Beyond contingency planning: towards a model of crisis management

Abstract

This paper reviews the central contributions to the crisis management liter ature, addresses its various dimensions and details the major phases within which crises occur. The paper seeks to develop a schematic model for crises and concludes by advocating that management needs to acknowledge the lim itations of its contingency planning in order to allow for more effective deci sion making. The model suggests that there are three phases within a crisis: the precipitation phase in which the potential for a crisis is created, the operational phase of the crisis, and the post-crisis phase. The resultant model provides a framework for the subsequent analysis of crisis events.

Parameters for Crisis Communication

“…Fink is proposing a model of how crises develop. Smith (1990) developed a three step model of the crisis management process: (1) crisis management, a crisis incubates; (2) operational crisis, a trigger event occurs and first responders arrive; and (3) crisis of legitimization, a communicative response is provided, media and government become interested, and organizational learning occurs. There is a feedback loop from the crisis of legitimization to crisis management.…”

When organisational effectiveness fails

“…High profile failures, ranging from catastrophic technical or service failures (recent examples include the failure of the London Ambulance Service computer system and the hacking attack on TalkTalk) through to the collapse of a number of financial institutions in the 2008 banking crisis and the associated reputational failures, have been evaluated from a similarly broad, multi-disciplinary set of perspectives. The multi-disciplinary crisis management literature seeks to speak to the causal factors for such catastrophic events, as well as evaluating the task demands associated with the operational crisis and the post-crisis recovery period (Pearson & Clair, 1998;Smith, 1990Smith, , 1995. Much of that literature recognises the complexity referred to by Dekker in the opening quote and non-linear 2 behaviour within socio-technical systems is seen as a key element in shaping the ways that crises emerge.…”

“…There is also an inherent paradox here as well. Why should we expect those managers who led the organisation into crisis to have the necessary skills and capabilities that are necessary to manage the organisation out of that crisis (Smith, 1990(Smith, , 2000? If we see a crisis as a set of exceptional events, then there is an argument that it needs exceptional skills and capabilities to manage it.…”

“…They resulted from internal decisions and processes along with the presence of legacy issues within the decision time-line. The pre-crisis stage -termed a crisis of management (Smith, 1990(Smith, , 1995 -allows for vulnerabilities to be embedded in organisational routines and they arose out of issues relating to systems design and the generation of emergent conditions that invariably exist within complex sociotechnical systems. In addition, there are potential problems around the dominant mind-set that exists in organisations and which serves to shape the cultural paradigm through which decisions are taken (Fischbacher-Smith, 2012).…”

“…Crisis management can be seen to have a focus on the addressing the preconditions of a crisis as well as the operational stage of the event (Smith, 1990).…”