Inhalt: Crisis remains a pervasive phenomenon for organizations of all kinds. The ubiquitous and casual invocation of crisis cuts across organizational sectors and bodies of literature; and the popularity of crisis holds true for institutions of higher education. There is much agreement among communication scholars and practitioners that crises disrupt and derail organizational practices, threaten individual and institutional reputations, and require rapid responses. However, the ways in which individuals disentangle a ‘crisis’ from a ‘non-crisis’ or ‘potential crisis’ is much less certain. Through a communicative lens, the identification, interpretation, and meaning-making of situations that may be perceived as crises is a socially constructed process. Drawing upon nearly 40 semi-structured interviews with senior university leaders, this article explores the ways in which crises are constituted through both stakeholder perceptions and leadership discourse and behaviors and concludes with specific implications for applied practice.
Schlagwörter:communication; crisis; higher education; leadership; organisational behaviour; Organisationsanalyse; perception; university
CEWS Kategorie:Netzwerke und Organisationen
Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz