THE CRISIS MITIGATION PROCESS:
BUILDING CRISIS CHAPTER 3
RESISTANT ORGANIZATIONS
MAIN CONTENT
Observe: Finding Red Flags
Orient: Collect the Information
Orient: Analyze the Information
Decide and Act: Take Preventive Action
Evaluate the Effectiveness of the Threat Reduction
Paracrises: A Review of Action and Evaluation
LEARNING OUTCOME
LO1: Identify organisational, industrial and environmental challenges and
disasters
LO2: Demonstrate an understanding of the concepts, theories and practice of
issues management and crisis communication
LO3: Analyse and develop strategies for organisational issues using the theories,
models and methods of issues management and crisis communication
LO5: Develop a critical attitude towards crisis communications management
LO6: Identify and apply ethical standards of practice when dealing with issues
management and crisis communication
OVERVIEW
Impossible to make an organization completely immune from all
crises
“crisis resistant” instead of “crisis proofing”
Crisis Mitigation:
lessen the occurrence or the effects of a crisis
take actions designed to eliminate a crisis threat or to reduce
the likelihood of the threat manifesting into a crisis
about finding and responding to red flags
OBSERVE: FINDING RED FLAGS
Observing involves understanding:
where to look for crisis risks
the most challenging aspect
sources of risk: both external and
internal to the organization
how to collect the information
OBSERVE: FINDING RED FLAGS
External risks:
Environmental scanning:
popular tool in issues management; focuses on external risks
watching and listening to the environment for changes, trends,
events, and emerging social, political, or health issues
crisis managers must consider the sources involved that would
be helpful in locating warning signs
OBSERVE: FINDING RED FLAGS
External sources - Issues management:
Media:
Traditional news media
Digital channels and platforms found online
Case studies/information about crises in similar organizations:
valuable resource for crisis managers
allowing crisis teams to learn from someone else’s crisis
OBSERVE: FINDING RED FLAGS
External sources:
Media – News:
Leading or elite
newspapers
News and business
magazines
Television news
programs (including
TV news magazines) Image source: Hashmeta
OBSERVE: FINDING RED FLAGS
External sources:
Media - Other useful sources:
Trade outlets
Trade journals, other publications, blogs, websites
Medical or scientific journals and websites
Newsletters (include reports published by special interest groups,
foundations, and government agencies)
Public opinion surveys
OBSERVE: FINDING RED FLAGS
External sources:
Individuals:
Public opinion experts
The organization’s own stakeholders
Activists
Influencers
examining the digital communication channels and platforms
OBSERVE: FINDING RED FLAGS
External sources:
Digital communication channels and platforms:
Discussion groups Content-sharing sites
Message boards and forums Aggregators
Web pages Social bookmarking sites
Dedicated complaint sites Social networking sites
Blogs, microblogs etc
OBSERVE: FINDING RED FLAGS
External sources:
Digital communication channels and platforms:
more than a source of risk: used to anticipate and respond to
potential problems/ possibly avoid emerging problems
serve as a dual information source: access information also found in
print or broadcast form; collect information unique to social media
Dashboard: a technique for simplifying data reporting by displaying
a small number of important summary measures together in one
location
OBSERVE: FINDING RED FLAGS
Internal sources - Risk management:
Total quality management
Environmental crisis exposure
Legal compliance audits
Financial audits
Personnel and the organizational
culture Image source: Hayco’s Official Website
OBSERVE: FINDING RED FLAGS
Internal sources - Risk management:
Traditional insurance coverage
liability exposure
criminal exposure
worker compensation exposure
Natural disaster exposure
2020 Central Vietnam floods
Image source: [Link]
OBSERVE: FINDING RED FLAGS
Internal sources - Risk management:
Safety, maintenance, and accident records
Product-tampering monitoring
Employee use of digital channels and platforms, and email
Behavior profiling
Ethical climate surveys
OBSERVE: FINDING RED FLAGS
Sources for Reputation monitoring:
Shareholder resolutions
Stakeholder complaints and inquires
Table 3.1
DISCUSSION
1. Why should managers bother identifying red flags?
2. Does it make sense to distinguish between traditional websites
and social media, or should we treat all online communication
channels and platforms the same?
