Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management最新文献

The idea of contingency emphasizes uncertainty, the consequences of choice as well as our dependence on persons and events outside our control and ability to comprehend. The concept is thus integral to how we define and understand disasters and crises. Yet the way in which contingency informs research agendas is often restricted to a dialectic reaction to uncertainty, the unknown, and the uncontrollable. There is a tendency to explain or prescribe solutions based on an underlying impetus that champions certainty over chaos, knowledge over ignorance, and control over disorder. This type of thinking has been influential in shaping normative and epistemological research trajectories in crises and disaster disciplines, but it has also restricted the contours of what counts as acceptable research on disasters and crises. In this article, I demonstrate how alternative modes of inquiry can transcend this dialectic by producing knowledge in reception to – rather than in contention from—contingency. In an effort to find a middle road between overemphasizing contingency or necessity, critical realism is used to illustrate how uncertainty, the unknown and the uncontrollable can be recast as an accepted part of a stratified reality leading towards alternative ways of knowing and researching disasters and crises.

External funding is an important yet understudied area of inquiry in crisis communication research. With external funding being a keystone of assessing and broadening research impact in both academia and industry, it is important for scholarship to examine effective practices for funding proposals. This study explores the best and worst practices for funded research through an expert consultation survey of 36 global communication scholars with track records of funding success. Findings reveal motivating factors for seeking, securing and managing funding, as well as institutional factors. Findings also inform best and worst practices for securing external funding, including bridging theory and practice and establishing strong research partnerships.

In an era characterized by vast data streams and complex socioeconomic dynamics, the fusion and precise analysis of multi-sourced intelligence has emerged as a pivotal challenge. To address this, the study constructs a sophisticated intelligence fusion network (IFN) architecture leveraging the potential of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and the security tenets of blockchain technology. Drawing from diverse fields including informatics, computer science, data analytics, and network security, the research adopts an integrative methodology comprising both a comprehensive literature review and systems analysis. Key findings highlight the prowess of AGI-driven IFNs in enhancing governmental early warning systems for crisis management. These networks underscore a paradigm shift from reactive postevent measures to proactive pre-event forecasting, thus bolstering the efficacy of governmental responses. Moreover, the decentralized nature of blockchain technology ensures data integrity, fostering trust in interdepartmental data sharing—an essential for efficient crisis management in hierarchical administrative structures. This study accentuates the need for redefining crisis management strategies, emphasizing data-driven decision-making and seamless intelligence sharing to ensure optimal outcomes.

The academic discussion on the role of experts in crisis decision making subject is scattered and diverged. The debate has foremost been connected to the discussion of centralized versus decentralized responses. Inspired by the notion of contingency and Karl Weick, this article explores the role of the Swedish Public Health Agency in coping with the Covid-19 pandemic. One of the key findings from the study is that even if experts might have a better technical understanding, at the same time, they risk getting stuck in identity concerns and previous experiences which result in rigid responses. The study also underlines that it is risky for decision-makers to rely upon one single body of expertise at times when uncertainty is high and there is a lack of solid evidence and knowledge, given the likelihood of fixation and rigidity. Rather, policy makers should encourage a deliberative debate, involving a diversity of experts and expertise.

This article is an example of Lessons from the Field highlighting the practical implementation of a novel time-controlled mechanism in the gamification of emergency department evacuation training via tabletop exercise. Tabletop exercise is one of the most common drill types for disaster preparedness. It is easy to use, effective, and low in cost, but it has some shortcomings. For example, its lack of authenticity is often criticized. We add a time-control mechanism to the tabletop exercise and use settings similar to real events in an attempt to increase the authenticity of the tabletop exercise and the learning effect. We completed a 3-h tabletop gamification of emergency room evacuation, which included a time control mechanism. Medical staff in our emergency department were asked to join this tabletop training. We evaluated the effectiveness of the time-control tabletop exercise through the results of the pretest and posttests and feedback from the participants. A total of 97 emergency medical staff from the Emergency Department of Cheng Kung University Hospital, including 64 nurses, 29 emergency doctors and four nurse practitioners, participated in this tabletop exercise. After experiencing the time-control tabletop exercise, the participants significantly improved their approach to mass casualty incidents, their method for evacuating patients, and their triage skills. The correct answer rate for the pretest and post-test rose from 68.75% to 94.33% with statistically significant. The feedback from the participants also showed that the time-control tabletop exercise was interesting and could increase learning motivation. The time-control mechanism had a positive impact on the learning effect. It increased the reality of tabletop exercises, promoted participants' learning motivation, and improved their performance on the test.

