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The COVID-19 lockdown severely impacted organizations in the cultural and tourist business as their products all of a sudden “disappeared”. This study aims to explore if and how the unexpected and disruptive nature of the pandemic accelerated the development of new communication strategies on their social media.

The study draws on data from 24 midsize cultural institutions and tourist attractions in Denmark over the first two months of the lockdown in 2020. Approximately 900 posts on Facebook were collected and analyzed through the netnographic method. The analysis followed a two-layered qualitative approach. First, open coding to identify typologies and enable a comparison with established strategies from the literature review. Then, an exploratory examination was conducted across the typologies.

Nine different content categories were identified in the data and subsequently assessed and discussed in relation to the literature on strategies and dialogic intentions. This resulted in the emergence of two new overarching strategies: hope and host.

While hope is particularly relevant in crisis situations, the utilization of employees in the host role presents an opportunity for further development and engagement. Further, the results call for future research that breaks with the traditional quest for ideal strategies for the benefit of exploring the notion of “strategic doers”.

The identification of the hope and host strategies, along with the analysis of content categories and their alignment with various strategic intentions, contributes to the existing knowledge in this field. Further, the classic perception of engagement as driven by explicit interaction and dialogue is also challenged.

This study aims to contribute to strategic crisis communication research by exploring international media representations of third sector crises and crisis response; expanding the range of crisis types beyond transgressions; and developing a framework that integrates framing and crisis communication theory.

Quantitative content analysis was applied to identify patterns in crisis reporting of 18 news media outlets in Canada, Germany, India, Switzerland, UK and US. Using an inductive framing approach, crisis coverage of nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) between 2015 and 2018 was analyzed across a wide range of crises, including but not limited to prominent cases such as Oxfam, Kids Company, or the Islamic Research Foundation.

The news media in six countries report more internal crises in the third sector than external crises. The most frequent crisis types were fraud and corruption, sexual violence/personal exploitation and attacks on organizations. Exploratory factor analysis revealed three components of crisis response strategies quoted in the media, conditional rebuild, defensive and justified denial strategies. Causal attributions and conditional rebuild strategies significantly influenced media evaluations of organizational crisis response. Three frames of third sector crises were detected; the critique, the damage and the victim frame. These frames emphasize different crisis types, causes, crisis response strategies and evaluations of crisis response.

The study reveals the particularities of crises and crisis communication in the third sector and identifies factors that influence mediated portrayals of crises and crisis response strategies of nonprofit organizations (NPOs) from an international comparative perspective. The findings have relevant implications for crisis communication theory and practice.

This study aims to examine task and relationship conflict and their linkage with defensive communication strategies, i.e. mature, neurotic and immature defensive communication. Furthermore, Study 1 also investigated the mediating impact of relationship conflict and the moderating impact of a manager’s active-empathic listening in dealing with task conflicts and the defensive communication of the employees. Study 2 intended to assess the causal direction of task conflicts and defensive communication strategies.

This research integrates the Job Demands–Resources framework, Conservation of Resources theory and Conflict Expression framework. Data from 124 professionals in India’s tertiary industry was gathered using a longitudinal approach. Study 1 analyses the dynamics between conflicts and defensive communication while considering managers’ active-empathic listening as a potential mitigating factor. Study 2 was conducted after a 10-month interim to delve into the intricate causal connections between defensive communication strategies and task conflicts. For analysing the data, SPSS was used for conducting confirmatory factor analysis. Furthermore, to analyse the conceptual framework and the hypothesised relationships in this study, partial least squares (PLS) modelling was performed using Smart-PLS 4.0.

Task conflicts have a significant negative association with mature and neurotic defensive communication, whereas they have a strong positive relationship with immature defensive communication. Relationship conflict significantly mediates the association between task conflict and immature defensive communication. The moderating role of the manager’s active-empathic listening was not supported. In addition, the relationship between immature defensive communication and task conflict is significantly positive, outlining their bidirectional association. In contrast, the association between mature defensive communication is significantly negative. This highlights the potential of immature defensive communication to create escalatory conflict spirals and of mature defensive communication to de-escalate them.

Defensive communication strategies, commonly explored in the psychological realm, particularly within family and romantic relationship contexts, have received limited attention in organisational behaviour. This longitudinal study offers a unique perspective on the evolution of defensive communication and its impact on task conflict over time, enhancing the understanding of how individuals adapt their communication strategies as conflicts persist or dissipate. The investigation also advances the understanding of conflict spirals, illustrating the potential of mature defensive communication to de-escalate conflicts while revealing a bidirectional connection between immature defensive communication and task conflicts.

