem solving and communicative action: A situational theory of problem solving. Journal of Communication 61. 120–149. Kottasova, I. 2017, April 11. United loses $250 million of its market value. CNNBusiness. Retrieved from https://money.cnn.com/2017/04/11/investing/united-airlines-stock-passengerflight-video/ Lee, S. Y., and Rim, H. 2016. Negative spillover in corporate–nonprofit partnerships: Exploring the effects of company–cause congruence and organization–public relationships. Public Relations Review 42(4). 710–712. Lei, J., Dawar, N., and Lemmink, J. 2008. Negative spillover in brand portfolios: Exploring the antecedents of asymmetric effects. Journal of Marketing 72. 111–123. LeVine, S. 2012, March. Can the electric car survive? Slate. Retrieved from https://slate.com/ technology/2012/03/chevy-volt-nissan-leaf-will-the-electric-car-ever-be-a-success.html Kahuni, A. T., Rowley, J., and Binsardi, A. 2009. Guilty by association: Image “spill-over” in corporate co-branding. Corporate Reputation Review 12. 52–63. King, A., Lenox, M., and Barnett, M. 2002. Strategic responses to the reputation commons problem. In A. Hoffman and M. Ventresca (eds.), Organizations, policy and the natural environment: Institutional and strategic perspectives, 393–406. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Paul, K. 2017, April 16. This is how long it could take for United to recover from its PR disaster. MarketWatch. Retrieved from https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-how-long-it-couldtake-for-united-to-recover-from-its-pr-disaster-2017-04-14 Poroli, A., and Huang, L. V. 2018. Spillover effects of a university crisis: A qualitative investigation using situational theory of problem solving. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 95(4). 1128–1149. Roehm, M. L., and Tybout, A. M. 2006. When will a brand scandal spill over, and how should competitors respond? Journal of Marketing Research 43(3). 366–373. Shen, L. 2017, April 11. United Airlines stock drops $1.4 billion after passenger-removal controversy. Fortune. Retrieved from http://fortune.com/2017/04/11/united-airlines-stock-drop/ Suchman, M. C. 1995. Managing legitimacy: Strategic and institutional approaches. Academy of Management Review 20. 571–610. The Food Industry Center. 2009. Natural selection: 2006 E. coli recall of fresh spinach. The Food Industry Center, University of Minnesota. Retrieved from http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/ bitstream/54784/2/Natural%20Selection.pdf Veil, S. R., Dillingham, L. L., and Sloan, A. G. 2016. Fencing out the Jones’s: The development of response strategies for spillover crises. Corporate Reputation Review 19(4). 316–330. Veil, S. R., Sellnow, T. L., and Petrun, E. L. 2012. Hoaxes and the paradoxical challenges of restoring legitimacy: Dominos’ response to its YouTube crisis. Management Communication Quarterly 26(2). 322–345. Wahlman, A. 2012, October 1. All electric cars are not the same: Volt vs. Leaf. TheStreet. Retrieved from https://www.thestreet.com/story/11723219/1/all-electric-cars-are-not-the-same-voltvs-leaf.html Wald, M. L. 2012, January 25. Accusations of delay in disclosing Volt fire. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/republicans-charge-delay-involt-fire-announcement.html Winn, M. I., MacDonald, P., and Zietsma, C. 2008. Managing industry reputation: The dynamic tension between collective and competitive reputation management strategies. Corporate Reputation Review 11(1). 33–55. Yamanouchi, K. 2017, April 12. United dragging incident: Delta CEO defends overbookings. Atlanta Journal Constitution. Retrieved from https://www.ajc.com/travel/united-dragging-incidentdelta-ceo-defends-overbookings/kn0lrRsY8l8kmj4hsjsFhK/

374 

 Shari R. Veil and Lindsay L. Dillingham

Yu, T., and Lester, R. H. 2008. Moving beyond firm boundaries: A social network perspective on reputation spillover. Corporate Reputation Review 11(1). 94–108. Yu, T., Sengul, M., and Lester, R. H. 2008. Misery loves company: The spread of negative impacts resulting from an organizational crisis. Academy of Management Review 33. 452–472. Zumbach, L. 2018, April 9. A year after a passenger was dragged off a United flight, everyday indignities remain. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from https://www.chicagotribune.com/ business/ct-biz-united-passenger-dragging-anniversary-20180405-story.html

Winni Johansen

18 Crisis management consulting: An emerging field of study Abstract: Organizations often look for external crisis management expertise among (crisis) communication and management agencies when they need assistance before or during a crisis. Crisis consultants publish books to promote their work and the importance of crisis management competencies, whereas research publications within crisis consulting are scarce. This chapter seeks to present and reflect upon crisis consulting theory and practice. It introduces to the difference between consulting and advising, and between management consulting and crisis management consulting. Furthermore, the chapter introduces to the few research studies that have been conducted within crisis consulting; it examines the perceptions and activities of crisis consulting as presented by crisis consulting practitioners on their agency websites, in popular crisis management books, and during interviews, and it briefly discusses the future of crisis consulting. Keywords: advice-giving, crisis management consulting, crisis communication consulting, popular crisis management books, crisis consultants, management consulting, communication consulting

1 Introduction Although organizations may know that crises can be devastating for their reputation and survival, they do not all prepare sufficiently for crises (Frandsen and Johansen 2004, 2012). When organizations are hit by a crisis or want to prepare for potential crises, they do not always have the necessary competencies and resources to deal with complex crisis situations. This makes them call upon crisis consultants from communication or crisis management agencies to assist them in this work. They want advice and assistance before taking decisions that may have a huge impact on the organization and/or its surroundings. External crisis management expertise is in fact one of the management consulting areas where organizations most often look out for help (Laufer 2007), and it is an important driver behind agency relationships in the USA (Swerling 2014, Goodman 2015). If you Google the search term crisis management consulting, you do not only get a wealth of hits, you also immediately get the idea that you are standing on the threshold of a dynamic area of interest not only to current and potential clients, but also to scholars who conduct research within the field of crisis management and crisis communication. Among some of the most important consultancies that offer crisis consulting, you find, for example, Jim Lukaszewski (The Lukaszewski Group) in the https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-018

376 

 Winni Johansen

USA and Regester Larkin by Deloitte in the UK. In December, 2016, Deloitte announced the acquisition of the crisis, issues and reputation management consultancy Regester Larkin, and stressed the importance of this knowledge field for management and accounting agencies. Crisis consulting seems to be considered an important area within crisis management, and one would expect that this field has also got the attention of crisis management scholars and within crisis management teaching. Therefore, it comes as a big surprise when you discover that crisis management and crisis communication consulting is under-researched. The surprise only becomes bigger, when you learn that most articles and books have been written by crisis consultants offering normative advice based on their personal experiences and reflections (Frandsen and Johansen 2019), whereas the academic literature is almost nonexistent. Only recently the first academic studies started to emerge (Frandsen and Johansen 2012, Pang, Frandsen, Johansen and Yeo 2013). Consequently, this chapter seeks to present and reflect upon the emergence, evolution, theory, and practice of crisis consulting. First, the chapter defines what is understood by consulting, presenting two different approaches, consulting versus advising. Next, the chapter compares the profession of management and communication consulting to crisis management consulting in order to identify specific characteristics of crisis consulting. Furthermore, the chapter investigates the perceptions and conceptualizations as well as services and activities of crisis consulting as represented by consultancies and crisis consulting practitioners when they promote and talk about themselves and their work, e.  g. on corporate websites, in popular crisis management books, and in research interviews. Finally, the chapter presents the few academic research studies and the academic literature published on crisis consulting, and briefly discusses the future of crisis consulting.

2 Two different approaches: consulting and advising Before we start investigating crisis management consulting as a key activity in the field of crisis management and crisis communication, we have to bring up a question that may seem banal, but which is not banal at all: Is there a difference between consulting and advising? Does it matter if we read The Oxford Handbook of Advice (2018, edited by Erina L. MacGeorge and Lyn M. van Swol) instead of The Oxford Handbook of Management Consulting (2012, edited by Mathias Kipping and Timothy Clark)? The answer is: yes. Consulting is to provide professional or expert advice to one or more specific organizations, or to one or more persons within an organization. The advice is given in exchange for a fee. Advising is to give someone a recommendation about what should or could be done in a specific situation. The consultant comes from the outside, and he or she is part of a formal consultant-client relationship which is based



Crisis management consulting: An emerging field of study 

 377

on a formal contract or agreement. The advisor is not necessarily an external actor, and he or she is not necessarily part of a formal relationship. Some scholars apply the concept of internal consulting, indicating that internal consulting is “provided by functional departments, such as communication departments, which are defined by a specific core activity that is complemented by consulting tasks concerning topics within the respective functional area” (Zerfass and Franke 2013: 122). Zerfass and Franke put up a framework for internal communication consulting including consulting form and consulting objectives, and they include advising (expert consulting) as one of the internal consulting forms that aims at recommending communication activities and integrating communicative insights into task-related decision making (Zerfass and Franke 2013: 129). As a practice, consulting emerged at the end of the 19th century. The American public relations expert, Ivy Ledbetter Lee, was one of the first well-known consultants within public relations consulting and crisis consulting, and he was one of the first to establish a public relations consultancy (Parker and Lee in 2005, Ivy Lee & Associates in 1919). His first client was the Pennsylvania Railroad, and Lee convinced the company to sending out a statement (the first press release) in relation to the 1906 Atlantic City train wreck crisis, where 53 people drowned when an electric train fell off a bridge. Within research, management consulting started getting attention in the 1990  s, see next section of this chapter. Research on advice taking and advice giving emerged in the 1980  s and had a focus on the social context of decision-making, see, for example, Brehmer and Hagafors (1986), who studied the use of experts in complex decision-making, and Bonaccio and Reeshad (2006). The core of this research is the study of the judge–advisor system (JAS), a type of advice structure often studied in advice taking research. The judge is the decision maker who evaluates information concerning a particular decision and makes the final judgment on the decision outcome. The advisor is an individual who provides advice, information, or suggestions to the judge. The consulting scholars only very seldom refer to the advising scholars, and vice versa. In the remainder of this chapter, we only focus on crisis management consulting. Tab. 1: Consulting versus advising. Management consulting

Advice-giving and advice-taking

The Consultant-Client relationship External/internal activity Formal relationship Paid for

The Judge-Advisor System (JAS) Organization-internal activity Informal relationship Not paid for

378 

 Winni Johansen

3 Management consulting: The world’s newest profession We will start out by looking briefly at the development of management consulting and communication consulting in general, before we move on to crisis management and crisis communication consulting in particular. According to Christopher McKenna in his book entitled The World’s Newest Profession. Management Consulting in the Twentieth Century (2006), modern management consulting was introduced as a new professional service in the 1920  s and 1930  s in the US, and expanded overseas in the 1950  s, however, it has still not become a full profession. Today, nobody would claim that management consulting still is a young professional field, and the market for consultants has grown a lot especially during the 1990  s (McKenna 2006: 251). However, even if management consultants have achieved “internal stability in their firms and durable institutional demand for their services”, they have “not yet attained full professional status within society” (McKenna 2006: 249). This means that management consulting still has the possibility to grow up and become the world’s newest profession (McKenna 2006: 249). As a business activity and organizational practice, management consulting emerged at the end of the 19th century, whereas the academic interest in management consulting only started gaining traction in the late 1980  s and in the 1990  s (cf. Kipping and Clark 2012, Engwall and Kipping 2013). Since then, scholars have studied various aspects of the management knowledge industry, including the client-consultancy relationship (Clark 1995, Sturdy, Handley, Clark and Fincham 2009, Nikolova and Devinney 2012), the creation of new management ideas and fashions (Kieser 1997, Alvarez 1998), the economics and sociology of management consulting (Armbrüster 2006), the history of the consulting industry (McKenna 2006), consulting in different fields such as marketing, human resources, information technology and strategy (Greiner and Poulfelt 2009), critical perspectives (Clark and Fincham 2002), and communication barriers between consultants and clients (Kieser 2002, Sutter and Kieser 2019). One of the first larger international research projects studied the Creation of European Management Practice from 1998 to 2001. Some of the results from this research were published in a book edited by Kipping and Engwall, entitled Management Consulting: Emergence and Dynamics of a Knowledge Industry (2002). Based on the levels of analysis of the various studies of management consulting presented in the book, Kipping and Engwall introduced an analytical model with three levels of analysis: (1) industry level (firms, market and competition), (2) firm level (employees, hierarchy and cooperation/competition), and (3) project level (project relationships, networks (ad-hoc) and transfer/co-production) (Kipping and Engwall 2002: 3). In 2012, ten years later, The Oxford Handbook of Management Consulting was edited by Kipping and Clark, and a collection of key publications, Management Consultants  I–II was



Crisis management consulting: An emerging field of study 

 379

edited by Avakian and Clark, giving an overview of almost 20 years of management consulting research. According to both Sturdy et al. (2009) and Kipping and Clark (2012) only very few studies have focused on particular types of consultancy, such as internal consulting, or on particular sectors, such as consulting in the public sector. This is also the case of crisis consulting that only started to appear in 2013 (see Pang et al. 2013). Recently, Nissen published an edited work entitled, Advances in Consulting Research – Findings and Practical Cases (2019), including specific consulting areas such as sustainability consulting and digital consulting and transformation.

4 Communication consulting Although media and public relations agencies have existed since the beginning of the 20th century, only few academic studies have been conducted on communication consulting so far (cf. von Platen 2018; Frandsen, Johansen and Pang 2013). Recently, however, an increased number of scholars have started looking into the role and practice of communication consulting (Tyllström 2013). For instance, Hoffmann, Steiner and Jarren (2011) discussed the role of the communication consultant arguing that the external communication consultant is an “outsider who constitutes an inimitable resource”, because a consultant brings in and confronts a client with a valuable outside perspective on specific problems. In 2013, International Journal of Strategic Communication published a special issue on ‘Strategic communication and consulting’, edited by Frandsen, Johansen and Pang. The issue’s first article gives a short overview of the three main waves in the evolution of management consulting and stresses the opportunity and emerging need for communication consulting in the ‘third wave’ of management consulting from 1980  s until today (Engwall and Kipping 2013: 88). Then follows three articles on internal and external communication consulting and an article on crisis consulting. Röttger and Preusse (2013) applies a social systems theory to the roles and functions of the external communication consultant in strategic communication, and conceptualize the consultant as a “second-order observer of the client organization” (Röttger and Preusse 2013: 106) assisting the communication department and the organization with external observations. Together with Sarah Zielmann, Ulrike Röttger has edited two anthologies on public relations consulting in German (2009, 2012). In the third article of the special issue, Zerfass and Franke puts up a theoretical framework for internal communication consulting in organizations that takes into account the role and function (enabling, advising, supporting and executing) of communication professionals when they act as consultants for their colleagues in an organization. Wright (2013) presents the public relations agency industry in the USA, and finally, Pang et al. (2013) present a comparative study of crisis consulting agencies in Singapore and Denmark.

380 

 Winni Johansen

Not only in Germany, but also in Sweden, communication scholars have showed interest in studying communication consulting. Sara von Platen has studied the professional role, function and skills of the communication consultant and provided a framework for understanding communication consultants work as translation (2015), translating “knowledge and ideas between various contexts and actors” (Von Platen 2015: 160). In another study, von Platen (2016) studies the influence of digital media on the professional role of the communication consultant and argues that communication consultants now are struggling to reconstruct themselves as expert advisors as a lot of “civil strategic communication experts” are now present on social media (Von Platen 2016: 364). According to von Platen, still in 2018 compared to consultants in general and organizational consultants “little is known about the practices and practitioners that may be gathered under the wide conceptual umbrella of communication consulting” (Von Platen 2018: 187). Communication consultancies offer a various number of services such as crisis communication, lobbying, public affairs, media training, change communication, leadership communication, event planning and branding, etc. A communication consultant can be defined as a person who on a professional basis acts as an agent and provides a principal (e.  g. a client organization or a person) with advice on communication related matters or otherwise enable communication processes. The communication issue at hand is often goal oriented and relates to strategic action or goal attainment on a personal or organizational level on behalf of the principal. (von Platen 2018: 188)

Sutter and Kieser (2019) are also interested in the concept of translation. They claim that important communication barriers emerge when members of consultancies cooperate with organizations in joint projects, because it is difficult to transfer knowledge from one organization to another. The two systems – consultancy and client organization – live in different ‘thought worlds’ and follow different logics and frames of reference. Consequently, there is a risk of communication barriers, and a need for ‘translation’. Conceptualized by system theory, they present an empirical qualitative study that demonstrates how communication barriers can be dealt with by using the mechanisms of “prototyping” and “boundary objects” (e.  g. artifacts, documents, terms, concepts, and other forms of reification around which communities of practice can organize their interconnections (cf. Wenger 1998: 105) that can enable the connectivity between the consultants and their clients. To sum up, the academic studies on communication consulting so far seem to have had a focus upon the role and functions of the communication consultant as an outsider and/or a translator offering an outside view on the client organization and on the communication with relevant stakeholders.



Crisis management consulting: An emerging field of study 

 381

5 Crisis management consulting: characteristics A part from Ivy Lee, in 1906, most crisis management consulting agencies started to emerge in the 1980’s and they were typically based on the knowledge and personal experience of just one person. Steven Fink and Jim Lukaszewski are good examples of such agencies. Steven Fink wrote his well-known book, Management: Planning for the Inevitable in 1986 based on his experiences from the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. Jim Lukaszewski who names himself the America’s Crisis Guru®, builds on his long-term experiences and knowledge within crisis communication. He has published 13 books and more than hundreds of articles and monographs according to his webpage on the Lukaszewski Group (https://www.e911.com/about), including the book Lukaszewski on Crisis Communication: What Your CEO Needs to Know About Reputation Risk and Crisis Management (Lukaszewski 2013). However, crisis consulting is typically performed both by big consultancies (Larkin by Deloitte, Hill and Knowlton, etc.) and by small and medium-sized consultancies. However, in many countries small and medium sized agencies have a strong influence on the consulting market, e.  g. Germany (Sutter and Kieser 2019), Denmark (Johansen 2017), Singapore (Pang and Yeo 2012). But how does crisis management differ from other management consulting areas? Or crisis communication from other communication consulting areas? The services offered in crisis consulting are particular to this field of consulting, but this is also the case for the many other expert services provided by communication consultancies, such as change communication, marketing and branding, public affairs, etc. However, crisis consulting has important characteristics that also may explain why crisis consulting often calls for experienced senior consultants. In a qualitative study, based on semi-structured interviews with crisis communication consultants operating in Denmark, four key characteristics were identified: pace, intensity, a specific psychological relationship, and working 24/7. Compared to communication consulting in general crisis consulting is also about time pressure: “It is a different time perspective. Consulting when somebody holds a knife to your throat is very different. You are both a communicator and a receiver in a completely different mode” (Crisis consultant, in Johansen 2017: 116). The consultant often establishes a specific personal relationship with the CEO during the crisis situation, and is expected to stand by 24/7. Furthermore, the study showed that there is more at stake in crisis consulting, because as a consultant, it hits you harder if you fail. Consequently, crisis communication counseling is mostly performed by senior consultants having the necessary experience, business knowledge and analytical skills to decode the organizational politics and power games as well as the behavior of consumers, big clients, media and other key stakeholders (Johansen 2017: 116).

382 

 Winni Johansen

6 Research studies within crisis management and crisis communication consulting As already mentioned, academic research within crisis consulting is scarce. In the following three sections, different parts of one of the first larger research projects that Frandsen and Johansen have been working with since 2007 will be presented together with a few studies of consulting in Singapore and Croatia. In 2003, we did a study on the crisis preparedness of private and public organizations in Denmark (Frandsen and Johansen 2004). Among the 298 respondents of the electronic survey, only 33 percent of the private organizations had a crisis management plan. When asked why? They explained that they only rarely had a crisis, and that a crisis is unique, so if they needed assistance, they would contact an external consultant. This made us wonder: what do the organizations get for the fees they pay? What kind of counsel? What kind of services? In what ways would the assistance of crisis consultants help organizations prepare for and/or deal with crisis situations? And what were the challenges (advantages and/or disadvantages) of the external consultants, not having the same insights into the specific business context as in-house staff? Thus, in 2007, we launched a research project designed to study the crisis management consulting industry in Denmark, and it is still ongoing. In the following three sections parts of these studies will be presented: (1) A study of the crisis perceptions, knowledge, and services offered by (crisis) communication consultancies within crisis management on their agency websites; (2) A study of popular crisis management books; and (3) A study of crisis understandings and consulting services and activities in the before, during and after stages of a crisis as perceived by experienced crisis consultants located in Denmark. The core of crisis consulting can be defined as an interactive communication process which builds up and/or takes place within an already existing external/internal and formal/informal relationship between two actors A and B. A (consulting firm, represented by one or more consultants) is expected to possess an expertise that B (the client, represented by one or more members of the organization) considers useful to his or her organization, at a specific point in time in the crisis life cycle (before, during, and/or after a crisis) depending on the purpose of the consulting. (Johansen 2017: 110).

The expertise may have the form of specific knowledge, new or old, practical or theoretical, specific personal experiences, interaction competencies, etc. and the purpose of the consulting may be to implement a crisis preparedness system, review a crisis management plan, writing crisis messages, coaching the CEO, etc. Furthermore, we distinguish between different types of crisis consulting: (1) formal internal crisis consulting and formal external crisis consulting, and (2) informal internal crisis consulting and informal external crisis consulting (see Figure 1). In this chapter the focus is on the external, formal type of crisis consulting.



Crisis management consulting: An emerging field of study 

 383

Formal Crisis management team, communication department, and the CEO Trade associations and one or more of its member organizations

One or more consultants from a public relations or communications firm and their clients External

Internal Colleagues from the same organization across professions

Colleagues across organizations but within the same profession

Informal Fig. 1: Crisis consulting typology (Johansen 2017: 110).

When crisis consultants communicate and promote their services and activities, they rely on different means: agency websites, self-authored crisis management books, social and professional networks sites, word-of-mouth, expert statements in the news media, participation at seminars and conferences, and interviews with researchers. Now, let’s start by taking a look at their websites.

7 Crisis consulting expertise presented on agency websites In 2007, we started an explorative study of the crisis management and crisis communication consulting of Danish public relations agencies consisting of two elements: (1) a discourse analysis of seventeen agency websites (repeated in 2012) describing and promoting the competencies and services of the agencies within the field of crisis management and crisis communication, followed by (2) twelve in-depth interviews with senior representatives from major communication agencies conducted in 2012 (for this second part of the study, see section 8 in this chapter). The study of the agency websites was conducted in order to explore three overall sets of research questions: – How do PR firms operating in Denmark perceive organizational crises, crisis management and crisis communication? – How do PR firms operating in Denmark work in practice, as well as in theory, with crisis consulting with regard to private companies and/or public organizations? What kind of concepts, models and tools? – How do PR firms operating in Denmark promote themselves and their competencies within the field of crisis consulting vis-à-vis key stakeholders (actual and potential clients, competitors, research institutions, etc.)?

384 

 Winni Johansen

The theoretical framework for this study was based on management consulting research (Kipping and Engwall 2002, McKenna 2006) combined with management fashion theory (Grint 1997, Jackson 2001, Abrahamson 1996), neo-institutional theory (Clark 1995), and rhetorical arena theory (Frandsen and Johansen 2017) that applies a strategic, proactive and process-oriented approach to crisis management (before, during, after a crisis) and a multivocal approach to crisis communication. The research design can be described as an archival study using a qualitative approach to the study of agency websites. Twenty-nine public relations agencies were identified through the Danish Associations of Public Relations Agencies (DAPRA), and 17 of them offered crisis consulting as one of their services on their websites. In order to answer the research questions, the 17 website texts were submitted to four different kind of analysis: – An analysis of the promotional discourse of the agency websites – A content analysis (to investigate the three research questions) – A contextualised discourse analysis of inductive metaphors (cf. Cornelissen et al. 2008) – An analysis of multimodal aspects: to investigate the verbal and visual staging of competencies The websites were analysed and coded into four categories and themes: (1) Crisis: Definitions, perceptions, valorisation, crisis type, causes and consequences. (2) Crisis management and (3) crisis communication: Definitions, perceptions, focus on specific stages (crisis life cycle), crisis consulting, relationship between PR firm and client, tools. And (4) Cross-categorical topics: Verbal and visual staging of competencies, metaphors, argumentation, production/use of research. The study of the agency websites (Frandsen and Johansen 2008, 2012) revealed key perceptions about crisis and crisis management, while the agencies at the same time were promoting and telling about their competences and services within crisis management. There were no formal definitions of a crisis. However, except from one agency, focus was clearly upon “media crises”, and negative media coverage causing crises. External aspects of a crisis were emphasized, and crises were viewed as negative events. Only four agencies worked with crisis typologies and made distinctions between different types of crises. Surprisingly, only one agency mentioned the consequences of a crisis, in this case: damage to image and reputation and financial losses that could paralyze the organization and its members. Crisis management was about offering help and collaborate in the before and during-crisis stages, whereas only one agency also had a focus on the after-crisis stage. It was a matter of quick, correct and effective handling of a crisis, and about various consulting tools such as issues management, risk profile and risk assessment, strategy and planning, crisis simulations and drills, crisis team building and the offering of specific software, such as the business continuity management tool entitled “Crisis Commander”.



Crisis management consulting: An emerging field of study 

 385

In the same way, crisis communication was sender-oriented and a matter of offering help to the organization in being effective, professional, correct, trustworthy, quick, clear, empathic and sympathetic. The tools applied were mostly about core messages, establishing Q&As, writing press releases, offering media training, establishing distribution lists, assisting in building communication platforms and training spokespersons. Finally, the last category was about cross-categorical questions and the rhetorical staging of the agencies such as the use of inductive metaphors to make the phenomenon of crisis more accessible or to capture the complexity of a crisis. The metaphor areas were related to war: a crisis “hits”, “control the troops”, “times of peace”, “the Crisis Commander”; meteorology: “media storm”; game: “dices”, “dominoes”, “dart”; or entertainment: “media circus”. Only one agency referred to academic research on their website, and apparently none of them conducted research themselves, at least according to the information on their website. From this study we could conclude that PR agency websites were quite similar both in 2007 and 2012, when it comes to their presentation and selection of competencies and services offered by an agency. They were all promoting their tools and same kind of tactical services. Thus, it may be a matter of institutional isomorphism (DiMaggio and Powell 1983), wanting to show that they were experienced and that they had the whole range of services that they were expected to offer. They all viewed crises as negative events and crisis management as a process with a before, during and after stage, but they mostly mentioned tools and models to be used during the before and during stages of a crisis. All agency websites emphasized the role of the media and had a main focus on media and other external aspects, whereas none of them mentioned internal crisis communication or other internal aspects. This may indicate that there are typically strong expectations to communication consultants when it comes to assisting an organization in crisis in handling the media and external stakeholders. The findings also correspond to the observations of Spector (2019) who claims that crisis agencies consider crises as events and objective facts to be managed, overlooking the crisis as a social construction (Spector 2019: 42). As for the form and format of the website all of them used metaphors as a rhetorical device to make their language and communication more vibrant. The analysis of the promotional discourse of the PR agencies also showed that the staging of the PR agency, the consultants and the products was quite similar. They all emphasized their huge expertise and many years of experience with crisis management and various crisis situations, including statements such as “we know what it is all about and have tried this, many times before”. As Spector states: “The advice [of the crisis management industry] is packaged to appear unique and uniquely helpful” (Spector 2019: 43). We may talk about a uniqueness paradox in this case: Although they want to stand out from the competitors, they are seemingly promoting the same kind of crisis experience, expertise, and products using the same format and discourse, at least as

386 

 Winni Johansen

it appears on their agency websites (cf. the investigation of company presentations of Johansen 2000). What is mentioned on the agency website is both what the PR agency claims to be its key competences and services as well as what the agency expects will be of interest and of focus to the potential client-organization. It is also a matter of creating attention, impression and contact. Thus, in the stage of establishing a relationship with a client-organization it is not only about having an expert function or offering help to the construction of new knowledge in a client organization, it is also about impression management. In this way our study confirmed the existence of three approaches to the practice of consulting as presented by Nikolova and Devinney (2012) and Clark (1995).

8 Crisis consulting in popular crisis management books (PCMBs) Business books about management and leadership have grown extremely popular since the 1980  s. Peters and Waterman’s In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best Run Companies (1982) is a fine example of one of these books. It sold more than 3 million copies in its first four years and is considered a best seller. Other examples are Blanchard and Johnson’s The One Minute Manager (1982). Despite the popularity of popular business books, not much empirical research has been conducted within this field. Pierce and Newstrom (1993, 2013 10th edn.) were among the first to write about these books and the concept of best sellers, followed by Crainer (1997). Inspired by neo-institutional theory, Furusten (1998, 1999) investigated popular management books in order to identify the general management discourse in society and the “standardized ideology of management” (Furusten 1998: 160). Clark and Greatbach (2004) applied a critical approach investigating the image-spectacle, and the communicative impression management approach of consultants. Finally, Lischinsky (2008) did a study of a large corpus of popular business texts in order to investigate how the discursive structure of the books contributed to the legitimacy of the knowledge and expertise of the consultants. Within communication, the study of Lewis, Schmisseur, Stephens, and Weir (2006) on dominant themes of advice in popular press books on communicating during organizational change was one of the first studies on popular communication management books. However, as already mentioned no studies have been conducted of popular crisis management books (PCMBs) so far. In contrast to the few academic studies within crisis consulting, the consultants themselves have been very productive in producing popular books about crisis management and crisis communication and telling their stories and “Tales from the Frontline” (to cite the title of the PCMB written by Sapriel and Lennarts 2016). These books are typically targeted at managers responsible for the implementation, maintaining



Crisis management consulting: An emerging field of study 

 387

and activation of the crisis preparedness of their organizations, but are also read by people interested in learning (more) about crisis management in general. Managers in private and public organizations get their knowledge about crisis management from formal education, personal and collective knowledge and experience from other members of their organizations or from the profession, as well as from expert knowledge provided by external consultants (Nohria and Eccles 1998). In fact, if an organization do not have in-house expertise within crisis management, managers are dependent on external expert knowledge. One way of getting access to this expert knowledge is of course to work with and have the support of a consultant or consulting firm. Another way is to participate in workshops and seminars organized by experienced consultants and/or to read books and articles written by them. The popular crisis management books provide an idea about how crisis consultants understand and work with crisis management, including their tools and services, as well as about how they promote themselves as crisis experts. Through their work, consultants have access to valuable knowledge about what is going on inside an organization in crisis situations. Typically, they have direct access to the CEO and the management level, and they tell about these insights in their books. In this way, they can add new insights to crisis management compared to academics who only rarely have direct access to an organization hit by a crisis. In this study we investigated a sample of 15 PCMBs, written by crisis consultants and published between 1986 and 2018 in the United States or in the United Kingdom. The books are provided with catchy titles such as Damage Control, (2007), Crisis Management: Get Ready, Get Ready Get Ready (2016), Masters of Disasters (2011), and Corporate Smokejumper (2017), and/or they appeal by referring to how to take action and solutions in the subtitles: e.  g. The Ten commandments of Damage Control, The 7 rules of Crisis Management, A step-by-step guide to Managing a Business Crisis, and Tales from the frontline. The front or cover pages are mostly quite colorful using red, yellow and black colors, and/or weather metaphors from natural disasters such as ligthenings, bad weather, fire or smoke as well as fire engines. The authors were experienced senior consultants (CEOs, presidents and/or partners of consulting firms in the US or UK). The aim of the study was to examine (1) how the authors of PCMBs position themselves in front of their readers, clients and competitors, including public relations professionals and academics; (2) how they understand and present organizational crises and the practice of crisis management and crisis communication as their field of expertise; and (3) how they promote this expertise using various types of message strategies and rhetorical packaging. The model of text analysis was inspired by Michael Halliday’s theory of the three metafunctions of language and consisted of three dimensions: an interpersonal dimension (e.  g., author, reader, consultant position, opposition), an ideational dimension (e.  g., crisis definition, causes, consequences, crisis types, emotional reactions during crises, crisis management elements, crisis communication elements, models and tools for the three crisis stages, society at large) and a textual dimension

388 

 Winni Johansen

(e.  g., type of book, theoretical framework, structure of the book, presentation of cases new vs. wellknown. According to the results (Frandsen and Johansen 2020), the PCMB authors positioned themselves as crisis experts with many years of practical experience and connection to the ‘real’ world as their strong assets compared to academics. Comparing the discipline of public relations to crisis management, crisis experts found that they had different goals: Whereas “public relations is about building an image” and promoting a positive image of a company, “crisis management is about protecting that image”, and managing the negative (Bernstein and Bonafede 2011: 6 and 84). The authors defined crisis in various ways, also adding new and original definitions of crisis, focusing for instance on the internal and external victims seeing a crisis as the “sudden, unexpected creation of victims, accompanied by unplanned visibility for an organization” (Lukaszewski 2013: 12). Crisis leadership is about showing “the same leadership competencies under the extreme pressures” in a crisis situation (Johnson 2018: 15). All of the books dealt with a lifecycle approach to crisis, and described various tools and disciplines to be used during the pre-crisis, crisis and post-crisis stages of the management process. However, they did not agree on the role and focus of crisis plans, whether plans should be short or long, or whether plans were able to deal with emotional aspects of a crisis. Meyer (2017) even warned against going “plan crazy” (Meyer 2017: 25). All PCMB’s had one or more chapters or sections on crisis communication. However, interestingly, crisis response strategies and their effectiveness were hardly touched upon, in contrast to the focus in the academic literature on crisis communication (image repair theory and situational crisis communication theory (cf. Avery et al. 2010). To the extent, the experts work with crisis communication strategies, they invent their own strategies, using their own terms, probably in order to differentiate and stand out when offering their crisis communication services. Some of them are also quite critical towards the use of strategies applied by public relations professionals. For instance, Dezenhall (2011) finds the strategy of “apologies” being recommended too often by public relations professionals. In an attempt to make the books easily read and attractive to readers and potential clients, the authors typically tell “war-stories” or “tales from the frontline” (Sapriel and Lennarts 2016) and apply a specific rhetorical packaging, such as vivid metaphors, for instance referring to the crisis managers as fire fighters and corporate smokejumpers. As with the web-site study, they also applied metaphors for crises, that related to natural disasters, weather, and war (e.  g. tales from the frontline, war stories, etc.). The study of PCMBs showed that crisis consultants first and foremost want to give advice and to make impression on their knowledge and capacities by presenting their experiences within the field, as well as to introduce to some of the most important services and tools that they have established and work with before, during and after a crisis situation to prevent, prepare, respond and learn from crises. Although crisis



Crisis management consulting: An emerging field of study 

 389

consultants and crisis academics cover the same components of crisis management, such as prevention, preparation, response and learning from crises, the consultants also add specific elements such as crisis management and the law and crisis management and publicly owned companies. Compared to the agency websites, that present and promote the agency profile and competences as well as its range of services offered to organizations that need assistance for crisis management and crisis communication, the PCMB’s tell the story of crisis consulting viewed from one or more experienced consultants, adding their personal insights and experiences to the field. Although the agencies tried to diffentiate themselves compared to other agencies, the agency websites still were rather identifical in relation to content, following more or less the same format for what to present (competences, services). In contrast, the books were more personalized, telling their personal ‘war stories’, and in this way, they were different compared to one another. To get published by a well known publisher, a book needs to be different from other books within the same category, and this may also partly explain the large variation between the books. PCMB’s are also about promotional discourse and impression management, however the focus is on the need for experienced senior consultants to deal with the complexity of a crisis. In this way, the books are also emphasizing the high-status and importance of the consulting profession and job function, adding insights into the self-identity of crisis consultants.

9 Crisis consulting as perceived by crisis ­communication consultants in PR firms Research on crisis consulting firms acting as external advice-givers during a crisis, as already mentioned, is almost non-existent. In this section, we are going to look at three studies of crisis consulting firms conducted in Denmark, Singapore and Croatia. As for the Danish study, we wanted to expand the above-mentioned study of agency websites and to learn from the consultants themselves about their understandings and roles in crisis situations for client-organizations. This led us to conduct, in 2012, the first exploratory interview-study with representatives of national and international public relations and communication firms in Denmark acting as crisis consultants to private or public organizations. The study was based on a complex broad perspective on crisis management and a multivocal, rhetorical arena approach to crisis communication. The overall goal was to examine the professional ‘world view’ of crisis communication consultants and the role of an external communication agency in relation to crisis management and crisis consulting. The theoretical framework was based on Craig (2006) and his idea of communication as a practice that “involves engaging in specific activities and thinking and talking about them in specific ways” (Craig 2006: 38). According to Craig (2013) “Humans are

390 

 Winni Johansen

self-interpreting beings who act on the basis of some understanding of what they are doing. Those understandings vary among individuals and groups and change over time but are not random” (Craig 2013: 50). This led to the following framework and research questions, presented in Table 2. Tab. 2: Theoretical and conceptual framework and research questions of crisis consulting study. Interrelated components

Definition

Research questions

Understanding

How the interviewees position themselves implicitly and/or explicitly in terms of a perspective (cluster of shared conceptualizations) on the field.

How do public relations and communications firms that operate in Denmark and consider crisis consulting one of their capabilities understand crisis, crisis management and crisis communication?

Practice

How the interviewees perceive “how things are (not) done”.

How do these firms practice crisis consulting?

Envisaging

The ability to imagine or expect something in the future.

How do these firms envisage the future of the field of crisis consulting?

If we take a look at how crisis consultants understand and practice crisis management and crisis communication and how they envisage the future, the study revealed a series of interesting findings, among which you find insights that are neglected within academic research (for a detailed overview, see Johansen 2017). Consultants’ understandings of crises revealed that society has developed until 2012. There was almost consensus in defining a crisis “as a threat to an organization, its reputation, legitimacy and viability” (Johansen 2017: 112), and they also emphasized that new crisis types had appeared, including “turning things into crises that are not really crises” (Crisis consultant, Johansen 2017: 113), and as stated by one of the interviewees: “crisis are more complex, they escalate faster, they cannot be controlled, and politicians are faster to cry out for regulation and to act upon a single case” (Crisis consultant, Johansen 2017: 113). Younger crisis consultants indicated that a shift had taken place within crises consulting: from image crises, with a focus on the crisis stage and the media, represented by consultants with an educational background in journalism, to issues crises, with a focus on the pre-crisis stage and political regulators, represented by consultants with a background in strategic management or political science. Some of the consultants also stressed how important it was to also include employees as stakeholders, to take care of the internal communication during a crisis, and to know about the power balance inside the organization in crisis: Who takes the decisions? What are the relationships between board and directors, and among organizational departments? Especially the organizational politics could be a chal-



Crisis management consulting: An emerging field of study 

 391

lenge to an external consultant. Relationships are very much dependent on trust and transparency. A high level of trust between the company and the consultant is needed. However, some consultants in the study “could have wished for a higher degree of transparency” (Crisis consultant, Johansen 2017: 114). As for the practice of crisis consulting, they all applied a life-cycle approach, and preferred to be called upon in the pre-crisis prevention stage, in order to learn the organization that any kind of decision has communicative consequences. If they were “called on as a fireman, it is stressful and extremely difficult to do anything else than to pour water on the fire” (Crisis consultant, Johansen 2017: 115). It is difficult because they do not know the client or all the facts, and it makes it easy to do wrong. Often, consultants were not involved in the post-crisis stage because the client organization wanted to save resources and reduce costs. During the crisis stage, they all mentioned various operational and tactical tasks (media contact, message formulation, Q&As, etc.) that they had to take care of. However, they emphasized that they did not want to serve as spokespersons on behalf of their clients. They wanted to remain invisible and avoid active media handling. Interestingly, the study found two important aspects of crisis consulting that academics have overlooked until now. First, the consultants often served as a personal advisor to the CEO, offering psychological support because a manager often feel alone and may start to doubt on his/her crisis leadership. Second, the relationship between the external consultant and the chief communication officer (CCO) of the client organisation is important. If the consultant was hired by the CEO and not the CCO, the CCO sometimes felt frustrated of loosing responsibility and of having to compete with the external advisor. However, the relationship between the CCO and the consultant was mostly positive. The consultant could add relevant competences, and/or necessary manpower, or had “fresh eyes” and new arguments “to convince a stubborn CEO about what to do” (Crisis consultant, Johansen 2017: 116). Finally, when envisaging the future of crisis consulting, the consultants distinguished between a small group of very competent consultancies at the top and a large group of less competent consultancies (including one-man firms) at the bottom, who did not have the right knowledge or was lacking experience. According to most of the informants, crisis consulting is based on knowledge about the entire business world. However, they expected a high degree of professionalization and speicalization within the consulting industry in the years to come, and they expected the market for crisis consulting to grow in the future. Thus, there is a need for crisis management and crisis communication in education. Inspired by our study of crisis consulting, Pang and Yeo (2012) did a similar study of agency websites followed by interviews with senior executives from 21 public relations agencies in Singapore, about their crisis management and crisis communication activities. Based on the assumption that organizations expect crisis consultants to be experts in their field, to have solid experience and to be expedient in meeting the needs of their clients, the overall goal was to measure the level of expertise, experi-

392 

 Winni Johansen

ence and expedience of the services of the crisis consultants, by studying three sets of indicators: (1) Expertise: educational background, past training in journalism or public relations, quality of exposure, qualifications, training in crisis consulting; (2) Experience: consulting for crisis, crisis consulting services before, during and after a crisis, use of collaborators and research, and (3) Expedience: levels of trust established with clients, meeting strategic needs of clients and conformity to industry standards (cf. Pang et al. 2013). The Danish study (Frandsen and Johansen 2012) and the Singapore study (Pang and Yeo 2012) were conducted separately, and were next compared (Pang, Frandsen, Johansen and Yeo 2013) in order to account for the state of crisis consultancies in Singapore and Denmark and to identify differences and similarities between consultancies from within these two countries. To date only few studies have compared consulting in different countries, despite the fact that organizations operate on international markets. Within crisis consulting, this study is the very first to apply a comparative approach across two countries. As for the results, we found a lot of similarities: in both countries the consultants had diverse educational backgrounds, and only few of them had a communication background or were rooted in journalism. The consultants all recognized the importance of constantly updating their skills and competences, as “all crises are not just “media crises” (Pang et al. 2013: 162), and found that a more complex understanding of causes and consequences of organizational crises was needed based on detailed business knowledge and advanced strategic thinking. Consultants in both countries had gained their crisis experience by learning on-the-job and they were hired for their general skills, personal capacities and experience rather than for their specific crisis skills, although most of them also agreed that specific competencies, such as communication skills, knowledge about media and journalists’ way of working, strategic thinking, business knowledge and knowledge about the client-organization and its employees, are needed to work as a crisis consultant in practice (Pang et al. 2013: 157). All of them found that they were able to meet the strategic needs of their clients and that they had “the eyes and ears of the CEOs” (Pang et al. 2013: 161). As for differences, the Danish consultants were more experienced (an average of 6 to 29 years of experiences with crisis management), almost all of them had a Master’s degree, and they focused more on the need for specific strategic competencies among consultants compared to their Singapore colleagues. For more details, see Pang et al. 2013. Recently, Jugo, Pakozdi and Milas (2019) conducted a study of PR firms and crisis consulting in Croatia, to some extent similar to the Danish study (Johansen 2017). Based on interviews with 11 Croatian PR firms, they investigated the understanding of crisis, the role and client-consultant relationship during crisis situations, crisis as business opportunity and the future of crisis communication consulting in Croatia. Their study confirmed the Danish study in different ways, for instance, concerning the role of the consultants, and the use of consultants in the crisis stage of the life-cycle. Jugo et al. showed that the consultants both provide advice to the CEO as well as oper-



Crisis management consulting: An emerging field of study 

 393

ational support, being additional ‘arms and legs’. Furthermore, agencies were often only called upon as ‘firefighters’ when the fire had already broken out, unless they were already long-term clients. As in the Danish study, the consultants would prefer to be called upon in the pre-crisis stage, making it possible to work with prevention. The interviewees also expected the demand for crisis consulting to grow in Croatia in the years to come. However, they also stressed that every PR firm or individual need to constantly educate themselves within the field of crisis consulting, because poor handling of a crisis can lead to the ruin of a client. Consequently, “practicing crisis consulting requires courage and confidence” (Jugo et al. 2019: 10).

10 Conclusion and future perspectives There is no doubt that research on crisis consulting add new insights to the field of organizational crises, crisis management and crisis communication and that crisis consulting forms a specific and emerging field of knowledge. In fact, this handbook is the very first to include a chapter on crisis consulting in a handbook on crisis management or crisis communication. Compared to most organizations that may have met and worked through crises a limited number of times, crisis consultants are specialists that have assisted various organizations before or during crises and have gained specific expertise and insights into various crisis situations and crisis types across the three subfields of emergency, political and corporate crisis management. Consultants add an external-internal, outsider-insider perspective to the practice of crisis management. Research has shown that crisis consulting differs from other kinds of communication and management consulting. Consultants working with crisis situations often act under time pressure, where they sometimes have to deliver their advice and expertise without much time for reflection. The crisis situations are typically very complex with a lot of stakeholders and (third party) voices interfering with the communication of the organization. Furthermore, consultants typically apply an outsider perspective, despite the fact that they may already have a long-lasting relationship with the client-organization before a crisis breaks out. To some extent, an outsider perspective makes them open to innovative thinking and new solutions compared to the insiders, but it is also challenging to be an external, as outsiders may not know enough about internal politics. They have to perform and navigate under complex situations where they may not have access to all the needed information or resources to assist in solving the problems. They work 24/7 during crises, performing different roles such as expert, helper, coach and personal advisor to the CEO adding a need for psychological competences and for being senior consultants. By the way, this also explains why this kind of services are more expensive than day-to-day consulting services. From an academic perspective, scholars can learn from crisis consultants, especially as they have access to the internal crisis management of organizations during

394 

 Winni Johansen

crisis situations in contrast to academics, and consultants can tell about challenges and experiences with organizational crises from both an internal and external perspective. Similarly, consultants can learn from academic research and theory. We started conducting research on crisis consulting in 2007, and the project is still ongoing. Crisis consultants play an important role during crisis, and there is a huge need for more research and knowledge about this field. We need more insights into the consulting profession and into the role and function of crisis consultants during crises, but we also need to know more about the expectations of the client-organizations to crisis consulting as well as about the relationship between the external consultant and the CEO and CCO of the client-organization. The consulting industry, including crisis consulting, is growing. As indicated by the consultants interviewed in the Danish and Croatian studies above, they expect the crisis consulting industry not only to grow, but also to become more professional and specialized. Furthermore, they expect crisis consultants to move from an educational background within journalism to an educational background within strategic communication, business administration or political science, and to have solid business knowledge and management skills as well as knowledge about public affairs. This means that we also have to rethink education. An important number of communication students get jobs in the consulting industry, and they need strategic as well as tactical competencies within communication and crisis consulting. To sum up: More dialogue between theory and practice of crisis consulting will be beneficial to the professionalization and institutionalization of crisis management as a field of practice and research.

References Abrahamson, E. 1996. Management Fashion. Academy of Management Review 21(1). 254–285. Alvarez, J. L. (ed.). 1998. The Diffusion and Consumption of Business Knowledge. London: MacMillan Press. Armbrüster, T. 2006. The Economics and Sociology of Management Consulting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Avery, E. J., R. W. Lariscy, S. Kim and T. Hocke. 2010. A quantitative review of crisis communication research in public relations from 1991 to 2009. Public Relations Review 36. 190–192. Avakian, S., and T. Clark (eds.). 2012. Management Consulting. Vols. I–II. The International Library. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Bernstein, J. L., and B. Bonafede. 2011. Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management. A Briefcase Book. New York: McGraw-Hill. Blanchard, K., and S. Johnson. 1982. The One Minute Manager. Berkeley: Berkeley Trade. Bonaccio, S., and R. S. Dalal. 2006. Advice taking and decision-making: In integrative literature review, and implications for the organizational sciences. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 101: 127–151. Brehmer, B., and R. Hagafors. 1986. The use of experts in complex decision-making: A paradigm for the study of staff work. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 38. 181–195.



Crisis management consulting: An emerging field of study 

 395

Clark, T. 1995. Management Consultants: Consultancy as the Art of Impression Management. Buckingham: Open University Press. Clark, T., and R. Fincham (eds.). 2002. Critical Consulting: New Perspectives on the Management Advice Industry. Oxford: Blackwell Business. Clark, T., and D. Greatbatch. 2004. Management fashion as image-spectacle. The production of best-selling management books. Management Communication Quarterly 17. 397–424. Cornelissen, J., C. Oswick, L. T. Christensen and N. Phillips. 2008. Metaphor in organizational research: Contexts, modalities and implications for research – Introduction. Organization Studies 29(1). 7–22. Craig, R. T. 2006. Communication as a practice. In G. J. Shepherd, J. St. John and T. Striphas (eds.), Communication as … Perspectives on Theory, 38–47. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Craig, R. T. 2013. Constructing theories in communication research. In P. Cobley and P. J. Schulz (eds.), Theories and Models of Communication, 39–58. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Crainer, S. 1997. The Ultimate Business Library. Oxford: Capstone Publishing. Dezenhall, E., and J. Weber. 2011. Damage Control: The Essential Lessons of Crisis Management. Westport, CT: Prospecta Press. DiMaggio, P. J., and W. W. Powell. 1983. The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields. American Sociological Review 48(2). 147–160. Engwall, L., and M. Kipping. 2013. Management consulting: Dynamics, debates and directions. International Journal of Strategic Communication 7(2). 84–98. Fink, S. 1986. Management: Planning for the Inevitable. Lincoln, NE: Authors Guild Backinprint.com Edition. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2004. Hvor godt forberedte er de? En undersøgelse af danske virksomheders og myndigheders kriseberedskab anno 2003 [How prepared are they? A study of the crisis preparedness of private companies and public authorities in Denmark, AD 2003]. Reports from Centre for Corporate Communication. Aarhus: Aarhus School of Business. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2008. Our agency is here to help you. Paper presented at the annual International Public Relations Research Conference (IPRRC), Miami, FL, 6–9 March. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2012. Public relations professionals as crisis consultants: Going beyond mere media management? Paper presented at the annual EUPRERA Congress, Istanbul, 20–22 September. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2017. Organizational Crisis Communication: A Multivocal Approach. London: Sage. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2020. Advice on communicating during crisis: A study of popular crisis management books. International Journal of Business Communication 57(2). 260–276. Frandsen, F., W. Johansen and A. Pang (eds.). 2013. Strategic Communication and Consulting. Research on internal and external advising in communication management. [Special Issue]. International Journal of Strategic Communication 7(2). Frandsen, F., W. Johansen and A. Pang. 2013. Guest editors’ introduction: From management consulting to strategic communication: Studying the roles and functions of communication consulting. International Journal of Strategic Communication 7(2). 81–83. Furusten, S. 1998. The creation of popular management texts. In J. L. Alvarez (ed.), Diffusion and Consumption of Business Knowledge, 141–163. New York: Springer. Furusten, S. 1999. Popular Management Books: How They Are Made and What They Mean for Organizations. London: Routledge. Goodman, M. B. 2015. 2015 CCI corporate communication practices and trends study: United States. NY: Baruch, CUNY available at www.corporatecomm.org/cci-studies/ (accessed September 18, 2016).

396 

 Winni Johansen

Greiner, L., and F. Poulfelt (eds.). 2009. Management Consulting Today and Tomorrow: Perspectives and Advice from 27 Leading World Experts. London: Routledge. Grint, K. 1997. Fuzzy Management: Contemporary Ideas and Practices at Work. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hoffmann, J., A. Steiner and O. Jarren. 2011. The inimitable outsider: contracting out public affairs from a consultant’s perspective. Journal of Communication Management 15(1). 23–40. Jackson, B. 2001. Management Gurus and Management Fashions: A Dramatistic Inquiry. London: Routledge. Johansen, W. 2017. Understanding and practicing crisis consulting: A study of public relations and communications firms. Journal of Communication Management 21(2). 106–123. Johansen, W. 2000. Communicating Culture Through Text and Image – The Case of Danish and French Company Brochures. Hermes 25. 217–226. Johnson, T. 2018. Crisis Leadership: How to Lead in Times of Crisis, Threat and Uncertainty. London: Bloomsbury. Jugo, D., I. Pakozdi, and Z. Milas. 2020. Crisis communication consulting: rethinking the role of PR firms in solving organizational crises. Corporate Communications: An International Journal. 1–14. Ahead of print. 25(1). 24–47. Kieser, A. 2002. On communication barriers between management science, consultancies and business companies. In T. Clark and R. Fincham (eds.), Critical Consulting, 206–227. Oxford: Blackwell. Kieser, A. 1997. Myth and rhetoric in management fashion. Organization 4. 49–74. Kipping, M., and T. Clark (eds.). 2012. The Oxford Handbook of Management Consulting. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kipping, M., and L. Engwall (eds.). 2002. Management Consulting: Emergence and Dynamics of a Knowledge Industry. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Laufer, R. 2007. Crisis management and legitimacy. In C. M. Pearson, C. Roux-Dufort and J. A. Clair (eds.), International Handbook of Crisis Management, 25–84. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Lewis, L. K., A. M. Schmisseur, K. K. Stephens and K. E. Weir. 2006. Advice on communicating during organizational change: The content of popular press books. International Journal of Business Communication 43(2). 113–137. Lischinsky, A. 2008. The Construction of Expert Knowledge in Popular Management Literature. Barcelona: Universitat Pompeu Fabra PhD dissertation. Lukaszewski, J. E. 2013. Lukaszewski on Crisis Communication: What Your CEO Needs to Know About Reputation Risk and Crisis Management. Brookfield, CT: Rothstein Associates. MacGeorge, E. L., and L. M. van Swol (eds.). 2018. The Oxford Handbook of Advice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McKenna, C. D. 2006. The World’s Newest Profession: Management Consulting in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Meyer, G. 2017. Corporate Smokejumper. Crisis Management: Tools, Tales and Techniques. Newark, DE: Blue Blaze Books. Newstrom, J. W., and J. L. Pierce. 1993. An analytic framework for assessing popular business books. Journal of Management Development 12(4). 20–28. Nikolova, N., and T. Devinney. 2012. The nature of client-consultant interaction: A critical review. In M. Kipping and T. Clark (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Management Consulting, 389–426. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nissen, V. (ed.). 2019. Advances in Consulting Research. Recent Findings and Practical Cases. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature Switzerland AG.



