This paper explores the unique challenges of university leadership when planning and aligning communications and activities before, during, and after crises. We examined the three stages of a crisis and the unpredictable nature of large‐scale crises, including natural or man‐made disasters, that threaten people and structures. Compiled data exposed the frequency and complexity of critical events emphasizing the urgent need for attention and action. Case studies informed primarily by the literature, and a personal interview with a crisis strategist, detail specific alignment challenges and recommend a holistic crisis management system for university leadership to implement that addresses planning, response, and recovery. Consequences of misalignment include loss of message control, rumourmongering, prolonged disruption of operations, and the likelihood of reputational damage.
This article argues that decision making is a discrete social driver that can be associated with the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Limpopo province in South Africa. The authors argue that complexity science can inform future research and interventions by presenting two decision making frameworks arising out of complexity science that have the potential to enable young people to better negotiate decision-making contexts whilst simultaneously opening spaces of dialogue that can mitigate the impact of HIV-risk in specific, punctuated contexts. The methodological design was prompted by findings from youth-oriented community engagement projects that include Communication Conversations and Sex & Relationships Education. The proposed methods have the potential to exploit the phenomenon of leadership emergence as a product of decision making at critical moments. This has the potential to promote the growth of home-grown leadership skill sets that make sense to young people and to enable them better manage their own health, thus reducing risk and vulnerability to HIV infection and sexual violence.
This dissertation is dedicated to my parents and my husband for their unwavering support, interest in my work, and faith in my ability. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It was an honor to work with a supportive committee from Walden University. Dr. Teresa Lao, my committee chairperson and mentor for almost 3 years leading to my final dissertation has guided me with strength, pushing me to reach higher levels of thinking and writing. Dr. David Banner provided great insight and direction serving as my assessor during a portion of my coursework and as the dissertation committee member who assessed the content of this work. I would like to acknowledge Dr. Thea Singer who served on my dissertation committee as the methods evaluator. I would also like to acknowledge the patience and commitment to scholarship shown by the Crumb Library staff at the State University of New York at Potsdam.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.