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Managers are increasingly finding their organisations being drawn into polarising socio-political issues. While not an entirely novel form of risk for organisations, the ability to avoid this form of risk is eroding, resulting in a new risk environment. This chapter is a conceptual piece that explores why organisations are compelled to address polarising socio-political issues, and how they might navigate issues communicatively through the use of values advocacy. Stakeholder expectations and potential benefits from taking stances on issues result in organisational managers taking stands on polarising, socio-political issues. However, the polarisation creates dangers by risking to intensify the issue division among constituents, causing segments of organisational constituents to turn against the organisation. Values advocacy may be one way to limit the dangers when taking stands on socio-political issues.

Government communication is an essential part of the democratic process – it interconnects various stakeholder groups with the public, while also enabling the functioning of democratic systems based on values such as human rights, freedom of speech and public participation in governance. Besides promoting government successes or measures, government communication should foster mutual two-way communications between government organisations and different stakeholder groups. Specifically, communication about potential risks and hazards can suddenly appear and are subject to a different communication modus operandi. The accessibility and comprehensiveness of government information play an important role in how citizens make decisions and behave. In critical times, governments are required to meaningful crisis communication strategies to address the needs of different stakeholders. However, the Czech Republic as a post-communist country has not yet fully developed an integrated system of government communication with various stakeholder groups. The ministerial PR departments serve merely as technical support and media relations assistants for the ministers. This chapter presents research results regarding how the Czech Ministry of Education communicated during the pandemic crisis, how its communications were received by key stakeholders, and what pitfalls in communication it faced. The chapter presents empirical evidence of government communication challenges in times of crisis in a post-communist country and thus addresses the gap in government communication knowledge concerning the role of democracy and stakeholder participation in transforming societies. The chapter concludes with practical implications to prevent failures in future crises.

When the media report negatively about an organisation, its employees are not only affected but also a source of information for outsiders who want to find out more about the situation. Because of their credibility, employees can support public relations managers to preserve or restore organisational reputation. In this research, we explore the role of organisational identification and internal corporate communication (ICC) in the event of negative media coverage for employees’ defensive and assertive impression management behaviours. Defensive strategies include excuses, justifications and the avoidance of threatening situations. Assertive strategies are more active and refer to behaviours which aim to establish a desirable identity; in the context of negative media coverage, this entails actively defending the organisation, explaining the situation and conveying the organisation’s official version of the event in order to bolster its reputation. Results from an online survey among employed persons reveal that employees’ identification with their work organisation positively influences their assertive as well as defensive reactions. ICC has a more differentiated influence on employees’ reactions: If ICC is evaluated well, employees’ assertive reactions increase; if evaluated poorly, employees exhibit more defensive reactions. These findings show that ICC can make a difference in winning employees as ambassadors for the organisation in critical situations.

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the challenges of health emergency communication as presented in the COVID-19-related research articles in the fields of organisational communication, strategic communication and public relations published between 2020 and mid-2022. A qualitative literature review consisting of two rounds of data selection and ATLAS.ti-assisted content analysis was conducted. The data include 67 articles published in quality journals of communication studies, with a focus on the abstract, results and discussion sections. The findings emphasise the need for emotional support, empathy and both vertical and horizontal informal communication in uncertainty reduction during a major health emergency. The limitations of the study include that the data are limited to the first published journal articles concerning the consequences of COVID-19 and that it comprises publications in communication studies but not related fields, such as health, psychology or management. However, it provides an overview of the research findings and offers guidelines for managers and communication professionals for the development of communication practices under the threat of a major health crisis. Moreover, it proves the importance of healthy and trustful workplace relationships as a prerequisite for coping with uncertainty. All in all, the study provides a good basis for further studies of organisational communication and health emergencies.

Personalised statements from CEOs can be used as a tool to protect reputation in corporate crises. However, it needs to be considered that CEOs have different personalities. The present chapter, therefore, examines the effects of social distance of a CEO in combination with crisis communication strategies in corporate crises. This is illustrated by means of an experimental study with a 2 × 2 between-subjects design (factor 1: close vs. far social distance of the CEO; factor 2: deny vs. rebuild crisis communication strategy). The results indicate that in preventable crises, a close social distance of the CEO is beneficial for the CEO’s image as well as the image of the organisation because it promotes empathy and motivated assessment. Empathy towards the CEO remains unaffected by the communication strategy. The effect of the social distance on the motivated assessment occurs, however, only with a deny strategy. If an apology is pronounced, there is no difference whether an approachable or a distant CEO is speaking. The study discussed in this chapter is among the first to take empathy and motivated reasoning into account when analysing the effects of privatisation on CEO image and organisational image.

This concluding chapter provides key takeaways from the insights and recommendations that emerged from the EUPRERA2022 volume with a focus on crises and issues. Reflections are made with an emphasis on the understanding of sticky crisis, the embodiment of challenging, complex and recurring critical risks that threaten organisational well-being and stakeholder safety across sectors and cultures. A call for more interdisciplinary and international collaborations between academia and industry is made. Future directions of crisis, risk and disaster communication research that matter to practice are discussed.

Negotiation as a communication process is most prevalent in the business world. So, most research and work to date has focused on exploring the specifics of this area. The fundamental difference between business or everyday negotiation and crisis negotiation is that a crisis creates special environmental conditions in which it is impossible to continue normal operations and the problem that has arisen must be resolved. Therefore, the focus of this chapter is on negotiations in crisis situations, which carry greater potential responsibility than ordinary business negotiations. This study looks at strategies and tactics for negotiating in crisis situations, examines specific strategies and tactics, and determines whether there are certain regularities in negotiating in crisis situations. Crisis situations also require an urgent solution to the problem, as the cost of not reaching an agreement is high. The phenomenon of negotiation is seen as a communication process. The specific objective is to investigate the importance of communication in the negotiation process in different crisis situations. The research was conducted through semi-structured interviews with 15 interviewees from different countries in Europe and the Middle East who have experience in crisis negotiations. Each of them had a specific negotiation situation and the only thing they have in common is the experience of negotiating in a crisis. The results indicate that in the different areas of negotiation, the focus is on building long-term relationships, an integrative negotiation strategy and attention to ethical negotiation tactics.