Crisis management consulting: An emerging field of study 

 397

Nohria, N., and R. G. Eccles. 1998. Where does management knowledge come from? In J. L. Alvarez (ed.), The Diffusion and Consumption of Business Knowledge, 278–304. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Pang, A., and S.  D. Yeo. 2012. Examining the expertise, experience, and expedience of crisis consultants in Singapore. Public Relations Review 38. 853–864. Pang, A., F. Frandsen, W. Johansen and S.  D. Yeo. 2013. A comparative study of crisis consultancies between Singapore and Denmark: Distant cousins of the same destiny. International Journal of Strategic Communication. 149–164. Pierce, J. L., and J. W. Newstrom. 1993. The Manager’s Bookshelf. 10th edn. 2013. New York: Harper Collins, Harlow: Pearson. Peters, T. J., and R. H. Waterman. 1982. In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best Run Companies. New York: Harper and Row. Röttger, U., and J. Preusse. 2013. External consulting in strategic communication: Functions and roles within systems theory. International Journal of Strategic Communication 7(2). 99–117. Röttger, U., and S. Zielmann (eds.). 2009. PR-Beratung: Theoretische Koncepte und Empirische Befunde. Berlin: Springer. Röttger, U., and S. Zielmann (eds.). 2012. PR-Beratung in der Politik. Rollen und Interaktionsstrukturen aus Sicht von Beratern und Klienten. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften (Springer Fachmedien). Sapriel, C., and D. Lenaerts. 2016. Crisis Management: Tales from the Frontline. Kindle edition. Spector, B. 2019. Constructing Crisis. Leaders, Crisis and Claims Urgency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sturdy, A., K. Handley, T. Clark and R. Fincham. 2009. Management Consultancy: Boundaries and Knowledge in Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sutter, M., and A. Kieser. 2019. How consultants and their clients collaborate in spite of massive communication barriers. International Journal of Business Communication 56(2). 249–277. Swerling, J. 2014. Public relations generally accepted practices (GAP) study.Strategic Communication and Public Relations Center, Los Angeles, CA: USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Tyllström, A. 2013. Legitimacy for Sale: Constructing a Market for PR. Uppsala: Uppsala University dissertation. von Platen, S. 2015. The communication consultant: An important translator for communication management. Journal of Communication Management 19(2). 150–166. von Platen, S. 2016. Struggling with new media and old expertise: Reconstructing the professional role of communication consultancy. International Journal of Strategic Communication 10(5). 353–367. von Platen, S. 2018. Communication consulting and consultancies. In R. L. Heath and W. Johansen (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Strategic Communication, 187–195. Boston: Wiley-Blackwell. Zerfass, A., and N. Franke. 2013. Enabling, advising, supporting, executing: A theoretical framework for internal communication consulting within organizations. International Journal of Strategic Communication 7(2). 118–135. Wenger, E. 1998. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wright, D. K. 2013. Structure and development of the public relations agency industry in the United States: Operational structure, clients, fees, and talent. International Journal of Strategic Communication 7(2). 136–148.

Section V – Societal level

Matthew Seeger, Barbara Reynolds and Ashleigh M. Day

19 Crisis and emergency risk communication: Past, present, and future Abstract: The Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) framework is an integrated conceptual, training and application approach to crisis, risk, and emergency response communication. CERC is applicable for both practitioners and professionals as it was conceptualized using public health concepts, “lessons learned” from practice, and empirical research. More specifically, CERC posits a five-stage developmental model and a conceptual framework for connecting crisis, risk, and emergency response communication. Since its conception the framework has been employed in diverse contexts, yielding a variety of findings and implications. After reviewing CERC’s history and main components, this chapter reviews extant literature on CERC. Based on extant literature and applied knowledge, CERC’s strengths and weaknesses are discussed. Subsequently, directions for future inquiry and development are proposed. Keywords: CERC, crisis communication, risk communication, emergency response communication

1 Introduction The Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) framework is an integrated conceptual, training and application framework developed initially by the United States (US) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). CERC was developed by communication officers at the CDC following the 2001 terrorist attacks involving letters contaminated with anthrax spores sent through the US postal system (Clarke, Chess, Holmes and O’Neill 2006, Friemuth 2006). The CDC was one of the lead agencies managing the crisis and their responsibilities included communicating to the public about an evolving understanding of the risks within the context of a threat, high uncertainty, and short response time. The CDC’s responses to the anthrax letter incident was broadly critiqued as inadequate and poorly designed. Among other problems was over reassurance and insensitivity to minority audiences (Reynolds 2005). While the public health community in the US had developed significant capacity in health communication, risk communication, and health promotion, crisis communication had generally not been seen as a core function. Some incidents, such as the Hong Kong Avian influenza outbreak of 1997 involving H5NI, had demonstrated that the public health community needed a systemic emergency crisis communication capacity. This need remained largely unaddressed in a systemic way until the incident involving the intentional contamination of letters with an infectious disease https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-019

402 

 Matthew Seeger, Barbara Reynolds and Ashleigh M. Day

agent (i.  e., the anthrax letter incident) (Rubin 2007, 2012). As such, the need for an integrated approach to crisis, risk, and emergency response communication became evident within the US public health community. The US public health community is organized in a hierarchical fashion. At the national level, the CDC provides a broad national capacity in disease monitoring, research in outbreaks and treatments, and responds directly to emergencies. The CDC is known as a very credible and capable scientific organization. In many ways, the CDC establishes the general response to a disease threat and supports operations at other levels. State departments of public health manage issues and provide support at the regional level. Local public health departments, and the county and municipal level interact directly with the public on a day to day basis providing ongoing services and community support during emergencies. The CERC framework sought to develop communication capacity at all levels, which served as a guiding basis when developing CERC. The public information function and the risk communication function of public health served as the basis for developing CERC. Individuals with significant experience in these areas and with experience responding to crises began to systematically record their experiences and approaches. These descriptions, along with principles drawn from literature on emergency response, the psychology of crisis, and disaster responses, served as the basis of the CERC framework. In addition, general conceptual frameworks, response and planning templates, checklists and worksheets were included. CERC also emphasized planning, the importance of rapid communication, expressions of empathy, credibility and competence, and honesty and openness (Reynolds 2005). Although the CERC manual was primarily directed toward application and a practitioner audience, it proposed theoretical connections between risk communication and crisis communication, offered an important developmental model and contextualized crisis and emergency risk communication within public health. The core principles of CERC were presented in the CDC’s 2002 Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication manual (Reynolds, Galdo and Sokler 2002). The manual was used as a platform for training and as a guideline for responses, such as during the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak and 2009 H1N1 pandemic. Several thousand public health, emergency management and public information officials at various levels have been trained in the CERC framework. In 2015, a second edition of the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication manual was published by the CDC. In addition, international agencies, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as other governmental public health agencies adopted similar models of integrated crisis, risk, and emergency response communication. Currently, CERC can be described as a standardized methodology for the communicative function of government agencies responding to public health emergencies.



Crisis and emergency risk communication: Past, present, and future 

 403

2 Key elements of CERC There are several specific and fundamental key elements of CERC. As the model incorporates “public health methodologies for risk communication with the principles of crisis communication” to provide practitioners and professionals with a comprehensive and integrated approach to crisis, risk, and emergency response communication, it emphasizes public health and “lessons learned” from practice (Sellnow and Seeger 2013: 40–41). The CERC framework incorporates a number of fundamental principles of communication, media relations, and public relations along with concepts from the psychology of risk and risk perception, risk communication and crisis communication. As a general conceptual framework and loosely connected set of guidelines and principles, CERC is organized around key concepts and directed to addressing the needs of the public health community during times of crisis. CERC views crises as a function of some general hazard that presents threats and mandates a response. Elements of general hazards do not compose nor are they equivalent to the crisis, such as storm surge or high winds; rather, these are sources of damage. The crisis is evoked from the general hazard’s impact on individuals, society, and our social system. It is important to note that within CERC, the affected publics are at the center of these events (Reynolds and Seeger 2014). Furthermore, the unexpected nature of crises and the risks they present require an immediate response. Although emergencies, disasters, and crises share the aforementioned characteristics there are distinguishing factors among the three types of events and the event “may be called an emergency, a disaster, or a crisis depending on who is involved, the magnitude, and the current phase of the event” (Reynolds and Seeger 2014: 8). CERC also posits a specific conception of risk. Within the CERC framework, “risk” refers to adverse outcomes and the probability of those outcomes occurring at a future date. Risk communication aims to provide publics with information about the expected type and magnitude of an outcome. An outcome can be associated with a behavior, exposure, or event. Risk communication is both informative and persuasive. Crisis communication strives to inform and alert publics and create shared meaning with impacted publics. CERC combines the tenets of risk and crisis communication, which involves experts who provide information allowing individuals or an entire community to make the best possible decisions about their well-being. Communicators must also help people accept the imperfect nature of choices during the crisis. CERC also differs from pure risk communication in that a decision must be made within a narrow time constraint. (Reynolds and Seeger 2014: 7)

Here, it is important to note that unlike “information,” communication is seen as a process, symbolic, focused on (shared) meaning, and ever present. Information is more focused on message transmission (i.  e., one-way dissemination) and is typically codified independently from the relationship between the sender and receiver.

404 

 Matthew Seeger, Barbara Reynolds and Ashleigh M. Day

CERC incorporates a specific integration of risk communication and crisis communication by framing them as distinct communication elements functioning within a larger integrated system. Generally, risk communication manifests in the earlier phases of CERC’s five-stages, concerns the known probabilities of negative consequences of a risk, and how these consequences may be reduced. Risk communication addresses both the technical understandings of hazards as well as cultural beliefs or outrage. The technical understandings of a hazard pertain to the scientific measurement of the risk, whereas cultural beliefs inform how and why individuals view the phenomenon as a risk or not. Further, outrage is also informed by cultural beliefs and influences the emotions evoked by risk. An individual’s technical understandings of hazard, cultural beliefs, and outrage are critical to understanding within the CERC framework because they form individuals’ risk perception. Understanding risk perception is key to formulating effective risk messages. Risk messages tend to be strategic, planned, routine and ubiquitous. These are largely persuasive and use mediated channels. Information about avoiding disease through regular hand washing or vaccinations, for example, tends to be communicated widely using a variety of channels. Crisis communication typically occurs later in the developmental sequence of CERC’s five stages once the trigger event has occurred and harm is accumulating. Crisis communication messages focus on the current state of conditions associated with the crisis event. These messages seek to inform about the magnitude, immediacy, duration, and remediation efforts. As crisis communication is event specific, it is typically short-term and more spontaneous. Spokespersons, usually experts or authority figures, deliver the messages through venues such as press conferences. Communication about outbreaks of an emerging infectious disease such as Ebola, for example, will typically occur in the form of press releases or press statements. This view of risk and crisis communication as part of a larger system of communication is only one view of the relationship(s) between risk and crisis communication (See O’Hair and Heath 2010). This association incorporated within CERC creates a more coherent approach to the communication needs associated with risks and crises. Moreover, it provides practitioners a set of principles and tools for managing and integrating their communication activity. Using a five-stage developmental model and a conceptual framework for connecting crisis and risk communication, CERC has theoretical and applied utility. A variety of developmental or stage theories have been proposed for understanding crises (Sellnow and Seeger 2013). These models generally seek to understand crises as they develop over time and as they move through relatively distinct phases. CERC’s staged approach is different from other staged approaches to crisis. For example, Coombs and Holladay’s (2002) situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) approaches crisis communication largely from a three-stage model: pre-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis. SCCT focuses on the public’s perception and approval of an organization in the context of crisis and offers strategies for organizations to follow



Crisis and emergency risk communication: Past, present, and future 

 405

to help achieve/maintain favorable outcomes based on the type(s) of crisis they are facing. Mitroff (1988) offers another stage model for crisis management, focusing on five stages: signal detection, preparation/prevention, containment/damage limitation, recovery, and learning from the crisis (see also Pearson and Mitroff 1993). Mitroff proposes that the five aforementioned stages work for crisis management because crisis management is generic and while crises may appear different on the surface, “there are nonetheless strong similarities between them” (Mitroff 1988: 18). Different from some stage models of crisis, Mitroff specifies the cyclical nature of their model by including “learning” as a primary element of crisis, similar to CERC’s focus on crises’ cyclical nature. Overall, the values of such approaches to crisis stages are that they allow for some prediction regarding what will happen next as a crisis develops. Specifically, the CERC model organizes a crisis as an ongoing developmental process into five-stages: (1) pre-crisis, (2) initial event, (3) maintenance, (4) resolution, and (5) evaluation. It also describes specific communication activities, processes and requirements that are associated with each stage (see Table 1). These stages posit specific communication functions and activities to address the evolving conditions of crises. Phase 1, the pre-crisis period is an incubation stage. The crisis has not yet begun to unfold; however, monitoring and recognition of emerging risks is occurring. Communication at this stage focuses on risk messages, warnings, and information about preparation. Risk communication at this stage seeks to inform and persuade people, aim to better prepare and educate them about risks. Phase 2, the initial event is initiated with a trigger event, signaling the onset of a crisis. Most often this is a dramatic occurrence or realization that a risk has emerged and harm is accumulated. Communication at this phase can provide the public with strategies of efficacy, offering reassurances and sufficient information to make sense of what is happening. Efficacy involves providing information about self-protective actions such as evacuations or boil water advisories. Communication in this phase should be rapid and, typically, a designated crisis/agency spokesperson sends these messages via formal channels and methods for disseminating crisis communication. Phase 3, maintenance, extends many of the activities from earlier stages including ongoing uncertainty reduction and reassurance. Additional efficacy messages inform people about what they should be doing at this point in the crisis. Information can also be provided that educates people about ongoing or emerging risks. This can facilitate a more accurate understanding of emergent or ongoing risks associated with the crisis. Here, it is also possible that feedback from affected publics may ensue and help correct any misunderstandings and/ or rumors. Phase 4, resolution, focuses on updating audiences about efforts to find solutions. Resolution usually involves new understandings of risk and new strategies for avoiding or mitigating risks. At this stage, it is also possible to start discussing the cause of the crisis and searching for ways to reach consensus about what happened, which may involve blame and accepting responsibility. Therefore, this may also involve reinforcing positive organizational image and identity. Phase 5, evaluation, involves an assessment of the adequacy of the response; one that is inclusive to evalu-

406 

 Matthew Seeger, Barbara Reynolds and Ashleigh M. Day

ating and assessing communication effectiveness throughout the previous four stages. This may also be a time to codify and communicate lessons learned. Perhaps most importantly, these lessons learned and other evaluative elements should be linked to pre-crisis activities. By linking the (new) insights and knowledge gained from a crisis experience to pre-crisis activities, resiliency can be increased, new understandings of risk and crisis can be incorporated into the new crisis cycle, any weaknesses identified during evaluation can be addressed, and future plans can be modified for the new crisis cycle. Overall, this helps to determine specific actions that can be taken to improve crisis systems and plans. Tab. 1: Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC). From Reynolds, B., and Seeger, M. W. 2005. Crisis and emergency risk communication as an integrative model. Journal of Health Communication 10. 43–55. Pre-crisis (Risk Messages; Warnings; Preparations) Communication and education campaigns ­targeted to both the public and the response community to facilitate: Monitoring and recognition of emerging risks. General public understanding of risk. Public preparation for the possibility of an adverse event. Changes in behavior to reduce the likelihood of harm (self-efficacy). Specific warning messages regarding some eminent threat. Alliances and cooperation with agencies, organizations, and groups. Development of consensual recommendations by experts and first responders. Message development and testing for subsequent stages. Initial Event (Uncertainty Reduction; Self-efficacy; Reassurance) Rapid communication to the ­general public and to affected groups seeking to establish: Empathy, reassurance, and reduction in emotional turmoil. Designated crisis/agency spokespersons and formal channels and methods of communication. General and broad-based understanding of the crisis circumstances, consequences, and anticipated outcomes based on available information. Reduction of crisis-related uncertainty. Specific understanding of emergency management and medical community responses. Understanding of self-efficacy and personal response activities (how / where to get more information). Maintenance (Ongoing Uncertainty Reduction; Self-efficacy; Reassurance) Communication to the general public and to affected groups seeking to facilitate: More accurate public understandings of ongoing risks. Understanding of background factors and issues. Broad-based support and cooperation with response and recovery efforts. Feedback from affected publics and correction of any misunderstandings/rumors. Ongoing explanation and reiteration of self-efficacy and personal response activities (how / where to get more information) that began in Stage II. Informed decision making by the public based on understanding of risks/benefits.



Crisis and emergency risk communication: Past, present, and future 

 407

Tab. 1 (continued) Resolution (Updates Regarding Resolution; Discussions about Cause and New Risks/New Understandings of Risk) Public communication and campaigns directed toward the general public and affected groups seeking to: Inform and persuade about ongoing clean-up, remediation, recovery, and rebuilding efforts. Facilitate broad-based, honest, and open discussion and resolution of issues regarding cause, blame, responsibility, and adequacy of response. Improve/create public understanding of new risks and new understandings of risk as well as new risk avoidance behaviors and response procedures. Promote the activities and capabilities of agencies and organizations to reinforce positive corporate identity and image. Evaluation (Discussions of Adequacy of Response; Consensus About Lessons and New Understandings of Risks). Communication directed toward agencies and the response community to: Evaluate and assess responses, including communication effectiveness. Document, formalize, and communicate lessons learned. Determine specific actions to improve crisis communication and crisis response capability. Create linkages to pre-crisis activities (Stage I).

3 Review of CERC literature CERC has generated a significant body of research and critique. These applications include reviews of public disaster communication (e.  g., Houston, First, Spialek, Sorenson and Koch 2016), a qualitative case study of a zoonotic pneumonic plague (e.  g., Rickard, McComas, Clarke, Stedman, Decker 2013), quantitative messaging experiments (e.  g., Edworthy, Helllier, Newbold and Titchener 2015), and an analytical account on a human-initiated industrial disaster (Manuel 2014). Applications of CERC have illustrated its strengths and weaknesses as well as its pragmatic utility. Most studies that have applied CERC originate from the United States (US) or United Kingdom (UK), with some exceptions (see Table 2).

408 

 Matthew Seeger, Barbara Reynolds and Ashleigh M. Day

Tab. 2: Studies employing CERC. Article

Relevancy

Method (General)

Country Focus

Crisis Type

Sample Population (Empirical)

Crouse Quinn (2008)

Direct

Expert/rhetorical

USA

Pandemic influenza

Documents

Edworthy et al. (2015)

Direct

Quantitative, experiment; Mixed methods

UK

General emergencies

Students

Elwy et al. (2014)

Direct

Qualitative, interviews

USA

Hospital/medical

VA stakeholders, leaders, employees & patients

Freimuth et al. (2008)

Direct

Mixed methods

USA

Avian influenza

Local health district risk communicators

Hewitt et al. (2008)

Direct

Educational/ descriptive

USA

N/A (education exercise for health professionals)

Students

Houston et al. (2016)

Indirect

Narrative review

USA

N/A (review of literature)

Review of public disaster communication literature

Lachlan et al. (2016)

Direct

Quantitative, content analysis

N/A

Severe winter storm

Tweets

Leonard and Green (2008)

Direct

Informative resource; list of CERC resources

N/A

N/A (list of CERC resources)

N/A

Manuel (2014)

Direct

Expert/rhetorical

USA

Industrial; Human-initiated

Documents

Miller et al. (2015)

Direct

Expert/rhetorical; evaluative

UK

N/A (educational exercise for students)

Students

Panagiotopoulos et al. (2016)

Direct

Qualitative; thematic analysis

UK

Severe winter storm and riots

Tweets

Radović and Curčić (2012)

Direct

Expert/rhetorical

Serbia

N/A (review of literature)

Documents/review of literature

Reynolds (2010)

Direct

Expert/case study

USA/ General

H1N1 influenza

Documents/expert account

Reynolds (2011)

Direct

Expert/review

General

General

Documents/review of literature



Crisis and emergency risk communication: Past, present, and future 

 409

Tab. 2 (continued) Reynolds and Crouse Quinn (2008)

Direct

Expert/case study

USA

Pandemic influenza

Documents/expert account

Reynolds and Early (2010)

Direct

Expert/rhetorical

General

General

N/A

Reynolds and Seeger (2005)

Direct

Expert/review/ theoretical

General

General

N/A

Rickard et al. (2013)

Direct

Qualitative; case study

USA

Pneumonic plague

Responding NPS employees, documents/workshop attendance

Thomas, Friedman et al. (2016)

Direct

Mixed methods

USA

Industrial; Human-initiated

Stakeholders, news coverage and Tweets

Thomas, Kannaley et al. (2016)

Direct

Mixed methods

USA

Industrial; Human-initiated

Stakeholders and news coverage

Veil et al. (2008)

Direct

Expert/review/ theoretical

General

General

Documents/literature review by experts

Vos and Buckner (2016)

Direct

Quantitative; content analysis

General

Avian influenza

Tweets

Wickline and Sellnow (2013)

Indirect

Qualitative; case study

USA

Food recall (2010 Salmonella egg recall)

Television coverage and public communication

An important element of CERC is message design and pre-crisis engagement with communities. While not all communication will require cultural tailoring (Reynolds 2007), certain cultural groups may benefit from message tailoring prior to a crisis or emergency. These efforts can facilitate pre-crisis partnerships and build trust within minority communities, which is an important variable in terms of accepting risk and crisis messages as well as any protective actions (Crouse Quinn 2008). Two-way communication is especially important and can serve as a method for understanding contextual and demographic factors, which play a large role in the effectiveness of risk and crisis communication (Radović and Curčić 2012; Reynolds 2010; Veil, Reynold, Sellnow and Seeger 2008). Thus, CERC provides a useful framework to navigate internal and public communication during crises and avoid common communication mistakes such as paternalistic attitudes or cultural biases (Reynolds and Earley 2010). In addition to

410 

 Matthew Seeger, Barbara Reynolds and Ashleigh M. Day

its practical use, CERC also serves as a theoretical framework for systematic inquiry surrounding health, risk, crises, and communication. These include applications that have examined message channels, message design, crisis simulations and exercises, and evaluation of “lessons learned” from CERC’s final phase.

4 Media applications CERC has been applied in various studies focusing on media messages. Researchers, for example, have examined the function of social media messages across the stages of CERC. Lachlan (2016) and colleagues explored how Twitter and other social media platforms are used across the stages of CERC in their examination of Tweets from the 2013 winter storm Nemo (Lachlan, Spence, Lin, Najarian, and Del Greco 2016). They noted that the pre-crisis stage was heavily studied in comparison to the other stages. However, social media may serve as a useful tool to help reduce uncertainty, engage the public in transactional and dialogic communication, and provide updates and new understandings of risks across the crisis stages (Reynolds 2010; Veil, Reynolds, Sellnow, and Seeger 2008). CERC can be a useful a priori framework for examining social media messages. As many (public) social media messages are archived, they provide a prime opportunity for researchers to examine messaging across the stages of a crisis. Tweets during two major emergencies—a heavy snowstorm and riots in the UK—revealed that Twitter use by local UK governmental authorities varied across the stages of each emergency (Panagiotopoulos, Barnett, Ziaee Bigdeli and Sams 2016). Tweets provided updates about each of the emergencies, relevant protective behaviors for the public, and directed the public towards mitigating actions. Similar findings were discovered in Tweets during an emerging health crisis. Messages that emphasize sensemaking and efficacy are also essential components of CERC (Veil et al. 2008). In their examination of general Twitter content during the initial days of the 2013 outbreak of H7N9, Vos and Buckner (2016) found that over 88 percent of their sample contained sensemaking information about the virus (e.  g., updates on the number of cases and deaths). A very small number demonstrated efficacy and some did not demonstrate messages of efficacy or sensemaking. The CDC and WHO sent efficacy Tweets about the outbreak (in English), but overall, few Tweets from the larger sample communicated efficacy. Although Twitter can vary in its effectiveness during crises, it has been found to generally compliment and assist in disseminating crisis information that originates from traditional media (Thomas, Friedman, Brandt, Spencer, and Tanner 2016). As CERC would suggest, efficacy messages are crucial to encourage appropriate crisis responses and empower people to make healthy and safe choices (Reynolds 2010; Reynolds and Seeger 2005). Messages should be constructed in ways so that the target audience can easily access and under-



Crisis and emergency risk communication: Past, present, and future 

 411

stand the message. CERC would suggest that Tweets (and other mediated messages) should be a part of an overall integrated communication plan. Television news remains a primary informational source, especially during times of crisis. Messages disseminated via television must account for the needs of various publics and meet the health literacy levels of the target population (Crouse Quinn 2008; Wickline and Sellnow 2013). As CERC posits that self-protection messages are essential during the initial onset of a crisis, these messages should be consistent and reach the appropriate audiences. However, as Wickline and Sellnow (2013) found, messages on television news during the 2010 Salmonella egg recall did not account for a large portion of the audience and had low frequencies of self-protection messages. This may be due to the underutilization of public health sources and the traditional media’s preference to cite governmental sources during crises (Thomas, Friedman, Brandt, Spencer and Tanner 2016). Such findings reveal that the principles and best practices described by CERC are not universally nor comprehensively implemented in media messages during crises and emergencies. This may also indicate that activities specified in CERC’s pre-crisis phase were not fully or adequately executed by practitioners and officials. As such, when mixed or changing messages are sent the public may lose trust in officials and/or perceive their communication to lack empathy. This is problematic when considering the volatile nature of news frames used in the media during crises, which have been shown to fluctuate depending on the communication channel and crisis stage (Thomas et al. 2016). Framing could complicate decision making due to its impact on an individual’s psychological environment and risk perception (Reynolds 2011). CERC asserts that choosing the appropriate communication channel is an essential element in message dissemination. However, communication can be complicated by the channel’s ability to support message accuracy and survival (Edworthy, Helllier, Newbold and Titchener 2015). Some research has suggested that written communication supports message accuracy over spoken communication. Yet, crisis communication via telephone is typically received faster, but presents issues for message accuracy (Edworthy, Helllier, Newbold and Titchener 2015). When spoken communication is repeated accurately and enhanced, the advantage of written communication dissipates. These communicative elements can also be impacted by source credibility, trust, self-efficacy, and audience demographics—all of which CERC emphasizes. Source credibility and trust can be complicated and compromised during crises due to the public’s increasing access to conflicting information, politics, or failure to consider scientific reasoning in their decision making (Reynolds 2010; Reynolds and Crouse Quinn 2008). Emotions also play a role in decision making during crises and it is paramount that practitioners and communicators understand how risk perceptions vary based on emotions as well as other factors, such as demographics (Reynolds 2011).

412 

 Matthew Seeger, Barbara Reynolds and Ashleigh M. Day

5 Educational applications Due to its focus on application, CERC is often used as the basis for educational training. As noted earlier, a significant number of public health and public information professionals have been trained in CERC. This includes developing a general understanding of the conditions and developmental phases of crisis, psychological responses, and the role of various agencies as well as developing specific communication and media relations skills (Reynolds 2005; Reynolds and Quinn Crouse 2008). In addition, CERC has been used as a framework for promoting coordination between agencies, identifying necessary resources and developing communication capacity. Given the comprehensive nature of CERC, training in short sessions with individuals who have little experiences with crisis and risk communication can be challenging. In their evaluation of local health district risk communicators’ response to an avian influenza outbreak, Freimuth, Hilyard, Barge and Sokler (2008) concluded that participants had a difficult time following CERC’s principles due to stress and time pressures. Some elements of the framework may require more intense instruction including exercises and simulations as they may be new or unfamiliar concepts, or may require collaboration from other team members, officials, or the public. However, these educational trainings and approaches allow for refinement of skills, crisis planning and coordination. CERC’s focus on “lessons learned” may also help improve general organizational operating procedures. Through mapping participant feedback to the stages of CERC, Elwy et al. (2014) were able to identify areas of improvement for the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) regarding their procedures for disclosure of large-scale adverse events to patients. Areas for improvement included: better preparation and coordination during the pre-crisis stage, collaboration between local and regional facilities, tailoring communication, continued communication about large-scale adverse and risks, and consistent internal communication from leadership. CERC can serve as a useful framework for understanding how crisis, risk, and emergency response communication strategies are deployed across the stages of a crisis. It has become so widely employed that lists of educational CERC resources populate journals (e.  g., Leonard and Green 2008). It is also a practical a priori framework that links the pre-crisis and evaluation stages, providing valuable “lessons learned” for practitioners, officials, and researchers. However, as noted by many empirical studies, the tenets of CERC are not always implemented in an effective or proactive manner by practitioners and professionals. Therefore, there is need for further evaluation and research regarding CERC, its applications and implementation, and its overall effectiveness.