Leaders need to prioritise addressing task conflicts, particularly those that might spiral into relationship conflicts. This would present managers with the ability to make task conflicts more functional in nature, which could help to enhance both team and organisational achievements. The bidirectional relationship between task conflict and immature defensive communication points towards the exigency for managerial and organisational initiatives to prevent the development of conflict spirals at the workplace.

This study offers crucial interdisciplinary perspectives into the body of literature with the longitudinal investigation of the connections between managers’ active-empathetic listening, task conflict, relationship conflict and the various defensive communication strategies. With the help of insights from this study, managers and leaders will be empowered to take the necessary actions to reduce employee defensive behaviours and foster a supportive culture for evoking positive and desirable performance.

This study aims to provide an overview, the state-of-the-art “research fronts”, the emerging themes of investigation and a research agenda of crisis communication for destinations’ image.

This research is conducted with a bibliographic coupling study, complemented with an H-Classic classification and a thematic analysis of the articles included in the four clusters provided by the bibliometric methodology (papers dating from 2017 to 2021, both years included).

Based on the bibliometric analysis, four thematic clusters were identified. Two of these clusters supply the “research fronts”, the most current themes in a scientific field: Cluster 1 addresses communication related to tourists’ safety, and cluster 2 enhances the role of stakeholders’ collaboration to create destinations resilience in crisis communication. The other two clusters highlight emerging themes for future investigation: Cluster 3 focuses on recovery marketing communication strategies for a post-crisis era, and cluster 4 analyses how crisis communication strategies contribute to reduce tourists’ risk perception and boosting travel intention. Finally, a future research agenda is proposed, based on the emerging themes from this study.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first bibliometric study to analyse crisis communication for destinations’ image (pre-crisis, crisis and post-crisis). This study, which covers the most recent academic literature in this field, provides insights of communication strategies from recent crises and disasters within the “research fronts”. Besides, a research agenda useful for future scholar investigation is proposed with its emerging themes. These rising topics and learnings from past events could be used by destination marketing organisations in crisis communication for destination image recovery in the current post-pandemic scenario or in upcoming crises or disasters.

危机和灾难中目的地形象沟通：回顾和未来研究议程

摘要

本研究提供了目的地形象危机沟通的概述、最先进的“研究前沿”、新兴的研究主题以及研究议程。

本文进行了书目耦合研究, 辅以 H-经典分类和对文献计量方法提供的四个集群中包含的文章的主题分析 (论文日期为 2017–2021 年间)。

根据文献计量分析, 确定了四个主题集群。 其中两个集群提供“研究前沿”, 这是科学领域的最新主题：集群 一 解决与游客安全相关的沟通, 集群 二 加强利益相关者合作的作用, 以在危机沟通中创造目的地恢复力。 其他两个集群突出了未来调查的新兴主题：集群 三 侧重于后危机时代的复苏营销传播策略, 集群 四分析危机传播策略如何有助于降低游客的风险感知和提高旅行意愿。最后, 本文提出了基于新兴主题的未来研究议程。

据我们所知, 这是第一个分析了目的地形象的危机传播（危机前、危机和危机后）的, 独特的文献计量研究。该研究涵盖了该领域最新的学术文献, 通过其“研究前沿”提供了有关近期危机和灾难的沟通策略的见解。此外, 本文还提出了具有新兴主题的研究议程。这些新兴话题以及从过去事件中吸取的教训, 可以被目的地营销组织 (DMO) 用来进行灾难沟通, 以便在当前的大流行后情景或未来的危机或灾难中恢复目的地的形象。

Comunicación Para la imagen de destinos en crisis y desastres: revisión y futura agenda de investigación

Resumen

Este estudio proporciona una perspectiva general, los “research fronts”- los temas más actuales de una disciplina científica-, los temas emergentes y una agenda de investigación sobre comunicación de crisis de la imagen de los destinos turísticos.

La investigación está basada en un análisis bibliográfico coupling, complementado con una clasificación h-Classics y un análisis temático de todos los artículos examinados con esta metodología bibliométrica (artículos fechados entre 2017 y 2021, ambos años incluidos).

Con este análisis bibliométrico, se identifican cuatro clusters temáticos. Dos de ellos, presentan los “research fronts”, los temas más vigentes de un campo científico: el cluster 1 se refiere a la comunicación realizada para transmitir el concepto de seguridad a los turistas, y el cluster 2 destaca la relevancia de la colaboración de todos los agentes turísticos para crear resiliencia en los destinos en la comunicación de crisis. Los otros dos clusters recogen los temas emergentes de investigación futura: el cluster 3 se centra en las estrategias de marketing para la época de postcrisis y el cluster 4 analiza cómo la comunicación contribuye a reducir la percepción de riesgo de los turistas y, por tanto, a potenciar su intención de viaje. Por último, el artículo propone una agenda de investigación basada en estos temas emergentes.

