ems unit III case study

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UNIT III STUDY GUIDE

Organizational Response to Crisis,

Part I

Unit Learning Outcomes Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

1. Discuss the importance of having a media relations policy. 1.1 Describe the process of an organization develops legitimacy and the

steps to and importance of maintain legitimacy after a crisis. 1.2 Explain the process of discourse of renewal and discuss the impact

of its use in the outcome of crises. 1.3 Explain the elements of sense making and its benefits when used as

a response to a crisis. 3. Discuss the significance of how information is relayed and interpreted in

the media. 3.1 Describe the process of organizational learning and explain the

strengths and weaknesses. 3.2 Discuss the characteristics of the Situational Crisis Communication

Theory (SCCT) and explain the benefits of its use as an organization’s response to crisis.

3.3 Explain the elements of sense making and its benefits when used as a response to a crisis.

4. Differentiate among the types of media and information each may request. 4.1 Discuss the characteristics of the Situational Crisis Communication

Theory (SCCT) and explain the benefits of its use as an organization’s response to crisis.

4.2 Describe the process of organizational learning and explain the strengths and weaknesses.

4.3 Describe the process of an organization develops legitimacy and the steps to and importance of maintain legitimacy after a crisis.

Unit Lesson Introduction Often the effectiveness of an organization’s response to a crisis is not known until after the response has occurred and the crisis is over. A good review of the response is important in gaining feedback and in making organizational changes to ensure that similar events in the future do not cause significant issues. Organizational Learning When an organization reviews their response, gathers feedback from those involved, and then develops changes based on the feedback received, the organization has learned. When an organization recognizes and learns from their “failures,” they can both minimize the impact of future incidents, and also prevent future crises from occurring. The learning process is reliant on an organization’s movement through three stages.

Reading Assignment See information below

Key Terms 1. Legitimacy

2. Organizational

learning

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The first stage of organizational learning is experience. Experience may be either direct or indirect. Direct experience means that the crisis occurs to the organization, forcing them to confront the event (Sellnow & Seeger, 2013). They are able to receive feedback from their own personnel to learn and prevent future events from occurring. An organization does not have to directly experience the crisis, though, in order to learn from it. This is when indirect experience occurs. Indirect experience occurs when organization A observes organization B experience a crisis. Through their observations, organization A is able to review how they would respond to the same crisis and make changes to prevent that crisis from occurring to their organization. The second stage of organizational learning is meaningful change. Meaningful change is when errors in response are not only recognized by the organization, but shared with all involved. These errors help the organization develop recommendations for changes in procedure to assist in better response from the organization. Meaningful change also creates a change in the overall organizational attitude to ensure that the changes are implemented by all involved. Part of meaningful change is the potential for structural change. When organizational response is found to have been inadequate, there will be change in the leadership structure - normally through promotion/demotion or hiring/firing. This not only changes the structure of the organization, but also shows that the leadership is being held accountable for the failures in response. Additionally, attitudinal change is important in ensuring meaningful change. Attitudinal change focuses more on ensuring that the people in the organization embrace the structural and policy changes and become champions for the cause. This will ensure that they have a buy-in to crisis response in the future. The third stage of organizational learning is healing. Healing allows those involved in the crisis to move past it and focus on the future. As part of healing, organizations look for an explanation for why the crisis occurred. By looking for an explanation, organizations are able to review their processes and better understand their role in the crisis. Healing also involves forgetting. In order to move on, organizations must, to an extent, forget the trauma associated with the crisis in order to move forward. However, in that same breath, the organization must remember the incident. Instead of remembering it through the emotional response, members of the organization must reframe their memories to develop a “lessons learned” approach to the memories. Strengths and Weaknesses of Organizational Learning Organizations MUST change in order to survive. Change is based on learning from failures and applying those lessons to prevent failures in the future. Change as a result of organizational learning requires support of all those involved. Sensemaking By its nature, a crisis is a shock to all of those impacted and causes a momentary delay in response as responders recover from the initial shock. In order to clarify the impacts of the crisis and develop a response, some researchers believe that a retrospective view is used to respond. This occurs in three stages: enactment (action), selection (interpretation), and retention (learning). Within sensemaking a crisis is also referred to as a cosmology episode. That is, an organization experiences a momentary collapse of all logical expectations. Once this has occurred the organization utilizes sensemaking to assist the rebuilding process.