Crisis and emergency risk communication: Past, present, and future 

 413

6 Practical tools and suggestions CERC grew out of the experience of practitioners managing large-scale infectious disease outbreaks and includes a number of tactics grounded in these anecdotal experiences. The Hong Kong Avian influenza outbreak of 1997 involving H5NI sparked the initial interest in the CDC developing a crisis communication capacity while the 2001 terrorist attacks involving letters contaminated with anthrax spores intensified the need. Experiences and lessons from these and other public health emergencies are included throughout the CERC materials. Three areas are especially salient, including tactics for working with legacy media, tactics for social and mobile media, and developing crisis communication plans. CERC includes basic information about media relations and describes ways these principles may function within the context of public health crises. As a general approach, tactics for interacting with the media in positive and efficient ways are described. These include providing information in formats that can be easily translated for media consumption, grounding stories with background information, working within media deadlines and news cycles, and insuring equal access. Practical issues such as preparing press releases, scheduling and managing press conferences, and media interviews are also described. CERC also suggests that responding to errors, myths, and misrepresentations should be done calmly, should occur within the context of the situation and the relationship with reporters, and should include specific requests for actions such as corrections or retractions. Crises impose additional challenges in working with the media, including tighter deadlines, access to sites, and an intense media focus on the event and how it is being managed. The tactics and principles described in CERC acknowledge that reporters have an important role in a crisis and the framework encourages a cooperative rather than adversarial relationship. Social media have grown significantly since the 2001 anthrax attack and CERC has included practical guidelines for these emerging forms of communication. The CERC framework seeks to position social media as a critical part of the larger risk and crisis communication process by describing forms, functions, and attributes of various platforms. The use of social media on mobile devices, for example, creates an important channel for information during the chaos and dislocation that often occurs during crises. The practical value of social media in delivering specific disaster-related information is also highlighted. Google Maps, for instance, can help direct evacuees. CERC emphasizes the particular value of social media and the need for public health communicators to actively engage in these platforms before, during, and after a crisis. In summarizing, CERC notes: For health communicators seeking ways to educate the public about risk, risk management, health, safety, and for those cases where information must be disseminated quickly about a crisis, social media are invaluable tools. They are so widely used that any effective communication plan must include a social media strategy (Reynolds and Seeger 2014: 32).

414 

 Matthew Seeger, Barbara Reynolds and Ashleigh M. Day

A third way CERC embraces practical tools and suggestions for communicating during a crisis is through an emphasis on planning. Crisis communication planning is centered in the larger developmental sequence of events with planning grounded primarily in the pre-crisis phase while being attentive to the communication issues that arise in other phases. Specifically, thirteen elements of a crisis communication plan are described. These include signed endorsements from senior leadership, designated responsibilities for members, procedures for clearing information before release, media contact lists, coordination methods, procedures and policies including Joint Information Centers (JIC), designated spokespersons, procedures for securing needed resources, and approved methods for information dissemination. Additional practical issues such as keeping the plan simple and updated, and lists of resources that may be needed, are described as well. CERC also includes a number of sample checklists that may be included in a crisis plan to facilitate processes. Planning is described as “the most important step to ensure an effective response using CERC,” and planning “buys the crisis communicator important time and helps ensure that the initial response is effective” (Reynolds and Seeger 2014: 44). These and other practical tools and suggestions grounded in real-world experiences of crisis communicators are very valuable in creating a realistic picture of the requirements for communicating during a public health crisis. In this way, CERC reflects important lessons learned and translates them into a set of useable principles. While CERC has many strengths, it is also important to consider its weaknesses.

7 Strengths and weaknesses of CERC CERC is a comprehensive and prescriptive model. Its focus on “lessons learned” and communicative elements of crises are strengths because they promote evaluation of crisis response, which in turn should improve meeting the public’s informational needs (Sellnow and Seeger 2013). In addition, the integration of risk and crisis communication provides important applied and conceptual linkages. This includes an effort to integrate national response policies and protocols such as the US National Incident management system with principles of effective communication. The model also distinguishes the various stages of a crisis including the maintenance and resolution stages, while noting the differences among each individual stage. However, in some ways, this can be seen as a limitation. CERC’s five-stage model views unfolding crises in a very linear and prescriptive manner. This may be problematic for crises that have condensed or prolonged stages, as the model may have less utility in such contexts. In addition, while CERC is often framed as a universal approach, crises emerge in very unpredictable ways and across variable contexts. The specific prescription many not always be applicable. Because these principles were developed within the context of a US-based government agency,



Crisis and emergency risk communication: Past, present, and future 

 415

they may not easily translate to other cultural and national contexts. Crisis communication scholarship in general has struggled to accommodate diverse cultural contexts. Contingency models of crisis communication and response may be more flexible. Finally, CERC is a relatively new theoretical model. Its application in empirical studies has been limited, leaving much to be learned about its function in varying crisis contexts including with a range of risk factors, diverse audiences, and evolving technologies. The principles remain largely anecdotal albeit grounded in application and practice.

8 Directions for future inquiry and development The CERC framework has been revised and expanded since it was initially developed in 2002 to reflect the emerging role of social media, recent developments in intercultural communication as well as changes in governmental response policies and protocols. As an integrated framework that is principally aimed at practice, CERC should continue to reflect the evolution in understanding and practice. This includes adapting to new and emerging risks especially as the impact extends beyond regional and cultural boundaries. Public health emergencies do not respect established political boundaries and almost always impact groups with diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Adapting the principles of CERC to the contingencies of specific types of crises would be an important extension of the framework. The CERC model also represents an important opportunity to examine the principles of risk and crisis communication within an applied context. Examining how public health practitioners use these principles and how they assess their effectiveness can help refine the framework. This may also reveal additional relationships between communication processes and public health outcomes. These relationships could help clarify the larger role of communication in crises. A third area for extending the CERC framework involves generalizing the principles that are not primarily focused on public health and do not involve governmental agencies. Most organizationally based crises involve accusations of wrongdoing, while public health events do not necessarily implicate those questions. CERC’s utility in these contexts remains largely untested.

9 Conclusion The Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) framework has been central to creating a new capacity in public health for responding to crises and emergencies. The framework was not only the first systematic effort to create a crisis communication capacity in public health, it was among the most comprehensive integrated

416 

 Matthew Seeger, Barbara Reynolds and Ashleigh M. Day

approaches. Public health responsibilities for infectious disease outbreaks and emerging disease threats as well as for other events that threaten public health are expanding. Many of these emerging threats, such as pandemic influenza, represent significant risks. Systematic and integrated approaches will be necessary to create effective responses to these as well as emerging threats.

References Clarke, L., C. Chess, R. Holmes and K. M. O’Neill. 2006. Speaking with one voice: risk communication lessons from the US anthrax attacks. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 14(3). 160–169. Coetzee, C., and D. van Niekerk. 2012. Tracking the evolution of the disaster management cycle: A general system theory approach. Jàmbá: Journal of Disaster Risk Studies 4(1). 1–9. Coombs, W. T., and S. J. Holladay. 2002. Helping crisis managers protect reputational assets: Initial tests of the situational crisis communication theory. Management Communication Quarterly 16(2). 165–186. Crouse Quinn, S. 2008. Crisis and emergency risk communication in a pandemic: A model for building capacity and resilience of minority communities. Health Promotion Practice 9(4 Suppl). Edworthy, J., E. Hellier, L. Newbold and K. Titchener. 2015. Passing crisis and emergency risk communications: The effects of communication channel, information type, and repetition. Applied Ergonomics 48. 252–262. Elwy, A. R., B. G. Bokhour, E. M. Maguire, T. H. Wagner, S. M. Asch, A. L. Gifford and R. L. Jesse. 2014. Improving healthcare systems’ disclosures of large-scale adverse events: A department of veterans affairs leadership, policymaker, research and stakeholder partnership. Journal of General Internal Medicine 29(S4). 895–903. Freimuth, V. S. 2006. Order out of chaos: The self-organization of communication following the anthrax attacks. Health Communication 20(2). 141–148. Freimuth, V. S., K. M. Hilyard, J. K. Barge and L. A. Sokler. 2008. Action, not talk: A simulation of risk communication during the first hours of a pandemic. Health Promotion Practice 9(4 Suppl). 35S–44S. Heath, R. L., and H. D. O’Hair (eds.). 2009. Handbook of Risk and Crisis Communication. New York: Routledge. Hewitt, A. M., S.  S. Spencer, R. Ramloll and H. Trotta. 2008. Expanding CERC beyond public health: Sharing best practices with healthcare managers via virtual learning. Health Promotion Practice 9(4 Suppl). Houston, J. B., J. First, M. L. Spialek, M. E. Sorenson and M. Koch. 2016. Public disaster communication and child and family disaster mental health: A review of theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence. Current Psychiatry Reports 18(6). 1–9. Lachlan, K. A., P. R. Spence, X. Lin, K. Najarian and M. Del Greco. 2016. Social media and crisis management: CERC, search strategies, and twitter content. Computers in Human Behavior 54. 647–652. Leonard, S., and D. Green. 2008. Selected sampling of resources on crisis and emergency risk communication. Health Promotion Practice 9(4 Suppl). 96S–97S. Manuel, J. 2014. Crisis and emergency risk communication lessons from the Elk River Spill. Environmental Health Perspectives 122(8). A214.



Crisis and emergency risk communication: Past, present, and future 

 417

Miller, S., D. France and K. Welsh. 2016; 2015. Development of crisis and emergency risk communication (CERC) activities and an evaluation of their impact on learning: Geoscience students’ perceptions. Belgeo (1). Mitroff, I. I. 1988. Crisis management: Cutting through the confusion. Sloan Management Revie 29(2). 15–20. Panagiotopoulos, P., J. Barnett, A. Z. Bigdeli and S. Sams. 2016. Social media in emergency management: Twitter as a tool for communicating risks to the public. Technological Forecasting and Social Change 111. 86–96. Pearson, C. M., and I. I. Mitroff. 1993. From crisis prone to crisis prepared: A framework for crisis management. The Executive 7(1). 48. Radović, V., and L. Curčić. 2012. The opportunities of crises and emergency risk communication in activities of Serbian public health workforce in emergencies. Iranian Journal of Public Health 41(10). 15–23. Reynolds, B. J. 2011. When the facts are just not enough: Credibly communicating about risk is riskier when emotions run high and time is short. Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology 254(2). 206–214. doi:10.1016/j.taap.2010.10.023 Reynolds, B. J. 2010. Building trust through social media. Marketing Health Services 30(2). 18. Reynolds, B. 2007. Crisis and emergency risk communication: Pandemic influenza. Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Reynolds, B. 2005. Crisis and emergency risk communication. Applied Biosafety 10(1). 47–56. Reynolds, B., and E. Earley. 2010. Principles to enable leaders to navigate the harsh realities of crisis and risk communication. Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning 4(3). 262–273. Reynolds, B., and S. Quinn Crouse. 2008. Effective communication during an influenza pandemic: The value of using a crisis and emergency risk communication framework. Health Promotion Practice 9(4 Suppl). 13S–17S. doi:10.1177/1524839908325267 Reynolds, B., and M. Seeger. 2005. Crisis and emergency risk communication as an integrative model. Journal of Health Communication 10(1). 43–55. doi:10.1080/10810730590904571 Reynolds, B., and M. Seeger. 2014. Crisis and emergency risk communication 2014 edition: Be first. Be right. Be credible. Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Rickard, L. N., K. A. McComas, C. E. Clarke, R. C. Stedman, and D. J. Decker. 2013. Exploring risk attenuation and crisis communication after a plague death in Grand Canyon. Journal of Risk Research 16(2). 145–167. doi:10.1080/13669877.2012.725673 Rubin, C. B. (ed.). 2007. Emergency management: The American experience 1900–2005. Fairfax, VA: Public Entity Risk Institute. Rubin, C. B. (ed.). 2012. Emergency management: The American experience 1900–2010. 2nd edn. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Sellnow, T. L., and M. W. Seeger. 2013. Theorizing Crisis Communication. Vol. 4. John Wiley & Sons. Thomas, T. L., D. B. Friedman, H. M. Brandt, S. M. Spencer, and A. Tanner. 2016. Uncharted waters: Communicating health risks during the 2014 West Virginia water crisis. Journal of Health Communication 21(9). 1062–1070. doi:10.1080/10810730.2016.1209600 Thomas, T. L., K. Kannaley, D. B. Friedman, A. Tanner, H. M. Brandt, and S. M. Spencer. 2016. Media coverage of the 2014 West Virginia Elk River chemical spill: A mixed-methods study examining news coverage of a public health disaster. Science Communication 38(5). 574–600. doi:10.1177/1075547016662656 Veil, S., B. Reynolds, T. L. Sellnow, and M. W. Seeger. 2008. CERC as a theoretical framework for research and practice. Health Promotion Practice 9(4 Suppl). 26S–34S.

418 

 Matthew Seeger, Barbara Reynolds and Ashleigh M. Day

Vos, S. C., and Buckner, M. M. 2016. Social media messages in an emerging health crisis: Tweeting bird flu. Journal of Health Communication 21(3). 301–308. Wickline, M., and T. L. Sellnow. 2013. Expanding the concept of significant choice through consideration of health literacy during crises. Health Promotion Practice 14(6). 809–815.

Eva-Karin Olsson and Mats Eriksson

20 Crisis communication in public organizations Abstract: In managing and communicating crises, the responsibilities of government far exceed those of private organizations. This chapter is therefore taking a closer look at the ability of public organizations to handle a crisis. This chapter introduces frames for public administration and public communication management as a starting point for the understanding of public organizations’ practice of crisis communication. It also pays attention to how the emergence of networks and use of social media affect public organizations’ crisis communication. From these viewpoints, the chapter presents both practical and normative challenges for future crisis communication work in public organizations. Keywords: crisis comunication, private organizations, public administration models, public organizations

1 Introduction Public organizations are key actors when crises and disasters strike societies. In managing and communicating such events, the responsibilities of government by far exceed those of private organizations (Liu and Horsley 2007). This is an important imperative for taking a closer look at the ability of public organizations to communicate in crisis. The bulk of crisis communication literature has been written with private organizations in mind. However, there are significant differences between private and public organizations. The latter are run by democratically elected politicians, and governed by laws and regulations. In contrast to their private counterparts, public organizations do not operate in a free market characterized by competition. Moreover, public organizations are multifunctional, meaning they have to take into account a variety of sometimes conflicting interests related to democratic aspects such as control, transparency, equal treatment and shared decision-making. Public organizations have to balance various interests to a much higher degree than their private counterparts, and this makes them comparatively more complex to govern (Christensen, Lægreid, Roness and Røvik 2005: 17–18). The differences between public and private organizations can be summarized in the following way: public organizations face more complex and non-stable environments, more legal and formal limitations, more rigid processes and more diversified products and goals (Gelders, Bouckaert and van Ruler 2007). In relation to crisis communication, these differences mean that communication is informed and constrained by laws and regulations, which at times may hinder creativity https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-020

420 

 Eva-Karin Olsson and Mats Eriksson

and flexibility. Moreover, based on public organizations’ obligation to serve the public good, crisis communication becomes an activity which should not only be undertaken in order to promote their own organizational interests. Rather, public organizations need to ensure that their communication is both effective and legitimate. Communication should effectively reduce uncertainty among citizens and facilitate acute operational crisis management. Besides, public organizations’ crisis communication should also be aimed at strengthening democratic processes and citizen engagement. In terms of scholarly interest, research on public organizations and crisis communication is scattered across different disciplines, such as political science, emergency studies, crisis management and public relations. Crisis communication can be thought of as divided into three basic types and as performing three functions: (1) instructive information, which informs people on how to react in terms of personal protection; (2) adjustive information, which helps people to cope with uncertainty; and (3)  internalizing  information, meaning information that helps an organization manage its reputation (Sturges 1994). Crisis communication literature has been dominated by studies on internalizing information at the expense of the first two functions (Holladay  2010). As mentioned, within crisis communication literature, organizations have mostly been thought of as private organizations operating in a competitive environment. In line with this, there has been a tendency among scholars to apply models and results from research on private organizations to their public counterparts without taking the differences into account (Tracy 2007; Liu and Horsley 2007). The best-known theoretical approaches within the field of crisis communication aim to restore organizational trust and reputation in the face of various wrongdoings. In restoring reputation, lost or challenged by the crisis, organizations use various forms of apologia. The aim is to avoid blame and restore organizational image, in order to come back to normal everyday operations with minimal harm to organizational reputation (Hearit 1999). The art of apologia forms the basis for key theories in the field, such as image repair theory (Benoit 1995) and situational crisis communication theory (Coombs 2004, 2007). Even though public organizations can be forced to deal with self-inflicted problems, they are also faced with handling crisis events at the societal level, such as floods, earthquakes or large-scale accidents. These pose a different set of challenges, which go beyond ambitions related to reputation-oriented crisis communication. This means that research on public organizations also can be found in other disciplines, such as emergency management. With research in the field of emergency management, scholars have primarily been concerned with information spreading and the design of information systems (see for example Palen, Vieweg, Liu and Hughes 2007; Atkins 2010). Another key concern has been the role of networking and coordination in multi‐agency environments – for example, between emergency personnel, non‐governmental organizations and governmental agencies engaged in intergovernmental, intersectoral and multi‐organizational operations (Kapucu  2006; Vanderford  2007; Waugh and Streib 2006).



Crisis communication in public organizations 

 421

Finally, it should be highlighted that crisis communication theory and practice is very much driven by technological developments (Coombs 2014). For example, social media has often been highlighted as a valuable tool for key organizational processes, such as sharing information, activating social networks, reducing uncertainty and supporting crisis-struck communities (Macias, Hilyard and Freimuth 2009; Procopio and Procopio 2007). In recent years, we have seen how social media has played important, but also shifting roles in connection to crisis involving public organizations. For example, when the tsunami hit Japan in 2011, Twitter played a vital role in facilitating public authorities to reach out with vital lifesaving information, at a time when Japanese infrastructure had collapsed (Hjort and Kim 2011). Twitter was also important in connection to the Utøya incident in Norway – for example, in encouraging people to give blood (Socialstyrelsen 2012). It should also be noted that social media is not always seen a force for good. One example is the riots in connection to the 2011 G20 meeting in London, where both British media and public organizations highlighted the role of social media in starting the riots (Baker 2012). This chapter discusses the basic elements and conditions for why and how public organizations today communicate with citizens during crises. We introduce models for public administration and communication management in the public sector as a starting point for public organizations’ practice of crisis communication. We also pay attention to how the emergence of networks and use of social media affect public organizations’ crisis communication. From this viewpoint we present both practical and normative challenges for future crisis communication work in public organizations.

2 Communication work in public organizations As mentioned, public organizations have more complex mandates and tasks compared to their private counterparts. Naturally, this complexity is reflected in public organizations’ crisis communication activities, for example in their work on maintaining and restoring image, but also when it comes to coordination with key social networks (Yates and Paquette 2011). One way of understanding public organizations’ crisis communication is to relate communication principles, purposes and practices to various models of public administration. Deverell, Olsson, Wagnsson, Hellman and Johnson 2014 propose a framework for identifying and studying public organization communication. This framework is based upon three classical public administration models. The first model, Old Public Administration (OPA), relies on classical Weberian ideals, understanding citizens as subjects. In the second model, New Public Management (NPM), citizens are treated as clients. In the third model, New Public Service (NPS), citizens are understood as active players in democracy (Denhart and Denhart 2002; Dunleavy, Margetts, Bastow and Tinkler 2006; Dunleavy, et al. 2006).

422 

 Eva-Karin Olsson and Mats Eriksson

Deverell et al.’s framework for analyzing public organizations’ communication examines the purpose of the communication in question, the principles under­lying the communication undertaken, and finally the communication practices, which include issues such as channel and content. The three models and their components are described below. Tab. 1: The three models and their components. Bureaucracy (OPA)

Market (NPM)

Deliberation (NPS)

Purpose

Inform and educate c­ itizens in order to fulfill the organization’s duty.

Promote agency and maintain reputation in order to gain legitimacy and resources.

Facilitate deliberation by engaging citizens in order to become a better agency that contributes to a better society.

Principles

Transmission of objective, accurate, relevant information. Agency role: expert and teacher.

Mutual exchange of information through persuasion and relation-building. Agency role: service provider and company.

Dialogue and deliberation. Agency role: friend and facilitator.

Practices

One-way simplex ­channels.

Two-way simplex ­channels.

Two-way duplex channels.

2.1 Bureaucracy This is the traditional way of understanding public agencies and their communication. In this model, public administrations adhere to the Weberian ideals characterized by rules and regulations, bureaucracies and technocratic professionalism (Osborne 2006). Bureaucracy as an analytical concept involves three overarching categories. First, it is an organizational structure characterized by being hierarchical, formalized, standardized and specialized. Second, it can be understood as a profession with a set of conditions, merits and education. Third, it is an overarching normative and organizational structure which legitimizes the state through a rational political order (Olsen 2005: 2–3). In sum, bureaucracy provides neutrality and rationality aimed at creating a transparent, efficient democracy based on control and management. It should thus be noted that there are scholars arguing that bureaucracy in fact undermines democratic processes with its focus on hierarchies, rule-following and neutrality going against true democratic ideals such as participation, individuality and equality (Vigoda 2002). Communication in this approach is focused on keeping citizens informed so they are able to perform their citizenship. Information should be factual and objective, mirroring the needs of citizens. From the perspective of crisis communication, the



Crisis communication in public organizations 

 423

bureaucratic ideal can be seen in connection with the need for public organizations to provide citizens and crisis managers alike with timely and adequate information (Deverell et.al. 2014).

2.2 Market-driven communication Countries like New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom started to reform their public administration in the 1980  s with the goal of making the administration more efficient, based on “markets, managers and measurement” (Ferlie et al. 1999). The trend known as New Public Management (NPM) was driven by an ambition aiming at reducing the differences between public and private organizations and achieving a higher degree of performance management within public organizations (Hood 1995). An important book was Osborne and Gaebler’s Reinventing Government (1992), which contrasted NPM with OPM and the latter’s obsessiveness with rules, rigid budget systems and control functions. The authors argued that public administration should be focused on “steering rather than rowing” in response to citizens needs and requests (Osborne and Gaebler 1992). In contrast to OPA’s rule-following and demands on neutrality, the administration’s task is to secure the ability of citizens to make decisions in line with their individual requests (Kamensky 1996). Citizens should be free from autocratic bureaucracies, which often ignore individual needs. In their search for the most entrepreneurial public administrations in the United States, Osborne and Gaebler developed a number of principles explaining how public administration could move from “centralization to decentralization, from monopolies to competition, from bureaucratic mechanisms to market mechanisms, from funding inputs to funding outcomes or results” (Osborne 1993: 352). According to Hood (1995), NPM means a reallocation of the administration into separate entities based on the notion of “product,” which are produced within their own cost units with their distinct identities and management structures. Moreover, the administration should be managed based on results rather than directives. This also means increased competition between public and private organizations with management ideals inspired by the private sector, including cost awareness and budget discipline. NPM is also characterized by more direct leadership and active control of employees (Hood 1995: 96–97). NPM has been criticized on both a political and an academic level. Critics have highlighted the way disaggregating the public sector into small separate units results in a damaging focus on single, shortterm organizational goals. Criticism has also been directed at the quasi-marketization of administration and an overly single-minded focus on performance management (Dunleavy et al. 2006). When it comes to communication, studies have shown that public organizations are becoming more like private ones – that is, more market-driven and less focused on traditional bureaucratic values. The increased use of market-driven communi-

424 

 Eva-Karin Olsson and Mats Eriksson

cation has resulted in public organizations building attractive and relationship-oriented identities at the expense of classical agency identities based on neutrality and objectivity (Wæraas 2010). One example is the Swedish tax administration that chose to highlight values such as “proactive, reliable and helpful” rather than “coercive, authoritative and regulative” in their communication with citizens (Wæraas 2008: 213). Another study on Swedish public agencies demonstrates that they prefer to focus on visibility and branding as opposed to democracy and transparency in their communication (Fredriksson and Pallas 2012). Scholars argue that the increasing focus on branding within the public sector is problematic in many respects. For example, it misses the fact that public organizations are situated in a political context, which means that direction and identities are not up to public organizations themselves to decide upon, but are rather political decisions. Public organizations have to work with the missions given them, regardless of whether or not these are perceived as desirable (Waeraas and Byrkjeflot 2012). Scholars have also warned that extensive use of market-driven communication may undermine citizens’ trust in public organizations, and ultimately in democracy (Nielsen and Salomonsen 2012; Byrkjeflot 2010). Another result of the market-driven trend is that public agencies are becoming increasingly mediatized, which means that organizational processes and priorities are influenced by media logic (Fredriksson and Pallas 2012).

2.3 Deliberation After NPM there has been a number of public administration trends, which have in common that they regard the state as one of many actors in a world characterized by partnership and networking. One important driver in launching new theories in the field was the development of the internet, which came with high hopes of revitalizing democracy and administration through increased transparency and direct democracy. Dunleavy et al. (2006) argued that the digitalization of society has the power to transform administration, including central principles related to control and democracy. Scholars within this tradition, as opposed to OPA, argue that citizens’ needs cannot only be channeled through elections and traditional democratic institutions, but also need to be encouraged through various forms of networking activities. The administration is not capable of harboring all resources and expertise but these should be shared through various network cooperations (Olsen 2005). One approach within this general trend is what Denhardt and Denhardt (2002) refers to as New Public Service (NPS). NPS argues that the administration exists in order to serve and encourage citizens to take an active part in democracy. The state should not control citizens, but help them articulate and understand their common interests. The state is one player among others involved in changing society, where it is no longer for the state alone to create visions for society, but to engage in a dialogue with politicians, citizens and civil servants. The role of the state in such



Crisis communication in public organizations 

 425

a process is to remain open, accessible and responsible, and to encourage active citizenship. Within this research field, social media has been understood as a tool for enriching and strengthening democracy in altering processes and practices related to control and transparency (Brainard and McNutt 2010; Dunleavy et al. 2006). And in terms of crisis communication, we can see how network and deliberative approaches to communication have been revitalized in the wake of new information technology. Crisis communication research within this tradition has first of all focused on encouraging two-way communication and on getting citizens engaged in networking and information-sharing. In the following section, we will explore public organizations’ communication based on the dimensions presented above – that is, purpose, principles and practices.

3 Communicating what, where and with whom? Purpose and principles of communication In this section we will discuss ways of understanding the purpose and principles of public organizations’ communication. In short, what are they communicating in times of crisis and with what purpose? For a start, it is important to note that different communication purposes and principles are often simultaneously applied. In a study of Danish municipalities and their crisis communication, Frandsen and Johansen (2009) demonstrate how crisis and emergency work is run by two competing logics within the very same organizations. The first logic, “emergency logic”, is characterized by a narrow, technical and event-oriented approach to crisis. The other logic is “crisis management logic”, which can be seen among employees who have communication as their main task. Crisis management logic has a holistic and process-oriented take on crisis communication, and is not limited to acute emergency situations. A central component is various forms of reputation management. Similar observations are presented by Meijer and Thaens (2013), who explore US police departments’ use of social media. The authors identified three different strategies. The first is a push strategy that aims to strengthen the public image of the police. The second is a push-and-pull strategy which aims to keep citizens informed about police work but also encourage citizens to share information that is vital to the police’s work. The third strategy is networking, which aims to improve the relationship between police and citizens. The above examples show how public organizations make use of different strategies, including various aspects of reputational, informational and relational activities. According to Olsson (2014), public organizations’ communication can be understood as a two-dimensional typology, with the axes comprising operational versus strategic and reputational versus resilience-oriented communication. The first dimension makes a distinction between strategic and operational communication. The key

426 

 Eva-Karin Olsson and Mats Eriksson

challenge with operational communication is to distribute correct and timely, sometimes lifesaving, information to those affected by a crisis. The focus is on acute crisis management rather than on image-related issues (Heath, Lee and Ni 2009b). In contrast, strategic communication is preplanned and aims at long-term organizational goals, such as increasing reputation and trust among its stakeholders. The second dimension mirrors crisis communication efforts related to resilience versus reputational communication. Reputational communication deals with communication aimed at managing reputational aspects whereas resilience communication aims at creating self-sufficiency, renewal and networking capacity among those affected by the crisis in question. Communication aimed at providing people with information related to their ability to cope with the situation at hand and that is provided on an operational basis. Operational Sender oriented communication aimed at managing reputation aspects.

Reputation

Resilience

Receiver oriented communication aimed at self-sufficiency, networking, and renewal.