ORIENT: COLLECT THE INFORMATION
Most frequently used collection tools:
Interviews
Data scrapping or harvesting
Focus groups (extracting data from digital channels and
platforms)
Informal contacts Surveys
ORIENT: COLLECT THE INFORMATION
Soliciting information from stakeholders:
Construct a stakeholder map that lists all possible stakeholders
Identify the stakeholders relevant to the most highly ranked crises
Use interviews, surveys, focus groups, or key contacts to collect
information from stakeholders
ORIENT: ANALYZE THE INFORMATION
Information analysis:
determine whether collected information contains crisis risks
the process of understanding if and how a warning sign might
impact the organization
ORIENT: ANALYZE THE INFORMATION
Content analysis:
the systematic coding and classification of written materials
converts the written information into quantifiable data - the words
become numbers that can be analyzed using statistics
requires the development of coding categories and expertise in
using the categories
ORIENT: ANALYZE THE INFORMATION
Content analysis:
Coding categories:
boxes in which discrete pieces of information are placed
must be mutually exclusive
each category needs a thorough written definition that indicates
what is appropriate for it
ORIENT: ANALYZE THE INFORMATION
Content analysis:
Coders:
must be trained
must be able to place similar messages in the same categories
reliability:
• allows different people to code messages consistently
• allows for comparisons of the coded data
ORIENT: ANALYZE THE INFORMATION
Content analysis:
Examples:
Organizations establish categories for accidents and safety
violations
Organizations develop categories for coding customer complaints
know the type and frequency of different varieties of complaints
ORIENT: ANALYZE THE INFORMATION
Computer-based content analysis:
Help identify key words, sentiment, and frames in crisis messages
Key words can be indicators of a risk or crisis
Sentiment analysis indicates if the messages are positive or
negative for an organization
Content of the messages
ORIENT: ANALYZE THE INFORMATION
Data analysis - Other metrics:
Total mentions: aggregate of mentions about an organization or
product
Total impressions: potential audience reached by the messages
Duration of the digital discussion
ORIENT: ANALYZE THE INFORMATION
Threat assessment analysis:
Crisis Threat = Likelihood x Organizational Impact x Stakeholder Impact
(Score: 1 – lowest; 10 – highest)
Likelihood: the probability that a threat will become a crisis
Impact: the effect the crisis can have on stakeholders and organization
ORIENT: ANALYZE THE INFORMATION
Threat assessment analysis:
Likelihood Impact
the probability of an issue how strongly the issue can affect
For issues gaining momentum profits, reputations, or operations
the probability that the risk can how much the event might impact
For risks or will become an event the organization and its stakeholders
For
reputation evaluation is not as clearly developed; a little more complex
ORIENT: ANALYZE THE INFORMATION
Threat assessment analysis - For reputation:
Before evaluating: determine if an expectation gap exists
identify the expectations held by each major stakeholder group
determine whether the stakeholders perceive the organization as
meeting those expectations
search for gaps
ORIENT: ANALYZE THE INFORMATION
Figure 3.1 Expectation Gaps
ORIENT: ANALYZE THE INFORMATION
Threat assessment analysis - For reputation:
Determine the likelihood and impact of an expectations gap:
examine the salience of the stakeholder involved
stakeholder’s importance to the organization
a function of power, legitimacy, and willingness
ORIENT: ANALYZE THE INFORMATION
Salience of the stakeholder:
Power:
ability of the stakeholder to get stakeholders who control
the organization to do something essential resources or can form
it would not do otherwise coalitions have strong power
relates to the stakeholder’s enhanced by the ability to take
ability to disrupt organizational action against the organization
operations
ORIENT: ANALYZE THE INFORMATION
Salience of the stakeholder:
Legitimacy:
refers to actions that are ignoring a legitimate concern
considered desirable, proper, or makes the organization appear
appropriate according to some callous to other stakeholders
system crisis managers should
a stakeholder concern is more determine whether other
serious when it is deemed stakeholders will view the
legitimate by other stakeholders concern as legitimate
ORIENT: ANALYZE THE INFORMATION
Salience of the stakeholder:
Willingness:
stakeholders’ desire to confront the organization about the problem
a problem must be important for them, and their relationship to the
organization must be relatively weak
ORIENT: ANALYZE THE INFORMATION
Salience of the stakeholder:
Translated into impact and likelihood:
High power and legitimacy a strong impact
Legitimacy and willingness strong likelihood of occurrence
DISCUSSION
1. How is social media changing crisis prevention efforts?
2. What recommendations would you make to a small
organization about how best to monitor the online environment?
