In as much that the occurrence of crisis is increasing in number, crisis still lacks a universally accepted definition as it is a field that is still evolving, and one that has developed from a multidisciplinary background as previously explained in the early part of this chapter. Its multidisciplinary background has however provided a good and rich perspective for understanding the complexity that comes with crisis study (Boin & T’Hart, 2007; Buchanan, & Denyer, 2013).
The word crisis is coined from the Greek word ‘Krisis’, which means a moment of decision; representing historical turning points where human choices could make fundamental difference in the future (Sellnow & Seeger. 2013).
Hermann (1963), one of the early researchers who helped to establish the crisis study in relation to the organisation, defined crisis as a surprising situation that threatens the high priority goals of the organisation and comes with a time-constraint in the decision making period. According to Herman (1961), an organisational crisis has three features: it threatens the organisation, has a short and restricted response time and is also unpredictable or unanticipated. These definitions focused on the reputational threat and damages that comes with organisational crisis.
Several authors afterwards built their definition on these footings; as an event that threatens the foundation of an organisation is a crisis. The British Standard Institution in their crisis management guideline for organisation define crisis as “an abnormal, unstable situation that threatens the organisation’s strategic objectives, reputation or viability” (BS 11200:2014). The organisation-centred crisis definition comes from the standpoint of the effect that a crisis has on the organisation’s operational activities, which could affect its continual existence, if left unattended to or curtailed from further escalation. This school of thought believe that the existence of threat is an important variable that is identifiable with organisational crisis, with the assumption that the occurrence of a crisis puts pressure on the organisation’s continuity which can result in devastating effect if not well managed. For example, a significant consolidated crisis definition was attempted by Pearson and Clair (1998) by describing organisational crisis as a “low-probability, high-impact event that threatens the viability of the organisation and is characterized by ambiguity of cause, effect, and means of resolution, as well as by a belief that decisions must be made swiftly”.
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The definitions come with the assumption by authors in this school of thought that the threat that creates a discrepancy between the planned goal that the organisation has previously set out to achieve (long term goals) and its current existing state that is caused by the disruption form the crisis. For this school of thought, the disruption overrides the planned goals and causes a shift in the focus of the organisation’s management; from its outlined long term goals to one that focuses on managing the crisis as effectively and efficiently as possible. The crisis should be managed within the shortest possible time frame, with the aim of returning back to its original long-term goals, and its effective control will determine what becomes of the organisation in the long run (Billings, Milburn & Schaalman, 1980; KI & Nekmat, 2014). There is a consensus among scholars in the “threat school of thought” with the assumption that since the occurrence of a crisis threatens the organisations existence and reputations, it also comes with an intense pressure, and has an urgent demand which puts time constraints on the decision making process of the management. The management respond spontaneously to this unanticipated event by racing to nip the crisis in the bud as soon as possible, and trying to prevent it from further damaging the goals that are important to the organisation’s existence. Reilly (1993) in her comparative study on different crisis in a single industry proposed a working definition for crisis, with the aim of differentiating crisis from other related similar terms. Reilly defined crisis as a sudden high-magnitude situation that is harmful and disruptive, this definition though refraining from the threat and routine context still depicts crisis as a negative occurrence with no positive context.
These authors acknowledge that although crisis is an unexpected, non-routine, surprising occurrence that create high level of uncertainty, an organisation crisis comes with a time- constrained decision making expectation, with a demand to promptly respond to and manage it, so as to reduce the adverse effects that results from its occurrence and prevent further degeneration (Ulmer, Sellnow & Seeger, 2013).
Nevertheless, some researchers have exceptions to the unpredictable, common-threat definition of crisis, as they believe that crisis is not a surprising occurrence. They point out most crisis shows early warning signs that could have been prevented from occurring if managed well, as research has shown that some crises showed warning signs early enough but were ignored when analysed in retrospection. They support their claims based on research of crisis case study that most of these crises that occur are as a result of the neglect of acting on early warning signs that has been beckoned. The critique of the unpredictable characteristic of crisis is that some
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crisis doesn’t necessarily come as a surprise and therefore is predictable, as some crisis are not oblivious to a third party with the probability of its occurrence being seen as a threshold and ignored instead of finding a way to fix it conventionally or by its precedent (Gundel, 2005; Smith, 1963).