Strategic Communication that has been planned with much consideration and is aimed at achieving long-term organizational goals. Fig. 1: Four dimensions of crisis communication.

Taken together, the typology creates four types of crisis communication styles. Operational

Operational reputation

Operational resilience

Reputation

Resilience Strategic reputation

Strategic resilience

Strategic Fig. 2: Four ideal types of crisis communication.



Crisis communication in public organizations 

 427

In the typology above, the first type of communication is operational-resilience-oriented. This type has an operational rather than strategic perspective and aims at increasing citizens’ coping abilities. Operational, or instructive, crisis communication has traditionally played the major role in connection to crisis. The radio is a classical information channel for providing such information. Today we can see how new information technology, such as various social media platforms, contribute to speedy information, including the ability for dialogue and response. An example is provided by the Queensland Police and their work with social media in connection to the big flood in Queensland 2010/2011. According to Ehnis and Bunker (2012), the Queensland Police Service’s Facebook site served various functions: posting information related to actual occurrences and situations (59 percent), warning the community about upcoming threats (18 percent), encouraging certain behavior via action from the community (13 percent), appealing for information from the community (8 percent), and fighting rumors (2 percent). The figures above illustrate that a key task for public organizations is to empower people to act in a crisis through information and the facilitation of self-efficacy (Palttala, Boano, Lund and Vos 2012). Another task is to use social media to “steal thunder” and fill the silence to avoid rumors during crises (Fowler 2017). Operational communication can also be reputation-oriented, intentionally or not. Public leaders need to reassure citizens that they can prevent and contain the crisis, including presenting a plan to prevent the crisis repeating itself in the future. Often dayto-day operational crisis communication provides a good opportunity to show competence and compassion in a natural way, simply by being there. In fact, operational communication in a crisis may be the only time citizens have first-hand e­ xperience of an agency or organization. Studying the Swedish handling of the financial crisis in 2008, Nord and Olsson (2013) propose that actors need to address not only issues related to responsibility and apologia, as often suggested by crisis c­ ommunication literature, but also actors’ managerial capacity. This means that sometimes the defensive crisis discourse based on apologia can be replaced by a discourse focusing on ­rebuilding, renewal and managerial capacity (Nord and Olsson 2013). In connection to the ­Queensland Flood, one could see how Premier Anna Bligh achieved a major increase in popularity due to her engagement in everyday operational crisis communication activities, delivering factual updates as the situation unfolded. The same could be said for the Queensland Police and its popularity among citizens. A key challenge with delivering operational crisis communication is that the situation is continuously changing. In a study on Swedish authorities’ communication during the financial crisis, Johansson and Nord (2016) demonstrate that agencies involved in managing the crisis chose two different strategies: one evoking simplicity and clarity, and one relying on complexity and strategic ambiguity. In choosing a strategy characterized by simplicity the agencies risk being seen as less trustworthy if circumstances suddenly change. Thus, in an uncertain and quickly moving crisis it is better to d ­ eliberately communicate ­ambiguity as one way of embracing uncertainty and avoiding the risk

428 

 Eva-Karin Olsson and Mats Eriksson

of getting it wrong. However, this strategy may backfire when citizens actually need clear directions from authorities. The next category, strategic reputational-oriented communication, deals with “classical crisis communication,” where the main aim of communication is to strengthen and repair tarnished organizational images. Most often, repair work is done in connection to single organizations but can also, as in the case of the Queensland floods, be about repairing the image of a city, region or country. Queensland has a big tourist industry, and with images of Queensland completely under water circulating the globe, communication efforts were needed to explain that not all areas were that badly stricken and that the situation was improving. In fact, major tourist destinations such as the Gold and Sunshine coasts were left relatively unaffected and had little to do with sensational international media images of devastation (Olsson 2014). The last type of communication is strategic resilience-oriented communication, aimed at strategically increasing recovery and reconstruction in crisis-stricken societies. In connection to the Queensland floods, the state government launched a program aimed at identifying local heroes who had made significant contributions to their communities. Another program was called “Happiness” and was created together with a local newspaper. The program aimed at contributing positive stories as a way of getting the community back on its feet. Having looked at different types of messages, we will now turn to a discussion of communication channels.

4 Practices of communication 4.1 Channels Mass media has traditionally played a crucial role in public authorities’ ability to reach out to citizens in time of crisis. If everyday life is a struggle to get media attention, this changes in times of major crisis, where public organizations naturally attract media attention. This is because public organizations tend to be in charge of crisis management efforts and have the most up-to-date and valid information. In fact, public organizations are often so successful in grabbing media attention that media is described as adopting a “command-post” perspective in their reporting, given their dependence on official sources such as the rescue service and the police. Uncritically reporting the views of public organizations comes with a risk that coverage becomes too one-sided and misses other angles, sources and vital information. The domination of public agencies in crisis news coverage could be seen for example during the Utöya terror attack in Norway, where the police dominated news coverage in the first period, making the reporting rather one-dimensional (Falkheimer and Olsson 2015).



Crisis communication in public organizations 

 429

Yet, the relation between media and public authorities in crisis is not always one of co-working, but also entails potential conflicts. Clashes do for example adhere to differences in time perspectives. Public authorities are expected to deliver correct facts in times of crisis, which means that they need time for information approval. Moving through the organizational hierarchy takes time, and the process is often too slow for impatient journalists, who then often choose other, less reliable sources in order to publish news faster. Another problem is that that communication competence, and time set aside for communication, tend to be located at the top managerial level in public organizations. Media, for their part, are in times of rapidly unfolding crises interested in information from those working in the field and dealing with acute crisis management (Palttala et al. 2012). Social media often makes it easier for traditional media to get firsthand information from operational crisis managers close to the event. Studies have shown the importance of social media for information dissemination in times of large-scale crisis events such as wildfires and floods, both in the US (Brengarth and Mujkic 2016) and in Australia (Olsson 2014). Social media is in turn appreciated by public organizations as a way of reducing dependency on traditional media and for letting organizations tell their own story (Olsson and Eriksson 2016). Social media may then vitalize democracy and resilience by facilitating public organizations in engaging with citizens, also in times of crisis. From a NPM perspective, social media makes it easier for public organizations to market themselves. In doing so, Wæraas (2010) argues that they also risk promoting narrow sectoral interests at the expense of values related to neutrality and transparency. It is clear that social media poses new challenges and requires public organizations to rethink their understanding of citizens’ needs and behavior (Kim and Liu 2012). Even though public officials state that they prefer to use social media in times of crisis, knowledge and understanding of how citizens perceive these platforms are often limited (Graham, Avery, and Park 2015). Based on a study of how Swedish citizens and civil servant communicators make use of social media in times of crisis, Eriksson and Olsson (2016) conclude that crisis communicators and citizens perceive its usefulness somewhat differently. For example, communicators preferred Facebook as a platform for fast delivery of crisis-relevant information, while citizens perceived it as a private platform for connecting with friends and family. On a general level, it is well documented that, in crisis, citizens tend to rely upon and trust public organization’s web-based communication. For example, Freberg, Palenchar and Veil (2013) studied the use of sources in connection to the spread of the H1N1-virus, and found that the most popular source of information was the American Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Previous research has also shown that the use of social media has more positive effects, including greater credibility, on recipients compared to a message delivered by traditional media (Utz, Schultz, and Glocka 2013). On the other hand, other studies (Liu, Fraustino, and Jin 2015) demonstrate the opposite – that the public perceives traditional media as more trustworthy in a crisis than social media,

430 

 Eva-Karin Olsson and Mats Eriksson

which is more commonly used as a way of maintaining contact with friends and family.

4.2 Success and connectivity Other intriguing issues sparked by new information technologies relate to how public organizations engage with citizens in times of crisis. We have already concluded that social media has become an important tool in connecting and building relations with citizens. However, there are certain pitfalls when it comes public organizations using social media in times of crisis. Crisis communication literature often highlights the importance of organizations building trustful relations with citizens before crisis happens (Getchell and Sellnow 2016; Gurman and Ellenberger 2015). Trust is understood as created and sustained by transparency and empathy, which includes the ability to explain decisions taken and their rationale (Palttala et al. 2012). Another aspect of transparency is for actors not only to share the good news but also the mistakes and misbehavior. Again using the Queensland Police during the floods as an example, the organization realized that negative news had to be included in the organization’s communication in order to gain trust. For a little while we did not put out the negative things. But then people started asking about incidents they had heard about in the news, and then we realized that we needed to put out the bad stuff as well; even about the police misbehaving. It is bad, but you get more respect from it. (Interview with QPS Digital Media Officer)

In the case of social media, to form positive and trustful relations with the public before crisis happens is essential to ensure that the organization has followers who are actively engaging with it. An organization that lacks followers in their everyday work risks facing difficulties finding them in the middle of a crisis (Olsson and Eriksson 2016). That is, in social media, the organization has to become an attractive partner since people have the freedom to choose with whom they interact. According to the Digital Media Officer at Queensland Police it is all about fitting in. “Social media is about people (…) in this medium you need to behave like everyone else is behaving. You need to fit in. We are not the bosses of social media” (Interview with QPS Digital Media Officer). Communication style is one parameter when communicating about crisis on social media. Yet, we need to know more about how changes in tone and style towards the more personal and informal influences citizen’s perceptions of public organizations, as well as their expectations with regard to decisions and actions. How easy it will be for an organization to attract followers will differ depending on the nature of the crisis and the type of information provided by the organization in question. During acute crisis events, a key source of credibility is information. In such situations people naturally turn to the sources with the most up-to-date and trustwor-



Crisis communication in public organizations 

 431

thy information (Olsson and Eriksson 2016). In a big flood or wildfire, an authority that can provide the latest lifesaving information will attract new followers out of pure necessity. At the same time, other organizations in other types of events may face severe difficulties reaching out through social media. According to a respondent working at the Swedish police, the police face problems in getting followers when dealing with conflict situations, such as riots. In such events, the police have a hard time connecting to those they most need to get in contact with – the rioters and young people on the street (Interview with Swedish Police in Olsson and Eriksson 2016).

5 Networking A crucial change in the wake of digitalization, with implications for public organizations, is the ability of both authorities and citizens to create forums in times of crisis as a way of spreading and evaluating information (Getchell and Sellnow 2016). Crisis and disaster communities are also a forum for questioning authorities and building networks among those affected by the event (Krimsky 2007). The notion of “disaster communities in cyberspace” was coined in 2005 by Kodrich and Laituri. The authors observed that such communities were created following major crisis events such as earthquakes, floods and hurricanes, and included a number of actors such as journalists, experts and citizens. These communities included chat rooms and a message board for contact information as well as expert opinions and websites with maps and satellite images. This means that the understanding of the crisis can be shaped and reshaped based on participant engagement (Eriksson 2007). The creation of disaster communities could be seen for example around Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2007, during which major parts of the traditional communication infrastructure broke down with the effect that people became more reliant upon internet-based communication. The communities created were mostly used to sustain local contacts and information needs (Procopio and Procopio 2007). Another example is the 2011 tsunami in Japan, when everyday infrastructure was severely damaged. In such an environment, the internet and Twitter were used as key resources by citizens seeking, for example, medical help (Acar and Muraki 2011; Hjorth and Yonnie Kim 2011). The Japanese authorities were also active on Twitter, which is described as one crucial reason for their managing to preserve trust and social capital throughout the crisis (Kaigo 2012). It should thus be noted that these new channels and forums for interaction place new demands on public organizations to engage in dialogue and interact with citizens (Mergel 2013a, 2013b). It also requires a more intense and personalized communication based on the active targeting and monitoring of the communicative needs of various groups (Avery 2017).

432 

 Eva-Karin Olsson and Mats Eriksson

6 Improvisation The changes described above not only challenge how public organizations communicate but also their organizational structures and practices. One challenge is the role of planning as opposed to improvisation. Crisis communication has traditionally been thought of as a strategic and controllable managerial activity. In line with the development of new communication technologies, the notion of communication as a planned, top-down process has been criticized by scholars arguing that communication should rather be understood as an active and critical sense-making process involving all stakeholders affected by the crisis in question (see, for example, Falkheimer and Heide 2006, 2010; Eriksson 2009, 2014; Johansen and Frandsen 2007). One reason for the need of improvisation is the development of society. On a theoretical level, influences comes from scholars such as Beck (1998), Bauman (2000) and Castells (1996, 2007), who describe increasing mobility, flow, virtual communication, data, interaction and networking as the cornerstones of late modern society. In such a society, largely characterized by communication technology, crises are increasingly boundless, unpredictable and speedy (see for example Lagadec 2006). These conditions, in turn, create new needs and ways of understanding, discussing and practicing crisis communication, since it is no longer possible to manage such events with the same linear and process-oriented logic as before. Bureaucracies run into trouble due to the lack of flexibility in harboring collective improvisation and emergent self-organization (Tierney 2003). Eriksson (2014) argues that one disadvantage with the bureaucratic approach is that rigid plans and guidelines risk tying the hands of the organization’s employees with communication duties – employees in increased need of interaction and speedy communication with the public in the digital and social media landscape. As discussed earlier in this chapter, the need for improvisation has increased due to the use of social media. Social media is often used by decentralized communicators close to the event rather than by central organization communication managers as a way of ensuring speed (Eriksson 2014). In such an environment, public organizations tend to run into problems, since formal bureaucratic systems are seldom designed to meet indecency and potential decentralized information flows characterizing today’s crisis. The Queensland flood case provides one example of how the reliance on social media challenges organizational structures and processes. On an everyday basis, the Queensland Police rely upon formal hierarchical organizational structures, but that all changed with the floods when communicators, in order to speedily deliver the most up-to date information in social media, were given substantial freedom in posting information and responding to messages, thus bypassing hierarchical everyday structures (Interview with QPS Digital Media Officer). Crisis scholars have warned of the dangers of pre-planned responses and the false security these create within organizations. According to Finch and Welker (2004), highly ambitious pre-crisis work, with activities such as formulating and implementing crisis communication plans in an organization, risks resulting in a decreased



Crisis communication in public organizations 

 433

ability to anticipate and respond to real situation-specific, unscripted contingencies. The more detailed a crisis plan is constructed, the more difficult will it be to carry out in the wake of a chaotic crisis, requiring room for spontaneous actions. This is particularly troublesome for public organizations, since they are often faced with large-scale crisis events requiring flexibility in managing network responses that involve other public organizations, as well as private actors, volunteers and NGOs.

7 Where do we go from here? Our starting point in this chapter was that public organizations need to ask a different set of questions than their private counterparts. This is grounded in the fact that, rather than focusing on creating values for their shareholders, public organizations need to have a broader perspective on engaging and creating values for citizens. Communication and information is one of the core missions of many public organizations, and their ability to inform and educate citizens is crucial from a democratic perspective. It is essential for public organizations to maintain and gain trust in order to perform their duties at times when society needs stability and leadership. Next, we discussed how this is particularly challenging today, since much crisis communication work in society is in flux. Old relations and dependencies are changing, such as the one between public organizations and mass media. In today’s communicative landscape, channels used by public organizations when communicating with citizens and other organizations in crisis require more dialogue and active monitoring. This has resulted in citizen engagement becoming an important aspect of the deliberative and resilience aspects of crisis communication. At the same time, another trend involves more market-driven crisis communication in public organizations, where scholars have raised concerns regarding democratic control and citizens’ trust. These new and improvisational ways of communicating also pose organizational challenges for the modification of organizational cultures and hierarchies. At the same time as information is becoming easier for public organizations to control through the use of websites and social media, control is lost as information is shared and rearranged in contexts never intended by the sender. These are just a few reasons for continuing to explore public organizations’ communication in crisis and the preconditions affecting their communication, but also ask questions related to what we expect from our public organizations in this regard.

434 

 Eva-Karin Olsson and Mats Eriksson

References Acar, A., and Y. Muraki. 2011. Twitter for crisis communication: Lessons learned from Japan’s tsunami disaster. International Journal of Web Based Communities 7(3). 392–402. Atkins, G. L. 2010. Organizational networks in disaster response: An examination of the U.S. government network’s efforts in Hurricane Katrina. In W. T. Coombs & S. J. Holladay (Eds.), Handbook of crisis communication (pp. 93–114). New York, NY: Wiley-Blackwell. Avery, E. J. 2017. Public information officers’ social media monitoring during the Zika virus crisis, a global health threat surrounded by public uncertainty. Public Relations Review 43(3). 468–476. Bauman, Z. 2000. Time and space reunited. Time & Society 9(2/3). 171–185. Baker, S.  A. 2012. From the criminal crowd to the “mediated crowd”: The impact of social media on the 2011 English riots. Safer Communities 11(1). 40–49. Beck, U. 1998. Vad innebär globaliseringen? [What are the consequences of globalization?] Gothenburg: Daidalos. Benoit, W. L. 1995. Accounts, Excuses, and Apologies: A Theory of Image Restoration. Albany: State University of New York Press. Brengarth, L. B., and E. Mujkic. 2016. Web 2.0: How social media applications leverage nonprofit responses during a wildfire crisis. Computers in Human Behavior 54. 589–596. Castells, M. 1996. The Information Age. Economy, Society and Culture. Vol 1: The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell. Byrkjeflot, H. 2010. Omdømmebygging – drivkrefter, kritikk og paradokser. Offentlig förvaltning. Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration 12(1/2). 3–24. Castells, M. (ed.). 2007. Mobile Communication and Society: A Global Perspective. Cambridge, MA: MIT. Christensen, T., P. Lægreid, P. G. Roness, and K. A. Røvik. 2005. Organisationsteori för offentlig sektor [Organization theory of the Public Sector]. Malmö: Liber. Coombs, W. T. 2004. Impact of past crises on current crisis communication: Insights from situational crisis communication theory. Journal of Business Communication 41(3). 265–289. Coombs, W.T. 2007. Protecting organization reputations during a crisis: The development and application of situational crisis communication theory. Corporate Reputation Review 10(3). 163–176 Coombs, W.T. 2014. State of crisis communication: Evidence and the bleeding edge. Research Journal of the Institute for Public Relations 1 (1). 1–12 Denhart, R. B., and J. Denhardt. 2002. The New Public Service: Serving Rather than Steering. Public Administration Review 60(6). 549–559. Deverell, E., E-K Olsson, C. Wagnsson, C, Hellman, and M. Johnsson. 2014. Understanding public agency communication: the case of the Swedish armed forces. Journal of Public Affairs 15 (4). 387–396. Dunleavy, P., H. Margetts, S. Bastow, and J. Tinkler. 2006. New Public Management Is Dead – Long Live Digital-Era Governance. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 16(3). 467–494. Ehnis, C., and & D. Bunker. 2012. Social Media in Disaster Response: Queensland Police Service – Public Engagement During the 2011 Floods, 23rd Australasian Conference on Information Systems, 3–5 Dec 2012, Geelong. Eriksson, M. 2007. Att skapa en kriswebborganisation. Del i handbok för kriskommunikation [Creating a crisis web organization. Part of Handbook of Crisis Communication]. Stockholm: Krisberedskapsmyndigheten. Eriksson, M. 2009. Nätens kriskommunikation [Crisis communication on the Internet]. Lund: Student­litteratur.



Crisis communication in public organizations 

 435

Eriksson, M. 2014. Crisis communication and improvisation in a digital age. In Holtzhausen, D and A. Zerfass (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Strategic Communication, 508–519. New York: Routledge. Eriksson, M., and E. K. Olsson.2016. Facebook and Twitter in crisis communication: A comparative study of crisis communication professionals and citizens. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 24(4). 198–208. Falkheimer, J., and M. Heide. 2006. Kriskommunikation – att improvisera under kaos [Crisis communication – Improvising in chaos]. Sveriges Informationsförening. Rapport 4, 2006. Falkheimer, J., and M. Heide. 2010. Crisis communicators in change: From plans to improvisations. In W. T. Coombs and S. J. Holladay (eds.), The Handbook of Crisis Communication, 511–526. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Falkheimer, J., and E. K. Olsson. 2015. Depoliticizing terror: The news framing of the terrorist attacks in Norway, 22 July 2011. Media, War & Conflict 8(1). 70–85. Ferlie, E., L. Ashburner, L. FitzGerald, and A. Pettigrew. 1996. The New Public Management in Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Finch, M., and L. Welker. 2004. Informed organizational improvisation: A metaphor and method for understanding, anticipating, and performatively constructing the organization’s precrisis environment. In D. Millar and R. L. Heath (eds.), Responding to Crisis: A Rhetorical Approach to Crisis Communication, 189–200. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Fowler, B. M. 2017. Stealing thunder and filling the silence: Twitter as a primary channel of police crisis communication. Public Relations Review 43(4). 718–728. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2009. Institutionalizing crisis communication in the public sector: An explorative study in Danish municipalities. International Journal of Strategic Communication 3(2). 102–115. Freberg, K., M. Palenchar, and S. R. Veil. 2013. Managing and sharing H1N1 crisis information using social media bookmarking services. Public Relations Review 39(3). 178–184. Fredriksson, M., and J. Pallas. 2012. Med synlighet som ledstjärna: En analys av vilka principer som styr kommunikationsarbetet i nationella förvaltningsmyndigheter. Uppsala Förlag: Department of Informatics and media. Gelders, D., G. Bouckaert, and B. van Ruler. 2007. Communication management in the public sector: Consequences for public communication about policy intentions. Government Information Quarterly 24(2). 326–337. Getchell, M. C., and T. L. Sellnow. 2016. A network analysis of official Twitter accounts during the West Virginia water crisis. Computers in Human Behavior 54. 597–606. Graham, M. W., E. J. Avery, and S. Park. 2015. The role of social media in local government crisis communications. Public Relations Review 41(3). 386–394. Gurman, T. A., and N. Ellenberger. 2015. Reaching the global community during disasters: Findings from a content analysis of the organizational use of Twitter after the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Journal of Health Communication 20(6). 687–696. Heath, R., J. Lee., & L. Ni. 2009. Crisis and Risk Approaches to Emergency Management Planning and Communication: The Role of Similarity and Sensitivity. Journal of Public Relations Research (21)2. 123–141. Hearit, K. M. 1999. Newsgroups, activist publics, and corporate apologia: The case of Intel and its Pentium chip. Public Relations Review 25(3). 291–308. Hjorth, L., and K. Y. Kim. 2011. The mourning after: A case study of social media in the 3.11 earthquake disaster in Japan. Television & New Media 12. 552–559. Holladay. S. 2010. Are They Practicing What We Are Preaching? An Investigation of Crisis Communication Strategies in the Media Coverage of Chemical Accidents. In The handbook

436 

 Eva-Karin Olsson and Mats Eriksson

of crisis communication, Eds Coombs, W. T. and Holladay, S. 1 – 13 . Malden , MA : Wiley-Blackwell. Hutton Hood, C. 1991. A public management for all seasons? Public Administration 69. 3–19. Hood, C. 1995. The “new public management” in the 1980  s: Variations on a theme. Accounting, Organizations and Society 20(2–3). 93–109. Johansen, W., and F. Frandsen. 2007. Krisekommunikation: når virksomhedens image og omdømme er true [Crisis communication: When the image and reputation of the company is under threat]. Copenhagen: Samfundslitteratur. Johansson, C., and L. Nord. 2018. The simple truth: Ambiguity works. Discursive strategies by Swedish public authorities during the 2008 financial crisis. International Journal of Business Communication 55(2). 220–236. Kaigo, M. 2012. Social media usage during disasters and social capital: Twitter and the Great East Japan Earthquake. Keio Communication Review 34. 19–35. Kamensky, J. M. 1996. Role of the ‘reinventing government’ movement on federal management reform. Public Administration Review 56(3). 247–256. Kapucu, N. 2006. Interagency communication networks during emergencies: Boundary spanners in multi-agency coordination. The American Review of Public Administration 36(2). 207–225. Kim, S., and B. F. Liu. 2012. Are all crises opportunities? A comparison of how corporate and government organizations responded to the 2009 flu pandemic. Journal of Public Relations Research 24(1). 69–85. Kodrich, K., and M. Laituri. 2005. The formation of a disaster community in cyberspace: The role of online news media after the 2001 Gujarat earthquake. Convergence 11(3). 40–56. Krimsky, S. 2007. Risk communication in the Internet age: The rise of disorganized skepticism. Environmental Hazards 7. 157–164. Lagadec, P. 2006. Crisis Management in the 21st century – ‘unthinkable’ events in ‘inconceivable’ contexts. In H. Rodríguez, W. Donner, and J. E. Trainor (eds.), Handbook of Disaster Research, 476–488. New York: Springer. Liu, B. F., J. D. Fraustino, and Y. Jin. 2015. How disaster information form, source, type, and prior disaster exposure affect public outcomes: Jumping on the social media bandwagon? Journal of Applied Communication Research 43(1). 44–65. Liu, B. F., and S. J. Horsley. 2007. The government communication decision wheel: Toward a public relations model for the public sector. Journal of Public Relations Research 19. 377–393. Macias, W., K. Hilyard, and V. Freimuth. 2009. Blog Functions as Risk and Crisis Communication During Hurricane Katrina. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 15. 1–31. Meijer, A., and M. Thaens. 2013. Social Media Strategies: Understanding the Differences between North American Police Departments. Government Information Quarterly. 30(4). 343–350. Mergel, I. 2013a. A framework for interpreting social media interactions in the public sector. Government Information Quarterly 30(4). 327–334. Mergel, I. 2013b. Social media adoption and resulting tactics in the US federal government. Government Information Quarterly 30(2). 123–130. Nielsen, J. A., and H. H. Salomonsen. 2012. Why all this communication? Explaining strategic communication in Danish local governments from an institutional perspective. Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration 16(1). 69–89. Nord. L., and E-K. Olsson. 2013. Frame, Set, Match! Towards a model of successful crisis rhetoric. Public Relations Inquiry 2(1). 79–94. Olsen, J. P. 2005. Maybe it Is Time to Rediscover Bureaucracy. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 16. 1–24. DOI: 10.1093/jopart/mui027. Olsson, E. K. 2014. Crisis communication in public organisations: Dimensions of crisis communication revisited. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis management 22(2). 113–125.



Crisis communication in public organizations 

 437

Olsson, E., and M. Eriksson. 2016. The logic of public organizations’ social media use: Towards a theory of ‘social mediatization’. Public Relations Inquiry 5 (2). 187–204. Osborne, D. 1993. Reinventing government. Public Productivity and Management Review 16(4). 349–356. Osborne, D., and T. Gaebler. 1992. Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector. Addison-Wesley, Reading. Osborne, S. P. 2006. Editorial: The new public governance. Public Management Review 8(3). 377–387. Palen, L., S. Vieweg, S.B. Liu. A.L. Hughes. 2007. Crisis in a Networked World: Features of Computer-­ Mediated Communication in the April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech Event. Social Science Computer 27(4). 467–480. Palttala, P., C. Boano, R. Lund, and M. Vos. 2012. Communication Gaps in Disaster Management: Perceptions by Experts from Governmental and Non-Governmental Organizations. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 20(1). 2–12. Procopio, C., and S. Procopio. 2007. Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans? Internet communication, geographic community, and social capital in crisis. Journal of Applied Communication Research 35(1). 67–87. Salomonsen, H. H. 2011. Strategisk kommunikasjon og organisasjonsidentiteter i kommunene. In A. Wæraas, H. Bjyrkeflot, and S. I. Angell (eds.), Substans og framtreden: Omdømmehåndtering i offentlig sector. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Socialstyrelsen. 2012. Bombattentatet i Oslo och skjutningarna på Utøya 2011. Stockholm: Socialstyrelsen. Sturges, D. L. 1994. Communicating through crisis: A strategy for organizational survival. Management Communication Quarterly 7. 297–316. Tracy, K. 2007. The discourse of crisis in public meetings: Case study of a school district’s multimillion dollar error. Journal of Applied Communication Research 35. 418–441. Utz, S., F. Schultz, and S. Glocka. 2013. Crisis communication online: How medium, crisis type and emotions affected public reactions in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Public Relations Review 39. 40–46. Vanderford, M. N. 2007. Emergency communication challenges in response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Journal of Applied Communication Research 35. 9–25. Vigoda, E. 2002. From responsiveness to collaboration: Governance, citizens and the next generation of public administration. Public Administration Review 62(5). 527–540. Waugh, W.L., Jr., and G. Streib. 2006. Collaboration and leadership for effective emergency management. Public Administration Review 66. 131–140. Wæraas, A. 2008. Can public sector organizations be coherent corporate brands? Marketing Theory 8(2). 205–221. Wæraas, A. 2010. Communicating identity: A study of core value statements in regulative institutions. Administration & Society 42(5). 526–549. Wæraas, A., and H. Bjyrkeflot. 2012. Public sector organizations and reputation management: Five problems. International Public Managemement 15(2). 186–206. Yates, D and S. Paquette. (2011). Emergency knowledge management and social media technologies: A case study of the 2010 haitian earthquake. International Journal of Information Management, 31(1). 6–13.

Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen and Paul ‘t Hart

21 Communicating and managing crisis in the world of politics Abstract: This chapter introduces the most prominent political crisis communication and management theories. Departing form the framework of ‘the politics of crisis communication’, the chapter pays particular attention to communication performed when actors in the world of politics manage meaning making and communicate to win the framing contests through which crises are constructed politically as well as the communication performed when accounting for crisis. In addition, the chapter introduces the theory of ‘crisis exploitation’. While acknowledging the often more salient role politicians play in political crisis communication the chapter points and further theorizes on the role of administrative actors at the apex of political organization in such contexts. The chapter ends by encouraging more cross-fertilization between scholars working from a generic point of departure when theorizing and investigating crisis communication and the management hereof and those departing from the world of politics. Keywords: political crisis communication, political crisis management, crisis exploitation, meaning making, accounting for crisis, political executives, administrative executives, bureaucratic politics

1 Introduction: Welcome to the world of politics in times of crisis I say to all Spaniards that we must not aspire to anything except the complete defeat of terrorism. Complete and total defeat. Their surrender without conditions of any kind. No negotiation is possible or desirable with these murderers who have so often sown death throughout the geography of Spain (…) We shall never allow a minority of fanatics to force decisions about our national future on us. (Spanish prime minister Pedro Aznar speaking in the wake of the March 2004 Madrid train bombings) Amidst all this tragedy, I am proud to live in a country that has managed to hold its head up high at a critical time. I have been impressed by the dignity, compassion and resolve I have met. We are a small country, but a proud people. We are still shocked by what has happened, but we will never give up our values. Our response is more democracy, more openness, and more humanity. But never naivety. (Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg’s national memorial address for the bombing victims of Norway, July 24, 2011)

A comparative analysis of how these two European prime ministers communicated the violent incident that had befallen their countries shows their markedly different styles (Sinkkonen 2016). Both leaders used national symbolism and values in explaining the relevance of the attacks from the point of view of large group identities. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-021

440 

 Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen and Paul ‘t Hart

However, Aznar’s partisan interpretation of the attack (which he wrongfully blamed on Basque separatist group ETA) and his subsequent rigidity in defending that frame in the face of rapidly mounting evidence to the contrary may well have cost his party the national election that took place just days after the attack (Olmeda 2008). Stoltenberg, on the other hand, effectively de-politicized the crisis, and his party enjoyed the rally-around-the-flag-effect in the municipal elections that followed the attack. Examples of politically consequential crisis communication  – both verbal and non-verbal – by ministers and heads of government abound. Think Angela Merkel’s “Wir schaffen das” statement at the peak of the Syrian refugee crisis in the late Summer of 2015 – a fateful and game-changing moral and political commitment to receive the highest inflow of refugees in Europe since World War II. Think Theresa May’s wooden and perfunctory performance at the scene of the Grenfell fire tragedy, where she first conspicuously eschewed talking to survivors, and was heckled when, under pressure of public disapproval, felt forced to return and make up, ending up having to make politically embarrassing apology for the inadequacy of her own and the government’s crisis response. In contrast, think of veiled New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern hugging and speaking at length to and about the people in the countries Muslim community who had been targeted in the deadly 2019 lone-wolf mosque attack, whilst at the same time getting firm gun control legislation passed and gaining a global profile as a leader combining humanity, strength and courage in the process. With this chapter we would like to invite the reader interested in crisis communication into the world of politics, and in particular into the world of political and administrative executives at the apex of central government organizations. Although the role of political leaders and the performance of political leadership during crises is still a somewhat underdeveloped research area within the broader crisis and disaster studies field (Kuipers and Welsh 2017), there are good reasons to pay sustained attention to it (De Clercy and Ferguson 2016). From an academic perspective, as already indicated in Chapter 3 in this handbook, there has been substantial theory development and ample empirical research on the broader ‘politics of crisis management’, including on the role of communication processes within it (Boin, ‘t Hart, Stern and Sundelius 2017; Spector 2019). Thus far the ‘generic’, mostly corporations-oriented field of crisis communication and crisis management and the study of those same processes within governments and public sector organizations have been separate strands that as yet await productive cross-fertilization (Bozeman 2013). From a practical perspective, the capacity to navigate crises has become a make or break performance test for business and political leaders alike, and purposeful communication is a key aspect of that navigation (Stern 2009). From a societal perspective research into the politics of managing and communicating during crisis generates vital knowledge about the functioning of social and political institutions. In democratic political systems in particular, crises test the robustness of their institutional fabric and the vitality of their accountability regimes (Brändström 2015; De Ruijter 2019).



Communicating and managing crisis in the world of politics 

 441

The perspectives on crisis communication presented in this chapter depart form the assumption that crisis communication as performed by governments and public sector organizations is essentially a political activity. They view crisis communication as an exercise in public meaning making under pressure: providing emotionally aroused publics with authoritative accounts of what is going on, why it occurs, what its implications are, and how as individuals and members of the community they should think about and act in relation to the crisis at hand. This may seem relatively straightforward, but in today’s world of internet-driven real-time politics, this meaning-making commences as events are unfolding and considerable uncertainty, confusion and volatility exist. Moreover, political leaders’ voices are not the only ones that are being aired and listened to. Their narratives are likely to be challenged by slightly or radically different interpretations offered by their political opponents as well as potentially by other political stakeholders, victims, journalists, commentators, lawyers and sectional interests (Spector 2019). In other words, when communicating crises, political leaders and government officials effectively compete in politically consequential ‘framing contests’ (Boin, ‘t Hart and McConnell 2009). The course and outcomes of these contests cannot be understood by only considering only the particulars of the ‘event context’ (what is happening on the ground). Equally if not more important are the ‘political context’ – what else is happening, has happened or is about to happen in the political process and on the political arena – and the intent and skill with which different actors read these contexts and gear their communicative performances accordingly. In addition, we surmise that political crisis communication has predominantly been studied through the lenses of executive politicians whilst largely ignoring the dynamics of ‘bureaucratic’ crisis communication and management as performed by agency heads and other leading public servants within the executive branch (but see Stark 2011, 2014). They and their organizations have their own organization’s and/ or professions’ reputations to consider and guard (Carpenter and Krause 2012, 2015), and can easily get caught up in politicised post-crisis accountability processes (often referred to as ‘blame games’, e.  g., Brändström and Kuipers 2003; Hood 2011; De Ruiter 2019, Resodihardjo 2020). This we argue, merits particular interest in bureaucratic actors holding the potential to develop our theorizing on the politics of crisis management and communication even further when performed in the context of central governments. In the remainder of this chapter, we first introduce key understandings of crises offered within the political crisis communication literature. We then situate crisis communication within a broader framework of crisis politic and the role of leadership therein (Boin et al. 2017), focusing in particular on the theory of crisis exploitation (Boin et al. 2009). The final part of the chapter then turns towards the roles of the bureaucracy vis-à-vis their political principal(s) in managing and communicating crises in political contexts.

442 

 Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen and Paul ‘t Hart

2 Defining crisis and crisis communication in a political context How do students of crisis management in political and governmental settings define their key object of study, crisis? Although the particulars differ slightly across authors, there is widespread consensus in this literature that crises are not defined in terms of ‘events’ (e.  g. a natural disaster, a train collision, a terror attack, a bridge collapse, a sex scandal, an urban riot) but – in keeping with the Thomas theorema – in terms of politically significant actors’ perceptions of events. In that, they fit entirely with the mainstream of generic crisis communication research (Coombs 2015: 3). From an elite-focused and managerial point of view, building upon work in studies of interstate conflicts on the one hand (Holsti 1972; Brecher 1980), and studies of organizations in crises on the other (Hermann 1963), Rosenthal et al.’s (1989: 10) oft-used definition suggests that a state of crisis can be said to exist to the extent that “… policy makers experience a serious threat to the basic structures or the fundamental values and norms of a system, which under time pressure and highly uncertain circumstances necessitates making vital decisions.’ In other words: crises are socially constructed and thus relative phenomena (see further Spector 2019). Events that in operational terms may be relatively small – such as the murder of a young woman – can nevertheless be perceived politically and institutionally to be highly pivotal – for example when it becomes known that the perpetrator of the murder was a convicted sexual offender out on leave from the psychiatric institution to which he was committed, and that this type of scenario has occurred several times before in the decade up to the murder. Conversely deadly acts of political violence that would cause a major stir in Iceland or Switzer­land have long been ‘routine’ in Northern Irish and Spanish politics, for example, and only acts of exceptional scale or with powerful symbolic ramifications might be considered ‘critical’ by seasoned, battle-hardened policy makers. In other words, since it is the subjective perceptions of threat, urgency and uncertainty that count, it becomes vitally important to take into account the temporal, cultural and political context in which certain dramatic incidents occur to understand why only some incidents, accidents and adverse events become perceived and thus responded to as crises. While the definition offered by Rosenthal et al. emphasizes ‘policy makers’, subsequent work in this tradition acknowledges that the perceptions and actions of other actors in the political system are relevant too, since crisis events, narratives and imagery can be experienced and evoked not just by elected politicians but by the public service, the media, political parties, interest groups and indeed anyone with a mobile device who happens to be in a particular place at a particular time or emits words about events that reverberate on the Internet. Based upon that acknowledgement ‘t Hart (1993) has gone a step further and offers a more explicitly political  – rather than a elite-focused managerial – crisis definition. Heavily influenced by early



Communicating and managing crisis in the world of politics 

 443

work of Coombs (1980) and of pioneering student of symbolism, language and rituals in politics Murray Edelman (1964, 1977), he argued that: crises are not only perceptual but affective categories; that they involve multiple levels of conflict; that they disrupt our images and assessment of ‘the way things get done around here’; and that consequently they provide not just threats to but also opportunities for mass mobilization and (self-)dramatization by political actors. ‘t Hart’s (1993: 39) alternative crisis definition suggests that non-routine events only become crises to the extent that in the process of meaning-making that they trigger ‘a breakdown of familiar symbolic frameworks legitimating the pre-existing socio-political order’ occurs. In other words, the currency of crises in political terms is the erosion of trust and legitimacy in the institutions and elites that govern us. While it has long been recognized that crises can take many forms and in the political crisis management literature crisis typologies abound as they do in the generic crisis communication literature (Frandsen and Johansen 2017), from a political crisis communication perspective, the distinction between situational and institutional types of crises is particularly salient. Situational crises are those in which the source of the perceived threat outside the system that bears the brunt of it. It is exogenous actors and factors (nature, foreign powers, higher levels of government, international markets, multinational corporations, technological dependencies) that create an unfortunate situation for ‘us’. Crises become institutional when the dominant understanding of their origins and escalation is one that emphasizes endogenous factors: it is ‘we’ who have created or exacerbated our own risks, conflicts, breakdowns and tragedies (‘t Hart 2014: 129). Institutional crises are more palpably and inherently political, because they then activate a politics of investigation, accountability and blame – the political equivalent to rituals of mourning, solidarity and commemoration that communities facing purely situational crises (‘Acts of God’) go through. They are both forms of collective coping. But whereas in the situational crisis scenario incumbent political and bureaucratic elites are looked to for leading the community through dark days and assisting it in its hour of need, in the institutional crisis scenario those elites themselves can well become the target of public scrutiny, indignation and repudiation. Table 1 provides some examples of situational and institutional crises, which makes a further distinction based on the speed with which they manifest themselves. Urgent crises are the classical ‘big-bang’, sudden, swift, shocking major disruptions. Creeping crises involve ‘slow-burning’, much more gradually unfolding cumulation of threat, decay, tension and disequilibrium, the acknowledgement of whose very occurrence is likely to be much more subject to contestation.

444 

 Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen and Paul ‘t Hart

Tab. 1: A typology of crises. Crisis type Manifestation

Situational

Institutional

Acute

Natural disasters Pandemics Regime collapse in major global or regional powers Peak episodes in complex emergencies

Ineffective emergency responses Emergency-exposed institutional failures (such as bank frauds or collapses) Public revelations of institutional fraud, waste and abuse

Creeping

Geopolitical shifts Ecosystem transformations Demographic imbalances

Chronic policy failures Erosion of citizen trust in public institutions and office-holders Incremental degradation of public assets and infrastructure Policy or organizational paralysis by stalemates

The situational-institutional differentiation resonates with Coombs’ notion of crises belonging to different clusters: the victim cluster where there is very little attribution of crisis responsibility as they are caused by natural disasters (situational crisis). And the accidental versus preventable cluster, where there is low or strong attributions of crisis responsibility due to them being caused by for the former e.  g. technical errors and for the latter e.  g. humans errors, organizational misdeeds (Coombs 2015: 150) (institutional crisis). Such a differentiated understanding of crises has important implications for crisis communication both inside and outside the political sphere. While crises are almost by definition unpredictable, many however do not arrive un­ expectedly (Coombs 2015: 3). As Boin, McConnell and ‘t Hart observe: When the crisis in question is widely held to have been unforeseeable and uncontrollable, the amount of explanation and excusing they [public office-holders] have to do is relative limited. But when there is a widespread perception that the threat could have been foreseen and possibly avoided all together, or that the official response after its occurrence was substandard, political leaders and officials may end up in troubled waters. (Boin, Mcconnell and ‘t Hart 2008: 4)

Hence, the latter provides for a much more challenging communication task due to the high level of politicking involved from political opposition parties etc. holding an interest in isolating the blame for the crisis on the part of the government. Communication scholars are highly familiar with this reality. Their version of ‘institutional crisis’ is ‘… a crisis where a communication crisis overlaps the original crisis in so far as the organization in crisis is not able to manage the communication processes that should contribute to the handling of the original crisis.” (Johansen and Frandsen 2017: 79; see also Grebe 2013). It is when a situational crisis morphs into an institutional one that crisis communication becomes not just a matter of tac-



Communicating and managing crisis in the world of politics 

 445

tical-level ‘event response’ but of strategic-level leadership of the political forces that are unleashed by the framing of the events as being a product of the system rather than befalling it. This morphing process can occur in several ways: A. As news media are more interested in covering the handling of crises including the communication in relation to the crisis, than focusing on ‘what happened in the first place’ (Frandsen and Johansen 2017: 48), they may well detect deficiencies of preparedness, training and resourcing, poor information-sharing and miscommunication between agencies, and failures of coordination due to political friction between different policymakers, bureaus and levels of government. Each of these could be leveraged to alter the public’s view of the crisis. B. Inquiries that occur in the wake of events that were first experienced as purely situational ‘national tragedies’ such as the 9/11 and the Breivik attacks can lay bare the fact that to some significant extent these attacks could only have occurred at the scale that they did because there were major errors of risk perception, intelligence-sharing and incident response in the long lead-up to and/or during the operational response phase. C. A narrative takes hold that the vulnerabilities and failures exposed by the crisis were in fact an unintended but nevertheless manifest consequence of strategic policy decisions of current of previous government elites. Think of the role of postGFC austerity measures of the British government being singled out as a pivotal contributing factor for the local council’s regulatory failures that exacerbated the rapid spread and deadly impact of the Grenfell Towers fire. None of these escalation pathways is a matter of ‘events occurring’; they are the product of retrospective meaning-making around the question ‘how did this happen and what caused it to happen’. The extent to which this meaning-making leads to escalation of the political stakes of the crisis depends on many factors (Boin and ‘t Hart 2000). One is timing: escalation from situational to institutional and hence politi­ cal crisis is more likely when an incident occurs relatively close to an election period, or when it follows on the back of an earlier, morphologically similar incident. Another is media attention: where the media are already pre-occupied with critical perspectives on persons, policies and scandals of a government, the incident at hand is more likely to become ‘endogenized’ into an institutional crisis narrative than if its reporting slant vis a vis the government has been relatively benign. A third is political framing and coalition-building skills: whether crises are ‘contained’ at the level of situational crises or escalate to become high-politics institutional crises is also contingent upon how political and administrative executives define, narrate, frame and account for a crisis and its consequences. It is this third strand of crisis-shaping dynamics that much of the political crisis management literature focuses upon, and it is there that we now turn to.

446 

 Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen and Paul ‘t Hart

3 Political management of crises: public leadership, framing contests and crisis exploitation Building upon the crisis literature yet also upon classical works on organization and management by Barnard (1938) and Selznick (1957), Boin et al. (2005, 2017) developed a crisis leadership framework for political and public sector settings that has gained wide recognition in the literature and has been used in crisis management training programs around the world. In their view public sector crisis management is effective when a combination of tasks is accomplished: an emerging crisis is swiftly detected and responders understand what is happening (sense-making), critical decisions are made by the right people and the efforts of responders are orchestrated, (decision-making and coordination), the government, office-holders and agencies are able to shape the public’s perception and appreciation of what is going on, what is being done to deal with it and what its implications for them might be (meaning-making), responsibility is properly enacted through accountability procedures (accounting), and the crisis is used as a data point and trigger for collective self-examination and improvement (learning). These five tasks bear significant correspondence to the leadership challenges identified in generic crisis management textbooks (e.  g., Coombs 2015), but are to be performed in the institutional and cultural context of the public sector, which is marked by the electoral cycle, high levels of transparency, intensive media scrutiny, in-built political conflict, and multi-layered accountability regimes (cf. Rainey 2014). Although the formulation of the tasks suggests crisis leadership involves a linear process moving linearly from an early onset to a post crisis phase, Boin et al. (2017) and Spector (2019) explicitly point to the constructed and dynamic nature of crises. This means that crises may evolve and – as we have seen, morph – in various ways and directions over time, necessitating repeated and iterative leadership task performance. Moreover, the nature of the leadership challenges involved changes as new events, facts, angles, and storylines emerge, and processes of (de)escalation between situational and institutional crisis types occur.

3.1 Meaning-making: navigating framing contests While any of the five crisis leadership tasks has some communication dimension to it, this is most pivotally the case for meaning making and the accounting. It is while performing the tasks that leaders can affect three strategically significant layers of perception and argumentation in the interpretation of a crisis: constructing significance (how bad are the damage done and the scope of further threat?); constructing causality (who or what are the driving forces behind the course of events?); and constructing responsibility (who had the duty and means to prevent bad things from happening and to mitigate their impact?).



Communicating and managing crisis in the world of politics 

 447

Let us first focus on meaning making which Boin et al. (2017: 79) define as “the attempt to reduce public and political uncertainty and inspire confidence in crisis leaders by formulating and imposing a convincing narrative.” (Boin et al. 2017: 79). As noted by Ansell et al. (2014: 426), in the context of crisis ‘people expect their leaders to reduce uncertainty and provide an authoritative account of what is going on, why it is happening and what needs to be done.” Meaning-making in crises is performed in what Boin et al. (2017: 81) describe as a triangular relationship between political actors (governmental and nongovernmental), the mass media (news producers: journalist and news organizations), and the citizenry (a pluralistic aggregate of all kinds of individuals, groups, and subcultures). It is within this triangle that framing contests unfold. Government elites may enjoy some a priori advantages in these contests in terms of their access to vital information, to highly used and trusted communication channels, and to the support of specialized advisers. At the same time, it may well be the case that their personal or institutional credibility among (parts of) the public is low and further attenuated by the occurrence of crisis. The public, or segments within it, may instead be quite receptive to the ‘counter frames’ about the crisis that are offered by their political competitors or emergent informal crisis leaders. Figure 1 provides a conceptual map of crisis-induced framing contests (see further also sections 3.2 and 3.3) No crisis Political stance: No blame Policy stance: Business as usual Perception, interpretation and framing (actor 1, 2, ...)

Situation

Values, interests, positions (actor 1, 2, ...)

Crisis as threat Political stance: Diffuse blame Policy stance: Defend status quo Crisis as opportunity Political stance: Focus blame Policy stance: Attack status quo

Fig. 1: Anatomy of crisis-induced framing contests. Source: Boin et al. (2009: 84).

As the figure shows, crisis-triggered meaning-making processes take place in in a political context which makes questions about severity, causation, responsibility and accountability politically charged. Merely offering a story about the ongoing crisis – by holding a press conference, issuing a media release, sending a tweet – is not enough,

448 

 Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen and Paul ‘t Hart

it is getting others to accept it that often poses the biggest challenge (Ansell et al. 2014: 426), as Spanish prime minister Aznar and his colleagues learned at their cost during the Madrid bombings crisis. They could and should have done better, Boin et al. (2017: 93–97) suggest, and identify seven planning, preparedness and performative factors that are important for the effectiveness of crisis communication in political contexts. 1) Ensuring a clear division between politicians and their advisers providing the framing of the communication, while leaving the running of the communication to communication experts. 2) Being prepared for the realities of 21st century crisis communication. Lack of such preparedness translates into a loss of speed and coherence in the critical stages of an acute crisis: authorities will be seen to be trailing the crisis story instead of shaping it. 3) Ensure that subject matter experts provide prompt, accurate and relevant information whilst not second guessing the work of framing and performing the resultant crisis communication, which should be the province of the responsible policymakers and their communication advisers in charge of the framing 4) Coordinate all outgoing communication with the aiming of speaking in one voice as much as possible even though messaging occurs through different messengers and channels 5) Formulate a media strategy that encompasses both traditional and social media platforms 6) Consider carefully what should be communicated when, but don’t underestimate the public’s desire for maximum transparency about anything that relates to the crisis of the moment 7) Don’t just talk and talk. Make meaning and manage emotions by staging and performing supportive rituals and engaging in other forms of symbolic crisis behavior (‘t Hart 1993) – a dimension of crisis communication at which New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern excelled in the wake of the Christchurch attack. Winning the meaning making contest is by no means a trivial endeavor. It requires careful alignment between the content (accuracy, plausibility, practicality), transmitters (authority, style, credibility) and the performance (staging, scripting, timing, sequencing) of the crisis communication effort. This idea resonates with Coombs’ (2004: 271) concept of the performance history of a crisis actor (see also Salomonsen et al. 2018). The performance history comprises of the degree of past crisis an actor or an organization has been involved in (the crisis history), as well as their record of behaviour vis a vis their key stakeholders (the relationship history). Past behavior provides for a ‘causal antecedent’ (Coombs 2004: 271) that stakeholders apply when they make sense of crises, including attributions about their causes (Coombs 2004: 267).



Communicating and managing crisis in the world of politics 

 449

3.2 Accounting: navigating blame games Politically, a key question to emerge sooner or later in the course of any crisis is that of where responsibility lies and what if any consequences should ensue for those who are held to be responsible. Within any democratic polity the ability to hold office holders to account is vital for the legitimacy of and the trust granted to political and administrative actors and institutions. The term accountability refers both to a virtue to be pursued (actively taking responsibility) as well to the mechanisms and institutional arrangements that provide actors with incentives to pursue this virtue (Bovens et al. 2014). At its heart lies communication. Mark Bovens (2007) has authoritatively defined accountability as a “communicative interaction between an actor (person or organization) and an accountability forum, in which the former’s behavior (in the broadest sense of the word) is evaluated.” The very occurrence of (situational) crises dramatizes the vulnerability of key tenets of the existing socio-political order. Institutional crises furthermore punctuate the belief in the power and capability of the state to protect citizens from collective harm or in the fundamental integrity of public office-holders and institutions that are supposed to epitomize and defend this order. Societies need a purification ritual to “bounce back” and “move on” from crises. Without an authoritative public reckoning and impactful lesson-drawing exercise it is very difficult for communities to achieve closure. Notwithstanding this legitimate desire for public scrutiny and societal re-equilibration, post-crisis accountability processes are also always intensely political. From a normative, rational perspective, truth-finding dialogues, justifications and learning efforts would be expected. By contrast, during and after crisis situations a much more political high-stakes game tends to ensue among office-holders, agencies and other interested parties involved. Incumbent officials and agencies explain their actions prior to, during and after the occurrence of a major societal disturbance, whilst their opponents seek to expose their alleged failures. Through accountability, crises can make, break, or transform political and public service careers, agency mandates and reputations, and policy paradigms. While formal accountability forums such as parliaments, inquiry committees and courts are of vital importance, so are (news and social) media (Kuipers and ‘t Hart 2014: 591). They present crisis actors with informal theatres of public accountability that hold the ability to inflict reputational losses on executive actors in relation to a crisis. In addition, they have an ability to trigger and reinforce formal accountability fora to step up their oversight of those executives (Jacobs and Schillemans 2015). While the media may portray any crisis according to simple frame of villains and heroes (Boin et al. 2017: 115), formal accountability forums may hold the formal authority, resources, knowledge, as well as the incentives and obligations to ‘dig deeper’ and provide a more nuanced account of the crisis and the responsibility of the actors involved.

