This book studies the variety of organizational strategies selected to cope with critical uncertainties during crises. This research formulates and applies an institutional sense-making model to explain the selection of strategies for coping with uncertainties during crises to answer the question why some organizations select a rule-based strategy to cope with uncertainties, whereas others pursue a more ad hoc-based strategy. It finds that the level of institutionalization does not affect strategy selection in the initial phase of responding to crises; that three rigidity effects can be identified in the selection of sense-making strategies once organizations have faced the failure of their selected strategies; that discontinuities in the feedback loop of sense-making do not necessarily move organizations to switch their sense-making strategies, but interact with institutionalization to contribute to switching sense-making strategies. This book bridges the gap between institutional thinking and crisis management theorizing. A major step forward in the world of crisis management studies! ——Professor Arjen Boin, Leiden University, the Netherlands In a world of increasingly complex, sociotechnical systems interacting in high-risk environments, Professor Lu’s analysis of how organizations manage uncertainty is both timely and profound. ——Professor Louise K. Comfort, Director, Center for Disaster Management, University of Pittsburgh, USA Prof. Lu greatly enhances our understanding of how organizations cope with uncertainty and make sense of their challenges under the pressures of catastrophe. ——Dr. Arnold M. Howitt, Faculty Co-Director, Program on Crisis Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School, USA This book provides not only a theory of crisis management but also a key concept around which research and practice can be conducted. ——Professor Naim Kapucu, Director of School of Public Administration, University of Central Florida, USA A generic institutional model for analyzing and managing hazards, disasters and crises worldwide. ——Professor Joop Koppenjan, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands This book has done an excellent job in opening the black box of how organizations make sense of the crisis situations they face and develop strategies to respond. It should be read by all of us who wish for a peaceful and safe world. ——Professor Lan Xue, Dean of School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, China

Managing uncertainty has become a new business imperative. Technological discontinuities, regulatory upheavals, geopolitical shocks, abrupt shifts in consumer tastes or behavior, and many other factors have emerged or intensified in recent years and together conspire to undermine even the most carefully constructed business strategies. Managing Uncertainty: Strategies for Surviving and Thriving in Turbulent Times addresses these new challenges, assessing the sources of business turbulence, how to classify uncertainty, and the different ways in which uncertainty can be embraced to allow greater innovation and growth. Drawing on examples from around the world, the book presents the most recent ideas on what it means to manage uncertainty, from practitioners, academics, and consultants. Addresses the challenges of managing uncertainty in business Presents a step-by-step guide to managing business uncertainty Draws examples from major international companies, including Intel, Procter & Gamble, Siemens, Boeing, Quinetiq, Philips, China Telecom, Ford, Apple, Shell, Glaxo SmithKline and many more Written for business leaders and managers looking for new ways to ensure that their businesses continue to thrive in a world of increasing complexity, Managing Uncertainty presents new and innovative ideas about reducing risk by understanding difficult-to-predict shifts.

The overall focus of this book is the ways humans deal with life conditions, with destiny, uncertainty and misfortune - how we try to control the risks of living through medicines, technologies and magic. When dealing with questions of health and illness rational solutions and meaningful explanations may be hard to find, and treatment efforts are often guided just as much by hope as by rational choice. Evaluating the risks of illness is just one of a number of ways in which human beings attempt to exert some sense of control over their lives. New methods of testing for ills and new developments in, for example, genetic screening and in vitro fertilisation combined with the growing demands of well-informed patients seem to have turned concern from the actual problems of specific diseases toward controlling life and the risks of living in general. The chapters of this book reflect a common effort to transgress the limits of the medical by drawing on a fundamental concern with the logic of social and cultural practice. The book represents a de-medicalization of medical anthropology and a return to some of the classic themes in anthropology but with a different approach, emphasizing subjectivity, intentionality and agency.

In this fully updated Second Edition, three of today’s most respected crisis/risk communication scholars provide the latest theory, practice, and innovative approaches for handling crisis. This acclaimed book presents the discourse of renewal as a theory to manage crises effectively. The book provides 15 in-depth case studies that highlight successes and failures in dealing with core issues of crisis leadership, managing uncertainty, communicating effectively, understanding risk, promoting communication ethics, enabling organizational learning, and producing renewing responses to crisis. Unlike other crisis communication texts, this book answers the question, “What now?” and explains how organizations can and should emerge from crisis.

Anyone in a leadership position is only too aware that we live in uncertain times: disaster can strike any business, at any time, and usually without warning. Public institutions, too, face a range of threats – from global recession, resurgent terrorism and a stream of appalling natural disasters. For leaders in such organisations, these crisis situations can present both opportunities and threats. How they lead through such challenging times will propel their careers to new heights – or destroy them completely. Crisis Leadership examines the challenges faced by leaders at each stage of the crisis 'lifecycle', from the instant they learn of the crisis, through to moments of critical decision-making and the final tumultuous days. Tim Johnson offers a unique insight into the lessons learned by people in the most challenging of situations. Blended with operational guidance from the author's extensive experience in crisis management, Crisis Leadership provides an overview of the crisis 'lifecycle', to ensure that readers will come away from this book with a deeper appreciation of the critical nature of each key stage and the leadership challenges they bring – from the first signs of an emerging crisis to dealing with the long-term consequences they can create.

Public organizations are increasingly expected to cope with crisis under the same resource constraints and mandates that make up their normal routines, reinforced only through collaboration. Collaborative Crisis Management introduces readers to how collaboration shapes societies’ capacity to plan for, respond to, and recover from extreme and unscheduled events. Placing emphasis on five conceptual dimensions, this book teaches students how this panacea works out on the ground and in the boardrooms, and how insights on collaborative practices can shed light on the outcomes of complex inter-organizational challenges across cases derived from different problem areas, administrative cultures, and national systems. Written in a concise, accessible style by experienced teachers and scholars, it places modes of collaboration under an analytical microscope by assessing not only the collaborative tools available to actors but also how they are used, to what effect, and with which adaptive capacity. Ten empirical chapters span different international cases and contexts discussing: Natural and "man-made" hazards: earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires, terrorism, migration flows, and violent protests Different examples of collaborative institutions, such as regional economic communities in Africa, and multi-level arrangements in Canada, the Netherlands, Turkey, and Switzerland Application of a multimethod approach, including single case studies, comparative case studies, process-tracing, and "large-n" designs. Collaborative Crisis Management is essential reading for those involved in researching and teaching crisis management.

Since the first edition of Managing the Unexpected was published in 2001, the unexpected has become a growing part of our everyday lives. The unexpected is often dramatic, as with hurricanes or terrorist attacks. But the unexpected can also come in more subtle forms, such as a small organizational lapse that leads to a major blunder, or an unexamined assumption that costs lives in a crisis. Why are some organizations better able than others to maintain function and structure in the face of unanticipated change? Authors Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliffe answer this question by pointing to high reliability organizations (HROs), such as emergency rooms in hospitals, flight operations of aircraft carriers, and firefighting units, as models to follow. These organizations have developed ways of acting and styles of learning that enable them to manage the unexpected better than other organizations. Thoroughly revised and updated, the second edition of the groundbreaking book Managing the Unexpected uses HROs as a template for any institution that wants to better organize for high reliability.