Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management最新文献

Major incident inquiries and research highlight persistent problems in interoperability. Evidence points to failures in the ability of responders from different organisations to work effectively together, which hinders collaborative efforts. Recently, researchers have argued that one reason why collaboration problems exist when different teams are required to work together is due to multiple identities within the overarching team. Whilst this perspective has been applied to other teams operating in extreme conditions, such as military teams, the evidence in emergency response teams has been scarce. In this paper, we summarise results from a programme of research in which the Social Identity Approach was applied to interoperability in the emergency services to better understand the role of social identities in collaboration, and to develop recommendations for training and policy. The findings from this programme of research show that, (1) shared identity among responders from different services improves interoperability; (2) factors such as strategic communication, context-driven salience processes, and interaction-driven salience processes can facilitate this shared identity; (3) structural barriers, cultural differences, and historically strained relationships can impede shared identity development; and (4) there is a need for psychological factors to be incorporated into interoperability training, which can be delivered either online or in-person. Based on this programme of research, we make five recommendations to improve interoperability in multi-agency teams, focusing on integrating social identity processes into training, promoting leadership practices that foster shared identity, addressing structural barriers to shared identity, developing support systems for emotional and social needs, and fostering inter-team collaboration and communication.

This framework advocates for theory-driven research on moral outrage-inducing sticky crises, aiming to clarify three key areas: (1) how the three preventable crisis clusters (i.e., human-error, management misconduct and scansis) and information-giving strategies (i.e., instructing and adjusting information) shape stakeholders' perceptions of moral outrage-inducing sticky crises; (2) how crisis-induced other-condemning emotions (i.e., contempt, anger and disgust) function within the triadic appraisal framework of situational crisis communication theory (SCCT); and (3) how these factors affect stakeholders' perceptions of morally related punitive organizational outcomes (i.e., boycott intentions, organizational punishment intentions and brand cancellation intentions). By addressing these gaps, this conceptual paper aims to deepen our understanding of the moral dimensions of crisis communication within the triadic appraisal framework of SCCT and to develop more effective response strategies that address the complexities of moral outrage-inducing sticky crises.

While the spillover effect of crises is an emerging research topic in the field of crisis communication, little attention has been given to how employees perceive the risk of crisis spillover due to a corporate misconduct of another company. Employees are important stakeholders in an organization and closer to it than any other stakeholder group. Understanding employees' judgments of crisis spillover risk and response strategies helps to assess their advocacy behavior, which can protect the organization's reputation. This research addresses how perceived crisis severity and corporate response strategies affect employee perceptions of crisis spillover risk and their subsequent advocacy behavior. A pre-test (N = 181) identified three types of corporate misconduct (overcharging customers vs. data leak vs. selling rotten meat) that are characteristic for the supermarket industry. These scenarios were used in an online experiment with retail employees (N = 300) to examine the effects of two crisis response strategies (issuing a denial vs. no response) by a competitor supermarket for which they were asked to imagine working. The findings indicate that higher perceived severity of corporate misconduct correlates with an increased perceived crisis spillover risk to the industry. This perceived risk mediates the relationship between perceived crisis severity and the perceived spillover risk to an individual's own company. Furthermore, issuing a denial is perceived as more appropriate than offering no response, and it fosters greater employee advocacy behavior.

In response to the global energy and climate crises, many countries have decided to invest in the construction of new nuclear power plants. However, these developments bring safety and security concerns, further exacerbated by the complex relationship between energy demands and escalating geopolitical tensions. Lessons from past nuclear emergencies (e.g., Fukushima and Zaporizhzhia) have highlighted the need for preparedness strategies to protect the public from potential nuclear incidents, with an emphasis on public awareness and effective nuclear instructional risk communication. This paper presents a content analysis examining themes and instructional components within nuclear instructional campaigns, assessing their evidence-based foundations. Specifically, this paper identifies key elements that should be included to enhance the effectiveness of risk communications, focusing on strategies like the IDEA model and audience segmentation, both of which are recognized as effective instructional communication methods. A total of 47 instructional communication campaigns from 28 different countries were analysed. The results show that while most campaigns include crucial instructions, they often fall short in fostering internalization by the public, an essential factor for ensuring effective learning to achieve behavioural outcomes in individuals dealing with risks. Moreover, inconsistencies in terminology and event phase specifications were found, which could affect clarity and comprehension. Given the effectiveness of the IDEA and audience segmentation models in communication, this paper recommends integrating these strategies into future nuclear risk instructional campaigns. Ultimately, the findings provide valuable insights to help governmental and nongovernmental organizations design and develop future communication efforts in this critical area.

