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Agrees that the key to crisis management is crisis prevention but suggests strategies on how to cope if the unthinkable were to happen. Notes the need for effective communication and the involvement of the media. Concludes that a policy of open and truthful communication can minimize damage to corporate and individual reputations.

The 21st century brings with it profound changes in the relationship between business and society, and the implications for the way in which companies communicate are significant. In the era of the triple bottom line the stakes are much higher for companies in their dealings with the outside world — accountability and responsibility have become the watchwords of modern business, and external perception of the way in which companies behave is becoming a more and more tangible risk issue. Best practice in managing a range of non‐financial risks requires companies to develop an adaptive and intuitive approach based on ‘outside‐in’ thinking. Failure to do so can result in irreparable reputational damage.

In the continuing endeavour to work towards ever better management, the engineering manager has a crucial role to play. The history of the engineer is reviewed and his/her possible present role in management is considered. Management objectives are outlined and defined and the specific role of the engineer emphasised. The best managers are leaders, in particular effective leaders of teams, and this is a management task well within the grasp of the engineer. The engineer′s specific training and initial experience give him/her special qualifications in this area. Indeed, there seems to be no reason why the engineer should not climb the management ladder right to the top, especially these days when technology is continually growing in importance. The demands made on the effective chief executive are outlined. It would seem that engineering management has come of age and that with the appropriate management training the engineer should be well capable of filling a senior management role.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse an Australian commercial radio talkback show that deployed prank as a strategy to scoop royal news to entertain an Australian audience, often commodified for popularity ratings and sponsorship dollars.

Using textual analysis, the study empirically examined the crisis that followed the 2Day FM’s prank call to the Duchess of Cambridge at King Edward VII Hospital, London. The paper engages with the media-made disaster from the lens of issue and crisis management interrogating social conversations and news stories across three countries, i.e., Australia, Britain and India.

Findings reflect that the media, in this case, radio, far more than any other public entity, is subject to public scrutiny and has a moral obligation to practice with public interest at heart. Both news and social media played crucial roles in the escalation of the crisis that ignited a range of public issues. While social media narratives were abusive, condemning and life-threatening, news stories focused on legality, ethics and privacy.

The prank broadcast invited news and social media attention and raised public concern over the ethics of Australian radio entertainment. Crises, whilst often damaging, contribute to the rethinking and rejuvenation of organisational and professional values and practices.

This project is significant in that it is the first to use a radio talk show as a case to engage with issue and crisis management literature and interrogate radio practice in Australia. Further, the project identifies this crisis as media-made and develops an innovative crisis lifecycle model.

Twenty years before Sherlock Holmes donned his deerstalker and informed Watson that “the game's a‐foot!” an American woman, Seely Regester, pub‐lished a mystery entitled The Dead Letter (1867).

This article is concerned with the management of a crisis situation which may occur within a business organization and which is likely to attract media attention. It is argued that the likelihood of occurrence of such an event is now much greater than it was previously – not least because of the speed of present day communications and the increased public demand for accountability. The writer contends that it is important for a senior executive to take ownership of a crisis and handle it strategically rather than allow a team of functional specialists to respond on a fire‐fighting basis. It is further argued that the most appropriate executive for this responsibility is the head of the marketing function, because of his involvement with all aspects of the business and its strategic direction.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework of excellence for the development of an online press office at Cardiff Council.

The paper presents an analysis of key issues of public relations theory as they apply to the provision of an online press office. This is supported by a survey of journalists who have used Cardiff's media service and enhanced by assessment of examples of existing best practice across local authorities in the UK.

The result is a suggested framework of nine core elements for excellence, which draws on theory and practice and could be applied by other local authorities. The study shows that provided these guiding principles are followed, a basic site can be as successful as one with all the bells and whistles.

The paper makes a substantial contribution to the evidence base for the implementation of local authority online press offices in the UK.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a need to widen stakeholder theory to include non‐human influences to better describe the complex corporate environment. Drawing from actor‐network theory, non‐human entities may “translate” new, unexpected stakeholders to support their aims.

The paper employs a theoretical conceptual approach with three illustrative examples.

The examples provided show that corporate crises result partly from previously unacknowledged non‐human spheres of influence and cause corporations serious losses. Corporations that take a proactive stance and monitor the weak signals of change are able to improve their standing and maintain legitimacy.

The framework created requires more testing with different examples across contexts and cultures. Future studies should examine the process of translation more deeply and examine who can potentially be translated into a stakeholder.

Corporate communication should play “the devil's advocate” on issues and analyze not only stakeholders, but also non‐human entities that may be able to translate others into joining their cause.

This paper broadens stakeholder theory to better describe the current corporate environment by highlighting the process of translation among stakeholders and non‐human entities.

This article develops an alternative theoretical approach to the Supreme Court’s controversial electoral redistricting decisions in Shaw v. Reno (1993) and its progeny. Instead of relying on the traditional equal protection interpretation, this paper argues that controversies over electoral redistricting are at base disputes among competing visions of democracy. In the Court’s recent redistricting cases, the majority and the dissent adopted fundamentally different visions of democracy – Individualist Democracy and Democracy as Power. In addition to elaborating these rival understandings of democracy, this article develops the concept of Symbolic Democracy to explain a central paradox in the Court majority’s decision: its simultaneous denial and recognition of the relevance of racial groups in representation.

Most issue management practitioners and scholars accept that issue management has progressed substantially over 25 years, from primarily a reactive crisis prevention tool to a maturing strategic management discipline. But the terminology used within issue management to define the different management positions has not kept pace with that evolution. In fact some of the language used heavily influences responses to issues and limits the apparent framework of choice. This paper reviews some past efforts to develop appropriate terminology and proposes an alternative lexicon.