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Hospitality is one of the industries severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is vital to comprehend how to help the workforce in this service sector grow resilient through such a crisis. This paper aims to unpack the role of employer event communication in promoting hotel workers’ resilience.

The data were garnered from 462 hotel workers who were on unpaid leave or layoff during the hotel shutdown.

The results unfolded the positive link between employer event communication and hotel workers’ resilience, for which core beliefs examination served as a mediation mechanism. Family support was found to moderate the effect of employer event communication on core beliefs examination.

The findings indicate to hospitality organizations that in face of a crisis such as the COVID-19, their employee resilience can be activated if they implement event communication activities. They should further realize that their support should go hand in hand with family support in fueling employee resilience from the crisis.

This study advances the understanding of how and when to promote resilience among hotel workers during a pandemic crisis.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of information context in crisis communication. Previous studies have examined the effectiveness of types of message strategies used during different periods of a crisis. The crisis presented in this case is unusual in that there were no crisis communication strategies used to mitigate it. There was a void where a crisis communication strategy should have been, allowing for critique of what happens when crisis communication is not proactive and strategic.

This is a case study of crisis response developed through participant observation and interviews with key informants, verified through quantitative content analysis of newspaper coverage.

The study found that when issues reported by the media are not tempered by explanation of context from the organization, increasingly negative media frames result, therefore elevating the salience of the issues and the perceived severity of the crisis. When issues are not proactively managed, people outside the organization begin to identify with the side of the issue presented in the media.

The study provides insights into effective crisis communication management by examining the importance of proactive communication for managing public opinion.

The paper describes what happens when proactive communication is not used during a crisis and therefore shows what happens in the absence of effective public relations, when the crisis response is no response at all.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a qualitative method to examine why complex supply chain crises occur, to aid in future development of a model and theory of supply chain crisis management. The lack of analysis of crisis events in supply chains and their underlying causes is to be addressed.

The paper analyzes various types of supply chain crises and using qualitative analysis determines what key investments of time and resources would prevent crises from escalating or recurring,.

The qualitative analysis reveals key characteristics in supply chain crises. The most common is dependence on a sole supplier, while poor relationships with suppliers are also contributory, as was risk management. Several common characteristics of successful management were found, most notably capacity flexibility, but also multiple suppliers and proactive risk management.

The nature of the study is exploratory, and future research could refine the work to determine a model and theory of supply chain crisis success and failures.

Maintaining capacity flexibility during non‐crisis times can be a difficult investment to make. To pay overhead and maintenance costs on underutilized equipment and a facility with no intention of using those resources for normal production appears at the outset to be counterintuitive. However, given the potential risk of a crisis, a decision to allow for diverse capacity, back‐up equipment, or alternative manufacturing locations results in a positive return on investment in a crisis.

The first steps toward a model for decision making during a supply chain crisis in a firm have been taken. This paper examines supply chain crises by analyzing crises and their outcomes, a method not used in previous papers. Crises management needs proactive analysis, and this paper is an initial exploration of ways to undertake the evaluation of key investments, using both qualitative and quantitative methods.

To explicate the qualities of cooperation among leaders and their organizations during crisis, we studied the response to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Through interviews and analysis, we discovered leaders successfully overcame obstacles that typically undermine collective crisis response. Qualitative analysis revealed five guiding behavioral principles that appeared to stimulate effective inter-agency leadership collaboration in high stakes. We draw upon concepts of collective leadership and swarm intelligence to interpret our observations and translate the findings into leader practices. We focus on replicable aspects of a meta- phenomenon, where collective action was greater than the sum of its parts; we do not evaluate individual leader behavior. Our findings provide a starting point for deeper exploration of how to bolster public safety by catalyzing enhanced inter-agency leadership behavior.

The main purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence for effective crisis communication in public emergencies including the relevance of planning and training and rehearsal; to explore the role of different stakeholders and how social media influence effective crisis communication.

A qualitative research design was employed. Two events were analysed, via the synthesis model for handling crisis communication in the public sector, as cases. First, via post-crisis semi-structured interviews, a gas explosion in the city of Antwerp was analysed. Second, via participant observation of a training and rehearsal exercise, more insight was gained on the role of training and social media for crisis communication.

The findings of this paper provide empirical evidence that (1) effective crisis communication is communication that is diversified across different crisis stages and diverse stakeholders; (2) that different internal social media tools and external social media tools are necessary to be monitored for effective crisis communication; (3) that training and rehearsal are of great importance for effective crisis communication.

This paper contributes to three current crisis communication research calls. First, the call for more research focusing on public sector crisis management, using public sector crisis communication models. Second, the call for the implementation of a more multiple-actor approach instead of an organisation-centred approach; and, third, the call for gaining insight into how specific communication channels are used before, during and after a crisis.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and consequent economic shutdown have had severe impacts on the tourism industry. Acquiring an understanding of the impacts and ongoing response procedures is crucial to recovery planning. The purpose of this study is to explore the management procedures undertaken by sport tourism stakeholders during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indiana, USA, a state that relies heavily on sport tourism for its economic vibrancy.

