An integrated crisis communication framework for strategic crisis communication with the media: A case study on a financial services provider

Abstract

In order for organisations to survive in an ever-changing milieu in the current business environment, sufficient crisis communication and management practices need to be in place. Despite this, organisational crises are often inefficiently managed, which could be ascribed to the lack of strategic management of crises (Kash & Darling 1998: 180). This article explores the lack of strategic crisis communication processes to ensure effective crisis communication with the media as stakeholder group. It is based on the premise that the media are one of the main influencers of public opinion (Pollard & Hotho 2006: 725), thereby necessitating the need for the accurate distribution of information. Furthermore, the study focuses specifically on the financial industry, which is arguably more sensitive and thus more prone to media reporting because financial services providers manage people's money (Squier 2009). A strategic crisis communication process with the media is therefore proposed, facilitated through an integrated crisis communication framework, proposing a combination of integrated communication (IC) literature, with emphasis on Grunig's theory of communication excellence, to build sustainable media relationships through two-way communication; and a crisis communication process that has proactive, reactive and post-evaluative crisis communication stages, thereby moving away from seeing crisis communication as a predominantly reactive function.     

New Event Data in Conflict Research

This paper first presents an overview of data on 390 international crises, which incorporate 826 foreign policy crises, from the end of 1918 to the end of 1988.

A set of crisis profiles is then constructed for the two superpowers of the post‐World War II era, and for three regional systems, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The data on international crises are presented in terms of a common format for the regional profiles, with slight modifications for the superpowers, in order to facilitate comparisons: time and space; duration; onset; threat; behavior; severity of violence; US/USSR activity; global organization involvement; and outcome. Within these categories, distributions are noted for each of the polarity structures—multipolarity (1918–39), bipolarity (1945–62), and polycentrism (1963–1988). Thereafter, comparisons are made between US and USSR crises (after World War II), and among the three regional profiles.

The central thrust of the findings from these profiles is clear: they focus attention on the dual characteristics of twentieth century crises, their pervasiveness and diversity. These traits, in turn, make much more difficult the task of constructing a theory that provides a systematic explanation of interstate crisis from onset to termination. Complex reality imposes an intolerable burden on the search for necessary and sufficient conditions of crisis. In positive terms, it leads to a shift in focus, from ‘necessary and sufficient’ to the “most likely” conditions as the most credible path to theory.     

Power,resolve and bargaining in international crises: A spatial theory

In this paper the spatial model of crisis bargaining is utilized to derive a number of hypotheses relating the relative power and resolve of crisis participants to crisis outcomes. The resolve and two power variables are defined and the manner in which they are incorporated into the model is demonstrated. The model, which represents a synthesis of traditional utility based bargaining models and the spatial theory of voting, is then used to establish the theoretical linkages among these variables and all possible outcomes of international crises. Among the more interesting results is that crises in which one party is much more likely to win a war should one occur and the other party is much more resolved are extremely likely to end in war. The paper concludes with a discussion of the relevance of these findings to a number of topics in the international relations literature, including Schelling's strategy of commitment.     

The Common Security and Defence Policy as an act of American hegemony

Abstract

The financial crisis endangers the security of NATO's members and partners. As such, NATO has a formal obligation to mobilize its resources to aid members in overcoming current economic challenges. NATO can play a valuable role on three levels. First, NATO can aid members in rationalizing their military procurement and manpower systems, thus reducing the fiscal burden of maintaining adequate defenses. Second, NATO can press the ECB and the EU to modify arrangements governing the Euro so as to minimize the risk that EMU will collapse. Finally, NATO has a “soft power” role in vigorously defending the liberal economic order and democratic political institutions of the Western Alliance from the ideological attacks that inevitably follow financial crises.     

Online crisis communication response: A case study of fraudulent banking transactions in South Africa

Abstract

The emergence and advancement of information technology – specifically the replacement of face-toface services with innovative self-service technology, such as banking transactions on the Internet – is forcing companies to adopt a proactive approach to online crisis communication response, and to combine the management and control of online messages during a crisis. In the financial services industry, deregulation and the rapid growth in technology have removed entry barriers in the online environment, forcing financial institutions to transform from the traditional brick-and-mortar to click-and-mortar service delivery, while at the same time allaying customers’ fears (and the perceived risk) of fraudulent online transactions. Although studies have been conducted on the adoption, use, perceived risk and purchase intention of self-service technology, limited research has examined the knowledge management of an online crisis communication response. Knowledge management, which focuses on the acquisition, transfer and assimilation of information, is one way in which to manage messages effectively before, during and after an online crisis communication response situation. The main aim of this article is to identify and characterise typologies of the management and control of messages in an online crisis communication response, through an interpretative and critical analysis of fraudulent websites, based on the main premises of the knowledge management approach. This is done through a case study approach: the website of one of the top ten banks in South Africa was studied in terms of it dealt with fraudulent banking transactions, specifically from the knowledge management paradigm.     