It is paramount to consider that organizations are not immune to crises. Communicating solutions to the cataclysm is indispensable when the response source is credible. Our article answers recent calls for more research into the efficacy of organizational response source credibility (RSC) during crises and maintaining reputation. RSC (trustworthiness) is one of the indispensable prerequisites for achieving effective result-oriented crisis response strategies and sustaining reputation in times of crisis. This article is a scoping review regarding the potential of RSC on crisis response strategies. The findings from this review raises the awareness of the crisis managers about the relevance of source credibility towards making crisis response effective and maintaining reputation during a crisis situation. This article provides insights to help crisis managers, institutions and policy-makers develop specific effective crisis response strategies using a credible source to boost stakeholders' confidence and maintain a good reputation during an organizational crisis. This article fills the gap in the crisis communication domain concerning the limited amount of information regarding factors that influence the efficacy of crisis response strategies. The originality of this article is validated by the systematic scoping review used.

Throughout history, the tourism industry has encountered diverse crises, each with its distinct characteristics. While the nature of these crises may evolve, the inevitability of their occurrence persists. Given the unpredictability of such events, understanding recovery factors for tourism destinations becomes crucial for swift recuperation. This study employed a destination recovery measurement model, visualised through Geographic Information System and GeoDA, focusing on Iran's 31 provinces. Indicators including tourism density, capacity, investment, accommodation, employment rate and destination type, in conjunction with COVID-19 cases, were utilised to gauge recovery status. The spatial distribution of the destination recovery index was analysed, revealing nonrandom cluster patterns, affirming that recovery is influenced by specific factors rather than occurring haphazardly. Provinces equipped with higher-factor concentrations demonstrated swifter recovery, while others exhibited less tourism-related prominence. These findings hold significance for stakeholders encompassing tourism managers, policymakers and governments vested in the sustainability of future tourism destinations.

Theories of resilience are keystones for understanding how individuals, small groups, organizations, and communities arrive at collective meaning, resolve uncertainty, and respond to crisis events. In response to a crisis, organizations can pursue three goals: Returning to the prior equilibrium, creating a new equilibrium with new processes and policies, or a combination of the two. Theories of resilience and renewal address these responses. Resilience has been applied in a diverse set of academic fields as well as in public policy discussions and in popular culture. This broad application, however, has resulted in conceptual confusion and conflicting interpretations. We explore the origins of resilience and its characteristics. We then review two discipline-specific postcrisis theories, The Communication Theory of Resilience and Discourse of Renewal. We ask, how can these theories enrich understanding of postcrisis adaptive processes and create for a more comprehensive picture of how individuals and organizations respond to crises? Taken together, they provide a broader framework for understanding the role of postcrisis discourse and informing practitioners in the enactment of responses.

This research explored why a routine government notice caused a series of unexpected public opinion crises. We used K-means clustering and Baidu Application Programming Interface Gateway to analyse 12,478 comments from Sina Weibo on Chinese Ministry of Commerce's release to encourage people to stock up necessities. Results show that even government's routine notice releases are regular events with relatively low objective risk, but in practice, how the government releases information and makes clarification would significantly infect public risk perception and emotion. First, ambiguous government releases magnify existing risks, especially during sensitive times, and resulting in heightened uncertainty, public risk perception and spread of negative emotions, therefore, lead to heated public discussion. Second, timely and effective clarifications can lower public risk perception as well as lead to positive emotions, although public banter may come along and generate another round of online public opinion within a short time. Our work answers why regular events would cause unexpected public opinion from the perspective of government behaviour, illustrates the dynamic interaction between government and online public opinion and can inform public policy aimed at more efficient communication with the public.

Effective health communication is critically important in times of emergency. From the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, officials at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) delivered health announcements that were timely, transparent, trustworthy and proportional to the crisis. Moreover, each announcement contained one or more messages with guidance corresponding to varying levels of the Intervention Ladder. Our team analysed messages based on the eight levels of the Intervention Ladder and compared health outcomes between UAB employees and residents of Alabama, USA. Results suggested that announcements played an essential role in raising situational awareness about the severity of the pandemic and may have led to greater compliance by the UAB community, as demonstrated through comparative rates of hospitalisation, vaccination and mortality.