Hasta donde tenemos conocimiento, éste es el primer estudio bibliométrico especialmente enfocado a la comunicación de crisis para la imagen de los destinos turísticos (con sus tres etapas, precrisis, crisis y poscrisis). Esta investigación, que analiza la literatura más reciente en este campo, proporciona conocimiento sobre la comunicación de las crisis y desastres más recientes, a través de sus “research fronts”. Asimismo, propone una agenda con nuevos temas que están surgiendo en esta disciplina, útil para futuras investigaciones académicas. Dichos temas, junto con los aprendizajes de incidentes pasados, pueden ser usados por las Organizaciones de Marketing de Destinos (DMO, en sus siglas en inglés) para incorporarlos en su comunicación de crisis destinada a la recuperación de la imagen de los destinos turísticos en el actual escenario post pandemia o en futuras crisis o desastres.

When companies face a crisis, they sometimes deliver blame-shifting communications, trying to shift blame onto another actor to protect their reputation. While previous research has considered how different features of the message affect its persuasiveness, little is known about whether specific senders can blame more effectively. This paper aims to contribute to research in this domain through an investigation of the sender’s social perception as a critical moderator to the persuasiveness of blame shifting.

The authors conduct four between-subjects scenario experiments to test the research hypotheses. In each experiment, participants are presented with a realistic crisis scenario and the crisis communications delivered by the company. The authors assess the extent to which perceptions of the sender influence the message’s ability to reduce negative word-of-mouth intentions and to increase purchase intentions.

The authors show that blame shifting is more likely to be effective when deployed by senders that are small (Study 1) or have a positive CSR track record (Study 2). Furthermore, The authors find that even large senders can successfully deploy blame shifting if they can benefit from being known for their CSR programs (Study 3). Finally, the authors show that the effect of blame shifting depends on the receiver’s level of concern about the crisis: stakeholders significantly concerned by the crisis reject blame-shifting communications (Study 4).

Further research should examine the impact of information about brand competence on blame-shifting effectiveness. Further research is also needed to explore sender effects for other defensive crisis communication strategies such as denial or the use of excuses or justifications.

The study offers critical information for marketers considering the use of defensive crisis communications strategies such as blame shifting.

The study extends the understanding of how sender effects influence blame-shifting communications. The analysis allows us to clarify why this strategy is effective for certain senders and certain receivers while, for others, it tends to backfire. Blame shifting backfires for large senders unless they can boast a strong CSR record.

Fake news stories have become a central element of crises that corporate public relations practitioners have confronted. Whether such stories are rumors, outright lies or deliberate attempts to discredit corporations, they have the same impact and require specific strategies for public relations practitioners to effectively respond. The purpose of this study is to uncover strategies to manage crises that arise from fake news and if and how these strategies differ for other corporate crises.

In this multi-method study of 21 in-depth interviews and a 8-person focus group with senior-level corporate public relations practitioners, authors explored decision-making strategies for responding to fake news crises. Transcripts of interviews and the focus group were thematically analyzed.

Results reveal insights regarding how public relations practitioners determine if and when to respond to fake news crises in corporations; what response strategies public relations practitioners have the autonomy to employ for fake news crises in corporations, and how public relations practitioners control media narratives during fake news crises in corporations.

The findings guide public relations practitioners to craft an autonomous decision-making process and effective online listening strategies—establishing a watchful waiting approach—and determine if the fake news issue is a passing moment or movement swirling into a crisis.

Few studies have examined the perspectives of crisis communication experts about minimizing and managing fake news crises. The study identifies opportunities for future research focused on crises originating from fake news and disinformation.

This study aims to explore how source type can influence organizational assets proposed by source credibility theory (SCT) when paired with matched situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) strategies for accidental, preventable, and victim crises. Crisis communication delivered online provides an invaluable outlet for organizations to disperse information to stakeholders quickly. It has been shown that receivers of this information have motivational assumptions about sources having their own agenda for producing content. Thus, it is important to explore how sources tasked with delivering crisis responses can influence perceptions of the sincerity and credibility of the message.

The researchers conducted a 3 (crisis response: matched accidental, matched preventable, matched victim) × 3 (source type: organization, CEO, The New York Times) online between-subjects experimental design (N = 623).

By identifying how the source disseminating crisis responses influences message perceptions, findings from this study recognize how the crisis response is situated in a greater context. Since perceived sincerity and credibility were found to influence message acceptance and reputation, making intentional decisions that acknowledge both within a crisis communication strategy may benefit both future practice and research applications.

