Today's managers, business owners, and public relations practitioners grapple daily with a fundamental question about contemporary crisis management: to what extent is it possible to control events and stakeholder responses to them, in order to contain escalating crises or safeguard an organization's reputation? The authors meet the question head-on, departing from other crisis management texts, and arguing that a complexity-based approach is superior to the standard simplification model of organizational learning.
Modern organizational crises are complex, diverse, and frequent. Ineffective crisis management can result in catastrophic loss. Crisis Management: Resilience and Change introduces students to best practices for preventing, containing, and learning from crises in our global, media-driven society. While covering the strengths of existing works on crisis management, such as systems, leadership, communication, and stakeholder perspective, this innovative new text goes beyond to include global, ethical, change, and emotional aspects of crisis communication. Using her proven transformative crisis management framework, Sarah Kovoor-Misra illustrates how organizations of all sizes can be adaptable, proactive, resilient, and ethical in the face of calamity.
Improve your company's ability to avoid or manage crises Managing the Unexpected, Third Edition is a thoroughly revised text that offers an updated look at the groundbreaking ideas explored in the first and second editions. Revised to reflect events emblematic of the unique challenges that organizations have faced in recent years, including bank failures, intelligence failures, quality failures, and other organizational misfortunes, often sparked by organizational actions, this critical book focuses on why some organizations are better able to sustain high performance in the face of unanticipated change. High reliability organizations (HROs), including commercial aviation, emergency rooms, aircraft carrier flight operations, and firefighting units, are looked to as models of exceptional organizational preparedness. This essential text explains the development of unexpected events and guides you in improving your organization for more reliable performance. "Expect the unexpected" is a popular mantra for a reason: it's rooted in experience. Since the dawn of civilization, organizations have been rocked by natural disasters, civil unrest, international conflict, and other unexpected crises that impact their ability to function. Understanding how to maintain function when catastrophe strikes is key to keeping your organization afloat. Explore the many different kinds of unexpected events that your organization may face Consider updated case studies and research Discuss how highly reliable organizations are able to maintain control during unexpected events Discover tactics that may bolster your organization's ability to face the unexpected with confidence Managing the Unexpected, Third Edition offers updated, valuable content to professionals who want to strengthen the preparedness of their organizations—and confidently face unexpected challenges.
Using Social and Information Technologies for Disaster and Crisis Management highlights examples of disaster situations in recent years in which social and information technologies were useful in distributing and receiving information updates. This comprehensive collection brings together research for practitioners and researchers interested in the uses of information technology in crisis management.
The Definitive Guide to Communicating in Any Crisis “When facing an already difficult crisis, the last thing a company needs is to make it worse through its own communications – or lack thereof. As one who has lived through a number of [business] crises and served as an independent investigator of the crises of others, I consider Steven Fink’s book to be an excellent guide to avoiding collecting scar tissue of your own by learning from the scar tissue painfully collected by others.”—Norman R. Augustine, former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Lockheed Martin There are few guarantees in business today. Unfortunately, one of them is the inevitability of a crisis having a potentially major effect on your business and your reputation. When your company finds itself in the midst of a crisis, the ripple effects can disrupt lives and business for the foreseeable future if public opinion is not properly shaped and managed. Skillfully managing the perception of the crisis determines the difference between a company’s life or death. Because in the pitched battle between perception and reality, perception always wins. Fortunately, there is a solution. Crisis communications and crisis management legend Steven Fink gives you everything you need to prepare for the inevitable—whether it’s in the form of human error, industrial accidents, criminal behavior, or natural disasters. In this groundbreaking guide, Fink provides a complete toolkit for ensuring smooth communications and lasting business success through any crisis. Crisis Communications offers proactive and preventive methods for preempting potential crises. The book reveals proven strategies for recognizing and averting damaging crisis communications issues before it’s too late. The book also offers ways to deal with mainstream and social media, use them to your advantage, and neutralize and turn around a hostile media environment Steven Fink uses his decades of expertise and experience in crisis communications to help you: UNDERSTAND AND MANAGE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PUBLIC PERCEPTION AND REALITY CHOOSE THE BEST SPOKESPERSON FOR THE CRISIS PROTECT YOUR BRAND AND REPUTATION THROUGH CRISES LARGE AND SMALL MAKE WISE, VIGILANT, AND DEFENSIBLE DECISIONS UNDER EXTREME CRISIS-INDUCED STRESS TELL THE TRUTH NO MATTER HOW TEMPTING IT MAY BE TO MISLEAD USE SOCIAL MEDIA OUTLETS TO COMMUNICATE DIRECTLY TO THE PUBLIC ABOUT A CRISIS The explosion of the Internet and, especially, social media, has added a new layer to the business leader’s skill set: the ability to handle a crisis quickly and professionally within moments of its occurrence. Livelihoods depend upon it. With in-depth case studies of Toyota, BP, and Penn State, Crisis Communications provides everything you need to successfully lead your company through today’s rocky landscape of business—where crises large and small loom around every corner, and the lives of businesses and management teams hang in the balance. PRAISE FOR STEVEN FINK’S CRISIS MANAGEMENT “Every major executive in America ought to read at least one book on crisis management. In this way, he or she might be better prepared to deal with the disasters striking organizations at an ever-increasing rate ... The question is: ‘Is Steven Fink’s book one that busy executives ought to read?’ The answer is a resounding yes.”—LOS ANGELES TIMES, FRONT PAGE SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW
Crisis Ready is not about crisis management. Management is what happens after the negative event has occurred. Readiness is what is done to build an INVINCIBLE brand, where negative event has occurred. Readiness is what is done to build an INVINCIBLE brand, where negative situations don't occur--and even if they do, they're instantly overcome in a way that leads to increased organizational trust, credibility, and goodwill. No matter the size, type, or industry of your business, Crisis Ready will provide your team with the insight into how to be perfectly prepared for anything life throws at you.
