1995/05/01 by W. Timothy Coombs · 804 citations
Social Sciences · Business, Management and Accounting · Psychology · #Public Relations and Crisis Communication #Disaster Management and Resilience #Management and Organizational Studies #Crisis management #Crisis response #Attribution #Crisis communication #Perception #Set (abstract data type) #Publics #Public relations #Political science #Business #Psychology #Social psychology #Computer science #Law
paper · doi:10.1177/0893318995008004003
published in Management Communication Quarterly 8(4), 447-476 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 1995/05/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Although crisis management has evolved rapidly over the past decade, the symbolic aspect of crisis management has been ignored. More specifically, little research has examined crisis-response strategies (public statements made after a crisis) to see how these messages can be used to shape public perceptions of the crisis and the organization in crisis. This article synthesizes existing literature to create a list of crisis-response strategies and develops a set of guidelines for appropriate use of a given strategy. The guidelines are based upon Attribution Theory and use the crisis situation and the publics as the factors that help to determine when a crisis-response strategy is appropriate.