The current study advances understandings afforded by SCCT, along with SCT, by experimentally testing the influence of these variables within crisis responses on outcomes such as account acceptance and organizational reputation.

The purpose of this study is to improve communication success through barrier identification and analysis so that the identified barriers can help project teams establish effective information-exchange strategies.

The recent publications on construction communication about time management are reviewed. Then, the semi-structured interviews are performed with both questionnaires and audio recordings (n1 = 18). Next, the collected data are analyzed using both statistical measures on the questionnaire survey and qualitative coding analysis on the text transcripts from an audio recording. Particularly, the identified barriers are substantiated using a scientometrics approach based on the published articles (2011–2020, n2 = 52,915) for purposeful information-sharing solutions in construction time management. Furthermore, the intervention strategies from the top 10 most-cited articles are analyzed and validated by comparisons with the results from construction surveys and relevant studies.

Based on the discussed communication difficulties, five main barriers were identified during time-cost risk management: probability and statistical concepts, availability of data from external resources, details of team member experiences, graphics (and graphical presentation skills), and spatial and temporal (a.k.a. 4D) simulation skills. For the improvement of communication skills and presentation quality regarding probability and statistical concepts, project teams should emphasize context awareness, case studies and group discussions. Details of communication techniques can be adjusted based on the backgrounds, experiences and expectations of team members.

The dataset n1 has both size and duration limits because of the availability of the invited industry professionals. The dataset n2 considers the literature from 2011 to 2020. Any before-the-date and unpublished studies are not included in the study.

A thorough comprehension of communication barriers can help project teams develop speaking, writing and analytical thinking skills that will enable the teams to better deliver ideas, thoughts and meanings. Additionally, the established discussion on barrier-removal strategies may enhance time management effectiveness, reduce project delays, avoid confusion and misunderstanding and save rework costs.

This research calls for the awareness of communication barriers in construction project execution and team collaboration. The identified barriers and the established solutions enrich the approaches of construction companies to share information with communities and society.

This is the first identification model for communication barriers in the time management of the construction industry to the authors' knowledge. The influencing factors and the countermeasures of communication difficulties highlighted by the research were not examined systematically and holistically in previous studies. The findings provide a new approach to facilitate the development of powerful communication strategies and to improve project execution.

Megaprojects are financially large and complex in scope, which require engagement of stakeholders from various institution and communities. With increased concerns from stakeholders on sustainability related issues, from environmental to socio-economic perspective, managing megaprojects has become quite challenging. Hence, there should be proactive approaches in active engagement of stakeholders from the start of the projects to overcome such issues. Currently, there is a knowledge gap on stakeholder management strategies specific to megaprojects on managing sustainability issues.

This research has adopted review of secondary data from case studies to identify stakeholder management challenges and strategies in megaprojects around Sydney area. The documents related to three different projects were reviewed and data were collected through qualitative content analysis and coding with use of NVivo software for within case analysis and was followed by thematic approach for cross case analysis.

Every case study project's sustainability-related stakeholder issues are more similar than different to others. Differences are mostly in terms of intensity of impact of any issue in a particular project, and/or intensity of impact at certain phase of any project. Moreover, significant sectors and strategies have been identified for key focus to manage environment and socioeconomic issues. Whatever be the strategies, in case of megaprojects, they need to be mostly proactive.

This research has extended the knowledge on stakeholder management, in relation to managing sustainability-related issues of megaprojects during their design, construction and operation phases. This research offers useful strategies for project teams of megaprojects to develop a proactive stakeholder management plan, addressing unavoidable sustainability challenges.

Based on Lasswell’s communication model, this study investigates how four categories of factors (i.e. the source, content, medium and receiver) conjointly affect the relational, financial and social outcomes (i.e. what effect) of CSA communication.

With a survey (N = 366), this study found configurations of core CSA communication factors leading to three different CSA communication outcomes.

While this study found multiways to yield three different CSA outcomes, combinational logic indicated the combined effects from source, content, medium and receiver. With content and medium, individuals’ connectedness (receiver) to a CSA issue is a core factor leading to a high level of purchase intention and issue advocacy. This study also found that message strategies (i.e. informativeness, factual tone, no promotional tone) are core factors leading to a high level of trust and issue advocacy.

With the theoretical guidance, this research contributes to strategic communication practice for various entities involved in advocacy communication by enabling an improved understanding of advocacy communication factors and triggering different communication outcomes.

As CSA communication involves multiple strategies, conventional research agenda focusing on correlational and path analysis approaches provide limited understanding of communication practice. To fill this void, this study adopts a configurational approach to understand current CSA communication practices holistically.