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The study provides an initial empirical examination of Jin et al.’s (2024) new READINESS model through the expert opinions of crisis communication academics and practitioners. Through this examination, the goal is to understand crisis READINESS and how it relates to other key concepts in the crisis literature, such as preparedness and resilience.

An exploratory quantitative online survey of 30 experts in crisis communication was conducted. Our participant pool consisted of members from the Crisis Communication Think Tank, which is an established crisis thought leadership network (Jin, 2023). Data collection took place in November and December 2023.

Key findings include the dual nature of crisis READINESS as both a process and an outcome, resilience as both a process and an outcome, and preparedness as an antecedent to READINESS. A key distinction between READINESS and preparedness emerged with the former conceived of as a mindset and the latter conceived of as physical tools, training and planning.

Preparedness and resilience alone are not enough to effectively manage crises and risks, and given this, it is important to study READINESS as a concept beyond (yet connected to) preparedness and resilience. It is our hope that the findings can lead to understanding indicators of crisis READINESS and developing crisis READINESS measurement tools which can equip organizations to more effectively manage crises.

Although uncertainty has been identified as a key crisis characteristic and a multi-faceted construct essential to effective crisis management research and practice, only a few studies examined publics' perceived uncertainty with a focus on crisis severity uncertainty, leaving crisis responsibility uncertainty uninvestigated in organizational crisis settings.

To close this research gap empirically, this study employed data from an online survey of a total of 817 US adults to examine how participants' crisis responsibility uncertainty and their attribution-based crisis emotions might impact their crisis responses such as further crisis information seeking.

First, findings show that participants' crisis responsibility uncertainty was negatively associated with their attribution-independent (AI) crisis emotions (i.e. anxiety, fear, apprehension and sympathy) and external-attribution-dependent (EAD) crisis emotions (i.e. disgust, contempt, anger and sadness), but positively associated with internal-attribution-dependent (IAD) crisis emotions (i.e. guilt, embarrassment and shame). Second, crisis responsibility uncertainty and AI crisis emotions were positive predictors for participants' further crisis information seeking. Third, AI crisis emotions and IAD crisis emotions were parallel mediators for the relationship between participants' crisis responsibility uncertainty and their further crisis information seeking.

Organizations need to pay attention to the perceived uncertainty about crisis responsibility and attribution-based crisis emotions since they can impact the decision of seeking crisis information during an ongoing organizational crisis.

This study improves uncertainty management in organizational crisis communication research and practice, connecting crisis responsibility uncertainty, attribution-based crisis emotions and publics' crisis information seeking.

The purpose of the study is to provide insights on the COVID-19 pandemic communication from the lessons learned by health communication executives—how they perceived the COVID-19 pandemic and recommend preparing for communication management of future public health crises.

A number of top health communication executives in the United States, who worked in the healthcare industry for at least 25 years and held titles like director, president and chief strategist, were interviewed for their unique perspectives on the COVID-19 pandemic. This study used the contingency theory of strategic conflict management for qualitative deductive analysis of the following segmentations of key factors that drove organizational communication management decision making during the pandemic: organization characteristics, relationship characteristics, general external climate, external publics and the issue under question.

Health communication executives heavily relied on their past health communication experiences, which led to nuanced understandings of the COVID-19 pandemic. Practically, the health communication executives urged future practitioners to constantly assess risks, hire and use diverse and representative decision-makers; set a communication protocol; and keep the communication in perspective. Theoretically, the contingency theory is furthered—there appears to be a theoretical linkage between the construct of general external climate and the construct of the external public.

The unique perspectives of top health communication executives, based in the United States, provided in-depth insights on the COVID-19 pandemic—its nuances, challenges and main influences (e.g. political, racial, etc.). These takeaways and recommendations can be adapted by other organizations and future health communicators in other parts of the world.

Disinformation, false information designed with the intention to mislead, can significantly damage organizational operation and reputation, interfering with communication and relationship management in a wide breadth of risk and crisis contexts. Modern digital platforms and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), introduce novel risks in crisis management (Guthrie and Rich, 2022). Disinformation literature in security and computer science has assessed how previously introduced technologies have affected disinformation, demanding a systematic and coordinated approach for sustainable counter-disinformation efforts. However, there is a lack of theory-driven, evidence-based research and practice in public relations that advises how organizations can effectively and proactively manage risks and crises driven by AI (Guthrie and Rich, 2022).

As a first step in closing this research-practice gap, the authors first synthesize theoretical and technical literature characterizing the effects of AI on disinformation. Upon this review, the authors propose a conceptual framework for disinformation response in the corporate sector that assesses (1) technologies affecting disinformation attacks and counterattacks and (2) how organizations can proactively prepare and equip communication teams to better protect businesses and stakeholders.

This research illustrates that future disinformation response efforts will not be able to rely solely on detection strategies, as AI-created content quality becomes more and more convincing (and ultimately, indistinguishable), and that future disinformation management efforts will need to rely on content influence rather than volume (due to emerging capabilities for automated production of disinformation). Built upon these fundamental, literature-driven characteristics, the framework provides organizations actor-level and content-level perspectives for influence and discusses their implications for disinformation management.

This research provides a theoretical basis and practitioner insights by anticipating how AI technologies will impact corporate disinformation attacks and outlining how companies can respond. The proposed framework provides a theory-driven, practical approach for effective, proactive disinformation management systems with the capacity and agility to detect risks and mitigate crises driven by evolving AI technologies. Together, this framework and the discussed strategies offer great value to forward-looking disinformation management efforts. Subsequent research can build upon this framework as AI technologies are deployed in disinformation campaigns, and practitioners can leverage this framework in the development of counter-disinformation efforts.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the interplay of crisis type and felt involvement as well as product category on publics’ anger toward the company and empathy for the victims.