Fit for what? Towards explaining Battlegroup inaction

Abstract

The thrust of this paper concerns the case of the European Battlegroup (BG) non-deployment in late 2008, when the United Nations requested European military support for the United Nations Organisation Mission peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The argument is built on the fact that when, in official documents, the EU approaches the European security and ESDP/CSDP's military crisis management policy and interventions, it makes strong references to the United Nations and the UN Charter Chapter VII's mandate of restoring international peace and security. Such references make it seem that supporting the UN when it deals with threats and crises is a primary concern of the EU and the member states. These allusions lead to the main contention of this paper, that there is much ambivalence in these indications. The paper develops its argument from one key hypothesis; namely, that the non-deployment of a European BG in the DRC, at the end of 2008, constitutes a useful case study for detecting a number of ambiguities of the EU in respect of its declarations in the official documents establishing the European military crisis management intervention structure.     

The evolution of the European Union’s failed approach to Afghanistan

ABSTRACT

This article provides a genealogical account of European actorness in Afghanistan. It argues that European agreement towards facilitating modernisation and development in Afghanistan was initiated with aid and trade, evolving into humanitarianism in the 1990s, and reconstruction and democratisation in the 2000s. The European Union has had a positive impact on Afghanistan, focusing on humanitarianism, but its multilateral and programme level approach to reconstruction and democratisation has failed to meet the EU’s stated objectives. By promoting the flawed “Bonn Model”, the EU is proportionally culpable for failed international attempts to reconstruct Afghanistan; even though the United States has been the primary international actor. Drawing a series of broader lessons, such as tensions between Atlantic solidarity and European integration, and the limitations of the European crisis management, the article demonstrates how European policy has been shaped by crises inside Afghanistan and the larger geopolitical crises these have generated. These have contemporary importance as history suggests that as the US withdraws its commitment to Afghanistan, the EU will have a very significant role in attempting to fill a humanitarian vacuum.     

Responses to Financial Crises: An Evolutionary Perspective

As the world currently faces the ever-deepening sub-prime crisis, we are reminded that the process of globalisation can cause significant disruptions in global markets and political systems. This article focuses on the evolution of financial crisis responses to gain a better understanding of the dynamics affecting current responses. By using a focused comparison of case studies it argues that the development of crisis response and the dominance of the current multilateral actors is a result of an evolutionary process. This process privileges learning and innovation within a complex political economic system. The crises of each era, born of many of the same problems, generate a variety of responding actors, a few of which are adopted. These actors help to address the immediate problems and even work well for a while. Eventually, they are overwhelmed by the tendency of financial interactions to grow. Another set of crises generates another round of actors and mechanisms. As time goes on, crisis response requires more formal institutions that can deal with more complex systems. The article concludes that response actors are becoming more public, multilateral and global in scope. Understanding this pattern of response should help to shed light on the potential for reform of the financial architecture and help to explain the dominance of multilateralism as a crisis response.     

The tyranny of distance: Redefining relevant dyads

A variety of definitions of “crisis” plague the study of international crisis. The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate the reasons for the divergence and a possible solution to the problem.

Definitions of “crisis” tend to incorporate a variety of elements. Some focus on the micro‐level of decisionmakers in particular countries; others look at the macro‐level of international system change; still other definitions are multi‐level, incorporating both micro‐ and macro‐components. A second set of differences is rooted in metaphysical assumptions. Some definitions look at “crisis” as something recognized by the mind of the individual, a perceptual process that is basically mental; other definitions, which tend to equate “crisis” with “stress,” assume that “crisis” is a physical phenomenon that can be measured by information flows, physiological tensions, or other objective observable behavior. A dualist approach insists that “crisis” is simultaneously physical and nonphysical is also evident in the literature. A third aspect of “crisis” definitions is whether the researcher seeks to stipulate an arbitrary meaning for the term on the basis of supposed self‐evident logic or whether data are collected prior to an effort to define the term; this is the familiar distinction between rationalism and empiricism, with facet theory as an approach that combines elements of both approaches.

Various approaches attempt to test theories of “crisis” with definitions determined by their metaphysical foundations. The models identified are as follows: hostile interaction, individual stress, physiological overload, organizational response, and cost calculation. Findings based on various empirical tests of the theories show that there is very little agreement in the literature on variables associated with “crisis”; more often than not, if a variable is linked with “crisis” positively in one study, the same variable is either linked negatively or has no correlation with “crisis” in a second study. The source of the empirical divergence may be that the various studies sample different cases—or differing definitions may account for the lack of consensus in the field.

The paper concludes by urging that research on international crisis should be absorbed into larger theoretical concerns that focus on the objectives motivating the studies, as this appears to be one way to maintain definitional uniformity. Studies on crisis anticipation and crisis management should be viewed as efforts at war prevention. Studies on crisis management, which aim to reduce foreign policy fiascoes should be conceived in terms of foreign policy management. Findings of such studies can then be appraised in terms of the goals they seek.     

The Blockade on Qatar: Conflict Management Failings

ABSTRACT

Current tensions in the Gulf region highlight the persistence of crises and conflict. A number of states within the area now regularly engage in interventionist actions that challenge previously held norms of sovereignty and non-intervention. Fragmentation characterises what were once considered fairly robust structures of unity and enduring regional organisation. Theoretical norms that presuppose non-intervention are tested by new forms of coercion and interventionism among Gulf actors that exacerbate rather than resolve security dilemmas. In turn, this highlights the inadequacies of normative models of conflict management and resolution, and in particular mediation. These developments are examined in the case of the blockade against Qatar instituted by Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in June 2017.     

从坎昆会谈失败看WTO的制度性危机

世界贸易组织(WTO)的成立曾给世人带来无限的希望 ,人们期待各国之间的贸易磨擦和矛盾能够在WTO制度的多边贸易规则的框架内加以解决 ,也期望WTO能够通过其成员国间的磋商与谈判 ,不断进行内部制度创新 ,改革现有的多边贸易谈判规则 ,淘汰一些带有歧视性质的规则和协议 ,为成员间的贸易往来搭建一个更加科学、合理且人性化的平台 ,从而在更大的范围内促进国际贸易朝着自由化、健康化的方向发展。然而 ,自WTO取代GATT成立以来将近10年的时间里 ,人们看到的是WTO内的争吵、磨擦、相互指责及诸多方面的不协调。显然 ,善良的愿望无法取…     

Threat and alignment behavior

Alliance formation and termination are examined in the context of the impact of international threats on efforts to enhance national security. Threats against allies are shown to provide diagnostic information about the prospects that a state will be threatened. This diagnostic information is shown to lead to more sucessful national security‐enhancing actions than do threats against the state itself. The theoretical foundation on which the analysis is based is an expected utility approach to conflict decision making. The empirical domain is the European system from 1816 to 1965.     

应对金融危机:从比较中看俄罗斯经济的转型与发展

1998年和2008年的两次金融危机俄罗斯都没能幸免。两次危机中,虽然诱因不同,但俄罗斯均表现出了股市下挫、银行遭遇流动性危机、卢布贬值等特征。就危机前的宏观经济背景而言,两次危机期间都发生了国际原油价格的大幅下挫,但石油价格下降的原因、幅度及其对俄罗斯造成的影响却有所不同;两次危机都使俄罗斯受负债拖累,但1998年以主权债务为主,而2008年以企业债为主。从根本上来讲,两次危机都暴露出了俄罗斯"依靠油气收益和外国低息贷款来发展经济"的致命弱点,并且显示出近十年的经济转型与发展尚未从根本上改变其经济结构和发展模式。通过两次危机的对比,也再次证明市场经验不足的转型与发展中国家一定要慎重对待金融的开放与自由化。     

Symbolic reflections of the environmental crisis: Some International Implications

In the present age of burgeoning population growth, world‐wide famine, worsening energy crises, and natural resource depletion, two realizations have become evident: the earth's resources are finite; and the world community is very interdependent. This finity, the interrelatedness, and their implications for the global environment can be studied by using three models: (1) the environmental crisis model, depicting the impact linkages between crisis areas; (2) an international feedback model, illustrating possible repercussions on the international political system if restorative‐preventive environmental measures are procrastinated; and (3) the United Nations machinery model, setting out the functional apparatus designed to deal with the eco‐crisis on a global scale.

We have reached an environmental cross‐roads‐a time for deliberate decision‐making and policy implementation. We must accomplish a readjustment of social, economic, and technical priorities and perspectives‐in short, a functional approach where national governments and international organizations act in concert to restore and safeguard the human environment.     

The impact of election frequency and crises upon the arms race

This paper examines the impact of election frequency and crises upon the arms race via the computer simulation introduced in Dacey and Pendegraft (1988). We answer two basic questions. First, in an arms race are there advantages to holding elections frequently (i.e., on a short interval) as opposed to infrequently (i.e., on a long interval)? Second, do crises have an influence on the outcome of arms races, and if so, how?

The answers to these questions are straightforward. For the first question, we find that in round‐robin tournament play (i.e., traditional Axelrod‐type play) the advantage rests with the short election interval players, and in inter‐group play it rests with the long election interval players. For the second question we find that crises have a pronounced effect, and the size of the effect depends on the relationship between election frequency and the frequency with which losing players are removed from the tournament. [Key Words: Election frequency, Crises, Arms Race]     

Poland's political scapegoats

Abstract

General Jaruzelski's regime assists Moscow's polemical offensive against the West by claiming that Poland is a victim of political subversion. The imposition of martial law in December 1981 and the suppression of democracy are elaborately justified by Warsaw with reference to political foes conspiring to destroy socialism in the country. Four scapegoats are regularly attacked—domestic opposition, previous administrations, the West, and Polish society itself—in order to attain four objectives: self‐justification, diverting responsibility, crisis management, and ideological packaging. Propaganda campaigns against political scapegoats, and the implementation of policies to combat them, are important mechanisms for liquidating independent movements and extending government controls over society.     

Managing the 1986-87 Sino-Indian Sumdorong Chu Crisis

ABSTRACT

How did China and India manage to prevent the 1986-87 Sumdorong Chu Crisis from escalating into a war? I argue that it was a combination of changing geopolitical factors (Sino-Soviet rapprochement and the end of Soviet support for India in the context of Sino-Indian tensions) and military factors (conventional deterrence and perceptions of limited revisionism) that help explain crisis management. While these geopolitical and military factors helped avert immediate escalation, the crisis truly ended only after China and India sought a new modus vivendi during Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s landmark trip to China in December 1988. The absence of great power (Soviet) support meant that India had to make a costly signal to China in the form of Gandhi’s trip that happened during the 1987-89 cycle of protests in Tibet against Chinese rule. Nevertheless, Gandhi’s visit took place after India had demonstrated its military strength and resolve in its ability to defend the status quo on the border, and therefore should not be interpreted as a sign of weakness. In other words, I argue that successful deterrence requires broader foreign policy reorientation. At the same time, considerations of power (in the form of internal/external balancing) are central to strategic stability in the Sino-Indian dyad, and that any recourse to diplomacy that ignores the realities of military power is unlikely to be successful for crisis management.     

Regionalism in Crisis: GCC Integration without Democracy

ABSTRACT

At the core of “disembedded regionalism” in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is an incapacity to foster more representative forms of politics that are responsive to citizens. Instead, elite-to-elite relations are a salient feature that characterises Gulf politics. A radical re-reading of Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls, applied to the GCC in the first two decades of the 21st century, confirms that top-down management of politics is conducive to conflict and disintegration as against integration, marginalising the agenda of multi-level governance within the subregion. Set against the backdrop of the current blockade/crisis, this critical rendition throws into sharp relief the non-democratic brand of GCC regionalism.     

China’s response to the global financial crisis and its regional leadership in East Asia

This paper examines the role of China in the G20 and in East Asia in crafting appropriate responses and policies to the global financial crisis. Did China play an important part in the multilateralisation of the Chiang Mai Initiative, and how did China work with other players in East Asia to ‘inoculate’ East Asia against contagion and fallout from the crisis? The paper evaluates the type of leadership displayed by China and the decisions taken during the crisis. It assesses how the Chinese role in its own region and within global institutions such as the G20 would change in the aftermath of these crises.