ABSTRACT This study examines official crisis communication on X during the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires through the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) framework. Using a human‐coded content analysis of 973 posts from 13 official institutional accounts, messages were classified by communication type and mapped across the crisis lifecycle: pre‐crisis, initial, maintenance, resolution, and evaluation. The presence of crisis‐related information was analyzed, as was whether posts were primarily instructive or reassuring/empathetic. Audience engagement was also assessed by using platform‐generated metrics, including likes, retweets, and replies. Frequency of communication peaked during the initial and maintenance stages and was dominated by informational and instructive content. However, the messages that generated the strongest public response were not the most common. Welch's ANOVAs revealed that reassuring and empathetic posts received significantly more likes (nearly twice the average of instructive posts) and replies than instructive posts, despite being used less frequently. By comparing what agencies posted most against what audiences engaged with most across the crisis lifecycle, this study identifies a disconnect between wildfire message strategy and public response, offering practical insights for improving emergency communication on social media.
ABSTRACT Effective public communication during Mass Casualty Incidents (MCI) is essential for safeguarding life, maintaining order, and sustaining trust in emergency responders. Yet, high‐pressure, information‐scarce environments make this communication challenging. This mixed‐methods study examines public preferences for communication from emergency services during MCIs, drawing on data from a large‐scale immersive training exercise. Participants either completed a structured survey assessing the importance of specific communication attributes ( N = 217) or participated in qualitative interviews ( N = 181). Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of questionnaire data identified a broad dimension of desired communicative leadership, with a distinct directive‐authoritative dimension emerging for Police and Local Authorities. Thematic analysis of interview data identified four overarching communication principles: (i) Communication Strategies, (ii) Emotional and Psychological Support, (iii) Proactivity and Efficiency, and (iv) Building Trust and Resilience. Across methods, findings converge on a central requirement: effective communication during MCIs must balance clear, authoritative direction with transparent, empathetic engagement. Members of the public expect responders to provide both honest prognostic information and reassurance that acknowledges emotional needs. This work highlights the need for emergency services to adopt a nuanced communication model that integrates leadership, clarity, and emotional intelligence. Embedding these principles into training and operational doctrine may enhance public cooperation, trust and resilience during future large‐scale emergencies.
ABSTRACT This study aims to investigate the association between empathic tendency and the crisis management skills of 112 emergency healthcare workers in the pre‐hospital setting and to evaluate the potential implications of this relationship for health service delivery during disasters. The population of the study consists of 34,000 health personnel working in the emergency health services units of the Ministry of Health of Türkiye, and the sample consists of 390 people working in 112 emergency health services. The Socio‐Demographic Data Form, Crisis Management Scale (CMS), and Empathic Tendency Scale (ETS) were used to collect the data. The participants had a moderate level of crisis management skills (CMS: 151.21 ± 17.62) and a moderate level of empathic tendency (ETS: 61.22 ± 9.52). A statistically significant, positive, and moderate correlation was found between ETS and CMS scores ( p < 0.05). Individuals diagnosed with and treated for mental disorders and women had significantly higher empathic tendency and crisis management scores ( p < 0.05). Multivariable linear regression analysis demonstrated that higher ETS scores ( β = 0.376, p < 0.001), participation in drills ( β = 0.205, p < 0.001), and a history of mental disorder diagnosis ( β = 0.135, p = 0.004) were independently associated with higher CMS scores. The regression model explained 22.4% of the variance in CMS scores ( R 2 = 0.224, adjusted R 2 = 0.202). Overall, the findings support a positive association between empathic tendency and crisis management scores. These findings suggest that empathic tendency may be a relevant characteristic to consider in disaster preparedness, training, and workforce development among pre‐hospital emergency healthcare workers.
ABSTRACT This qualitative systematic review explores how emergency service practitioners experience and engage in informal learning opportunities post‐events. Drawing on six qualitative studies, the review examines factors that shape engagement in reflective practices following emergency operations. The findings show that practitioners value informal, peer‐based reflection embedded in everyday work, while expressing scepticism toward wider organisational sharing of experiences due to concerns about hierarchy, blame, and misuse. Although the structured, systematic use of debriefings is promoted in quantitative research as an effective learning tool, this review highlights the importance of negotiability and practitioners' experience of contextual relevance. The analysis suggests that overly rigid or top‐down approaches may undermine engagement in debriefing processes. To strengthen organisational learning, debriefing practices should be adaptive, co‐designed with practitioners, and supported by leadership that fosters trust and protects candour.
