Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management最新文献

Crisis management research has traditionally emphasized centralized authority, often concentrated in a crisis management team (CMT), to enable fast, coordinated internal responses. However, other scholars highlight the benefits of decentralizing internal crisis management and communication authority to middle managers to enhance responsiveness, creativity, and sensemaking during crises. But how can an organization work with a decentralized approach? What challenges do middle managers face, and do they appreciate such an approach? Based on a qualitative case study, including interviews with the CMT and 14 middle managers in a Danish organization ( + 1500 employees) during the Covid-19 pandemic, the aim of this study is to explore how and why an organization decentralizes the authority of internal crisis management and communication responsibilities during a long-term crisis, and what challenges and implications this poses for middle management. Key findings reveal new dimensions of decentralization processes, including the important role of timing and of communication by the CMT. While the decentralized authority of certain operational crisis management tasks, such as remote work, was welcomed by some middle managers, it created uncertainty and confusion among others. Communication and guidance from the CMT around the decentralized approach to crisis management were lacking, further challenging sensemaking processes and the ‘sandwiched’ roles of middle managers. Several middle managers expressed a need for feedback from a perceived distant CMT. In response, horizontal coordination among middle managers intensified as a strategy to reduce uncertainty and make sense of evolving responsibilities.

Considering the increasing frequency and severity of disasters, improving individual resilience has become a critical priority. This study examines the multidimensional relationship between disaster risk perception and individual disaster resilience among undergraduate students in Türkiye using a convenience sample drawn from a single faculty, therefore, the findings cannot be generalized to the wider university student population. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 995 undergraduate students in Türkiye. Data collection was conducted using the Disaster Risk Perception Scale and the Individual Disaster Resilience Scale. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was performed using R for data analysis. The findings revealed that disaster risk perception and individual resilience levels were generally moderate among participants, with significant variation across some socio-demographic groups. Exposure and manageable anxiety were positively associated with knowledge-based and informational coping capacities. In contrast, excessive anxiety and perceptions of uncontrollability were negatively associated with communal and affective coping, while perceptions of effect were positively associated with communal coping. All associations were noncausal owing to the cross-sectional design. These findings suggest that disaster education and preparedness programs may help strengthen individuals' perceptions of self-efficacy and controllability while promoting a balanced level of risk awareness. The dual role of anxiety in shaping resilience emphasizes the need to address emotional responses in disaster risk communication. This study extends crisis management and disaster resilience literature by empirically investigating the multidimensional relationship between disaster risk perception and individual disaster resilience within a single structural model, highlighting an understudied university student population in Türkiye.

Employees' communication with external stakeholders has a megaphoning effect that can easily enhance or damage an organisation's reputation during a crisis. It is essential for organisations to have employees' support and endorsement to successfully get through and recover from an organisational crisis. This study examines the impact of internal crisis communication and perceived organisational ethics on both ethical and unethical employee endorsements during organisational crises. A total of 296 participants were recruited in the study. The results showed that internal crisis communication positively influenced both ethical and unethical employee endorsements, while perceived organisational ethics enhanced ethical endorsement but had no significant effect on unethical endorsement. The study raises concerns that, although engaged employees are willing to defend the organisation during crises, they may unintentionally engage in unethical endorsement, overlooking ethical boundaries in an effort to protect organisational reputation. These findings highlight the need for organisations to integrate ethical considerations into internal crisis communication strategies to mitigate long-term reputational damage. Implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed.

In an increasingly complex and dynamic global environment, airlines must leverage advanced technologies to enhance their operational resilience and sustain competitiveness. This study investigates the role of emerging technologies—specifically Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data Analytics, Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR and AR)—in strengthening organisational resilience among Middle Eastern airlines. Utilising an online survey distributed to 152 air transport industry stakeholders, the research analyses the impact of these technologies on operational efficiency, decision-making and crisis management. Stratified sampling divided respondents into management, flight crew and ground staff, ensuring a representative sample. The findings highlight IoT and Big Data Analytics as critical to improving resource allocation and promoting proactive decision-making. T-tests and ANOVA results revealed no significant differences in technology adoption across gender or occupational roles. However, multiple regression analysis demonstrated that Big Data Analytics and IoT significantly enhance organisational resilience, while AI shows a weaker relationship due to its implementation challenges. The study concludes that adopting emerging technologies is vital for airlines to adapt to market disruptions, optimise operations and maintain long-term sustainability. The results support Organisational Resilience Theory, emphasising contingency planning and proactive innovation to mitigate industry uncertainties.

Large-scale sporting events, such as the Asian Football Cup (AFC), present significant public health challenges due to the influx of spectators and the strain on the host country's healthcare infrastructure. Effective healthcare delivery and emergency preparedness during such events necessitate meticulous planning, coordination, and resource allocation. This study aimed to report on Qatar's healthcare systems, strategies, and planning measures implemented for the 2023 AFC and provide recommendations. This paper presents a real-world case study examining Qatar's healthcare management strategies for the 2023 AFC by recapitulating documentation and reports, such as operational and incident reports collected during the event period, from Hamad Medical Corporation in Qatar. The findings revealed a well-defined command and control structure with gold, silver and bronze leadership levels, facilitating seamless coordination and communication among stakeholders. Locum healthcare professionals, recruitment, and training programmes ensured adequate medical coverage and familiarity with local protocols. Major incident planning enhanced preparedness for potential crises, including specialised emergency management teams, escalation protocols and strategically positioned resources. The ‘Occurrences, Variances, and Accidents’ incident reporting system promoted a safety culture and continuous improvement. Key recommendations included establishing clear performance indicators, conducting regular audits, enhancing training programmes, advocating incident reporting and encouraging research in the mass gathering medicine field. Qatar's healthcare management strategies during the 2023 AFC demonstrated effective planning, coordination and adaptability in addressing the challenges of a large-scale sporting event. The findings contribute to the development of best practices for healthcare coordination during international mass gathering sporting competitions, informing future regional events, such as FIFA 2030.