450 

 Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen and Paul ‘t Hart

The bulk of the literature on accountability for crises focuses on the ­behavior of elite actors who anticipate or respond to questions raised by different types of accountability forums about their responsibility in the lead-up and response to the crisis. In effect: how they actually play the ‘blame game’ (Hood 2020; Resodihardjo 2020). Within generic crisis communication theory, the question of who is held accountable and to whom responsibility is attributed is to a large extent suggested to come down to a question of whether the organization or the actor facing the crisis has as positive or negative relational history with its stakeholders. Similar lines of reasoning are pursued in political crisis communication research. It is argued, for example, that leaders who hold a good stock of pre-crisis political capital with key media actors have a better chance at remaining depicted as trustworthy and credible when a crisis emerges that leaders who enter the crisis off a much lower base (De Ruiter 2019). Kuipers and ‘t Hart (2014) identify two main strategies used: avoiding blame or demonstrating empathy and responsiveness. Avoiding blame proceeds by pursuing defensive storylines such as accusing the accusers, disqualifying critics, blaming the messenger, extenuating their own behavior, shifting the burden of proof onto critics, or blaming others (Bovens et al. 1999). In order to avoid blame, actors start with crisis or problem denial, then adopt other responses such as admitting the crisis but blaming others; admitting partial responsibility but denying substantial involvement, until their strategy becomes untenable and actors are forced to admit both problem and culpability (Hood et al. 2009). Likewise, Brändström and Kuipers (2003) distinguish two dimensions along which government elites seek to reframe crisis narratives to escape blame: depicting the failures committed as technical-operational matters for which not they but lower-level officials should held responsible, and by depicting any failures of policy whose occurrence they cannot feasibly deny as one-off incidental mishaps rather than as symptomatic of structural flaws. Also, designated or self-appointed scapegoats can deliberately take the fall for their superiors or patrons. Ellis’s (1994) study of US presidential ‘lightning rods’ offers many examples, and the Trump administration has augmented the case catalogue further. Another strand of research shows us the other side of the coin: immediate and public displays of empathy and humility which – intentionally or not – serve to preempt or attenuate crisis-induced blame games. Upsetting as they are, crises offer opportunities for the public display of compassion. Visits to the site of a tragedy, protest marches, the hailing of front-line heroes, earnest engagements with victims, public critical self-reflection, the appointment of fiercely independent and robust investigators – the repertoire is large (‘t Hart 1993). The evident failure to grasp the importance of empathy and perform symbolic crisis management is what made the May government’s response to the Grenfell Towers fire so jarring, and Tony Blair’s account-giving for the Iraq imbroglio so destructive of his historical reputation. A number of communication tactics are available for the executive leaders faced with crisis-induced accountability pressures, and investigating which works when is a major thrust of contemporary research on the topic Table 2 provides a map. Note the



Communicating and managing crisis in the world of politics 

 451

strong family resemblance between these political tactics of blame management and those identified by researchers working in the image repair and impression management traditions of corporate communications research (Benoit 2015). Tab. 2: Communicative tactics in crisis-induced accountability episodes. Adapted from Boin et al. (2017: 119). Accountability dimension

Strategy

Tactic

Argument

Severity

Avoiding blame

Denial

Nothing bad happened

Mitigation

Harm was negligible Harm was compensated You can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs

Positive spin

It was a success

Combating causation

It was not my doing I was only a small contributor Uncontrollable forces reigned

Combating capacity

I was not informed Others made vital decisions I was under orders

Blaming the messenger

Publicity caused the harm

Disqualifying investigators

Investigation was unfair Investigators are incompetent Report is unprofessional

Justification

I choose the lesser evil I prevented worse by others

Preventing labeling

This was a typical behavior

Scapegoating

I have punished the culprit(s)

Repentance

I apologize, please forgive me I have learned by lesson

Policy and organizational reform

I have changed policies

Causality

Responsibility

Demonstrating empathy and responsiveness

452 

 Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen and Paul ‘t Hart

3.3 Exploitation: Crises as political opportunity structures Let us briefly return to Figure 1’s bottom-right part: the type-3 scenario of crises being experienced by at least some of the pivotal actors involved not as a threat but as an opportunity. Incumbent authorities, for example, may find themselves with strong societal demand for their leadership and a big public stage on which to dramatize it. They detect they have a license to act as caring, committed, courageous leader: demonstrating calmness, providing comfort and not least reducing the uncertainty related to any given crisis. Yet at the same time, it is the nature of crises as framing contests that somewhere, sometime, to some degree they may also provide other actors with possibilities for criticizing and challenging the executives’ framing of the crisis, attacking their credibility, diminishing their political capital, and pushing the case for alternative leaders and policies. Boin et al. (2009) have captured this opportunistic dimension of crisis behavior in their theory of crisis exploitation. They define crisis exploitation as the purposeful utilization of crisis-type rhetoric to significantly alter levels of political support for public office-holders and public policies. The theory seeks to open the ‘black box’ of post-crisis politicking in an effort to account for both the political impact and the policy impacts of crises, particularly institutional crises. The theory’s dependent variables are therefore twofold: the nature and depth of changes in political support for key public office-holders and/or agencies; and the nature and degree of policy change in the wake of the crisis. And again, communication becomes the crucial coin of crisis exploitation efforts: words as weapons, storylines as stratagems, drama as persuasion. The political ‘game’ of crisis exploitation centers around the clash between office-holders and their critics. Table 3 depicts this as a simple game matrix, juxtaposing the strategic choices that office-holders and their critics will encounter in the politics of the post-crisis phase. It predicts the outcomes of the debate about accountability and blame that follows from particular configurations of political strategies. The calculus for office-holders involves a similar political trade-off: fighting to come away unscathed (box 3), or proactively, piously taking responsibility and thus forging a relatively benign political catharsis (box 1). At the same time, political oppositions and critics will be aiming to push the accountability processes towards a box-2 outcome, ideally manifesting itself in the form of forced resignations and government instability.



Communicating and managing crisis in the world of politics 

 453

Tab. 3: Crisis exploitation: The political game. Critics

Absolve blame

Focus blame

Accept responsibility

I. Blame minimization: Elite escape likely

II. Blame acceptance: Elite damage likely

Deny responsibility

III. Blame avoidance: Elite escape likely

IV. Blame showdown: Elite damage, escape, rejuvenation all possible

Incumbents

Likewise, the policy ‘game’ of crisis exploitation involves the clash between proponents of the institutional status quo and advocates for policy and organizational change. The latter consider whether the crisis can be leveraged to create momentum for wholesale policy termination and radical reform of the sector in which the crisis has occurred, or whether there is only potential to achieve more incremental changes. Status-quo players gauge the degree of destabilization of existing policies that the crisis narratives may inflict and assess whether they have the clout to resist any change of policy advocated by inquiries or change advocates, or whether some form of accommodating gesture (‘learning the lessons’) is necessary. Depending on these two sets of actors’ calculations and the power balance that emerges between them in the course of the crisis episode, four types of outcome may result, as depicted in Table 4. Since its launch over a decade ago, this framework has begun to be used to explain crisis-activated policy struggles and policy-change dynamics in a range of issue areas and political systems (Galaz et al. 2011; Opperman and Spencer 2016; Liu 2019). Tab. 4: Crisis exploitation: the policy game. Source: Boin et al (2009: 90). Change advocates

Press for policy paradigm shift

Press for incremental reform

Resist policy change

I: policy stalemate or politically imposed paradigm shift

II: policy stalemate or politically imposed incremental adjustment

Contain policy change

III: major and swift rhetorical/ symbolic change; more incremental substantive change

IV: negotiated incremental adjustment

Status-quo players

454 

 Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen and Paul ‘t Hart

4 Civil servants and bureaucratic politics in crisis management communication How do civil servants and their agencies fit into this picture? We know from public administration research that ‘bureaucrats’ conduct a balancing act between behaving as agents of their political principals (‘serving the ministers’) as well as agents in their own right (e.  g. advancing their profession, stewardship of public values, defending organizational ‘turf’, see ‘t Hart and Wille 2012). Some crisis management researchers suggest that interagency ‘bureaucratic politics’ can play an important role in shaping both first-line incident responses as strategic coordination and communication processes (Rosenthal, ‘t Hart and Kouzmin 1991; Boin and ‘t Hart 2012; Boin and Bynander 2015). Others focus on the tensions that crises may forge or exacerbate in the relations between civil servants and their political principals, particularly around ‘speaking truth to power’ when political leaders are stressed or seek affirmation of their instincts or quick-fix solutions to complex challenges rather than independent and critical thinking (Preston and ‘t Hart 1999), and the need for ‘multiple advocacy’ so as to give political leaders a broad range of considerations rather than groupthink-like contrived consensus (George and Stern 2002). But on the flip side, there are also concerns about bureaucratic actors continuing to pursue their agency’s ‘siloed’ view and policy preferences and promoting their agency’s interests vis a vis their political masters even in the context of crises of national importance, and about political actors keen to shift blame towards bureaucratic ‘lightning rods’ when difficult post-incident accountability conversations take place (Boin et al. 2010). Crisis-induced blame games not only occur between bureaucratic agencies or across different levels of government but between political and administrative leaders within the executive branch (Resodihardjo 2020). In terms of table 2, civil servants may sometimes see fit (or feel forced) to maneuver so as to reduce their political principals’ ability to save their own skins in the face of crisis-induced accountability pressures by using communicative tactics such as combating causation, combating capacity and scapegoating designed to diffuse or shift blame towards operational actors or bureaucratic advisers. Let’s examine when and why this may be the case. At one end of the spectrum stand ‘politically responsive bureaucrats’ who in effect take up their roles in a ‘functionally politicized’ (Hustedt and Salomonsen 2014) manner. They perceive is as their role to be as responsive to the wishes of the political executive as possible without publicly violating the norms preserving the neutrality of a merit bureaucracy. In this scenario we would expect the administrative executive to demonstrate unrelenting loyalty to the government of the day even when there is crisis-induced blame to be dispensed, potentially also to the point where blame acceptance even for political wrongdoings becomes accepted as part of the job – the bureaucrat as a political lightning rod (Ellis 1994).



Communicating and managing crisis in the world of politics 

 455

A similar line of thought emerges from stewardship theory. Originally launched as an alternative to classical principal-agent theories of political-administrative relations, this approach suggests that trust and cooperation rather than control and conflicting interest is at the heart of the relationship between the political and administrative executives (Schillemans and Bjurstrøm 2019: 3 and 10). The reason being that principals and agents share the same interests and goals, as the agents wish to act ‘in the best interest of their principals’ (Davis, Schoorman and Donaldson 1997: 24) as those interests are perceived to align with the before mentioned ‘agency ideology’. The motivation of a steward is less about unremitting loyalty to political office-holders but more to realizing the mission of their organization to the extent that this overlaps with the policies pursued by the principal. Stewardship motives are probably more common in executive agencies whereas lightning rod dynamics are perhaps more likely to occur in departmental inner circles around ministers. The two drivers of bureaucratic behavior can have diverging behavioral implications as crises fuel the stakes of political-administrative relations. When a situational crisis escalates into an institutional crisis and the political principal finds it less convenient to continue reciprocating the bureaucratic loyalty they have been led to expect, bureaucratic ‘stewards’ may be more likely than bureaucratic ‘lightning rods’ to push back (cf. table 1), turning into foes and resorting to ‘bureaucratic politics’. At the other end of the spectrum we find bureaucrats who – in a crisis that turns sour  – may become a foe to the political principal. These are civil servants whose role-taking rests on the idea that the authority of political principals vis a vis public servants rests on negotiation rather than democratic entitlement. In such negotiations not only the performance, but also the reputation of the administrative executives and their organizations are valuable political assets for the administration (Carpenter and Krause 2015). During crisis induced blame games these assets become aspects to be protected whether under attack horizontally from other bureaucrats or stakeholders in the environments or vertically from the political principals. Echoing Downs’s (1967) classic type of the bureaucrat as ‘zealot’ and in line with more recent theories that suggest bureaucrats cultivate the reputation of their organizations to maximize their autonomy relative to principals (Carpenter 2001; 2010), Rosenthal, ‘t Hart and Kouzmin (1991: 213) define ‘bureau-political activity’ as behaviour “associated with a concern for self-interest, institutional power or overzealousness in pursuit of what is defined by different agencies as the ‘common cause’.” In this scenario we would expect administrative executives during a crisis to be as much occupied with protecting their turf, the reputation of their organization and avoid responsibility and blame by primarily fighting against other bureaucrats. To the extent that such ‘zealous’ behavior comes with the risk of lack of information sharing across silos and across governance levels, lack of coordination and collaboration, such bureaucrats turn into foes or at least liabilities of political principals whose bureau-politicking can “diminish governmental coping capabilities”. (Rosenthal, ‘t Hart and Kouzmin 1991: 213). In this scenario ‘politicised bureaucrats’ constrain the

456 

 Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen and Paul ‘t Hart

political principal’s crisis management options by contesting or undermining their principals in the framing contest performed during the meaning-making and accountability phases if this framing goes against their interests.

5 Conclusion: How context matters In this chapter we have invited crisis communication scholars into the world of politics and public administration. We have done so because we think the two strands of literature may enrich each other by sharing their conceptual context to a bigger extent than is the case today. According to Christopher Pollitt (2013: 9), context matters in at least two ways when social scientists want to investigate social and political phenomena. There is the ‘conceptual context’, which refers to ‘the means or tools’, i.  e., the theoretical frameworks, concepts and methods applied to the object of study, in our case those of political crisis management research. And there is ‘factual context’ which refers to ‘entities or dimensions of social reality’, in our case the institutional arenas of politics and government in which political crisis management and communication are being performed. We suggest that the factual contexts of political and corporate crisis management are not so different as to warrant the continued existence of two largely unrelated conceptual contexts of theorizing and research tool development. Like politicians and bureaucrats, corporate actors find themselves in framing contests not only during in-crisis meaning-making game but also during the sometimes drawn-out post-crisis accountability game. Like political office-holders, corporate executives too face complex interrelationships with other actors in their governance structures, e.  g. boards, owners and shareholders. In navigating those corporate governance structures during crises, they too may grope for loyalist lightning rods only to discover that other key players act more like assertive and (self-)protective stewards and zealots pursuing very different blame-management and lesson-drawing scripts. We therefore encourage future research in both domains to explore the hitherto underexplored potential of cross-fertilization. We should consider undertaking systematic comparative studies of crisis management in the world of politics and in the corporate world. By thus identifying and explaining similarities as well as differences in governance contexts, crisis response challenges, leadership behaviors and communicative practices will, we believe, enhance our understanding of crisis communication in both spheres.



Communicating and managing crisis in the world of politics 

 457

References Ansell, C., A. Boin, and P. ‘t Hart. 2014. Political leadership in times of crisis. In R. A. W. Rhodes and P. ‘t Hart (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Political Leadership, 418–433. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Barnard, C. 1938. The Functions of the Executive. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Benoit, W. L. 2015. Accounts, Excuses, and Apologies: Image Repair Theory and Research. Albany: State University of New York Press. Boin, A., and P. ‘t Hart. 2000. Institutional Crisis in Policy Sectors: An Exploration of Characteristics, Conditions and Consequences. In H. Wagenaar (ed.), Government Institutions: Effects, Changes and Normative Foundations, 9–31. Dordrecht: Kluwer Press. Boin, A., P. ‘t Hart, E. Stern, and B. Sundelius. 2005. The Politics of Crisis Management: Public Leadership under Pressure. 1st edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boin, A., A. McConnell, and P. ‘t Hart (eds.). 2008. Governing After Crisis: The Politics of Investigation, Accountability and Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boin, A., P. ‘t Hart, and A. McConnell. 2009. Crisis exploitation: Political and policy impacts of framing contests. Journal of European Public Policy 16(1). 81–106. Boin, A., P. ‘t Hart, A. McConnell, and T. Preston. 2010. Leadership style, crisis response and blame management: The case of hurricane Katrina. Public Administration 88(3). 706–723. Boin, A., and P. ’t Hart. 2012. Organizing for effective emergency management: Lessons from research. Australian Journal of Public Administration 69(4). 357–371. Boin, A., and F. Bynander. 2015. Explaining success and failure in crisis coordination, Geografiska Annaler: Series A, Physical Geography 97(1). 123–135. Boin, A., P. ‘t Hart, E. Stern, and B. Sundelius. 2017. The Politics of Crisis Management: Public Leadership under Pressure. 2nd end. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bovens, M. 2007. Analysing and Assessing Accountability: A Conceptual Framework. European Law Journal 13(4). 447–468. Bovens, M., P. ‘t Hart, S. Dekker, and G. Verheuvel. 1999. The Politics of Blame Avoidance: Defensive Tactics in a Dutch Crime Fighting Fiasco. In H. K. Anheier (ed.), When Things Go Wrong: Organizational Failures and Breakdowns, 123–147. Bovens, M., T. Schillemans, and R. E. Goodin. 2014. Public Accountability. In M. Bovens, T. Schillemans, and R. E. Goodin (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Public Accountability, 1–20. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bozeman, B. 2013. What organizaiton theorists and public policy reserachers can learn from one another: Publicness theory as a case-in-point. Organization Studies 34(2). 169–188. Brändström, A. 2015. Crisis accountability and ministerial resignations in Sweden. Scandinavian Political Studies 38(3). 217–320. Brändström, A., and S. Kuipers. 2003. From ‘Normal Incidents’ to Political Crisis: Understanding the Selective Politicization of Policy Failures. Government and Opposition 38. 279–303. Brecher, M. 1981. Decisions in Crisis. Berkeley: University of California Press. Carpenter, D. P. 2001. The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy: Reputations, Networks, and Policy Innovation in Executive Agencies 1862–1928. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Carpenter, D. P. 2004. Protection without Capture: Product Approval by a Politically Responsive, Learning Regulator. The American Political Science Review 98(4). 613–631. Carpenter, D. P. 2010. Reputation and Power: Organizational Image and Pharmaceutical Regulation at the FDA. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press. Carpenter, D. P., and George A. Krause. 2012. Reputation and Public Administration. Public Administration Review 72(1). 26–32.

458 

 Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen and Paul ‘t Hart

Carpenter, D. P., and G. A. Krause. 2012. Transactional Authority and Bureaucratic Politics. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 25(1). 5–25. Coombs, J. E. 1980. Dimensions of Political Drama. Santa Monica: Goodyear. Coombs, T. W. 2004. Impact of Past Crisis on Current Crisis Communication. Insights from Situational Crisis Communication Theory. Journal of Business Communication 41(3). 265–289. Coombs, T. W. 2015. Ongoing Crisis Communication. Planning, Managing, and Responding. 4th edn. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Davis, J. H., D. F. Schoorman, and L. Donaldson. 1997. Toward a Stewardship Theory of Management. The Academy of Management Review 22(1). 20–47. De Clercy, C., and P. Ferguson. 2016. Leadership in precarious contexts: Studying political leaders after the Global Financial Crisis. Politics and Governance 4(2). 102–114. De Ruiter, W. J. M. 2019. Walking the Tightrope: Political Accountability, Blame, and Ministerial Survival in Two Parliamentary Systems. Utrecht: Utrecht University PhD Thesis. Downs, A. 1967. Inside Bureaucracy. Boston, MA: Little Brown. Edelman, M. J. 1964. The Symbolic Uses of Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Edelman, M. J. 1977. Political Language: Words that Succeed and Policies that Fail. New York: Academic Press. Ellis, R. J. 1994. Presidential Lightning Rods:The Politics of Blame Avoidance. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2017. Organizational crisis communication: A multivocal approach. London: Sage. George, A. L., and E. K. Stern. 2002. Harnessing conflict in foreign policy making: From devil’s to multiple advocacy. Presidential Studies Quarterly 32(3). 484–505. Grebe, K. S. 2013. Things can get worse. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 18(1). 70–86. ‘t Hart, P., and A. C. Wille. 2012. Bureaucratic politics: opening the black box of executive government. In G. B. Peters and J. Pierre (eds.), Sage Handbook of Public Administration, 369–379. London: Sage. ‘t Hart, P. 1993. Symbols, Rituals and Power: The Lost Dimensions of Crisis Management. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 1(1). 29–43. ‘t Hart, P. 2014. Understanding Public Leadership. Houndmills: Palgrave. Hermann, C. F. 1963. Some Consequences of Crisis Which Limit the Viability of Organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly 8(1). 61–82. Holsti, O. R. 1972. Crisis Escalation War. McGill-Queen’s University Press. Hood, C. 2011. The Blame Game: Spin, Bureaucracy, and Self-Preservation in Government. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press Hood, C., W. Jennings, R. Dixon, B. Hogwood, and C. Beeston. 2009. Testing Times: Exploring Staged Responses and the Impact of Blame Management Strategies in Two Examination Fiasco Cases. European Journal of Political Research 48. 695–722. Hustedt, T., and H. H. Salomonsen. 2014. Ensuring Political Responsiveness: Politicisation Mechanisms in Ministerial Bureaucracies. International Review of Administrative Science 80(4). 746–765. Jacobs, S., and T. Schillemans. 2015. Media and public accountability: typology and exploration. Policy and Politics 44(1). Kuipers, S., and N. H. Welsh. 2017. Taxonomy of the Crisis and Disaster Literature: Themes and Types in 34 Years of Research. Risk, Hazards and Crisis in Public Policy 8(4). 272–283. Kupiers, S., and P. ‘t Hart. 2014. Accounting for crises. In R. A. W. Rhodes and P. ‘t Hart (eds.), Oxford Handook of Political Leadership, 589–602. Oxford: Oxford University Press.



Communicating and managing crisis in the world of politics 

 459

Liu, Y. 2019. Explaining the variance of crisis-induced policy change: Toward a dynamic process model of crisis exploitation in China. Utrecht: Utrecht University PhD Dissertation. Moberg, V., E. K. Olsson, E. Paglia, and C. Pakker. 2011. Institutional and Political Leadership Dimensions of Cascading Ecological Crisis. Public Administration 89(2). 361–380.  Olmeda Gomez, J. A. 2008. A Reversal of Fortune: Blame Games and Framing Contests After the 3/11 Terrorist Attacks in Madrid. In A. Boin, P. ‘t Hart, and A. McConnell (eds.), Governing After Crisis:The Politics of Investigation, Accountability and Learning, 62–84. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oppermann, K., and A. Spencer. 2016. Telling stories of failure: narrative constructions of foreign policy fiascos, Journal of European Public Policy 23(5). 685–701. Pollitt, C. 2013. First link. In C. Pollitt (ed.), Context in Public Policy and Management. The Missing Link?, 88–97. Cheltenham, Northampton: Edward Elgar. Preston, T., and P. ‘t Hart. 1999. Understanding and Evaluating Bureaucratic Politics: The Nexus Between Political Leaders and Advisory Systems. Political Psychology 20(1). 49–98. Rainey, H. G. 2014. Understanding and Managing Public Organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Resodihardjo, S. 2020. Crises, Inquiries and the Politics of Blame. London: Palgrave. Rosenthal, U., M. T. Charles, and P. ‘t Hart (eds.). 1989. Coping with Crisis: The Management of Disasters, Riots, and Terrorism. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas. Rosenthal, U., P. ‘t Hart, and A. Kouzmin. 1991. The Bureau-Politics of Crisis Management. Public Administration 68. 211–233. Salomonsen, H. H., S. Boye, and K. Verhoest. 2018. Obtained by the past. How reputational histories matter for agencies’ reputation and their management hereof when exposed to negative media coverage. Paper presented at ECPR joint sessions, Nicosia, 10–14 April. Schillemans, T., and K. H. Bjurstroem. 2019. Trust and Verification: Balancing Agency and Stewardship Theory in the Governance of Agencies. International Public Management Journal, DOI: 10.1080/10967494.2018.1553807. Selznick, P. 1957. Leadership in Administration. A Sociological Interpretation. New York: Row-Peterson. Sinkkonen, T. 2016. Can political leaders make a difference? Norwegian versus Spanish experiences in responding to terrorist attacks. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 39(4). 326–341. Spector, B. (2019). Constructing Crisis: Leaders, Crises, and Claims of Urgency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stark, A. 2011. The Tradition of Ministerial Responsibility and Its Role in the Bureaucratic Management of Crisis. Public Administration 89(3). 1148–1163. Stark, A. 2014. Bureaucratic Values and Resilience: An Exploration of Crisis Management Adaptation. Public Administration 92(3). 692–706. Stern, E. K. 2009. Crisis navigation: Lessons from history for the crisis manager in chief. Governance 22(2). 189–202.

Bengt Johansson and Orla Vigsø

22 Crisis communication and the political scandal Abstract: Scandals are more or less a defining trait of contemporary culture. We live in a society where scandals erupt practically every day, in different spheres of society. Even though there are numerous corporate scandals and scandals in popular and high culture, the political scandal is probably the one receiving most attention in both media and in research. In this chapter, we discuss different aspects of the research on political scandals such as definitions, typologies, and what kind of consequences they might result in. The role of the media is central to all of these aspects, as media reporting is a prerequisite for something to turn into a scandal, as it influences the reactions from both the general public and the organization in question. We also discuss the relationship between the political scandal and crisis communication, in particular the question of whether or not one necessarily precedes the other. Keywords: arena, crisis communication, democracy, media logic, political scandal, reputation, scansis, transgression

1 Introduction Scandals happen everywhere in society. Hollywood stars caught shoplifting, politicians accused of having affairs with porn stars, or stories of moral violations by ordinary people. Scandals deal with transgressions of social norms or moral codes, but these transgressions are not sufficient to create a scandal. The inappropriate actions must be revealed and become known to someone else. Furthermore, the actions need to arouse a feeling of offense and indignation among those who hear about them. In addition, the disclosure and publicly expressed criticism must pose a threat to the reputation of the individual/organization who committed the transgression. These ingredients are prerequisites to generate a scandal (Canel and Sanders 2006, Thompson 2000; Tumber and Waisboard 2004). Over the last centuries, there has been an increasing interest in scandals as a topic of research. The field is in many way interdisciplinary, where political scientists, media and communication scholars, and sociologists meet around scandals as a societal phenomenon. Research on scandals can therefore be defined as “the systematic and comparative study of scandals as a social ritual that serve the purpose of updating normative moral models in a society and that, through communication, contribute to a collective difference and identity formation” (Burkenhardt 2018: 21). In the literature of scandals, one can find different categorizations. Burkenhart (2018) makes a difference between non-mediated and mediated scandals where the https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110554236-022

462 

 Bengt Johansson and Orla Vigsø

former are characterized by local, face-to-face interaction, short duration and low scattering effect. The mediated scandal is something completely different. Media interest and publicity is high and the scandal takes place in a complex and multi-layered public sphere. The scandal can go on for a long time, with different loops and with high scattering effects. The media do not only report the mediated scandal, it is also in itself constituted by mediated forms of communication (Thompson 2000). Lull and Hinerman (1997) propose a scandal typology, distinguishing between three different types of scandals. The first one is the institutional scandal, where transgressions are made in settings such as governmental offices or corporations. Even if abstract systems and anonymous bureaucracies characterize contemporary society, scandals occur when the whole institution or its representatives fail to meet the moral standards of the public. The second type of scandal is identified as the star scandal. This is a scandal, which erupts when the desires of famous people overrule social expectations, norms and practices. Private behavior of stars in music, sports, films and politics is revealed and judged as a challenge to societal norms. The third category of scandals is labelled the psychodrama scandal. These stories are not about celebrities, but instead involve ordinary people. The “scandal logic” here lies in common people doing extraordinary things and behaving in a way most people would not do, and they are therefore scandalized.

