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A framework is presented to describe the behavior of decision makers as they recognize situations that merit action. The framework suggests how decision makers compare norms with perceptions to select deferral, evaluation, and planning processes to illustrate how "managerial diagnosis" determines the effectiveness of these forms of inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addresses the changing role of marketing research during crises, such as World War II or the depression. The war in Europe could increase the demand for raw materials in the U.S. and limit the exports from countries directly involved in the conflict. Consumer demand would theoretically remain stable, however total demand and consumption would increase due to the additional of war industries to the routine domestic production. Most forms of advertising research, sales analysis and product testing would remain the same in a semi-emergency; however, a true emergency would likely discontinue market research and advertising while prices may become unstable.

When the next major pandemic strikes, it will be accompanied by something never before seen in human history: an explosion of billions of texts, tweets, e-mails, blogs, photos, and videos [...]

Copyright of Scientific Papers of Silesian University of Technology. Organization & Management / Zeszyty Naukowe Politechniki Slaskiej. Seria Organizacji i Zarzadzanie is the property of Silesian Technical University, Organisation & Management Faculty and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article argues that the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa reinscribed the neglect that has surrounded this disease. The argument develops theoretical tools for understanding how neglect is produced in global health. Arguing that neglect is connected with the production of harm and vulnerability, it stresses the importance of emotions in issue-prioritisation in global health. Focusing on the dynamics of abjection, the article shows how the 2014 Ebola outbreak was framed as a (racialised) African problem and obfuscated by a political and media spectacle. The result was the preference for short-term crisis-management responses that detracted from long-term structural solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores challenges to the state and state power originating in the world market and the world of states. It proposes an approach useful for this and other purposes and identifies reference points for discussing recent challenges. This cannot be the 'state in general' but must comprise well-specified, actually existing state forms. It then explores crises as an objectively overdetermined, subjectively indeterminate condensation of challenges that pose problems of crisis-management and may also lead to crises of crisis-management. It examines the interaction of economic and political crises and their possible role in the alleged decline of liberal democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the interactive effects of apology source (i.e., whether an apology is given by a chief executive officer or employee) and apology components (i.e., acknowledgment, remorse, and compensation) on forgiveness. Results revealed a significant source by component interaction. A remorseful employee apology was more successful than a remorseful CEO apology because consumers felt more empathy for the employee. Furthermore, a compensatory CEO apology was more effective than a compensatory employee apology because CEOs could significantly affect consumer perceptions of justice. No significant differences were found between apology source and the apology component of acknowledging violated rules and norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores crisis management/communication practices within the coal industry through the lens of high reliability organization (HRO) concepts and sensemaking theory. In-depth interviews with industry executives and an analysis of an emergency procedures manual were used to provide an exploratory examination of the status of crisis management within this industry, a context in which crisis management/ communication may be viewed as an opportunity to improve existing negative perceptions or generate more favorable attitudes among stakeholders. Findings suggest that although companies place great emphasis on the technical response to a crisis, the lack of crisis communication components in overall planning strategies prevents some companies from being able to adequately respond to a crisis situation. Keywords: Crisis Management; Crisis Communication; Sensemaking Theory; High Reliability Organizations (HRO); Coal Mining

September 11, 2001 was a tragedy unparalleled in the United States, resulting in the largest number of parentally bereaved children from a single terrorist incident. The event necessitated swift and sensitive development of programs to meet the needs of bereaved children and their families, and it offered a rare opportunity to investigate the symptoms of and intervention for, traumatic bereavement. Progress is being made in evaluating assessment and treatment services for traumatically bereaved children and their caregivers. However, attention must be paid to how programs are created in order to carry out the work. This article reports on the methods used to develop and deliver a clinical research program in the aftermath of 9/11. The specific challenges following a crisis, the decision-making process and lessons learned are highlighted, and future program development recommendations are presented.