This study presents and discusses a systematic approach to exercises that gradually develops the competence required to respond adequately to crises and emergencies. Based on interviews with professionals from emergency organizations in one of Norway's largest regions, the findings demonstrate a learning-oriented approach that prioritizes learning over merely conducting exercises. The study shows how exercises can be used to systematically build competence by selecting the most appropriate exercise type according to identified learning needs. It also emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between evaluation and follow-up, which are interrelated yet distinct activities that are essential for learning to occur. Maintaining the momentum of evaluation and follow-up after exercises is important in this regard, as it ensures that the learning process is completed and suggested improvements implemented. This requires making resources available throughout the entire exercise process. By demonstrating a systematic way of conducting exercises, the study provides concrete suggestions for an approach that promotes learning and offers valuable insights into how to design an exercise process that leads to improved learning outcomes.

This study examines how public relations professionals navigate the societal issues presented through disinformation. Findings from in-depth interviews indicate that when it comes to sharing incorrect information, especially on social media, it has significant implications for the PR industry. The study highlights the complexity surrounding disinformation and the importance of establishing intent in distinguishing between misinformation and disinformation. Personal ethics guide professionals in creating truthful storytelling or strategic silence through proactive and reactive strategies to combat disinformation. The study also explores the type of responses used and demonstrates how both proactive and reactive strategies evolve and are executed in practice when dealing with disinformation. Taken together, a conceptual process model is offered as a means to extend theory building in disinformation.

Image crises pose significant challenges for organizations and public figures, often requiring rapid identification and classification to mitigate reputational damage. This study introduces a novel typology of brand crises and demonstrates its application using large language models (LLMs) to enhance crisis detection and classification. We review the current state of knowledge of brand crises and LLMs, underlining their relevance in real-world text analytics tasks. Based on an analysis of 300 actual crisis cases, we propose an original typology that captures various types and causes of crises. Our methodology combines expert data annotation with automatic crisis type annotation using a generative LLM. This approach enables both classification and early detection of crises in media texts. The results demonstrate that the GPT-4-turbo achieved strong performance in distinguishing ideological from nonideological crises (accuracy: 0.903; F1: 0.874), while GPT-5 with a 2-shot prompt and GPT-4o-mini excelled in identifying affected actors (accuracy and F1: 0.984). Performance was comparatively lower for detailed cause classification, highlighting the greater complexity of fine-grained categorizations. This study highlights the potential and limitations of LLMs in developing automated crisis management systems to enhance organizational resilience.

The COVID-19 pandemic created a global state of exception, forcing decision-makers to address unprecedented challenges while balancing legal norms, public health and civil liberties under conditions of uncertainty. This study argues for the importance of proportionality – the principle that crisis measures must be suitable, necessary, and balanced – for maintaining democratic legitimacy during emergencies. To clarify this relationship, this article examines how five Norwegian municipalities exercised discretion under the Infection Control Act § 4-1 and reveals significant variation in local crisis governance. The analysis applies Peters and Pierre's (2016) functionalist model and the proportionality framework and focuses on governance processes rather than hierarchical structures, and on how municipalities handle competing priorities. Through document analysis and interviews, we examine five governance functions: goal selection, resource mobilization, decision-making, implementation, and evaluation, feedback and learning. Municipalities were chosen for representativeness. The findings indicate that local features – specifically geography, tourism, and healthcare capacity – shaped pandemic responses. The analysis highlights tensions between local autonomy and national coordination as well as between efficiency and democratic accountability. Implicitly, proportionality was crucial for legitimate decisions, civil liberties, and accountability. The results can inform debates on democratic legitimacy and the local-national balance in health emergencies and crisis governance in general. The study advances crisis governance theory by showing how local discretion supports adaptation and accountability while deepening our insight into local-national dynamics during emergencies.

When industries face systemic shocks, enterprise risks extend beyond the effects of isolated incidents and propagate through intricate competitive networks. Existing research predominantly addresses risk spillovers initiated by isolated events, such as financial scandals and product recalls, while neglecting the risk spillover effects associated with firms embedded in multi-market competitive networks. This study undertakes an empirical analysis within the context of China's electronic information manufacturing industry. The findings reveal that the broader a firm's product market competition boundary, the more pronounced the peer risk spillover effects it encounters. Furthermore, the degree of product diversification and analyst coverage positively moderate the relationship between competition boundaries and risk spillovers. Firms positioned downstream in the supply chain, those with lower corporate social responsibility performance, and non-state-owned enterprises experience more significant impacts of competition boundary breadth on risk spillovers. This study conceptualizes the boundaries of product market competition as a crucial lens for comprehending industry risk spillovers, thereby advancing risk spillover research from static event analysis to dynamic network analysis. The findings indicate that, in the context of systemic shocks, expansive competition boundaries exacerbate risk contagion through two primary channels: direct business linkages and indirect cognitive biases. This study offers a novel decision-making framework for firms to navigate the balance between market opportunities and risk exposure within intricate competitive environments.