CRISIS-SENSING MECHANISM
Formed by the first three steps in crisis prevention
A systematic means of collecting crisis risk information
Built on 3 points:
locating the source of crisis risk information
funneling the information to a central location
making sure the information is analyzed - converted into knowledge
CRISIS-SENSING MECHANISM
Can be viewed as knowledge management
a means of finding the knowledge an organization needs
attempts to create a repository of warning sign knowledge by
locating, collating, and analyzing the crisis risk information or
existing crisis knowledge
DECIDE AND ACT:
TAKE PREVENTIVE ACTION
Determine whether to take action
Determine what actions to take on the serious threat:
Monitoring: following the development of the warning signs
Diffusing: actions create changes that eliminate or reduce the
likelihood of a warning sign becoming a crisis
EVALUATE THE EFFECTIVENESS
OF THE THREAT REDUCTION
Evaluation monitors the threat to determine whether the action taken
to address it had any effect:
reduce or eliminate the chance of a crisis
produce no results
may intensify the warning signs or risks, thereby moving an
organization closer to a crisis
Never assume any change is for the better
EVALUATE THE EFFECTIVENESS
OF THE THREAT REDUCTION
Monitoring: a regular review of any changes designed to reduce
warning signs
The review determines:
effectiveness of the changes
whether any additional modifications are warranted
EVALUATE THE EFFECTIVENESS
OF THE THREAT REDUCTION
Evaluating issues management:
depends on the goals of the issues management effort
determining how close the final action taken on the issue was to
the desired outcome for the issue
considering if there are still groups actively seeking to manage
the issue
EVALUATE THE EFFECTIVENESS
OF THE THREAT REDUCTION
Evaluating risk management (risk aversion):
an ongoing concern
conducting periodic reviews of the risk to determine the effectiveness
of the risk aversion program
compare the level of risk before and after the risk aversion program
is implemented
whether the program works over time
asking the disgruntled stakeholders if the resolution was satisfactory
EVALUATE THE EFFECTIVENESS
OF THE THREAT REDUCTION
Success in closing an expectation gap:
determined by whether stakeholders perceive the organization as
meeting expectations
organization and stakeholders must co-create meaning: share a
similar interpretation of the organization’s performance on the
desired expectations
evaluated by using surveys:
assess stakeholder perceptions of expectation performance before
and after efforts are initiated to close the gap
PARACRISES: A REVIEW OF ACTION
AND EVALUATION
Challenge:
occurs when stakeholders
publicly claim an organization is
acting in an irresponsible manner
a common form of paracrisis
Image source: Huddersfield Greenpeace
PARACRISES: A REVIEW OF ACTION
AND EVALUATION
Confronted with a challenge paracrisis:
should the organization address the challenge?
how should the organization respond to the challenge?
refusal recognition/reception
refutation revision
repression reform
PARACRISES: A REVIEW OF ACTION
AND EVALUATION
Confronted with a challenge paracrisis:
Respond option selection depends on:
how powerful/threatening the challengers appear
the cost of the changes
how consistent the change is with the organization's strategy
PARACRISES: A REVIEW OF ACTION
AND EVALUATION
Challengers provide a means of assessing the effectiveness of the
paracrisis response in reducing the threat:
Challengers end the challenge
the threat is reduced
Challengers escalate the challenge and successfully recruit other
stakeholders to view the organization as irresponsible
the threat reduction has failed
CONCLUSION
A crisis prevention program: a valuable part of the crisis
management process.
The single best way to avoid a crisis is to listen carefully to your
audiences and respond to threats before they get out of hand.
Prevention is not as easy as it sounds.
An organization cannot count on avoiding all crises. Hence, the
need remains for crisis preparation, which is the subject of
Chapters 4 and 5.
DISCUSSION
1. What barriers do you see to organizations taking preventative
measures? How might they be overcome?
2. What are some organizational barriers to creating a crisis-sensing
mechanism? How might you overcome those barriers?
3. Why is it useful to include impact evaluations for both
stakeholders and organizations?
4. Why could you consider paracrises both risks and opportunities?
NEXT CHAPTER
Chapter 4
CRISIS PREPARING: PART I