Recognizing the influence crises have in shaping global governance nowadays, the present work explores the possible contribution of human development thinking countering the perverse effects of shock-driven responses to major emergencies. This is done by focusing on contributions by Sen, Dreze, Haq and Stewart related to famines, violent conflict and the idea of human security, analyzed using a selection of four criteria, namely, describing the position of crisis inside human development thinking, issues of modeling and measurement, the stance toward agency, and the actors gathered around the discourse. After strengths and weaknesses are considered, the article suggests a tangential involvement through other human concepts, so human development ideas do not get muddled by the logic of shocks and fulfill the great responsibility of helping us avoid the many shortfalls of a security-obsessed view of humanity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents research on the possibility for the unintentional creation of an organizational crisis management process by self-organization via an online community. It analyzes organizational crisis management literature and posts from an online community, how crisis management actions were actualized through information technology (IT) platforms, and micro- and macro-level order-seeking behaviors. It concludes that the evidence suggests that self-organization may be a complementary new source of organizational order to a traditional centralized management approach.

Aiming to structure the academic debate and to demonstrate practical use cases of social media in crisis communication, we present in this metastudy the disciplinary embedment, topical foci, challenges, and research gaps in the literature and application of social media in crisis communication. In particular, our research questions address the characteristics and features of the academic discourse and examine the role of grant givers in steering research foci, as well as the value of research outcomes for crisis communication practice. Therefore, we analyze pertinent academic articles and research projects from the past decade and provide an excursus on the actors and social media communication channels that are used during emergencies and crises. We conclude by highlighting research gaps and practical challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology can contribute greatly to disaster resilience, especially by enhancing the interconnectedness between the authorities and the public and by facilitating the rapid exchange of information. This special issue of Human Technology: An Interdisciplinary Journal on Humans in ICT Environments is focused on technology and social media enablers of community resilience. Crises take on a variety of shapes and forms -- natural or health disasters, terroristic and criminal acts, technology malfunctions, and large-scale accidents -- at the local, regional, national, and global levels. Crisis management plans, created and implemented at the organizational level, typically involve public service and institutional authorities overseeing emergency response. However, contemporary crises, because of scale, complexity, or immediacy, are more likely to require collaboration with citizen responders to deal quickly with evolving situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing privatization of military and stability operations has received considerable scholarly attention. Existing scholarship, however, has largely focused on the privatization of state foreign policy, overlooking the empirical analysis of international organizations' use of commercial actors in the conduct of crisis management operations. The present study fills this gap by investigating the role of commercial contractors in supporting European Common Security and Defence civilian and military missions. By doing so, the article intends to advance the empirical knowledge of the privatization of foreign policy activities and the scope, determinants and future prospects of EU reliance on commercial actors for CSDP crisis management operations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study applies chaos theory to a system-wide analysis of crisis communication in a natural disaster. Specifically, we analyze crisis communication during the 1997 Red River Valley flood in Minnesota and North Dakota. This flood, among the worst in modern American history, consumed entire metropolitan areas, displacing thousands of people. The conditions and decisions leading to the disaster, and the subsequent reactions are retraced. Communication related to river crest predictions (fractals), the shock at the magnitude of the crisis (cosmology episode), novel forms of reorganizing (self-organization), and agencies that aided in establishing a renewed order (strange attractors) are evaluated. Ultimately, we argue that preexisting sensemaking structures favoring rationalized, traditional views of a complex system led officials to make inappropriately unequivocal predictions and ultimately diminished the effectiveness of the region's crisis communication and planning. KEY WORDS: Chaos theory, information needs, natural disasters, crisis communication, risk.

