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This research examines how chain hotels respond to the crisis in the context of situational crisis communication, focusing on the first emergence of the COVID-19 crisis and the second period of the pandemic, during which the pandemic was relatively weak.

The data were obtained from the digital announcements shared by the world's 50 most valuable hotel chains. The announcements, declared in the two phases of March–April and July–September 2020, were analyzed. The data were collected through document analysis and transferred to the MAXQDA program for qualitative content analysis. Interviews were held with the managers of chain companies to compare and confirm the results obtained.

Chain hotels announced regulations on existing reservations, potential customers, intermediary businesses, suppliers and employees by focusing on maintaining business reputation in the first phase of the pandemic. The hotel units seem to be more open to referrals on emergency measures from chain centers in this phase. In the second stage, announcements to increase sales were shared. The content of the crisis communication is in line with the predictions advocated under the situational crisis communication theory. In addition, some applications that do not comply with the theory are also identified.

The effects of the crisis communication on hotels were addressed; the responses of other stakeholders to the communication were not taken into account.

Successful response strategies must be considered when developing future crisis preparedness measures. Actors in the hospitality industry can adopt a situational crisis communication approach as an effective strategy to cope with the losses caused by a crisis and possibly speed recovery. Hotels can turn the crisis into an opportunity with the strategies they put forward during the pandemic and gain stronger reputations after the pandemic.

This study contributes to both the crisis management literature and the literature on COVID-19 by exemplifying the crisis communication measures and strategies of chain hotels. Focusing on different sub-processes in the analysis of crisis communication, revealing the background about the production and transfer of the information shared during the crisis, and interpreting the content of the messages by considering the benefit of the stakeholders and benefits of the hotel reveals the originality of this study.

The purpose of this paper is to address the often missing theoretical foundation of crisis communication from an integrated perspective on the micro, meso and macro level. Based on the theory of structuration, a systematic, integrative framework is developed for safeguarding organizational legitimization and multidimensional reputation through communication during crisis situations which is applicable both for profit and non‐profit organizations.

Gidden's theory of structuration was chosen as a basis to develop the integrative model of crisis communication that proposes a communicative impact on reputation on a situative level of message strategies (micro level), an organizational level (meso level) and a societal level (macro level). A well‐organized crisis communication management on all of these levels is seen as the key communicative driver to safeguard long‐term organizational reputation.

The paper shows that successful crisis communication management must be conceptualized and addressed on distinctive levels of complexity. While on a message level (situative crisis communication) it creates meaning, crisis communication must be seen as management task on an organizational level (integrative crisis communication). However, in order to fully safeguard reputation in the long term and trustworthiness in the short term, crisis communication has also a societal component when addressing moral standards and norms (strategic crisis communication).

The paper is a conceptual contribution which build the basis of a follow‐up empirical, experimental study where the proposed model is successfully tested.

For PR managers, this paper gives reasons to conceptualize crisis communication management, not only on a message strategy level, but also to take into consideration the organizational and societal levels.

The paper stands in line with the theoretical discourse of organizational crisis communication. So far, few approaches conceptualize organizational crisis communication thoroughly on an integrated level of different perspectives so that the paper provides an important input, pushing the discussion forward.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the crisis communication strategies implemented by hotel and lodging organizations via social media. Specifically, this study analyzed Twitter content by hotels in Orlando, Florida during the summer of 2016 when several crises occurred that made global media coverage, including the alligator snatching on Disney property, the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub and growing concerns of Zika virus.

To understand crisis communication in the hotel industry, this study was guided by the technology-environment-organization framework and situational crisis communication theory (SCCT). Twitter content between June 1 and August 31, 2016 from Orlando hotels was collected and content analyzed to determine: was the message related to the crisis event, the SCCT strategy used and the influence of hotel organizational factors (ownership, size, classification) on the use of social media for crisis communication.

Results indicate that most hotels are not currently using Twitter as a form of crisis communication. Only the shooting at Pulse Nightclub was communicated and the SCCT bolster strategy was used throughout each of the crisis-related message, reminding stakeholders that they too are a victim.

This study provides insight into the ways hotels are using social media for crisis communication. Each crisis explored was different, and while the hotels were not responsible for creating the crises, they are responsible for the safety of guests. These results inform hoteliers that there is a responsibility to communicate during a crisis, particularly for informative purposes.

This study situates in the context of Chipotle's food safety issue and seeks to understand how their primary customers perceive their crisis response messages after learning of the outbreaks. The current study incorporates the framework of situational crisis communication theory (SCCT; Coombs, 2007) and public segmentation model (Rawlins, 2006) to understand the effectiveness of crisis response messages. It aims to examine the role of public segmentation in situational crisis communication and investigate the effects of three crisis response strategies according to SCCT on different public segments.

The SCCT provides guidelines for understanding the effectiveness of different crisis response strategies. The current study showcases the importance of public segmentation in the SCCT model through the lens of stakeholder theory. A 3 (crisis response strategy: deny, diminish, rebuild) × 4 (public segment: advocate, dormant, adversarial, apathetic) factorial experiment was conducted.

The findings suggest that advocate public expressed more positive evaluation about the company when exposed to rebuild and deny strategies. Both dormant and adversarial stakeholders reported positive responses on rebuild and diminish strategies. However, no difference was found among apathetic public.

The researchers attempt to make a modest contribution in this direction by reporting results from an empirical experiment that examined the effects of crisis response strategies on different public segments. The findings suggest an effective message tailoring approach to target different public segments. Thus, the results of this study are expected to benefit relevant corporations and public relations practitioners.

Scholars have discouraged using silence in crises as it magnifies the information vacuum (see Pang, 2013). The purpose of this paper is to argue for its viability and explore the type of silence that can be used.