I also agree with this assumption that some crisis could be predictable while others happen suddenly. The case study for this research demonstrates that despite the airline industry being regarded as an industry that is prone to crisis, and so therefore organisations in this industry are expected to be prepared for all kind of crisis, including crisis due to sociopathic attack that seems to be on the increase recently (Richardson 1994), the manner in which the MAS crises occurred is quite still surprising and unconventional with no prior warning signals and precedence.
Another argument questioning the unexpected definitional characteristic of crisis stems from the disagreement that even though crisis can be unpredictable, it is not unexpected and smart organisation does not doubt if it will occur but when (Coombs, 2014). These authors maintained that crisis should be defined from an organisational management perspective by accepting the occurrence of crisis as an expected phenomenon that it is part of an organisation’s normal life cycle, and therefore be understood as a natural experience of what an organisations’ existence is made of.
While some authors (Bernstein, 2011; Gephart, 2007; Marra, 1998; Mitroff, 2005; Ryschka, Domke-Damonte, Keels & Nagel, 2016) projects crisis as a negative disruptive event that shares the common trait of threat, time constraint and uncertainness or surprise, others argues that crisis should be defined in the context of a normal situation required for an organisation’s learning and development process. A Crisis may be untimely yet predictable and may not necessarily threaten the organisation’s existence as other researcher asserts e.g. Exxon’s existence was not threatened by Exxon Valdez oil spill incident because of its technological and financial fall-back provisions even though its spill-over effect caused the destruction of some other organisations (Heath, 1997:279).
Some authors however attempted to define crisis beyond the organisation’s managerial perspective and extended it further to the operational or external stakeholders, for example, Pauchant and Douville (1993) attempted to define crisis from a technological viewpoint. They described crisis as disruptive situations that challenges the basic assumptions of an organisation or a system and concludes that crisis requires timely actions and decision which might bring
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about changes to the affected system, and previously held assumptions. It is an urgent situation that interrupts the normal operation of the organisation, gets media interest, and poses possible financial and reputational loss as flags that indicate an organisational crisis (Bernstein, 2011; Mazzei & Ravazzani, 2015; Williams & Treadaway, 1992)
The shortfall of the definitions discussed above position crisis from the perception that it is a negative event that is harmful, disruptive and threatens the organisations operations and existence. These views were however refuted based on the argument that crisis, a word that naturally has a negative pre-conceived meaning by people, does not necessarily translate to a death sentence. If instead we defined crisis (in terms of perception) as a positive perception, then this will influence the organisation’s crisis management preparedness positively. This can mean that when in crisis an organisation can view its occurrence as an opportunity to show their stakeholders that they are a capable and socially responsible organisation, based on the actions they take in managing the crisis (Martinelli & Briggs, 1998; Penrose, 2001; Ulmer, 2012).
The argument of viewing crisis as an opportunity comes with the assumption that a positive change and disposition can affect how an organisation perceives a crisis, as their perception can help not only in their decision making process when managing their crisis (with the aim of getting a positive outcome as a reactive strategy) but also applicable when making proactive decisions in the pre-crisis and post-crisis stages. The occurrence of a crisis becomes a critical turning point for the organisation as it provides an opportunity for making behavioural changes and reorientation that can produce positive or negative results (Carmeli & Schaubroeck, 2008; Ulmer, Sellnow & Seeger, 2013).
Although these definition provides a more inclusive definition that goes beyond the earlier descriptions that narrowed crisis down to threat and surprise, the shortfall of their definition is that it still projects crisis as an event that only affect the organisation as the definition focuses on the organisation alone.
