ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how managerial emotions and experiences frame the organization’s perception of a social media storm and, hence, how managers decide to respond to it. We first outline the role of mental frames, particularly why a social media storm tends to be framed as a crisis situation in a rational management perspective and an emotional perspective. Next, we describe two types of management framings at play and their characteristics. A case study from the Norwegian telecom provider, Telenor, shows how mental frames influence managerial perceptions and responses to social media storms as there is a relationship between how we frame problems and the level of risk that we take. We then explain risk impact assessment, which is part of crisis management. The case study of an international mining corporation illustrates the central factors of risk assessment and how different mental frames come into play. By drawing on two different cases, the reader can better sense how the managers of different types of business and industry, hereunder the nature of the business, become exposed to social media storms and the extent to which their companies can capitalize from it.
After reading this chapter, you will:
Understand how cognitive frames influence managers’ strategic and emotional responses to social media storms;
Gain insights into how companies in different industrial and geographical contexts framed a social media storm;
Be better prepared on how to sense and seize social media storms by investigating the risk elements;
Be ready to empower leadership beyond crisis management.