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Enactment The first stage of sensemaking is enactment. This stage is built on the premise that people will act in response to an event and those actions will have consequences, both positive and negative. These consequences shape the environment that organization must work in. In sensemaking, response is based both on the management of the impacts, as well as a constant analysis of the impact of the behaviors and the consequences of the behaviors. Selection Selection is the process in sensemaking that involves crisis managers interpreting the data, determining what lessons there are, and deciding what should be done next. Selection is a time to determine whether actions have had positive or negative consequences, and either continue with the actions or develop a plan for changes, based on the analysis. Retention When enactment and selection are complete, retention can begin. This stage is marked by the development of cause maps (Sellnow & Seeger, 2013). These maps are the new path that is engrained into the organizational memory to support new practices. These new practices assist in developing new response plans and interactions during the next event. Strengths and Weaknesses of Sensemaking: Sensemaking puts a significant focus on the importance of human perception of the response to a crisis. Recognizing that the way a crisis is interpreted by those who are experiencing it, sensemaking allows for the development of responses based on human perception and reaction to the crisis. One weakness is that any recommendations that arise through the process of sensemaking are generic, as the development of a step-by-step solution would go against the nature of the theory. So, even with the recommendations, additional work would need to be done to ensure proper enactment of the recommendations. Organizational Legitimacy In order for an organization to succeed and continue to thrive in society, the people who utilize or interact with the organization must view them as a legitimate source of information, product, or service. In order to have legitimacy, an organization must show that their activities, products, or services fall within social norms and are congruent with what they advertise. When an organization loses legitimacy they will often struggle to survive. The loss of legitimacy is viewed as a crisis for the organization. As an example, consider the 2011 story of the for-pay fire service in Tennessee that watched a house fire burn because the homeowners had not paid their subscription fee. The social expectation is that a fire department will fight fires. Because the expected behavior did not occur, a legitimacy gap formed.

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Legitimacy Gaps Legitimacy gaps occur when an organization fails to meet the standards and expectations set by society. When this occurs, communication becomes a major component in combating the crisis. The first communication that needs to occur is with the public that the organization serves. This communication serves as an explanation for the behavior. In the example regarding the organizational gap created with the fee-for-service fire service, the communication released by the organization may focus on a reminder of the explanation of the organization policies, expectations for fee payment and any options or alternatives that are available. Secondary to providing an explanation, the organization must also communicate potential solutions for the problem. In this scenario, potential solutions may be offering payment plans for those who aren’t financially able to pay the subscription, or developing mutual aid to assist with fires when the fee has not been paid. These communications show the public that the organization is willing to change and may assist in rebuilding the organization’s legitimacy. Actional Legitimacy There are instances where a crisis only threatens a portion of the legitimacy an organization has earned. This is referred to as actional legitimacy. Actional legitimacy is best described as an event where the policies or strategies of the organization threaten their reputation (Sellnow & Seeger, 2013). For instance, the policy to close a fire station due to staffing shortage may hurt the legitimacy of that fire department in that portion of the community. In order to rebuild the actional legitimacy the organization must acknowledge the problem, discuss the development of a solution, take steps that are visible to the public served, and maintain an ongoing commitment to ensure the problem does not happen again (Sellnow & Seeger, 2013). This acknowledgement of the problem and continued review of the organization’s actions assist in maintaining a positive image with the public. Strengths and Weaknesses of Organizational Legitimacy The use of organizational legitimacy to describe crisis response recognizes the importance of social impacts and organizational behaviors. The impact that society plays on an organization’s ability to recover from a crisis is a major factor in this theory. However, when major organizations that society relies on, such as oil companies or even fire departments, suffer gaps in organizational legitimacy, they may not necessarily suffer a decrease in use, as they are needed for society to function. The theory of organizational legitimacy does not necessarily account for these types of organizations. Situational Crisis Communication Theory Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) is another process that recognizes the importance of the public perception and approval of an organization as it responds to, and recovers from a crisis. However, unlike the organizational legitimacy theory, SCCT develops a step-by-step process for responding to the crisis to maintain the organization’s reputation. Researchers believe that SCCT relies on the attribution theory to assist in developing strategies. The attribution theory describes how we look at people’s behaviors to help explain the way they react (Sellnow & Seeger, 2013). However, the SCCT opens up the viewpoint to help explain how individual’s behaviors can also impact an organization.

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Response Strategies When crisis managers utilize SCCT for crisis response, they deal with three types of information. The first is instructing information. Instructional information provides information to the public on steps to take to protect themselves. This is the information that is shared immediately before, and immediately after a crisis occurs. The second type of information is adjusting information. This information provides an explanation of the what, when, where, why, and how of the event (Sellnow & Seeger, 2013). This information provides the public with the ability to begin to process the impacts and cope with the crisis. Once this information is shared, an organization can develop their response strategies. The SCCT offer four possible strategies for an organization’s response to a crisis. An organization may use more than one of these strategies to help them respond to, and recover from the impacts of the crisis. The first strategy is the denial strategy. In this strategy an organization attempts to separate themselves from all references to the crisis. In the second strategy, diminishment, an organization attempts to lessen their responsibility by proving that they had limited to no control over the development of the crisis. The third strategy is rebuilding. When using this strategy, an organization works to repair and improve their reputation. The final strategy is bolstering. The bolstering strategy provides an opportunity for the organization to not only rebuild their reputation, but also to create a positive connection between the organization and their stakeholders. Evaluating Reputational Threat Before they respond, an organization must believe that the crisis poses a threat to their reputation. Scholars believe that there are three factors that assist in the full assessment of the potential threats. These factors are crisis type, crisis history, and prior reputation. There are three crisis types to consider. The organization is either a victim of the crisis, responsible for the crisis through an accident, or responsible as the result of intentional actions. If the organization is the victim, then they may need to take less action in response to the crisis to maintain their reputation. The second two factors are: crisis history and prior reputation. An organization that has a history of other crises and/or has a poor reputation may require a more significant response to the crisis. Selecting a Crisis Response Strategy Once the assessment of threat is complete, SCCT provides thirteen recommendations on developing a response to the crisis. Each of these recommendations is based on the potential threat to the organization’s reputation. The recommendations are:

1. Provide instructing information to all victims or potential victims. 2. Provide adjusting information to victims, ensuring that concern is

expressed. 3. Use diminishment strategies for accidental crises (when there is no

crises history). 4. Use diminishment strategies for victim crises when there is a history or

unfavorable prior reputation. 5. Use rebuilding strategies for accidental crises when there is a history or

unfavorable prior reputation. 6. Use rebuilding strategies for any preventable crisis.

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7. Use denial strategies in rumor crises. 8. Use denial strategies in challenges when the challenge is unwarranted. 9. Use corrective action in challenges when stakeholders are likely to

support the challenge. 10. Use reinforcing strategies as supplements to other response strategies. 11. Only use the victimage response when the organization is a victim. 12. Do not mix denial strategies with either diminishment or rebuilding

strategies. 13. Diminishment and rebuilding strategies can be used in combination with

one another (Sellnow & Seeger, 2013). Strengths and Weaknesses of SCCT The SCCT provides an opportunity for quantitative analysis of the crisis. Unlike other theories, SCCT provides flexibility for applilcation in a variety of crises. However, the SCCT is best utilized when the crisis impacts an organization’s reputation. Discourse of Renewal An organization that practices the discourse of renewal is looking to move itself to a higher status through a process that allows an organization to reconnect to its core values. An organization is able to reevaluate their principles and adjust their core values or reaffirm their core values based on their analysis of the response to the crisis. However, in order for the discourse of renewal process to be successful the organization must publicly dedicate themselves to the renewal process immediately after a crisis. As part of the discourse of renewal, an organization must focus of four objectives: learning, ethical communication, prospective versus retrospective vision, and effective organizational rhetoric. Learning Learning is an integral part of the discourse renewal theory. In order for renewal to take place, an organization must be willing to determine what changes need to be made. They must learn what changes need to be made and be willing to make the changes. Ethical Communication An organization must provide an open line of communication with those they serve. This communication must be honest and follow the ethics of society in order for the organization to maintain the support of the community they serve. Prospective versus Retrospective Vision An organization that follows the discourse of renewal theory must ensure that the communications they release focus on the future and not on the crisis or who is to blame for the crisis. This type of communication puts the focus on the recovery and supports the renewal of the values of the organization. Effective Organizational Rhetoric Organizational leaders must emulate the behaviors that they want the stakeholders to display. These behaviors support the rebuilding of the organization and the refocus of the course values of the organization. It shows that the leaders of the organization can show they truly believe the things they say.

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Strengths and Weaknesses of Discourse of Renewal The discourse of renewal theory is not only practical, but also puts a focus on ethics as the core of crisis planning and decision making while an organization recovers from a crisis. Not only does this theory allow an organization to recover, but also to come back stronger with a reaffirmation of the ethics and standards at the core of the organization. However, this theory is not of benefit to organizations where leadership is based on lies and deceit, as these organizations will be unable to truly admit their faults and refocus to strong core standards. Conclusion Organizations must respond appropriately to recover from a crisis. Their response will often be based on the way in which they want to be viewed by the public they serve to ensure that they will not only survive the crisis, but continue to grow and thrive after it, as well as prevent and/or survive any future crisis.

Reference

Sellnow, T. L., & Seeger, M. W. (2013). Theorizing crisis communication. London, England: Wiley-Blackwell.

Reading Assignment Chapter 4: Theories of Communication and Crisis Outcomes. Click on the following link to access the article on a Tennessee Fire Chief attacked because he allowed a house to burn: http://www.firehouse.com/. 1) use the search box; 2) enter the following term: “South Fulton fire chief was assaulted.” Please read the article posted on October 4th, 2010. Click here to access the PDF of the article. Click on the following link to access the article on how a Tennessee Fire Department watched a house burn again: http://www.firehouse.com/. 1) use the search box; 2) enter the following term; “South Fulton Fire Department refused.” Please read the article posted on October 6th, 2010. Click here to access the PDF of the article.