The strategic model of organizational crisis communication : an investigation of the relationships between crisis type, industry, and communicative strategies used during crises

For organizations crises are pervasive, difficult to keep quiet, challenging, unexpected, and can be catastrophic. Since the late 1970s, there has been a breadth of research focusing on crisis communication strategies. However, while our knowledge of what crisis response strategies exist and are used is broad, there is a dearth of research and analysis emphasizing relationships between response strategies, the influence of situation and organization, and outcomes. The present research proposes a Situational Model of Crisis Communication and begins to test the model in a cross-sectional sample of crises between November, 2004 and December, 2005 by focusing on the influence of type of organization and type of crisis on the message components of crisis response strategy and invocation of organizational culture. Findings indicate that organization and crisis type strongly influence message components, the invocation of organizational culture is an important component in crisis response messages and that the use of crisis response strategies emerges into eight particular approaches to crisis response in contemporary organizations.