Eight international cases were analyzed to examine how silence was adopted, sustained and broken.

The findings uncovered three intention-based typologies of strategic silence: delaying, avoiding and hiding silences. Among such, avoiding/hiding silence intensified crises and adversely affected post-silence organizational image when forcefully broken, while delaying silence helped preserve/restore image with primary stakeholders if successfully sustained and broken as planned.

First, these findings may lack generalizability due to the limited number of cases studied. Second, local sentiments may not be fully represented in the English-language news examined as they may be written for a different audience. Finally, a number of cases studied were still ongoing at the time of writing, so the overall effectiveness of the strategy employed might be compromised as future events unfold.

A stage-based practical guide to adopting delaying silence is proposed as a supporting strategy before the execution of crisis response strategies.

This is one of the few studies to examine the role of silence in crisis communication as silence is not recognized as a type of response in dominant crisis theories – be it the situational crisis communication theory or the image repair theory (An and Cheng, 2010; Benoit, 2015; Benoit and Pang, 2008; Xu and Li, 2013).

This study examines the interplay between media-induced emotional crisis framing (anger vs sadness) and message sidedness of crisis response on publics’ attribution of crisis responsibility as well as subsequent company evaluation and supportive behavioral intention.

A 2 (emotion: anger vs sadness) x 2 (crisis response: one-sided vs two-sided) online experiment was conducted among 161 participants in the USA.

Results showed that anger-inducing media framing of the crisis elicited higher levels of crisis responsibility attribution and more negative company evaluation, compared with sadness-inducing media framing. One-sided message response was more effective than two-sided message response in lowering attribution of crisis responsibility when sadness was induced, but no difference was found under the anger-induced condition. Attribution of crisis responsibility fully mediated the effects of emotional crisis framing on company evaluation and supportive behavioral intention toward the company.

This study is among the first to examine the interaction effect between emotional media framing and response message sidedness in an ambiguous crisis. Drawing on the interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks, this study integrates the situational crisis communication theory, appraisal-tendency framework and message sidedness in persuasion literature. As such, it contributes to theoretical development in crisis communication and offers communication managers guidance on how to effectively address emotionally framed crises.

This study explores the interaction effects of organizational conflict history and employees' situational perceptions of COVID-19 on negative megaphoning and turnover intention.

Survey data (N = 476) were collected from US citizens, who self-identified as full-time employees, through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) in August 2020.

Organizational conflict history (i.e. highly conflict-prone vs less conflict-prone workplaces) interacts with employees' situational perceptions of COVID-19 (i.e. inactive vs active publics) in affecting employees' negative megaphoning and turnover intention toward their organizations. Employees who are active publics on COVID-19 in highly conflict-prone workplaces reported the highest negative megaphoning and turnover intention. On the contrary, employees who are inactive publics on COVID-19 in less conflict-prone workplaces reported the lowest negative megaphoning and turnover intention.

COVID-19 is an uncontrollable, exogenous crisis for organizations. While it is expected that employees in highly conflict-prone workplaces would report higher negative megaphoning and turnover intention, this study found that employees' situational perceptions of COVID-19 would further exacerbate the effects. This finding reflects the importance of managing organizational conflicts continuously and preemptively while also segmenting and cultivating relationships with employees based on their situational perceptions of issues and crises.

This study identified the significance of the interaction of cross-situational factors (e.g. employees' recollection of organizational conflict history) and situational factors (e.g. employees' situational perceptions of issues) in affecting employees' negative behavioral intentions in crisis situations, even if the crises are exogenous and uncontrollable.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the communication behaviour on Twitter during the rise of a preventable corporate crisis. It aims to contribute to situational crisis response strategies, and to broaden the authors’ understanding of legitimacy management. In September 2015, Volkswagen’s (VW) emission scandal became public and caused debates also in social media. By applying complementing tools of data analysis to the Twitter communication around the “Dieselgate” crisis, this study unfolds a field of tension between corporate strategy and public perception.

The authors collected Twitter data and analysed approximately 2.1m tweets relevant to the VW crisis. The authors approached the data by separating the overall communication in peak and quiet phases; analysing the peaks with social network analysis techniques; studying sentiments and the differences in each phase; and specifically examining tweets from VW’s corporate accounts with regard to the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) and legitimacy.

VW’s very few tweets were not able to reduce the emotionality and sentiment of the ongoing Twitter discussion. Instead, even during quiet phases, the communication remained rather negative. The analysis suggests that VW followed a strategy not covered by SCCT, i.e. keeping silent.

The discovered strategy of keeping silent extends the SCCT and is linked to legitimacy management. Learnings from this study help decision makers to put social media response strategies into practice to swiftly recover from crises or refrain from certain strategies to avoid further reputational damage.

Examining the underlying communication patterns of a crisis case with societal magnitude such as “Dieselgate” helps sensitising customers and executives to utilise social media channels more comprehensible in future crises.

The study uncovers the unconventional and yet barely addressed crisis response strategy of a global enterprise while devising unique realisations for practitioners and communication researchers. It contributes to existing knowledge about situational crisis response strategies, and broadens the authors’ understanding of legitimacy management in times of social media ubiquity.

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.

This chapter studies crisis communication within the backdrop of tourism social media. The Scandinavian airline SAS is chosen as a case study due to the recognition of the airline’s social media presence during the 2010 ash cloud crisis. The study relies on netnographic and content analysis methods to examine Facebook postings throughout the life-cycle stages of the crisis as well as an interview with a social media representative at the airline. The social mediated crisis communication model is applied to situational crisis communication theory, and the findings show that social media provide a beneficial channel during a crisis. However, it is necessary for organizations to recognize stakeholders’ needs during a crisis as social media presence alone does not ensure success.