Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management最新文献

As cancel culture intensifies and consumer outrage spreads rapidly on social media, brands are increasingly turning to social media influencers to navigate crises. This study investigates how influencer-brand alignment—across two critical dimensions: trait alignment and emotional alignment—shapes postcrisis consumer perceptions. Grounded in Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), the study introduces the Crisis Influencer Selection Matrix, a strategic typology that classifies influencers into four roles—The Trusted Humanist, Rational Expert, Empathetic Outsider, and Detached Bystander—based on their alignment profiles and fit with crisis type. Utilizing a randomized, between-subject experimental design, 152 participants were exposed to a simulated reputational crisis involving a fictional global brand. Results demonstrate that influencers who exhibit both high trait and emotional alignment significantly enhance brand recovery outcomes. By extending SCCT to incorporate the identity and communication style of third-party messengers, this study offers a fresh theoretical perspective and provides brands with actionable strategies for effective influencer engagement during crisis situations.

This article explores the crucial actions of the heterogenous group of spontaneous volunteers during and after the 2011 Utøya terror attack in Norway, where a terrorist killed 69 people. In the research literature, the attack has been thoroughly studied in relation to the authorities’ and formal emergency responders’ management of the crisis, and lack thereof. However, the spontaneous volunteers who filled the gap following the inaction of official resources under and immediately after the attack, have received less research attention. This is paradoxical, given the impact their actions had on preventing the disaster from having even worse consequences. This study complements earlier research on disaster volunteers that often focuses on the actions of spontaneous volunteers from the perspective of formal emergency responders. Our findings suggest that the way citizens responded was not by adapting traditional command-and-control structures, but rather that they improvised to handle unmet needs in an emergent and autonomous form. The main factors central to their participation were their presence and available resources, which also made the actions of the spontaneous volunteers decisive when the emergency responders became active in the rescue operation. The efforts provided by spontaneous volunteers had significant emotional costs for them in the years after the attack. The study gives important contributions to considerations needed when whole-of-society concepts are adapted, both with regard to balancing resources and rationalities during rescue, and for follow-up of citizens who happen to be there when a disaster strikes.

The evolving spatiotemporal landscape of the digital age profoundly shapes risk formation, perception and their ripple effects. However, the traditional social amplification of risk framework (SARF) has limitations in embodying this new amplification logic. We propose an upgraded version of the spatial‒temporal amplification of risk framework (STARF), emphasising that digital empowerment amplifies risk perception and that digital refraction amplifies the ripple effect, and focus on China's digitally underdeveloped regions for empirical analysis. We found the following: (1) In the digital age, overall social security risk perception has weakened, the focus of risk perception has changed, and information security risk perception has increased significantly, even in digitally underdeveloped areas. (2) Digital empowerment and traditional factors work together to play an amplifying role, and the digital empowerment of risk communication and risk governance will amplify risk perception, but the risk perception enhancement effect of digital empowerment is limited and has not surpassed the weakening effect of traditional factors such as government trust on risk perception. (3) There are differences in the amplification of digital empowerment, which is reflected in the fact that it significantly amplifies the perception of exogenous food and environmental security risks, but there is an amplification paradox in the perception of endogenous information security risks. (4) Digital refraction changes the direction, range and speed of the chain reaction of risk perception, making the ripples more complex, the spatiotemporal transmission more dispersed and rapid, and further promoting the cross-domain superposition and interference of multiple space‒time ripples. These findings encourage authorities to adopt a more dynamic and integrated perspective in risk governance in the digital age.

Recently, cybersecurity incidents are posing a growing risk to the healthcare industry. Various measures have been initiated to measure the cyberattacks with effective cyber resilience. Nevertheless, every article, book, and speech on the future of cyber resilience and security in healthcare has stressed the need for transformation of development in recent times. The researchers noted that previous studies on the development of cyber resilience and security practices measures were limited despite the importance of the subject. Hence, exploring the effective measures of cyber resilience and cybersecurity practices in the healthcare sector is the research goal. By using convenience sampling techniques, a total of 440 respondents were collected from healthcare sectors in various metro cities in India. Hence, the hypothesis of the study has been scrutinised by using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). As per the study findings, the effective cyber resilience and cybersecurity measures of prioritising cyber risk, security fundamentals, cyber resilience governance, systemic resilience, and resilience and security culture had positive and significant measures on cybersecurity practices in the healthcare sector. Also, in the healthcare sector, ‘Protecting data and preventing data breaches’ has obtained the highest benefit factor of cyber resilience as well as security practices.

The frequency and risk of Natech (Natural Hazard Triggered Technological) accidents have risen significantly within the context of increased extreme weather events and accelerated global industrialisation. As disasters that combine unpredictability and complexity, Natech accidents tend to generate and accumulate negative emotions in patterns that differ markedly from other types of incidents, making it crucial to study the characteristics of social emotion generation and interaction to better manage public emotions in Natech accidents. This study conducts a case study of “Beijing Subway Changping Line Accident” and applies the Social Network Analysis (SNA) method to examine how network structure, key nodes, and network positions influence the generation pathway and the intensity of social emotion across the stages of this Natech accident. The results reveal that social emotions in Natech accidents exhibit a negative inclination, stronger than those in natural disasters, but weaker than those in technological accidents. The interplay of natural disasters and technological accidents triggers a rapid escalation of social emotions in Natech accidents. In emergency management of Natech accidents, the government plays a leading role, while NGOs and media serve as auxiliary forces, collectively facilitating the interpretation and communication of accidents to de-escalate public attention and guide emotional trajectories. The negative emotions stem mainly from the specific nature of the accident rather than from purely natural or technological causes. This study is among the earliest explorations of the mechanisms behind social emotion generation in Natech accidents based on Chinese cases. It constructs a customised emotion dictionary for the accident and enriches the indicators for measuring emotions. It reveals the social emotion trends from a social network structure perspective, which provides nuanced insights into the effective management of public emotions in Natech accidents.