This article investigates disaster communication as a process of disaster epistemology through which crises are culturally known, interpreted, and normalized. Based on a cross-national qualitative comparison of Vietnam and the Philippines, the study broadens dominant secular models that conceptualize disaster communication as information delivery and behavioral management. The findings demonstrate that religion functions as a cultural foundation of knowing - shaping how disasters are ontologically defined, epistemically explained, and morally evaluated. Rather than operating as fixed belief systems, religious traditions constitute a cultural toolbox that actors draw upon to make sense of uncertainty, causality, and limits of human control across disaster phases. By conceptualizing religion as a dynamic disaster epistemology, the article contributes to disaster communication research and offers practical insights for culturally grounded governance and communication design in disaster prone societies.
Psychological empowerment is a key factor in enhancing employee motivation, job satisfaction and effectiveness and plays an important role in strengthening both psychological and organisational resilience. This study aimed to examine the relationship between psychological empowerment dimensions and structural components of crisis management among Red Crescent personnel. This cross-sectional study was conducted online in 2024 among personnel of the Red Crescent Society in Kerman Province. A total of 156 participants were recruited using convenience sampling. Data were collected using Spreitzer's Psychological Empowerment Questionnaire, which includes 15 items across four dimensions (meaningfulness, competence, autonomy, and impact), and a Crisis Management Structure Questionnaire consisting of 35 items covering five dimensions (structure, formalisation, complexity, centralisation and needs assessment). Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and multivariable linear regression in STATA version 17. Multivariable linear regression analysis showed that educational attainment at the bachelor's level (p value = 0.008) and above (p value = 0.007), as well as the competence (p value = 0.004) dimension of psychological empowerment, were significantly associated with higher perceived complexity in crisis management. In addition, work experience was positively associated with needs assessment capability (p value = 0.04). In contrast, the meaning dimension of psychological empowerment demonstrated a significant inverse relationship with crisis management complexity (p value = 0.006). The findings suggest that psychological empowerment is an important factor in shaping how crisis management structures are perceived and applied among Red Crescent personnel. Humanitarian organisations are encouraged to prioritise empowerment-oriented interventions alongside field-based experiential learning to improve personnel's understanding of crisis complexity and needs. Strengthening job meaningfulness and reinforcing mission-related identity may also help reduce perceived complexity and enhance the effectiveness of organisational crisis management.
ABSTRACT Organizational crises place exceptional demands on leaders, yet external evaluations of crisis responses are shaped by both individual and organizational factors. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine how gendered expectations within organizations might shape evaluations of CEO crisis effectiveness in real‑world contexts. An online study was used to examine responses to real‐world CEO crisis apologies. Participants from Australia and the United States ( N = 2347) were randomly assigned to view one of two apology videos delivered by either a female or male CEO following an internal crisis caused by their predecessors. Participants rated crisis leadership effectiveness, trust in the leader, and consumer post‑apology purchase intentions. Individuals who were more familiar with the organization evaluated both CEOs as less trustworthy and less effective, even when they reported strong prior loyalty. This familiarity effect was particularly pronounced for the female CEO. Across conditions, participants with a higher general tendency to trust others provided more positive evaluations overall. Although the male CEO received higher ratings of crisis leadership and trust, organizational familiarity exerted a stronger influence on stakeholder perceptions than CEO gender. As the study relied on real‑world cases, the crises differ in theoretically important ways: Qantas reflects an integrity/ethical crisis with greater reputational risk, whereas Defence Health reflects a competence/technical service disruption. Accordingly, the observed gender pattern should be interpreted as interacting with crisis type, organizational familiarity, and perceived responsibility, rather than as a pure CEO gender effect. These limits constrain causal claims but underscore the value of studying gendered crisis leadership in naturalistic corporate settings. Organizational reputation and gendered expectations can influence responses to CEO apologies. Organizations should account for these factors when planning crisis responses.
ABSTRACT Geopolitical risks arising from regional conflicts disrupt airline operations in ways that remain underexplored through systematic qualitative methods. This study presents a qualitative thematic synthesis that examines how regional conflicts affect airline operations, safety protocols, financial resilience, and crisis management strategies. A systematic search of the Crossref and OpenAlex databases covering the 2011–2025 period yielded 87 records. After PRISMA‐guided screening, 21 studies satisfied the inclusion criteria and were appraised with study‐type‐appropriate tools: CASP and JBI QARI for qualitative work and the JBI Critical Appraisal Tools for quantitative studies. CERQual was used only to gauge confidence in the qualitative evidence. Braun and Clarke's six‐phase thematic analysis yielded five themes: (1) airspace restrictions and route restructuring, (2) operational safety and threat management in conflict zones, (3) financial vulnerability and market volatility, (4) crisis management and organisational resilience and (5) regulatory adaptation and international cooperation. The analysis shows that airlines facing geopolitical disruptions rely on reactive rerouting, intensify crew resource management protocols, suffer measurable capital‐market losses, and build adaptive crisis frameworks that lack standardisation across jurisdictions. These results point to a need for embedding geopolitical risk assessment in airline strategic planning and for more harmonised international regulatory responses, with direct implications for air transport policy and management practice.