Organizational Crisis Management: The Human Factor offers theoretical background and practical strategies for responding to workplace crises. Responding to a paradigm that focuses on the operational aspects of continuity to the detriment of human factors, this volume provides a comprehensive understanding of the unavoidable yet often complex reacti
Management and Engineering of Critical Infrastructures focuses on two important aspects of CIS, management and engineering. The book provides an ontological foundation for the models and methods needed to design a set of systems, networks and assets that are essential for a society's functioning, and for ensuring the security, safety and economy of a nation. Various examples in agriculture, the water supply, public health, transportation, security services, electricity generation, telecommunication, and financial services can be used to substantiate dangers. Disruptions of CIS can have serious cascading consequences that would stop society from functioning properly and result in loss of life.Malicious software (a.k.a., malware), for example, can disrupt the distribution of electricity across a region, which in turn can lead to the forced shutdown of communication, health and financial sectors. Subsequently, proper engineering and management are important to anticipate possible risks and threats and provide resilient CIS. Although the problem of CIS has been broadly acknowledged and discussed, to date, no unifying theory nor systematic design methods, techniques and tools exist for such CIS. - Presents key problems, solution approaches and tools developed, or necessary for, assessing and managing critical infrastructures - Investigates basic theory and foundations of current research topics, related challenges, and future research directions for CIS - Offers an interdisciplinary approach, considering management, engineering and specific challenges (dynamism and scalability) surrounding the digitization of CIS services
In this fully updated Second Edition, three of today’s most respected crisis/risk communication scholars provide the latest theory, practice, and innovative approaches for handling crisis. This acclaimed book presents the discourse of renewal as a theory to manage crises effectively. The book provides 15 in-depth case studies that highlight successes and failures in dealing with core issues of crisis leadership, managing uncertainty, communicating effectively, understanding risk, promoting communication ethics, enabling organizational learning, and producing renewing responses to crisis. Unlike other crisis communication texts, this book answers the question, “What now?” and explains how organizations can and should emerge from crisis.
Responding to the era of crises in which we now live, The Crisis Manager offers wise counsel for anticipating and responding to crises as well as taking the steps required to reduce the impact of these events. Spotlighting the reality of crisis at levels ranging from local to global, author Otto Lerbinger helps readers understand the approaches and ways of thinking required for successful crisis management in today’s world. As no organization or individual is immune from crisis, he guides managers to make good decisions under conditions of high uncertainty, and to consider the interests not only of stockholders but also of a wide variety of stakeholders. With a focus on the threat of crises to an organization’s most valuable asset – its reputation – The Crisis Manager covers: Preparation for crisis, including crisis communication planning Physical crises – natural, biological, and technological "Human climate" crises, stemming from targeted attacks on an organization’s policies, actions, or physical holdings Crises due to management failure, including mismanagement, skewed values, deception, and misconduct New to this second edition are the use of social media in crisis management, and chapters on image restoration strategies and crises stemming from mismanagement, as well as a comprehensive updating of the entire work. Real-world case studies provide examples of what worked and what did not work, and the reasons why. Written for present and future crisis managers in all types of businesses and organizations, this resource will be required reading for students in public relations, business, and management, as it prepares them for their crucial roles as decision makers.