Trust dynamics are known to impact an individual's compliance with information from different sources and their behaviors. It is helpful to explore the roles of trust in different entities in predicting people's behavioral intentions and behaviors in a mega-crisis. With the initial stage of a public health crisis in China as its context, this study extends the Theory of Planned Behavior by incorporating trust in four key entities: the government, scientists, healthcare providers, and others. Results show that trust in the government is a significant and positive predictor of an individual's self-care and social distancing behaviors. However, trust in scientists, healthcare providers and interpersonal trust do not affect such behaviors. This retrospective analysis enables a more panoramic reflection on the impact of trust on public behavior in the face of a crisis, offering valuable insights for the management of similar crises in the future.

This article provides insights from the 'Lessons from the Field' perspective into crisis training using virtual reality (VR). Conventional crisis simulations often involve costly in-person events, limiting accessibility and effectiveness. VR technology has emerged as a promising alternative to overcome these challenges. This article delves into the application of VR in crisis management training, examining real-world exercise examples, and presenting innovative experimentation. A comprehensive experiment, grounded in real-life exercise scenarios, was conducted to gather feedback from participants. The findings demonstrate the efficacy of VR in replicating crisis training environments, providing an innovative solution to simulate real-world use cases. These results suggest that investing in VR research and development can significantly enhance training opportunities for public safety agencies.

While narrative is regarded as a powerfully persuasive tool in previous crisis communication literature, few empirical studies in crisis misinformation correction have examined the danger of narrative-based misinformation about an organizational crisis and how an organization might correct it via prebunking strategies using narratives. Thus, contextualized in an organizational misinformation crisis, this study examined the informational competition between crisis misinformation narrative and organizational prebunking narrative, as well as identified viable ways of using organizational narrative persuasion as a robust prebunking messaging strategy, via the mediation effects of character connection and perceived information quality, to reduce misinformation discussion on social media and increase publics' social correction intention. An online experiment with 1 (Misinformation: blame narrative) × 4 (Organizational prebunking message: blame narrative vs. victim narrative vs. renewal narrative vs. nonnarrative correction) between-subjects design was conducted with 352 US adults. Key findings include: (1) the narrative strategy included in the prebunking message exhibited limited direct effects on participants' communicative behaviors; (2) identification with the spokesperson had more impact than perceived correction quality on participants' communicative behaviors (i.e., misinformation discussion and social correction); and (3) participants' liking of the spokesperson (not trust) was positively associated with their character identification with the spokesperson. Theoretical and practical implications are further discussed in terms of the potential for using a solid persuasive tool -- narrative --to combat misinformation narrative through communicative behaviors, as well as the mechanism behind the competition between misinformation and corrective information.

Delphi studies in disaster medicine lack consensus on expert agreement metrics. This study examined various metrics using a Delphi study on chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) preparedness in the Middle East and North Africa region. Forty international disaster medicine experts evaluated 133 items across ten CBRN Preparedness Assessment Tool themes using a 5-point Likert scale. Agreement was measured using Kendall's W, Intraclass Correlation Coefficient, and Cohen's Kappa. Statistical and machine learning techniques compared metric performance. The overall agreement mean score was 4.91 ± 0.71, with 89.21% average agreement. Kappa emerged as the most sensitive metric in statistical and machine learning analyses, with a feature importance score of 168.32. The Kappa coefficient showed variations across CBRN PAT themes, including medical protocols, logistics, and infrastructure. The integrated statistical and machine learning approach provides a promising method for understanding expert consensus in disaster preparedness, with potential for future refinement by incorporating additional contextual factors.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, infodemiological studies have utilized Google Trends (GT) data to monitor and predict changes in public interest and social behavior. However, the question posed by researchers regarding the relation between online search interest and public media coverage has remained mostly unanswered. Moreover, many studies focus their research mainly on disease labels and symptoms. Thus, this article aims to contribute to crisis research, providing a long-term analysis of Google search queries and media coverage in Germany between January 2020 and December 2022, incorporating a broad range of different keywords and categories. The study identified strong correlations between GT and public media data for the categories of disease labels, dynamics, and severity, followed by moderate to strong correlations for characteristics. GT analysis of these keywords may be suitable to monitor public awareness, validate the media impact and assess the efficacy of health communication strategies. Since the results for symptoms showed no significant relation, disease symptoms may serve as valuable keywords for surveilling or forecasting the spread of infectious diseases. The study emphasizes the significance of examining the relationship between media coverage and information-seeking behavior during pandemics and other crises.