ABSTRACT Collective action is essential for effective disease control during health crises. This study examines how such action has been discursively mobilised in China across five major public health crises over the past two decades. A thematic analysis of 200 crisis communication open letters shows that compliance with health measures is framed not only as self‐protection but also as a manifestation of patriotism, personal growth, legal obligation, and familial responsibility. These ideological elements form a mobilisation metadiscourse with strong diachronic continuity, adapting to sociopolitical shifts through three dominant modes—command, persuasion, and collaboration—and reinterpreting earlier crisis discourses within a national narrative of “suffering–unity–victory”. National virtues are foregrounded, while policy contestation and individual differences are largely excluded. By highlighting recontextualization as a key mechanism, the study demonstrates both the persuasive efficacy and ideological implications of mobilisation discourse, emphasising reflexivity toward hegemonies embedded in collaborative and emotionally charged rhetoric.
This study examines how media agendas surrounding the 2014 Sewol Ferry disaster evolved over a ten-year period and how agenda prevalence differed by media ideology. To address these questions, the study analyzes 51,572 news articles published between 2014 and 2024 in five major South Korean daily newspapers, using Structural Topic Modelling (STM), hierarchical clustering, longitudinal time-trend analysis, and comparisons between conservative and progressive outlets. Five key agendas were identified: truth-seeking and healing, value conflict, investigation and incident response, political conflict and responsibility, and media representation and public opinion formation. The political conflict and responsibility agenda was the most prevalent, accounting for 32.6% of overall agenda prevalence, and increased over time. While ideological differences in the media representation and public opinion formation agenda were initially minimal, this agenda increased more clearly in progressive media, whereas conservative media remained relatively stable. In contrast, the political conflict and responsibility agenda exhibited greater growth in conservative media over time. These findings indicate that media agendas surrounding the disaster became systematically differentiated along ideological lines over the decade, offering an empirical basis for interpreting how cultural memory-understood here as shared knowledge of the past continuously reconstructed through the media-may be organised differently across media contexts.
ABSTRACT Meteorological information, conveyed through official alerts, is a daily presence in people's lives, aimed at enhancing preparedness and situational awareness. Such information can be found across multiple platforms, including television, radio, print publications and social media and is often mediated by third‐party broadcasters, social media personalities and others. Whereas the needs of forecasters and emergency managers in providing this information and managing weather events have been well‐studied in the literature; less attention has been paid to how the public engages with and acts upon such expert‐driven and real‐time weather information. Our study utilises Natural Language Processing (NLP) to examine public attention to the communication of disruptive weather events through Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) and officially generated hashtag alerts during winter events in Canada to determine which characteristics make such information useful and timely for the public. We investigate the engagement of both the lay public and experts with this weather information through novel techniques designed to better understand public perceptions and values related to weather forecasts and inform the body of literature aimed at aiding emergency managers in the management of such crises. Utilising a bottom‐up approach to classification, we posit a new perspective on information stewardship in dynamic weather crises in places such as Northern climates, one that allows for a multi‐directional rapid flow of interaction and accounts for the gap between authority and expertise when considering actual weather‐related disruptions.
It has been 40 years since Charles Perrow published the landmark work Normal Accidents ([1984]1999), built largely on an analysis of the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant accident. While still a highly influential framework in the study of complex systems, the status of the argument remains in flux. The central argument was that certain technological systems are so complex and tightly coupled that accidents will occur no matter how hard we try to prevent them. While many analyses proceed on the acceptance of the main argument, various other literatures proceed according to the idea that we can keep such systems operating safely through various safety principles. At this point, a common idea is that, regardless of the technology, errors of management (whether by mistake or misconduct) are the problem. This paper argues that abandoning the concerns about technical complexity is a mistake-that we can and continue to build systems that outstrip our abilities of prediction and control. I illustrate by providing three different ways of characterising the space shuttle Challenger accident-as mistake, as misconduct, and as normal accident. In the end, the space shuttle program was so technically and organisationally complex that occasional failure of missions was probably inevitable regardless of all else.