A constructivist grounded theory approach was adopted. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 high-rank managers in sport tourism organizations.

Continued uncertainty, psychological and financial distress were found to be the main challenges. Contingency planning, adaptability and focus on doable tasks were the core elements of the strategic response plan. Resilience management, particularly social and financial, appeared to be key in the recovery process. A stronger return was predicted with technological advancements and new collaborations. Intra-destination collaboration and creative programs were found to be key in the long-term resilience of the destination.

Findings shed light on the challenges faced, response actions undertaken, and the projected future which helps to understand the stories behind decisions and proposals, identify the gaps, and plan the best possible practices. Recommendations for leveraging sports to revitalize the destinations and help businesses survive the crisis are provided that can guide sport tourism communities on their path to recovery from COVID-19.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the resilience of tourism businesses in a coastal city in the USA to coastal hazards and severe weather events. The researchers developed a framework for assessing the resilience of coastal tourism businesses and demonstrated the applicability of the framework using the case study of Virginia Beach.

Researchers conducted structured, face-to-face interviews with tourism business owners and managers, using an instrument based on an assessment framework with five components: vulnerability, business planning and operations, preparation and recovery planning, communications and workforce. In total, 32 participants representing 42 businesses in the accommodations, restaurants, retail and activities sectors at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront were interviewed.

Many participants did not feel highly vulnerable due to structural mitigation efforts taken by the city. Larger businesses undertook more strategic planning, preparedness and recovery planning. All businesses had effective ways of communicating with staff and customers, and through membership in local organizations, had access to resources. While not all businesses prioritized training for employees, they recognized the importance of providing support for staff during severe weather events.

As one of the few studies on tourism resilience in the USA, this study highlights the variability of resilience among tourism businesses within a destination.

Botswana enjoys the celebratory status of a shining example of a successful democracy in Africa. As such, one expects democracy to underpin policy formulation and the running of the education system. This chapter problematizes the relationship between democracy and education in Botswana. It focuses on the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Conduct of the 2010 Examinations. The conduct of the examinations marked a crisis which resulted in a deadlock between the Botswana’s Ministry of Education and Skills Development (MoESD), Botswana Examination’s Council (BEC) on the one hand and teachers’ unions-Botswana Sectors of Educators Trade Union (BOSETU) and Botswana Teacher’s Union (BTU) on the other hand. Teachers’ unions complained about poor conditions of service and remunerations associated with the administration of national examinations. This action triggered a national strike in the public service in general and consequently revealed Botswana Government’s undemocratic response to what was a sensitive issue of national interest. When the examinations results were released, it became evident that students performed horribly BEC was persecuted for the poor performance. This chapter therefore registers that the 2010 Examinations crisis in Botswana is a classic indication that democracy and education are two worlds apart in Botswana’s education system.

The purpose of this paper is to examine crisis communication strategies used by four leading Chinese milk companies at various crisis stages to cope with the largest food safety crisis in China. Approaching the interplay between the situational crisis communication theory (Coombs, 2007) and the image restoration theory (Benoit, 1995), the study attempted to understand the importance of crisis management at various crisis stages by comparing crisis communication strategies used by surviving and thriving companies with those by the company that failed.

Dividing a crisis management process into three stages, a content analysis was conducted to analyze five major crisis communication strategies – evasion of responsibility, rebuilding, bolstering, endorsement of outside experts and government relations – used by Chinese milk companies at various crisis stages.

The study demonstrated that Sanlu, which went bankrupt as a result of the scandal, predominately took the Chinese crisis management approach. The other three companies that survived the scandal employed western crisis communication strategies, although with distinct Chinese characteristics. Specifically, all four companies employed similar strategies during the pre-crisis stage – keeping silent/covering-up. During the crisis stage, strategies varied dramatically as companies became involved – looking for government protection and apologizing, while survivors tended to adopt a widely used western strategy – bolstering at the post-crisis stage.

The examination of crisis communication strategies at various crisis stages may shed some light on how effectively Chinese companies and possibly international companies in China can manage future crises that share similar profiles as this milk scandal and further call for attention to scrutinize the social responsibility of corporate citizens in China.

This study would fill the vacancy in research by investigating crisis communication strategies used in the largest food safety crisis in China. The findings provide insight for understanding the current status of crisis communication strategies and management within a Chinese matrix of political, social and cultural factors.

This paper provides evidence of financial linkages across countries as a channel of contagion of currency crises in the case of the 1997 Asian crisis using high-frequency data, focusing on the hardest hit countries in the region: Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Korea. Stock markets in the region were found to play an important role in transmitting initial and local shocks beyond its country of origin to other emerging economies during the 1997 crisis. Stock market linkages seem to have contributed importantly to the quick and wide-scale contagion of the ensuing exchange rate crisis across countries in the 1997 Asian crisis episode.