Toward an Understanding of When Executives See Crisis as Opportunity

Abstract

Whereas it has long been noted that crises may be sources of opportunity for organizations and their constituents, relatively little is known about the conditions under which executives come to perceive crises as opportunity. The authors delineate some factors that affect the tendency of executives to adopt a "crisis as opportunity" mindset as well as the behavioral concomitants of their having done so. The analysis also includes a future research agenda, a consideration of some of the challenges in enacting that agenda, and a few suggested ways to overcome those challenges.

Moving Beyond Profit: Expanding Research to Better Understand Business Environmental Management

“…The analysis supports the notion that proactive environmental behavior is a mix of self-interest and social motivations, and that a more complete understanding of such behaviors requires taking both motivations and morality into account. In a discussion of how executives respond to crisis, Brockner and James, 2008 [123] note that the more attainable the objective and the more potential value that is perceived, the more likely managers are to perceive opportunities associated with proactive behavior. However, perceived attainability also depends on learning capacity and controllability, which vary by individual and organization.…”

Measuring the Efficacy of Leaders to Assess Information and Make Decisions in a Crisis: The C-LEAD Scale

“…Those individuals with high levels of certain types of cognitive characteristics, such as learning goal orientation, intelligence, and divergent thinking, may be more successful at performing these tasks in a crisis, especially if they believe strongly in their efficacy to do so (Brockner & James, 2008;Dweck, 1990;Gibson, Folley, & Park, 2009;Sternberg & Kaufman, 1998;Wood & Bandura, 1989) Learning goal orientation. The orientation of a leader toward learning will influence how they process information and make decisions in a crisis.…”

“…Learning goal orientation is an C-LEAD Scale 11 individual trait that reflects being motivated to focus on task mastery for the sake of learning and growing; it is often contrasted to a performance goal orientation that reflects being motivated to demonstrate that one is competent in reference to an external comparison (Dweck, 1990;Hofmann, 1993). With a learning goal orientation, leaders are more open-minded, exploratory and are more adaptive in their response to adverse conditions, which is important for crisis decision making (Brockner & James, 2008;Cron, Slocum, VandeWalle, & Fu, 2005;Dweck, 1990). For example, when perceiving a threat, the level of learning goal orientation may contribute to whether the leaders will be open to learning about the situation before making a decision (Brockner & James, 2008;Button, Mathieu, & Zajac, 1996).…”

“…With a learning goal orientation, leaders are more open-minded, exploratory and are more adaptive in their response to adverse conditions, which is important for crisis decision making (Brockner & James, 2008;Cron, Slocum, VandeWalle, & Fu, 2005;Dweck, 1990). For example, when perceiving a threat, the level of learning goal orientation may contribute to whether the leaders will be open to learning about the situation before making a decision (Brockner & James, 2008;Button, Mathieu, & Zajac, 1996). In general, a learning goal orientation is associated with cognitive experimentation or flexibility, which could allow for more successful crisis resolution (Davis, Mero, & Goodman, 2007).…”

Learning From Catastrophes and Leadership Thought

“…Leadership is a process of interaction between the leader and members of a group (Aydın, 2000) (Erdoğan, 2000). Crisis leadership requires qualities like an integration of competences, abilities and manners that enable a leader to design for, respond to, and learn from catastrophic situations (Brockner & James, 2008) (James & Wooten, 2005). There is an increasing understanding in the relationship between the importance of leadership and catastrophe.…”