BUSHOR-1183; No.

of Pages 3

Business Horizons (2014) xxx, xxx—xxx

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

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www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor

GUEST EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE

Emerging issues in crisis management

Daniel Laufer

School of Marketing & International Business, Victoria Business School, Victoria University of Wellington,
P.O. Box 600, Wellington 6140, New Zealand

1. Crisis management: Key to the crisis management and social media, crisis manage-
survival of an organization ment and corporate social responsibility, and crisis
management in China.
The media is full of stories about organizations
dealing with crises. To mention but a few: General 2. Marketing mix decisions during a
Motors is currently facing major fallout from recalls
crisis
associated with thousands upon thousands of defec-
tive cars. Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has
During a crisis, companies are faced with many
been accused by Chinese government officials of
difficult decisions. For example, what types of mes-
bribery. Even seemingly untouchable Apple has been
sages should a company communicate to its stake-
criticized over the poor working conditions provided
holders to minimize damages resulting from a crisis?
by some of its key suppliers.
Should a company reduce its prices during a crisis?
Partially as a result of such high-profile crises,
Should it increase its advertising? What should com-
escalating recognition has been paid regarding the
petitors do during a crisis? Should they reduce their
importance of crisis management to company sur-
prices? Should they advertise more?
vival. Business schools have become increasingly
This section of the special issue examines such
interested in offering courses on crisis management
important questions. Under the umbrella of com-
(Laufer, 2010), and researchers are starting to focus
munication, W. Timothy Coombs (‘The value of
more on this important yet under-researched area.
communication during a crisis: Insights from strate-
Business Horizons has published a number of
gic communication research’) provides insights for
articles about crisis management over the years;
companies based on a review of research conducted
however, this is the first time the journal has pub-
in the field of strategic communication. His compre-
lished a special issue on the topic. For this special
hensive assessment of the literature will help
issue, I invited academic experts from different
managers make informed choices about crisis
disciplines–—management, marketing, communica-
communication. Tamar Avnet and Daniel Laufer
tions, and public relations–—to contribute articles
(‘Exploring the effectiveness of creating regulatory
that focus on emerging topics of particular interest
fit in crisis communications: Can it change percep-
to companies. These topics include marketing mix
tions of media coverage during a crisis?’) also look at
decisions during a crisis (promotion and pricing),
communications during crisis and examine whether
incorporating concepts from a well-known theory in
psychology–—regulatory fit theory–—can help influ-
E-mail address: dan.laufer@vuw.ac.nz ence how the public perceives the reporting of a

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2014.10.002
0007-6813/# 2014 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
BUSHOR-1183; No. of Pages 3
2 GUEST EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE
crisis by the media. Their findings, based on results
from studies conducted in India and the United
States, suggest that theories effective in an adver-
tising context may not necessarily work in the crisis
communications context.
In an article that considers other aspects of the
marketing mix, Kathleen Cleeren (‘Using advertis-
ing and price to mitigate the losses in a product-
harm crisis’) discusses what companies should do in
terms of pricing and levels of advertising as a result
of a product harm crisis. Cleeren’s article is par-
ticularly interesting because she not only examines
companies involved in a crisis, but also their com-
petitors. She finds that optimal decisions regarding
pricing and advertising are heavily dependent upon
characteristics of the crisis (e.g., extent of nega-
tive publicity) and whether the company has ac-
knowledged responsibility for the product harm
crisis.
3. Crisis management and social media
Social media has had a profound impact on the way
businesses operate, and over the past few years,
interest in the topic has increased dramatically. In
response, Business Horizons published a special is-
sue on social media within the last 5 years (Pitt &
Berthon, 2011).
Social media also plays an important role in crisis
management; therefore, this section includes two
articles describing how social media impacts orga-
nizations. First, Daniel A. Gruber, Ryan E. Smerek,
Melissa C. Thomas-Hunt, and Erika H. James (‘The
real-time power of Twitter: Crisis management and
leadership in an age of social media’) describe how
Twitter can have a significant impact on organiza-
tions and their strategies. In their article, the au-
thors explain how a board’s decision to fire a
university president was reversed–—partially due
to pressure generated from a social media cam-
paign. The article also provides valuable lessons
about the threat social media poses to companies
and the potential for these threats to generate
crises.
Second, Yany Grégoire, Audrey Salle, and Thomas
M. Tripp (‘Managing social media crises with your
customers: The good, the bad, and the ugly’) discuss
how social media has greatly increased the likeli-
hood that customer complaints will spiral out of
control and, as a result, generate crises for compa-
nies. They suggest ways in which companies can
minimize the chances of this happening and, should
the worst come to pass, how companies can mini-
mize the duration and severity of a customer
complaint-induced crisis.
4. Crisis management and corporate
social responsibility
Through the years, Business Horizons has published
a number of articles on the topic of corporate social
responsibility (CSR), another subject garnering
enormous interest. According to Sprinkle and Maines
(2010, p. 446), CSR represents ‘‘voluntary firm en-
deavors which benefit society.’’
CSR plays an important role in crisis manage-
ment. Catherine Janssen, Sankar Sen, and C. B.
Bhattacharya (‘Corporate crises in the age of corpo-
rate social responsibility’) examine this interesting
issue in their article. Does CSR help or hurt a com-
pany during a crisis? Based on a review of the
literature on stakeholder reactions to CSR, the au-
thors develop a contingent framework for under-
standing the roles of CSR in corporate crises. They
find that CSR plays four important roles: it increases
stakeholders’ attention to crises, affects blame
attributions, raises expectations, and changes
stakeholders’ evaluations of crisis situations. The
authors furthermore discuss implications of their
framework for effective crisis management.
5. Crisis management in China
The last section of the special issue feature articles
focuses on China. With China poised to become the
largest economy in the world, it is increasingly
important for companies to gain a better under-
standing of the business environment in that coun-
try. How do business practices differ in China as
compared to Western countries? Given immense
interest in the topic, Business Horizons has pub-
lished a number of articles about the Chinese busi-
ness environment; however, only a few have focused
on issues related to crisis management, such as a
recent article examining challenges multinationals
face managing crises in China and Russia (Zhao,
2013).
In their article, Zhilin Yang and Ling Jiang (‘Man-
aging corporate crisis in China: Sentiment, reason,
and law’) explore key cultural factors that impact
crisis management in China. They describe the rel-
evant institutional and market environments, and
introduce three key principles rooted in Chinese
thinking and business practice: sentiment, reason,
and law. They then detail how these three principles
influence the reactions of stakeholders to a crisis,
which has important implications for foreign com-
panies operating in China.
Through articles discussing marketing mix deci-
sions during a crisis (promotion and pricing), crisis
management and social media, crisis management
BUSHOR-1183; No. of Pages 3
GUEST EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE
and corporate social responsibility, and crisis man-
agement in China, this special issue of Business
Horizons will surely inform and instruct practi-
tioners in the area of crisis management.
References
Laufer, D. (2010). Charting a course through crisis. BizEd, 9(5),
46—50.
3
Pitt, L. F., & Berthon, P. (2011). Just when you thought it was safe
to go back into the Web: Marketing meets Web 2.0, social
media, and creative consumers. Business Horizons, 54(3),
181—183.
Sprinkle, G. B., & Maines, L. A. (2010). The benefits and costs
of corporate social responsibility. Business Horizons, 53(5),
445—453.
Zhao, M. (2013). Beyond cops and robbers: The contextual chal-
lenge driving the multinational corporation public crisis in
China and Russia. Business Horizons, 56(4), 491—501.