2 The political scandal Turning to political scandals, they can be seen as institutional scandals and sometimes even as star scandals, depending on the prominence of the scandalized politician. Other researchers have adopted this distinction of political scandals where scandals being political are defined as involving political institutions, political processes or decisions. A second type of political scandal is personal, where focus lies on politicians’ personal norm transgressions, as political leaders or as private persons (Allern and Pollack 2012). Political scientists like Markovits and Silverstein (1988) do not refer to the latter as political scandals at all. In their view, political scandals must include political power. However, most research on political scandals includes both institutional and personal scandals (Allern and Pollack 2012; Burkenhardt 2018; Canel and Sanders 2006; Entman 2012; Thompson 2000). What is important to understand about the political scandal is the various levels of politics the scandal will affect, which might make the context and scandal management more complex than scandals in other fields. One useful perspective to illuminate this is the Swedish political scientist Gunnar Sjöblom and his theory of party strategies in a multiparty system. In his thesis (Sjöblom 1968a) and in articles (e.  g., Sjöblom 1968b), he claims that the strategic actions and communication by a political party has to be seen in relation not only to the voters, but also to three distinct arenas:



Crisis communication and the political scandal 

 463

The parliamentary arena, the electoral arena, and the internal arena (within the party organization). The parliamentary arena is the one which sets the scene for the “everyday politics” of negotiations, discussions of proposals, and committee meetings, etc. Until some decades ago, this was more or less a “secret world”, closed to outsiders, where all actors found it best not to reveal to the public how decisions were made, agreements reached, and alliances (sometimes against others within the system) formed. However, the media coverage has more and more focused on the “game” aspect of politics, describing the parliamentary arena and the individual politicians as gamblers striving for if not a gain for themselves at least a loss for the opponents. In a political scandal, this arena is of course affected and possibly weakened for both the individual politician and the party. A serious scandal can make it more difficult to build new coalitions and might weaken existing collaborations. No one wants to be connected to a scandalized politician or party. The electoral arena is the one most often thought of when speaking about “political communication”. The objective here is the maximization of votes in the next election, and the receivers are the voters in their role as exactly that. The introduction of concepts imported from the world of commercial marketing has contributed to this angle on the behaviour of parties and politicians in the public sphere, helped along by the incessant polling performed by professional agencies and paid for by media or the parties themselves. The possible loss of reputation and trust among the general public because of a political scandal is crucial, both for the individual politician and the party. Due to the scandal, the party often will demand that the scandalized politician resigns or persuade him/her to do so, so that the popular support for and trust in the party is not damaged. The internal arena is a particularly tricky and complex phenomenon, as it is influenced by such factors as the political position of the party in question, the national structure of the party system, the historical development, and party specific characteristics. One could summarize much of this under the heading of a “political culture”, but that does not make the task of analysing it any less complex. Within a party, there is an internal hierarchy between both fractions and single members, as elections of e.  g. party leaders bear witness to. The party can be described in terms of a market, where members and fractions possess various forms of capital, which they invest and manage strategically (Gaxie 1989; Offerlé 1997). The strategic communication within the internal arena is directed towards securing or strengthening the relative position of the sender, be it an individual or a group of individuals. The scandalized politician’s relationship to his/her own party is delicate during a scandal. The position of the politician involved in a scandal is of course weakened and competitors inside the party might see their chance to move upward in the party hierarchy. Some scholars have included other arenas in the field of strategic action and communication. Strömbäck and Esser (2017) propose that the media arena should be considered as a strategic arena. As discussed throughout this text, political scandals are

464 

 Bengt Johansson and Orla Vigsø

mediated scandals, but one can discuss to what extent the media arena is an arena in the same way as the parliamentary, electoral and internal arena. The media arena is predominantly a way to reach influence on the other three arenas, and is of course central in managing a political scandal. Others, like Hadenius (1981) have added the public administration as another arena which politicians act strategically in relation to. Decisions have to be negotiated and implemented and the relationship to civil servants is important to many politicians, not at least on a local political level. These relationships are of course to a large extent also built on trust, and being scandalized does not help in the day-to-day work at the office and in relations with the public administration. A fifth and neglected arena in research on political strategies and scandals is the private arena. Even if politicians are representatives and public figures, they also have families and friends. A scandal might have just as damaging effects in the private life as in the public one. Strategic action and communication might therefore be needed to manage the scandal in the private sphere, even if this communication maybe does not have to be mediated (Johansson 2006). These five arenas can be considered as specific contexts for political scandals, as they not only include different segments of receivers, but also hold separate organizational characteristics and rationalities. Communication aims at a specific objective within each arena, and its degree of success can only be measured in relation to the arena-specific receivers. If transferred to the question of political crises, the arena theory presents a frame for understanding what is at stake in the different arenas when the party faces a crisis, and it may also present a frame for discussing the different kinds of political scandals. The most influential theoretical work on political scandals is probably John B Thompson’s book The Political Scandal (2000), where he suggests a theoretical framework for understanding political scandals. Political scandals have, according to Thompson, to be understood in what he calls the transformation of visibility. Even if the roots of scandals go back centuries, politics has increasingly been related to mediated visibility. Political power and reputation has become increasingly dependent on new forms of mediated visibility, primarily controlled by media producers and characterized by extensive reach, scope and penetration. This visibility is however a double-edged sword. It can be used by politicians to gain power, but it is also a threat. A political scandal is perhaps the most significant example of how visibility can damage reputation and symbolic power. Another important distinction by Thompson is to separate between first-order and second-order transgressions. First-order transgression refers to the original norm breaking action, which is concealed and then made public. The first order transgression can be about sexual behavior, bribes, illegal campaign funding, corruption, or abuse of power in government. Actions like these are potential scandals, but are not referred to as scandals until they are brought into the light, which almost always involves the news media. Scholars point out that the rise of investigative reporting as



Crisis communication and the political scandal 

 465

a journalistic ideal and practice is one important factor explaining the significant role political scandals play in modern society (Tumber and Waisbord 2004). Other important factors behind the increase in the number of political scandals during the last decades is the competitive media market and the advent of social network platforms (Allern and Pollack 2012; Burkenhardt 2018; Ekström and Johansson 2018; Mandell and Chan 2016; Thompson 2000). Scandals fit well into news organizations’ struggle to catch and keep the attention of their audiences, not at least since they combine two central functions of journalism. Scandals are sensational, shocking, and possible to dramatize and personalize. They are therefore a fundamental strategy for attracting and fascinating an audience. At the same time they also fulfill another important function of journalism. By exposing political scandals, journalism scrutinize power holders, which is a strong ideal among journalists as well as in normative theories of journalism (Tumber and Waisboard 2004). The rise of social media and the development of smart-phones used as cameras and recording devices has also contributed to blurred lines between what Erwing Goffman refers to as back- and front-regions, which is in fact at the very core of political scandals (Goffman 1959; Thompson 2000). Goffman points out how individuals often act in ways that knowingly contradict the image they want to promote in the front-region. In the back-regions, they relax and lower the guard and might also act in a way they know would not be appropriate in front-region appearances. Politics takes place both in back- and front-regions, and the tension between concealed inappropriate actions taking place in back-regions and the disclosure of these actions (front-region) is central to the scandal logic. The development of social media platforms and recording devices has made the distinction between back-region and front-region actions even more difficult to withhold. There is a constant threat of collapse between these two regions, which makes political scandals more plausible. Almost all actions taking place in back-regions can nowadays be recorded and made public on social media platforms or in the news (Burkenhardt 2018; Chen and Mandell 2016; Ekström and Johansson 2019). The second-order norm transgression takes place after the original norm violation. In the aftershock of the original transgressions, (media) focus might shift to later actions and attempts to cover up the original transgressions. The second-order norm transgressions can be about false denials, obstruction, deception, and other morally questionable actions used to manage the scandal. These might be even more damaging than the original scandal. There are numerous examples, not at least in the crisis communication literature, on how mismanaged scandals make the situation more harmful to the reputation than the original norm violation or crisis. A prominent example of this was the “double crisis” (Johansen and Frandsen 2007) faced by AWB Limited, an Autralia based grain marketing organization, when they tried to cover up the problems in relation to illegal dealing with Saddam Huseins regime (Grebe 2013).

466 

 Bengt Johansson and Orla Vigsø

2.1 Different types of political scandals Thompson identifies three different types of political scandals, where transgressions of codes, principal forms of power, implicated forms of power, and likelihood of legal infringement vary. The first one is the sexual-political scandal. This type of scandal deals with norm violations related to the private sphere and sexual conduct. There is a long tradition of sexual scandals related to politics, not at least in the Anglo-American political culture. From the Profumo scandal in UK in the 1960  s, via Clinton-Lewinsky in the US in 1990  s, to the Trump-Stormy Daniels scandal in recent years. The principal form of power these scandals deal with is symbolic, but they can have political implications, as the history of sexual scandals clearly has demonstrated. Scandals originating in a politician’s moral transgression may even constitute a case of legal infringement, but most often this is not the case. Even if Thompson limits this type of scandal to sexual behavior, it can be broadened to other aspects of private morals and personal character. Here, the cultural aspects of norm transgressions become visible. What is scandalous in one (political) culture may not be threatening in another. There are numerous examples of these cultural dimensions of political scandals. Canel and Sanders (2006) illuminate this by the absence of sex-scandals in Spain during the 1990  s, which is explained by the media culture in Spain not paying any interest to this kind of transgressions. Other examples of this cultural dimension is the work by Esser and Hartung (2004) on political scandals in Germany, where some of these relate to previous political history, such as keeping quiet or lying about involvement with the suppressive GDR regime or occurrences during World War II and politicians’ connections the Nazi past. Scandalous behavior is to some extent locally defined. The reason why politicians’ private character in scandals is so central is due to what Thompson calls the politics of trust. In his view, scandals should be understood as “struggles over symbolic power in which reputation and trust are at stake” (Thompson 2000: 245). Reputation and trust are aspects of symbolic capital which can be used as resources in politics to achieve political goals. Scandals are possible reputation depleters, and even if the character might not be directly related to competence or achievements in office, these scandals can damage the symbolic power of the politician, and even in a broader sense damage political trust. Thompson argues that politics is dependent on some degree of social trust, which political scandals might challenge. The second type of scandal refers to economy and is named financial-political scandals. Transgressions are about money and often about questionable campaign donations, bribery, conflict of interest, fraud or deception. The financial-political scandal relates to the economic/political power as its principal form, but it might imply consequences of symbolic power in decreased trust. These scandals are to a greater extent possibly not just immoral, but also illegal. Power scandals is the third category where codes of politics are violated. The consequences are, as for financial scandals, a possible decline in trust from the general



Crisis communication and the political scandal 

 467

public, but also from political opponents, coalition partners, other organizations, and not at least the scandalized politician’s own party. Thompson refers to well-known examples in Western political culture such as the Watergate-scandal and the Iran-Contras scandal. But from a European perspective we could mention “Fini’s Villa in Monte Carlo” (Minigrucci, Stanziano and Mazzoni 2018), “l’affaire Fillon”, or the case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn at the IMF. The power scandal is the type of scandal, which is most likely to include illegal actions. Even if Thompson pays attention to how important mediated visibility is in political scandals, a fourth type of scandal – the talk scandal – is proposed by Ekström and Johansson (2008, 2018) to capture the importance of mediated talk in political scandals (see also Allern and Pollack 2012). The talk scandal focuses on how utterances of politicians create scandals, both as an original transgression, and as a second-order transgression in attempt to manage the situation. Talk scandals originate in speech acts – that is, utterances and talk – where discursive norms and codes are transgressed. The central question is what people in a certain position are allowed to say and how they should behave in public talk and discourses. Just as politicians can transgress norms in private moral situations, in the financial sphere, and as powerholders, they can also transgress norms concerning how one should behave in the public sphere. In this case, one acts foremost through talking. Another important difference between talk scandals and other types of scandal is that the risk of legal consequences in the former case is virtually nonexistent. The occurrence of talk scandals shows, perhaps more clearly than in any other case, that a politician’s reputation and career can be seriously threatened without the risk of any legal consequences. Some talk scandals work by the same logic as sexual, financial, and power scandals in that they deal with different forms of breakdown between front- and back-region actions. A poorly chosen utterance is made in the back region, and information of what was said is recorded by the media or leaks to the front-region in other ways, where the media reveal the utterances. Other types of talk scandals are run by a different logic compared with traditional scandals. Instead of the collapse of backand front-stage actions, they build on transgressions of norms in the public sphere. The scandal is not about what is concealed and then disclosed, but about improper behavior in public. Politicians can in different ways say things that violate what is expected from a politician and an elected representative. These norm violations can be produced during journalistic interviews, but also in political speeches or in social media. Other researchers have also payed attention to scandals appearing without the breakdown of the back-stage/front-stage division, even if they are not labelled talk scandals. Entman (2012) mentions president Bush’s mismanagement of the Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans 2005 as an example of an scandal taking place in public and where the president’s incompetence was judged as scandalous. Political scandals are, as already mentioned, highly dependent of the media system, and scholars emphasize the media organizations as both the arena for scandals and as independent actors, governed by their own logic and goals (Allern and

468 

 Bengt Johansson and Orla Vigsø

Pollack 2012; Burkenhardt 2018; Ekström and Johansson 2008, 2018; Entman 2012; Lull and Hinerman 1997; Thompson 2000; Verbalyte 2018). The revelation of the norm violations is of course central, but there are other aspects of journalistic activity taking place. Burkenhardt (2018) points out how journalistic coverage of a scandal uses politicization strategies to connect the transgressions to politics. He lists five strategies: the politicization of the events that make up the scandal, the construction of political relevance, the construction of the political need for action, the problematization of the political system, and the analysis of political (dys)functionality. Even Entman highlights how media logic, or as he calls it: decision-making biases, guide the journalistic coverage of scandals. Journalists’ tendency to prefer process coverage over substance in their reporting, simplicity over complexity, and visually illustrated information over non-visual, are examples of such decisions. Furthermore, mediatized scandals are also about what is shown, reported, staged, and kept alive day after day. Media talk and quotes play an important role here. Quotes can be used to reconstruct and show the norm transgression, even if the original scandalous action is not caught on tape, film, or picture. Statements and reactions from the accused politician also constitute an important element in the dramatization of a political scandal. Interview situations are displayed, and the politician’s statements are quoted and can be more or less successful in terms of crisis management. An important part here, and central to the political scandal’s narrative, is the confession. The confession can be in the form of an apology (Benoit 1995), but can also be justifications and explanations of how the person in question experienced what happened. Contrasts between heated critical attacks and emotional stories with the potential to draw sympathy are not seldom part of the dramatization (Ekström and Johansson 2007, 2019). Even after the transgression has been made public and the moral standard has been established, much can be done to criticize and further ridicule the politician’s behavior. A particular way to achieve this is to dig in the archives and find other statements from the politician that show how bizarre and inconsistent his/her behavior is. In connection with political scandals, the media are also filled with comments from all possible directions – superiors, colleagues, those who stand in opposition to the person in question, family, friends, etc. (Entman 2012). These comments allow for discussion of not only the scandal’s moral content but also its concrete effects. One of the most common questions discussed in the media, is whether or not the politician should be allowed to retain his/her post or resign. These quotes form a strategy to keep the scandal alive and twisting the knife yet again.

2.2 Functions and consequences of political scandals An important discussion is the relationship between the degree of moral transgressions and the publicity of a scandal. Entman (2012) refers to a difference between an objectivistic and a constructivist view on scandals, where the latter sees a direct corre-



Crisis communication and the political scandal 

 469

lation between the degree of norm violation and scandal publicity in the media. From this perspective, scandals can be viewed as a measure of the health of the political system. Scandals show us that power-holders are moral like the rest of us, and become an index of openness and accessibility in society (Freedland 1998; McNair 2000). Even if there is a need for (public) outrage and discontent with the norm transgressions taking place, there has been criticism against this view of seeing political scandals as mirroring what is wrong in the political system and thus exposing the boundaries of norms of acceptable behavior. Entman, and others (Adut 2008; Allern and Pollack 2012), question this view and propose a more constructivist perspective. There is, according to Entman, no clear connection between the dignity of transgressions and scandals. In his book Scandal and Silence (2012), Entman demonstrates how scandals are dependent on both media logic and strategies, and actions from (political) actors. With examples from American presidential scandals (and non-scandals), he finds many examples on how similar transgressions are treated differently, where some create major scandals and some not. His conclusion is to some extent that news media are not capable of disclosing important scandals. When discussing political scandals and their function, they can be regarded as a phenomenon of open societies with a free press, unrestricted public opinion, and social norms based on consensus (Esser and Hartung 2004). Still, there are divergent views on political scandals among scholars. Some argue that they are an opportunity for societal self-reflection and public discussions of the norms and values of society (Burkenhardt 2018; Von Sikorski 2018). However, scandals might also be interpreted as only feeding the news industry and its quest for audience maximization. The public sphere is in this view dominated by minor and unimportant norm transgressions instead of important and system challenging violations (Allern and Pollack 2012; Entman 2012; Von Sikorski 2018). Thompson (2000) outlines a number of different functions of scandals capturing this tension, but also adding some more perspectives. The first one (1) is named the no-consequence theory. According to this position, scandals are entertaining for the audience and embarrassing for those being involved, but have no lasting significance for society and politics. The second (2) is the functionalist theory, where consequences of scandals are seen as essentially conservative. Scandals are rituals of collective absolution, where transgressions are disclosed and condemned which reinforces the norms. A third (3) way of thinking about scandals is the trivialization theory, where the consequences of scandals are seen as undermining the quality of public discourse and debate. People’s attention is focused on rather trivial matters and not on the important aspects of politics. The fourth (4) theory is labelled subversion theory of scandals. This is in line with the function of the carnival in earlier history, where power was ridiculed and authorities provoked. Popular culture and popular news fill the same function in contemporary society when disclosing scandals, and thus cultivating skepticism and disbelief. The fifth (5) and last scandal theory mentioned by Thompson is what he calls a social theory of scandals. Viewing scandals in this way is to see them as a

470 

 Bengt Johansson and Orla Vigsø

struggle over symbolic power in which reputation and trust is at stake. There can be both short- and long-term consequences of this struggle over reputation and trust, both related to individual, organizational, and political system consequences. One important question is of course if there is any empirical support of these scandal consequences or if they are just theoretical assumptions. Von Sikorski (2018) presents a review of different kind of effects found in previous scandal research summarized below. Empirical research indicates that scandals have a negative effect on evaluations of candidates, and that scandalized politicians are less likely to be elected. But there are results showing the opposite, especially when the accusations are seen as “political” instead of fair. Studies show that the support for Bill Clinton was strengthened during the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal. Media frames were interpreted as results of attacks from conservative elites. This is in line with opinion research on confirmation bias, showing that people to a higher extent tend to accept information being in line with their prior beliefs (see also Nickerson 1998). Perceived candidate competence can also serve as a buffer against scandals. Politicians with a good reputation in terms of being a competent politician are less damaged when being scandalized. However, spill-over effects can go in the other direction as well, as evaluations of other candidates within the same party as the scandalized politician can be affected negatively, even if they are not involved themselves. Social media can be influential too, as comments on social media related to a scandal will affect how scandalized politicians are judged. Negative comments strengthen critical views, and supporting comments made respondents in a study more positive to the scandalized politician. Politicians’ reactions to the accusations have also been the subject of study, and so far, there seems to be no consensus on a best strategy. Some studies indicate not reacting might be a better strategy than taking action. However, there are also examples of studies indicating that justification and excuses might be beneficial. As with negative news in general, we find research supporting a decline in voter turnout when scandals are present during a campaign, while other results instead indicate mobilization effects and increased voter turnout. In relation to political trust, there seems to be a correlation between scandals and political trust, but the relationship is conditioned by other factors like partisanship. However, if several politicians and parties are involved in scandals, this can affect citizens’ trust in institutions and the political process, and strengthen a dissatisfaction with democracy.

3 Political scandals and crisis So far, we have looked at scandals from the scandalologist’s point of view, discussing definitions, distinctions, and characteristics. As mentioned above, scandal research has often had a societal perspective and mainly dealt with understanding the mech-



Crisis communication and the political scandal 

 471

anisms, dynamics, and consequences of scandals. Turning to crisis communication research, with its roots in management research, crises have often been studied from an organizational perspective. The main question has been how the organization should deal with a crisis to protect and rebuild its reputation. One might get the impression that “scandal” deals with societal consequences of what Koerber (2017) calls “discursive breaks”, while “crisis” concerns how the scandal is perceived and handled from an organizational perspective. The problem with this differentiation is, however, that there exists scandal research dealing with the management of scandals from an organizational point of view. Many case studies of political scandals examine successful and unsuccessful scandal management, which could make them a part of crisis management, even if they do not adapt theories from crisis management such as image restoration theory (Benoit 1995), situational crisis communication theory (Coombs 2013) or rhetorical arena theory (Frandsen and Johansen 2013). One can also find examples of research in crisis communication/management where the word scandal never appears. There are a number of political scandals mentioned by Arjen Boin et al. (2017) in the book The Politics of Crisis Management. Public Leadership under Pressure, but they are not addressed as scandals. The authors talk exclusively about different aspects of crises and crisis management. Crises and scandals seem from this perspective to be the same phenomenon, with the choice of concept being largely dependent on research tradition. To further problematize this differentiation between scandals as a societal perspective and crisis as an organizational, we can look at crisis communication studying the public’s information seeking and crisis response during societal crises. Here, focus is on citizens’ ability to cope with a crisis situation and the resilience of social systems, not how organizations try to handle possible reputation damage (Jin, Fraustino and Liu 2016; Lachlan, Spence and Eith 2007; Odén, Djerf-Pierre, Ghersetti and Johansson 2016; Palen and Hughes 2018; Sellnow, Lane, Sellnow and Littlefield 2017). Considering this common core of scandals and crises, surprisingly few scholars have written about the relations between scandals and crises, and exclusively within a corporate framework. Timothy Coombs, Sherry Holladay, and Elina Tachkova (Coombs, Holladay and Tachkova 2018) have published one of the first discussion of the relationship, using the term “scansis” to describe the fusion between scandal and crisis. Coombs et al. (2018) describe scandals as violations of societal norms and ideals, with media exposure and framing playing an important part, and with the widely shared belief that the organization should be punished for their immoral behaviour. “To sum up, scandals are most commonly associated with public exposure of immoral and unethical behaviour towards stakeholders, which in turn leads to public blame and shaming.” (Coombs, Holladay and Tachkova 2018: 178). Building on Entman (2012) and de Maria (2010), they then place scandal as the result of a poorly managed crisis. The organization is perceived to have deviated from accepted practices, which leads to a crisis, and if handled poorly this leads to moral outrage and thus to a scandal.

472 

 Bengt Johansson and Orla Vigsø

Coombs et al. then go on to discuss the transmogrification from crisis to scandal, placing moral outrage as a key factor, and claiming that “a crisis morphs to the more grotesque when it becomes a scandal” (Coombs, Holladay and Tachkova 2018: 181). The outcome of this process, they label as a “scansis”, “a combination of an organizational crisis […] and a scandal”, and they reserve this label for “situations where a crisis transmogrifies into a scandal”. Behind this understanding of the relation between crisis and scandal lies the definition by de Maria, who claimed that scandals are the “public exposure of organizations who have not responded well to a crisis” (de Maria 2010: 69). This leads to the clarification of indications that a crisis might turn into a scandal: The crisis risks have the potential to become a scandal when (1) the behaviours in question are considered morally offensive; (2) the offensive behaviours appear to be intentional; (3) the behaviours are linked to highly controversial social issues; and (4) there is public awareness of the behaviours. (Coombs, Holladay and Tachkova 2018: 182)

Even if Boin et al. (2017), do not use the term scandal, they also differentiate between the original crisis and poor crisis management. They examine different examples of unsuccessful crisis communication in a political context, such as how the Swedish government dealt with the tsunami disaster, the failed attempt to demonstrate the safety of British beef by eating a burger in public performed by Minister John Gummer during the mad cow disease, or former president George W. Bush’s problems when attempting crisis management during hurricane Katrina. All these events are examples of mismanaged crises. The tsunami, the mad cow disease, and Katrina were societal crises, but the mismanagement by politicians in office turned them into an organizational crisis. Looking at crisis and scandals this way, crises might turn into scandals if they are not managed successfully. Even if the distinction proposed by de Maria may have its merits, one objection is that there can be scandals not emerging from mismanaged crisis communication. Media exposure of transgressed norms and the immediate public outrage may not always be perceived as a crisis by those involved before the scandal erupts. The problematic point therefore lies in the temporal and causal relations between a crisis and a scandal; defining a scandal as the result of poor crisis management positions the crisis as the first phase, which might or might not lead to a scandal. Looking through scandals, i.  e. the exposure of morally offensive behaviour by an organization, it is not evident that they are the result of bad crisis management, with “crisis” defined as something that is damaging to the organization’s activity and trustworthiness. In fact, there seems to be substantial evidence of cases where revelations of morally inacceptable behaviour, and the organization’s response to this, has led to a crisis. What is important is not the organization’s behaviour in itself, but the perception of the behaviour by the public or stakeholders. However, even at this early stage, one has to take into account the role of the media, as the perception of the public to a



Crisis communication and the political scandal 

 473

large extent is a result of media coverage. Theoretically, this can be seen as one of the findings of Rhetorical Arena Theory (Frandsen and Johansen 2017), where media are agents which can make their entrance at all points in the communicative interaction. Not only does the perception by the public, to a large extent, depend on media coverage, this is even the case with the responses of the organization in question: what an organization reacts to is very often accusations or allegations by the media. The response from the organization, in its turn, informs and influences the perception of the behaviour in the public. The media then takes up the perception of the public, the angry voices of “the common people”, the victims, or other people affected by the actions of the organization. It is at this stage that a general moral outrage may rise, due to the perception of the behaviour as transmitted by the media and the perception of the response of the organization as transmitted by the media. If moral outrage is widespread at this point, the organization faces a scandal, which might turn into a crisis if it leads to damaging action from the public and/or a damaging loss of trust in the organization. Here, we can make a connection to Thompson’s distinction between first and second order transgressions mentioned earlier to understand this dynamic of political scandals. The original violations of accepted behaviour are made public, creating a scandal. To what extent this scandal will be a crisis for the scandalized politician and the party depend how they manage the crisis. Poor crisis communication (second-order transgression) might make the scandal be even more damaging than the original scandal. To sum up, the concepts of scandal and crisis are closely connected and overlapping. To some extent, the use of concepts depends on research traditions, and scholars may use them as synonyms. Scholars have tried to discriminate the concepts, leading some to conclude that a scandal is the result of a mismanaged crisis. The causal relationship might be more complex, as we argue that some scandals precede the crisis, which if poorly handled might make the scandal continue and even become worse.

4 Conclusions Scandals touch upon all sectors of society, and they can happen to all sorts of organizations as well as to society as a whole. Much theorizing has been directed at defining the scandalous and creating various typologies in order to distinguish between scandals, their origin, and their effects, but very little has been done to theoretically and empirically distinguish between scandals and crises. It is clear that both concepts share a common ground in the underlying transgression of moral norms, but more research should be directed towards studying the relations between crises and scandals in order to better understand the dynamics of transmogrification between the two, as they clearly both have pertinence for the study of crises.

474 

 Bengt Johansson and Orla Vigsø

References Adut, A. 2018. On Scandal: Moral Disturbances in Society, Politics and Art. New York: Cambridge University Press. Boin, A., P. t’Hart, E. Stern and B. E. Sundelius. 2017. The Politics of Crisis Management: Public Leadership Under Pressure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Burkenhardt, S. 2018. Scandals in the network society. In A. Haller, H. Michael and M. Kraus (eds.), Scandalogy. An Interdisciplinary field, 18–44. 1st edn. 2006. Köln: Herbert von Halem. Canel, M.-J., and K. Sander. Morality tales: political scandals and journalism in Britain and Spain in the 1990  s. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Chen, G. M., and H. Mandell. 2016. Conclusion: Predicting a New Scandal Environment in the Twenty-First Century. In H. Mandell and G. M. Chen (eds.), Scandal in a Digital Age, 209–216. Rochester, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Chen, G. M., P. Pain and D. Fadnis. 2016. Over-Sharing in a Political Sex Scandal. In H. Mandell and G. M. Chen (eds.), Scandal in a Digital Age, 181–144. Rochester, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Coombs, W. T., S. Holladay and E. R. Tachkova. 2018. When a scandal and a crisis fuse: Exploring the communicative implications of scansis. In: A. Haller, H. Michael and M. Kraus, (eds.), Scandology: An Interdisciplinary Field, 172–190. Köln: Herbert von Halem. Coombs, W. T. 2013. Situational crisis communication theory. In R. L. Heath (ed.), Encyclopedia of Public Relations, Vol. II, 798–801. Thousands Oaks: Sage. de Maria, W. 2010. After the scandal – Recovery options for damaged organizations. Journal of Management & Organization 16(1)1. 66–82. Ekström, M., and B. Johansen. 2008. Talk scandals. Media, Culture & Society 30(1). 61–79. Ekström, M., and B. Johansson. 2019. Talk Scandals: The Power of Mediated talk. In H. Tumber and S. Waisboard (eds.), Routledge Companion to Media and Scandal. New York: Routledge. Entman, R. 2012. Scandal and Silence. Cambridge: Polity Press. Frandsen, F., and W. Johansen. 2013. Rhetorical Arena (Crisis Theory). In R. L. Heath (ed.), Encyclopedia of Public Relations, Vol. II, 798–801. Thousands Oaks: Sage. Gaxie, D. (ed.). 1989. Explication du vote. 2nd edn. Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques. Goffman, E. 1959. The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, AT: Doubleday. Grebe, S. K. 2013. Things can get worse: How mismanagement of a crisis response stategy can cause a secondary or double crisis: The example of the AWB corporate scandal. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 18(1). 70–86. Hadenius, A. 1981. Spelet om skatten. Lund: Studentlitteratur AB. Jin, Y., J. D. Fraustino and B. F. Liu. 2016. The Scared, the Outraged, and the Anxious: How Crisis Emotions, Involvement, and Demographics Predict Publics’ Conative Coping. International Journal of Strategic Communication, doi:10.1080/1553118X.2016.1160401. Johansen, W., and F. Frandsen. 2007. Krisekommunikation: Når virksomhedens image og omdømme er truet. Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur. Johansson, B. 2006. Efter valstugorna. Skandalstrategier och mediemakt. Göteborg: JMG, University of Gothenburg. Koerber, D. 2017. Crisis Communication in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Lachlan, K. A., P. R. Spence and C. A. Eith. 2007. Access to mediated emergency messages: Differences in crisis knowledge across age, race, and osicoeconomic status. In K. A. Bates and R. S. Swan (eds.), Through the eyes of Katrina: Social justice in the United States, 203–220. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic pPess. Minigrucci, R., A. Stanziano and M. Mazzoni. 2018. Spectacularization and Instrumentalization of Political Corruption Scandals in the Italian Press: The Case of >Villa in Monte Carlo