Introduction to Crisis Communication

“Crisis” is a difficult word to define because it can mean different things to different people. Let’s first look at various definitions of a “crisis.” 

• One definition of a crisis is some breakdown in a system that creates shared stress (Perry, 2007).

• From  What Is Crisis Communication? A Guide for Beginners : Crisis is a major threat to a business or its reputation.

• Ulmer, Sellnow, & Seeger (2015) further expanded on the traditional definition, accounting for many types of crises. They defined an org crisis as a specific, unexpected, and non-routine event or series of events that create high levels of uncertainty and simultaneously present an organization with both opportunities for and threats to its high-priority goals. 

Ulmer, Sellnow, & Seeger (2023) identify types of crises that are either intentional or unintentional:

There are seven categories for crises that are initiated by intentional acts, designed to harm an organization:

1. Terrorism: an intentional cause of crisis
2. Sabotage: intentional damage of a product or working capacity of the organization by someone inside the organization
3. Workplace violence: employees or former employees undertaking violent acts against an organization
4. Poor employee relationships: trouble that may happen when an organization cannot establish positive relationships between management and workers
5. Poor risk management: potentially disastrous outcomes resulting from an organization's poor management of risks such as potential public health hazards
6. Hostile takeovers: when the majority of an organization’s stock is purchased by a rival organization
7. Unethical leadership: crises caused by criminal acts of managers

Unintentional crises include:

1. Natural disasters
2. Disease outbreaks
3. Unforeseeable technical interactions
4. Product failure
5. Downturns in the economy

From  What Is Crisis Communication? A Guide for Beginners : Crisis communication refers to the technologies, systems and protocols that enable an organization to effectively communicate during a major threat to its business or reputation. 

Crisis management is a set of factors designed to combat crises, lessen the actual damage inflicted, and identify steps to avoid potential future crises. 

• Large in scale and require response from multiple governmental units
• Can spawn organizational crises

• A threat to public health that exist across multiple geographic areas (Maibach & Holtgrave, 1995)
• Has potential to overwhelm the routine community capacity to manage it (Nelson, Lurie, Wasserman, & Zakowski, 2007)

Organizational crises are the perceived violation of salience stakeholder expectations that can create negative outcomes for stakeholders and/or the organization. Crises are unpredictable but not unexpected. When it comes to organizational crises, it is key to know and understand your internal and external stakeholders.

Review the embedded website for one example of an organizational crisis. For more examples, review the following website:

A stakeholder is a person or group that is affected by or can affect an organization. Management must be able to see an event from the stakeholders’ perspective to properly assess whether a crisis has occurred.

This is why Public Relations working with management is so important, as is building mutually beneficial relationships with stakeholders, both internal and external to the organization.

Coombs (2023) separates organizational crises into two different types of crises: operational crises and paracrises.

• Roots of crisis management
• One potential effect of crisis is to completely or partially disrupt operations

When it comes to Crisis Management, Coombs proposes the following guidelines and reminders:

• Never ignore conflict/crisis on social media
• Public appearance of a paracrisis demands public management
• Managers must explain to all stakeholders what is being done to address the concern or why they are choosing to ignore it