This study extends Situational Crisis Communication Theory by integrating stakeholders' moral evaluation into SCCT's responsibility-based logic and examining two outcomes central to ethically charged crises: value incongruence and third-party punishment intention. In a 2 (moral transgression severity: high vs. low) & times; 2 (response strategy: optimal vs. suboptimal) online experiment, 992 Chinese adults read an autonomous vehicle accident scenario and a corporate statement. Greater moral transgression severity increased both outcomes mainly through moral outrage, whereas compassion toward victims mattered chiefly under a suboptimal response. Response strategy reduced outrage's translation into third-party punishment intention but did not remove moral judgements once outrage had formed. The findings show that ethically charged crises activate moral emotions, value incongruence captures a deeper relational rupture than reputation alone, and post-crisis communication can reduce punishment support. The study underscores the need for justice- and care-oriented communication in ethically charged crises.
Based on the number of enterprises involved, product-harm crisis (PHC) can be categorised into single-enterprise PHCs and group PHCs. However, most existing studies have predominantly focused on single-enterprise PHCs, while largely neglecting group PHCs. This study aims to investigate the influence of different PHCs (single-enterprise PHCs vs. group PHCs) on consumer trust (narrow-scope trust and broad-scope trust), specifically examining the mediating role of perceived betrayal and the moderating role of the reasons for crisis. Using a scenario-based experimental design, we collected 250 adult consumers' valid data via convenience sampling for quantitative empirical analysis. Statistical analyses, including ANCOVA and regression were adopted to test the proposed hypotheses. The results reveal that, compared to a single-enterprise PHC, a group PHC triggers lower consumer trust. Crucially, perceived betrayal partially mediates the relationship between PHC and trust in enterprise. Additionally, the reasons for a PHC moderate both the direct effect of a PHC on trust in enterprise and the indirect effect through perceived betrayal. This research contributes to the theory of PHCs and offers practical implications for crisis management.
As a crucial process in occupational health and safety management, the occupational health and safety risk assessment (OHSRA) aims to evaluate, prioritise, and reduce the risk of occupational hazards in workplaces to ensure employee health and safety. In this paper, a new integrated OHSRA model combining the social-trust-driven consensus (STDC) method and the deep contrastive clustering is suggested for the risk assessment and classification of occupational hazards under a polytopic fuzzy linguistic environment. Specifically, the STDC method is applied to achieve expert consensus on the risk assessments of occupational hazards, and the deep contrastive clustering is utilised to obtain the risk classifications of occupational hazards. In addition, the polytopic fuzzy linguistic theory is employed to deal with experts' hesitant risk assessment information. Finally, a practical case in coal mining is provided to illustrate the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed OHSRA model. The results show that equipment-related risks and injuries caused by falling objects are the highest-risk occupational hazards and should be controlled by appropriate precautions. Moreover, a comparative analysis confirms that the proposed model can effectively cope with inconsistent linguistic risk assessments given by experts and produce reliable risk classifications of occupational hazards in OHSRA.
Over a decade after the Lindt Cafe Siege saw a lone gunman take hostage 18 people over a 16-h period resulting in two deaths, the decisions and actions from police and emergency services continue to be scrutinised. When such volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous events occur, they give rise to dichotomies in the perception of (i) crisis; (ii) complexity; and (iii) systems which only serve as a positive feedback loop. This paper proceeds by exploring each of these dichotomies as they apply to the various levels of response and identifies how they can impact decision-making in the most high-consequence, low-frequency public events. Furthermore, this paper provides a visual representation of the various levels of response, the interplay of the systems and the complexity encountered by those at the tactical, operational, strategic and executive levels responding to the Lindt Cafe Siege. Mapping the systems involved in responding to the Lindt Cafe Siege visually illustrated the complexity of the response in the differing levels of decision making as one moved further away from the incident, and most importantly the dichotomies found to have potentially impacted on decision making. Whilst we found that the systems operated as expected, the deficiencies in decision-making as noted by the Inquest were due to some extent by several contributing factors. These factors were found to arise from systems relativity, institutional dimensional reduction, complexity dichotomy and consequence relativity. The results of this analysis have informed a series of recommendations for command development and response planning within similar contexts, including how a systems thinking approach can enhance decision making in complex and ambiguous situations.