More comprehensive descriptions were provided by some crisis scholars that included the organisation, stakeholders and its environment as they argued that organisational crisis should not be confined to something that affects the organisation alone but should be defined from a broader perspective as its effect can extend beyond the organisation and spill-over or snowball to their stakeholders, other organisations and even people that might not have any initial
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relationship with the organisation (Brummete & Sisco, 2015; Mitroff ,Shriwastava & Udwadia, 1987).
Crisis effect is not limited to the organisation and its employees alone, it can have extended rippling effect on other associated companies and even plummet stock prices, and can come with environmental and psychological damage (Brummete & Sisco, 2015; Klann, 2003). It is described as an emotional condition that can generate negative reactions from its stakeholders with these reactions impacting on its financial and business continuity (James & Wooten, 2005) that is to say that irrespective of the crisis type, an undisputable fact is that crisis has the ability to redefine a subject’s reputation (Brummete & Sisco, 2015).
Coombs (2014:3) in a more holistic view attempts to fills this definition gap by describing crisis as “the perception of an unpredictable event that threatens important expectancies of stakeholders and can seriously impact an organisation’s performance”. Stakeholder is any group or individual who can or is impacted by the organisation’s objectives. This includes the owners, advocates, customers, competitors, media, employees, environmentalist, local community and government (Strand & Freeman, 2015).
These broader definitions that embrace the stakeholders as a significant element in defining crisis are appropriate as the organisation alone does not have the full control of what becomes a crisis. This is because the stakeholder’s interpretations of events determine if there is actually a crisis and what becomes of the crisis and if stakeholders believe that an organisation is in a crisis then there is a crisis for the organisation to manage (Coombs, 2011).
This assumption advocates crisis as a socially constructed event that is dependent on the perceptions and interpretations of the stakeholders. It is argued that the stakeholder’s reactions and understanding of the crisis and crisis management process determines if there is a crisis or not, even in situations where the organisation is in denial that a crisis exists.
The social constructive perspective of crisis definition that includes both the organisation and stakeholders is built on the premise that even in cases where the organisation is in denial of the existence of a crisis, the collective effort of some aggrieved stakeholders can establish the existence of crisis. This eventually forces the organisation to change their stance, accept that there is a crisis and find means of resolving it. The case of Audi 5000 is a good example of how crisis can be socially constructed and be pushed forward into acceptance by the organisation, even when there were initial denials at the onset of the crisis. Audi’s management
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did pass off the acceleration crisis of their Audi 5000 as a driver error rather than a manufacturer’s error. In the long run Audi were compelled to accept that it indeed was a crisis triggered by their product and not the driver’s inadequacy, an overturn in stance due to the continuous information, perceptions and interpretations from their stakeholders about the crisis (Coombs, 2014; Hearit & Courtright, 2003). This supports the assertion that some stakeholder’s interpretation of an occurrence as crisis can establish the crisis irrespective of what the organisation says or does.
For this thesis, I build on these definitions and provide this working definition of crisis for this research as “an ambiguous occurrence that has the ability to activate an immediate shift in the
focus of the organisation’s management from its usual activities of fulfilling its long term goals to one that effectively manages a current adverse event from further degeneration with decisions made in the best interest of the stakeholders and the organisation”.
The ambiguity stance on the crisis definition suggests that the cause of a crisis might not be easily identifiable at its onset, as is evident in the case of the Malaysia Airlines and even might not be triggered by earlier events that spiral into crisis. Some crises are known to defy interpretations from a single viewpoint but rather demand severe sense-making from both the organisation and stakeholder’s perspective collectively (Coombs, 2007; Weick, 1988). Crisis information is seen as critical factors in the sense-making of crisis, as crisis is analysed as a social constructed phenomena based on human symbolic interventions (Hearit & Courtright, 2003).
Making sense of the Malaysia Airlines crisis using the social constructive perspective will help to shed light into how the organisation handled the crisis, their crisis communication management, and also extends the exploration to identify the stakeholder’s interpretations of the organisation’s adopted strategy.