Managers, business owners, public relations practitioners, and others grapple daily with issues that have the potential to radically redefine the reputation of a person, company, or industry. They confront a fundamental question about contemporary crisis management: to what extent is it possible to control events and stakeholder responses to them, in order to contain escalating crises or safeguard an organization's reputation? In Crisis Management in a Complex World, authors Dawn Gilpin and Priscilla Murphy address this question head-on. Operating from a strong theoretical orientation, this book marks a sharp departure from other crisis management texts, which focus on nuts-and-bolts procedures and information distribution in an effort to simplify the turbulent reality of a crisis situation. Instead, this book pairs real-world examples from across the globe with theory-based analysis to show why simplification often fails to alleviate crises, and can even intensify them. Gilpin and Murphy propose a new, complexity-based approach to organizational learning that can allow organizations to adapt quickly to changing circumstances.
This volume addresses both scholars and high-level practitioners of public relations, organizational communication, and strategic management. Strongly cross-disciplinary, the book draws on theories from communication, the physical sciences, and business. It invites controversy and ultimately aims to change the way people conceptualize and prepare for crises.
Since the early 1980s, academics and scholars have devoted endless hours and pages to discussing crises These voices split roughly into two camps. One believes that careful planning, vigilance, and message strategy development can prevent and mitigate crisis damage. That logic is a consultant's delight because it is the rationale for billable hours. In Crisis Management in a Complex World, Gilpin and Murphy argue wisely for insights into a second approach, one that discusses crisis prevention and response by more accurately featuring the difficulties of complexity, uncertainty, and control. these authors demonstrate how confusion, unforeseen events, and missing information constitute the reality of crisis, and therefore demands focused flexibility in planning and responding. This insight advances both the academic insights into crisis and adds caution for practitioners.
