ABSTRACT
Crisis research continues to develop as an area of concern and interest. How a crisis is conceptualized and perceived shapes the way in which researchers study the exigency and come to understand the organizational response. There are three guiding premises in this chapter: First, scholars working on crisis research have focused on the methods and symbols organizations may use to prepare for and respond to crisis situations. Second, because most of the research has focused on effective crisis response mechanisms and the need for crisis containment, crisis situations have been treated as isolated events rather than necessary correctives that are interrelated with the culture and history of the organization or industry. And third, as the conceptualization of crisis changes, the types of research questions that are salient also change. These questions have implications both for the direction of crisis research and for how public relations practitioners and organizational leaders engage in crisis management.