This article examines the evolution of the European Council in the post-Lisbon period. Having a standing president is a major innovation: the European Council is no longer subject to national grandstanding, occasional weak leadership and uneven presidential performance. The new arrangement provides continuity and consistency. Herman Van Rompuy became the first elected president in an exceptionally challenging policy environment, with the European Council emerging as a quasi-permanent forum for crisis management. Fissures erupted between the eurozone members and non-members; between and among the big and small member states; and between the United Kingdom and the rest. A preliminary assessment suggests that the standing European Council presidency and Van Rompuy’s incumbency have been highly beneficial for the EU, which fared better than it otherwise would have under the pre-Lisbon rotating presidency. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article begins to map out a novel approach to analysing contemporary contexts of public crisis, relationships between them and possibilities that these scenes hold out for politics. The article illustrates and analyses a small selection of examples of these kinds of contemporary scenes and calls for greater attention to be given to the conditions and consequences of different forms and practices of public and political mediation. In offering a three-fold typology to delineate differences between ‘abject’, ‘audience’ and ‘agentic’ publics the article begins to draw out how political and public futures may be seen as being bound up with how the potentialities, capacities and qualities that publics are imagined to have and resourced to perform. Public action and future publics are therefore analysed here in relation to different versions of contemporary crisis and the political concerns and publics these crises work to articulate, foreground and imaginatively and practically support. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article seeks to analyze the mobilizations that are currently taking place in Spain as a result of the multidimensional crisis unleashed in 2008. The authors study the ‘15M movement,’ or that of the Spanish indignados, by focusing on three analytical axes: the cognitive, emotional, and relational processes feeding the construction of a social movement identity. First, the article refers to the diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing tasks performed by 15M participants to define the problematic situation and attribute blame, articulate a solution to the problem and devise strategies to achieve that end, and motivate participants to sustain their engagement and remedy the situation. Second, the article concentrates on the emotions that were ‘mobilized’ by social movement organizations linked to the 15M (e.g. outrage or indignation), and those emotions that emerged spontaneously during the ‘encounters’ that took place in the public space: joy, efficacy, and empowerment. Finally, the article addresses the relational aspects entailed in the process of identity construction, that is, the activation and de-activation of both ‘real’ and ‘imaginary’ ties between 15M members and previous and/or current political and social collectives within the ‘progressive field.’ In following this triple objective, the article describes the process of identity-synchronization that has allowed people with no previous political participation and with different and oftentimes opposing politico-ideological trajectories to feel part of the movement. The data come from 17 in-depth interviews and eight focus groups with key activists, ethnographic observations in camps and assemblies in both Bilbao and Madrid during the summer of 2011, and visual materials displayed in web pages and Facebook accounts associated to the 15M. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen (ZIB) is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Commentators and policy-makers stress the need to learn the lessons of EU civilian crisis management. Yet despite numerous case studies on mission performance, we know little about the EU's overall capacity for such learning. The first part of this article outlines a theoretical framework for analyzing organizational learning in the context of peace operations. It recommends focusing on administrative reform and conceptual development in Brussels, and lists various factors that are expected to facilitate or inhibit organizational learning cycles. On this basis, the second part presents a historical survey of the EU's learning efforts in civilian crisis management. Despite a dynamic expansion of mission tasks as well as corresponding review processes, organizational learning has remained haphazard and limited to capacity expansion or mission support requirements. Only since 2009 did the EU invest in more formalized lessons-learning processes, which led to more systematic information gathering and more in-depth conceptual discussions. So far, however, these initiatives could not overcome political constraints to more ambitious reforms of EU peace operations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

By creating the European Gendarmerie Force (EGF), some European Union (EU) member states have devised a ‘structured solution’ to provide international civilian police capabilities. In this article, we undertake a critical examination of the EGF by first arguing that the EGF has been widely misrepresented, notably with regard to its general purpose and specific relationship to the EU. Next, we examine a range of security problems used to justify the EGF, arguing that its potential role in handling certain tasks has not been very carefully considered. Finally, we suggest that a major rationale behind the EGF was the shared desire among its members to draw attention to a policing model that is not universally appreciated, and to promote this model by offering its ‘third-type’ capabilities while keeping the EGF outside of EU institutional constraints. In the conclusion, we identify some crucial questions related to the EGF–EU relations, notably in terms of non-optimisation of EU resources and possible incoherence in EU/Common Security and Defence Policy efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study illustrates the potential role of model and anti-model arguments in organizational crisis communication. Specifically, model and anti-model arguments are described as a strategy for moving the focus of a crisis from an organization to its industry. Model arguments enable organizations to establish their corrective action as industry standards that merit imitation. Conversely, organizations can set minimum standards for their industries with anti-model arguments. Phil Knight's May 12, 1998, speech announcing Nike's new initiatives in global manufacturing is analyzed as a case study. The essay concludes that model and anti-model arguments can suspend criticism of the organization, create the foundation for a return to industry prominence by the organization, and establish proposed new industry standards that are favorable to the organization. KEY WORDS: Nike, Phil Knight, anti-model argument, Perelman, crisis communication.

The European Union (EU) has launched an impressive number of crisis management missions since its Common Security and Defence Policy became operational in 2003. This article analyses the agenda-setting phase of these civilian and military operations in order to explain why the EU has sent troops, policemen, judges, prosecutors and monitors across three continents. It presents an institutionalist perspective and argues that the former High Representative Javier Solana and his officials have been instrumental in putting various operations on the agenda. They have employed deliberate agenda-setting strategies, such as venue shopping, conflict expansion and issue framing, to further their bureaucratic interest of launching new missions. Solana and his officials had the ability to affect the agenda-setting process thanks to their pivotal position in policy making. This gave them with superior information on the state of play and an early mover advantage as well as strong international networks. The article provides empirical evidence from the crisis management missions in Aceh, Bosnia, Chad and Kosovo. It concludes with the changes to the Common Security and Defence Policy after the Treaty of Lisbon. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Hurricane Katrina, a foreseeable tragedy that occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana in August of 2005, took lives and damaged homes for a vast majority of people in the area. Katrina, a category- 3 hurricane as it approached the United States, seemed like just routine hurricane. Tragically, Hurricane Katrina turned into a disaster due to the malfeasance and official deviance of local, state, and federal public officials and their agencies/institutions that that failed to protect and serve the citizens of New Orleans and the outlying areas. The majority of these citizens suffered devstationg damage to their homes and businesses, as well as the deathss of family members and friends. From a socio-historical and political perspective, the authors examine: 1) the geographical location and its vulnerability to hurricanes; 2) the U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers' role in the design, construction, and failure of the levees; 3) the response by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other federal actors; 4) the failure by public officals and agencies/institutions to fund and repair the levees; and 5) the malfeasance and official deviance by public officals and agencies/institutions by not protecting and serving the citizens of New Orleans and the outlying areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Towards the end of the 20th century, a range of western sociologists and cultural theorists were arguing that the word ‘community’ had outlived its usefulness, yet use of the word has certainly not diminished in either popular or academic discourse. Indeed, this paper follows writers such as Bauman (2001) and Delanty (2003) in suggesting that there has been a ‘turn’ to community in the conditions of global flux and uncertainty. However, western conceptions of community are often inadequate for describing dynamic social formations in societies of the global south and this paper takes a dynamic and multilayered conception of community that has been developed by the Globalism Research Centre at RMIT in Melbourne to apply to community formation in Ecuador and Malaysia. The paper compares this way of thinking about local communities in Australia with very different local contexts in Malaysia and Ecuador. The paper adds to Delanty's conception of community (2003) and adds a new typology of contemporary communities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Prominent crisis communication researchers have suggested that practitioners should work with the media as partners when managing a crisis (Ulmer, Sellnow, & Seeger, 2007). This study provides an example of a crisis case in which the media was embraced as a partner in the crisis response. Specifically, the partnership established with the media as part of the crisis response following the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City is assessed. Conclusions further the literature on interorganizational partnerships while encouraging research and discussion concerning working with the media as a partner instead of an adversary in public relations, generally, and crisis communication, specifically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theorists focusing on organizational apologia or crisis response have developed broad typologies describing strategies available to organizational actors in a crisis situation, but have failed to describe specific strategic patterns as in other genres. A recent essay explains this situation based on the existence of two somewhat contrasting purposes in organizational apologia (image maintenance and image repair), and argues the best approach is to identify subgenres within the larger category. The present essay uses the Ford/Firestone tread separation crisis to build a case for the existence of a subgenre of interorganizational conflict, a subgenre in which two organizations functioning as strategic partners are each threatened. The essay concludes by arguing a crisis involving strategic partners, in which neither is willing to assume sole responsibility for the crisis, will develop through three predictable stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I suggest that a major challenge of much safety culture research is that it runs the risk of neglecting the organizational, meso level. Consequentially, it often seems to lack a proper conceptualization of the relationship between culture, technology and structure in high-risk organizations. High-reliability organizations (HRO) research, on the other hand, focuses on this relationship. The aim of the paper is to develop an understanding of safety culture that incorporates some of the HRO approach's insights regarding the relationship between safety, culture, technology and structure. I outline and discuss the research on safety culture and the HRO approach's treatment of culture and safety, before I suggest a sociotechnical understanding of safety culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to show that the popular rebellion of December 2001 in Argentina had a double meaning: first, it illustrated the crisis of the system itself in terms of its two basic constituent elements, representative 'democracy' and the capitalist market economy; second, it led to the creation of neighbourhood assemblies which, together with some movements of unemployed workers, and certain companies taken over by workers, constituted embryonic mechanisms of direct democracy that even extended their demands towards a new integral vision of society, very close to the project of Inclusive Democracy. In fact, important elements of three of the main components of an Inclusive Democracy had been attempted in practice in Argentina: direct political democracy, economic democracy, and democracy in the social realm, whereas issues relating to an ecological democracy had also been raised. At the same time, a new form of confederal democracy emerged which was based on nearby communities organized into a territorial network at a local and regional scale. Although the majority of the population still remain today detached from any perspective of social change, it is significant to note the kind of alternative institutions that people attempt to set up -whenever the opportunity arises -as the only way out of the present multidimensional crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cuadernos de Trabajo Social is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The relatively new concept of “strategic culture,” though under discussion for a generation, has been underdeveloped. This article defines the concept clearly, critiques several other scholars' definitions, and traces the powerful influence of geography upon the phenomenon. It identifies two coalitions of subcultures in America which respectively tend toward isolationism and interventionism. These coalitions compete with each other for dominance, alternately winning or losing depending on the degree of success of the national security elite in rallying normally isolationist subcultures around efforts to cope with international crises which the elite, for geostrategic reasons, has either provoked or misrepresented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study focusing on how crises affect stakeholders by creating anger and negative word-of-mouth that can hinder purchases of products, a relationship the authors call the negative communication dynamic. Crises can affect a company's reputation, leading company personnel to track word-of-mouth through social media. Some companies may deny a crisis is taking place, express sympathy for those affected or seek scapegoats to deflect responsibility. The authors propose that anger is a mediator between crises and negative publicity. The study involved exposing participants to a news story regarding an explosion at the company Marcus Oil. The study will give crisis managers indicators to determine levels of crisis responsibility and management strategies.

This paper focuses on the disruptive situation provoked by the hospitalization of a member of the family due to sudden illnesses or accidents, requiring a coping reaction on the part of the family. We present results referring to six families that faced this situation, obtained through in-depth interviews with a member of the family. Firstly the families and the situations are characterized, and the coping strategies identified in each case are described. The analysis of the strategies is then presented, through the identification of differences and similarities between the cases. In every case there is the reorganization of the family in response to the event and to the resulting demands; coping strategies varied, but social support was always present. Some questions for future studies and for the preparation of health professionals are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the global economy, workers are increasingly expected to cultivate an unprecedented repertoire of abilities in an immaterial world of work. This signifies a limited shift in capitalist expansion in the post-Fordist world in relation to workers' employability therein. A model of worker subjectivity was introduced into Western management and psychology discourse surrounding employability in the 1960s and 1970s. In a developed, post-industrial global economy, management has begun to view workers less as cogs in the wheel or less as rational and predictable entities than as dynamic individuals with the capacity for symbolic reasoning, intelligence, independently generated ideas, and even the desire to work for the sake of self-fulfilment! The Fordist workplace was expected to become a distant memory and organisations were to become “learning organisations” rather than the hierarchical, Dickensian workfloors of the manufacturing age. Nevertheless, rather than offering freedom from the iron cage of capitalism, workers face a contemporary form of coercion that substitutes political representation with a set of expectations and limitations intended, ironically, to result in workplace emancipation. Emphasis on employability of individuals through workers' creation of self-woven safety nets demonstrates an elite-led project to reduce government responsibility for employment welfare. In order to make this claim, the article looks at the case of education policy in South Korea after the economic crisis of 1997. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the divergence of policies among the Allies toward German films and filmmakers. Discussions on the cultural histories intersect the institutional history of early DEFA films; Policy of antifascism; Demonstration of social crisis in generational and gender roles in the film.

Discusses the dynamics of crisis on individuals and offers intervention techniques to help employees who are experiencing crises. Historical perspective on understanding crisis; Definition of crisis; Information on crisis continuum; Phases of crisis intervention.

The article offers information on the movement to combat food crisis. After 25 years, humanitarian agencies have realized that tackling the risk of disasters is an approach to prevent drought and flood that cause famine. ActionAid, an international aid agency, elaborated the dramatic progress produced when countries translated the right to food into concrete actions, like investing in poor farmers, and bringing in basic measures to protect the vulnerable.