Mass fatality events represent one of the most challenging consequences of large-scale crises and armed conflicts, yet they remain underexplored within crisis management and civil emergency preparedness research. While considerable attention is devoted to immediate life-saving response and critical infrastructure protection, the management of the dead is frequently treated as a residual or technical matter rather than an integral component of crisis governance-with significant consequences for institutional legitimacy and the psychosocial wellbeing of bereaved families and communities. This article examines institutional preparedness for mass fatality management (MFM) through the lens of institutional crisis governance, with a particular focus on the governance, coordination, and capacity-related challenges faced by public authorities and supporting organizations. Using a qualitative research design that integrates targeted document analysis with an expert nominal group technique and semi-quantitative risk assessment, the study identifies key systemic gaps related to legal frameworks, inter-organizational coordination, resource planning, and operational preparedness for high-fatality events. The findings demonstrate that deficiencies in MFM in the Czech Republic do not constitute isolated operational gaps but form an interconnected systemic problem rooted in governance fragmentation, legislative constraints, and the structural exclusion of funeral services from core crisis planning frameworks. Funeral services and burial capacities emerge as critical yet insufficiently integrated elements of civil protection systems. The article further argues that neglecting this phase of crisis response undermines not only operational effectiveness but also societal resilience and the legitimacy of public crisis management. By conceptualizing MFM as a core component of institutional crisis governance, this study contributes to scholarship on crisis preparedness and governance and offers analytically grounded insights for policymakers and practitioners seeking to strengthen preparedness for extreme and complex crises. While the empirical base is grounded in the Czech national context, the identified patterns of governance fragmentation and planning deficit reflect structural characteristics observable across diverse civil protection systems.
While disaster recovery scholarship has shifted from traditional linear, material-focused narratives toward multidimensional frameworks, critical gaps remain in understanding relational domain interactions and their context-specific outcomes. This systematic literature review synthesizes 50 empirical, people-centered studies to advance multidimensional recovery theory from descriptive domain categorization toward a relational, pathway-oriented framework. Analysis reveals recovery as a dynamic system of interacting social, institutional, material, livelihood, cultural, and psychological dimensions, where outcomes emerge from domain alignments rather than isolated interventions. Key findings demonstrate that governance architecture and pre-existing inequalities determine recovery trajectories more than disaster type or national income. Socially-driven and hybrid pathways consistently produce adaptive, equitable outcomes across contexts, while fragmented top-down approaches generate trade-offs, exclusion, and negative equity. Positive interactions center on social-psychological and social-livelihood linkages, yet require enabling institutional contexts; negative institutional-cultural conflicts dominate where standardized interventions erode local identity and cohesion. Temporal trade-offs between short-term material gains and long-term sustainability pervade dominant recovery models. Persistent research limitations including short horizons, methodological silos, equity blindness, and domain under-representation constrain comprehensive understanding. The study bridges theory and practice, challenging checklist frameworks for context-sensitive approaches that anticipate domain interactions, prioritize participatory design, and address structural inequalities. Effective recovery demands relational coordination across sectors, not merely expanded domain awareness.
Crisis communication in public health systems is constrained not only by the availability of communication models, but also by the dispersion of legitimacy across multiple actors. While existing literature often assumes a coherent organisational actor capable of unified strategic action, this article shows that in institutionally fragmented systems, formal authority, expert legitimacy and public credibility may be distributed across different actors. Drawing on Bourdieu's theory of social fields, the study introduces the concept of legitimacy misalignment to analyse how power relations and distributed sources of legitimacy shape crisis communication in the Slovenian public health system. The study combines contextual survey data with qualitative material from three focus groups and six in-depth interviews (N = 29). The findings show that institutional fragmentation, hierarchical filtering and the misalignment between formal authority, expert legitimacy and public credibility constrain coherent communication. The article contributes to crisis communication research by demonstrating how legitimacy misalignment limits the practical feasibility of organisation-centred models in multi-actor public health contexts. It shifts analytical attention from strategy selection to the structural conditions of communicative action.
Corporate crises represent a threat to firms' legitimacy, stability and stakeholder trust. The main objective of this study is to create a longitudinal descriptive mapping of controversy exposure with implications for crisis-management theory taking into consideration the technology industry, identifying patterns (recurrence, clustering, concentration) that may inform early warning systems and vulnerability assessment. The research examines controversies related to environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria. It also analyzes crisis management models defining the relationship between complaints, controversies and crises. The sample comprises 71 technology companies and a total of 2474 controversies from the LSEG Workspace database (2018-2024). The results suggest that a preventive approach based on the close analysis of common escalation patterns from complaints to controversies to crisis may help companies to anticipate and mitigate potential issues. The technology industry is examined due to its relevance in the global economy and its high public exposure to ESG controversies.