This study uses an experiment based on a 2 (crisis type: accident vs transgression) × 2 (publics’ felt crisis involvement: high vs low) × 2 (product category in crisis: food-related vs technology-related) mixed design.

Differential main effects on emotions were detected in different consumer product crises. One of the most interesting findings in this study was the main effects of high felt involvement over low felt involvement in strong feelings of anger toward a company and empathy for the victims in both food- and technology-related crisis situations. There was an interaction effect between crisis type and product category on feelings of anger toward a company. Participants in the food-related crisis condition reported more anger when exposed to a transgression crisis than an accident crisis.

Future research needs to study other important crisis emotions and to measure them with multiple items instead of a single item. It would be useful to find out what combinations among crisis variables would produce interaction effects to better understand how different publics’ emotions are inducted and processed in different crisis situations.

The role of felt involvement on public emotions may not be product category specific, but rather be affectively influential across different product categories. From the standpoint of crisis management practice, the main contribution of the present study is to provide empirical evidence that crisis communication managers could use the level of publics’ felt crisis involvement to better predict publics’ emotions that are likely to be felt and displayed in crisis situations.

This study investigates the crisis-generated discrete emotions as a function of crisis type and felt involvement. Felt involvement should be considered as an important construct due to its potential consequences on publics’ emotions and their behaviors beyond perceptions of crisis responsibility. Crisis response messages should be strategically developed with a consideration of the interplay of crisis type, publics’ felt involvement, and product categories.

This study aims to examine the influence of training and development (TAD), including performance appraisal (PFA), on the performance of microfinance institutions in a developing economy.

A random sampling drew 100 microfinance institutions in Ghana's Greater Accra Region. Then, a purposive sampling approach selected a cross-section of employees in these institutions. Finally, the data were collected from a sample of 367 respondents, such as managers, utilizing a survey questionnaire. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test hypothesized relationships.

The study results indicate that PFA has a statistically significant positive relationship with organizational performance, and this relationship is partially mediated by job satisfaction (JBS). Interestingly, the TAD process does not have a statistically significant positive relationship with organizational performance when JBS is present in the model. In fact, JBS fully mediates the relationship between TAD and organizational performance.

The study is limited to microfinance in tiers two and three in Greater Accra city of Ghana and did not include the entire country. Although the city of Accra provides a generalized representation of the research, which can be replicated, some variables and results may be impacted if other tiers of microfinance organizations are incorporated.

TAD, as well as PFA, enhance the performance of microfinance and can be utilized as tools for competitive advantage in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) (e.g. microfinance institutions). The study accentuates the value of TAD, PFA and JBS in microfinance in a developing country like Ghana.

This is an original study investigating the effect of TAD and PFA practices on the performance of SMEs in a developing country like Ghana. Also, the study analyses JBS as a mediation variable to performance using SEM, which advances the research methodology in this research field.

This study aims to examine the effects of risk disclosure and call to action (i.e. encouraging individuals to consult a health provider before they make any purchase decision) on young adults’ cognitive and behavioral responses to dietary supplement advertising.

A 2 (risk disclosure: absence vs presence) × 2 (call to action: absence vs presence) between-subjects online experiment was conducted with 124 college-attending young adults.

Including risk disclosure in probiotic supplement advertising increased young adults’ perceived message credibility, intentions to ask a medical doctor and sense of confidence in decision-making. The addition of call to action in probiotic supplement advertising improved perceived message credibility, trust in advertised brand, favorable attitude toward brand, intention to ask a medical doctor and purchase intention; however, a significant joint effect was not found between risk disclosure and call to action.

Although risk disclosure and call to action are significant techniques in pharmaceutical and health-care marketing, they have been overlooked by both research and practice of dietary supplement marketing. This study closes this gap by providing empirical evidence to generate a clear idea about the benefits of including risk disclosure and call to action in dietary supplement advertising.

The continuation of rapid changes in Web 2.0 has transformed the practice of business communication and stakeholders’ expectations. This paper aims to paramount one issue facing corporate communicators is stakeholders’ social media fatigue that leads to online disengagement and social media strategy ineffectiveness.

A systematic review of research literature and a deep dive in the professional reports regarding corporate communication and social media strategies are conducted.

To tackle the challenge of stakeholder social media fatigue, a conceptual model is provided to guide the development of alternative social media strategies that capitalize on the impact of vicarious interaction and reenergize stakeholders via trialogue based on the corporate-influencer-stakeholder (parasocial) relationships.

A model for overcoming stakeholder social media fatigue via optimizing corporate-influencer-stakeholder (parasocial) relationship is proposed and elaborated, with actionable social media strategies recommended for corporate communicators to use.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the veracity of the contingency model of ethical crisis communication by examining the factors of influence in a time of crisis including what constitutes ethics in a time of crisis; the role of public relations (PR) practitioners as the “moral conscience” of an organization and perceptions of the PR’ role within top management.

In-depth interviews were conducted among ten senior PR managers with crisis communication experience in North America.

This research identifies and investigates six ethical variables – the nature of the crisis, the role of top management, the activism of stakeholders, government regulation/intervention, the diversity of cultures and the exposure to external business environments – and their potential influences on an organization’s communication practices.

The qualitative approach does not produce generalizable results. In addition, the authors could have interviewed more people, although the authors have reached information saturation in analyzing the interview data based on the ten interviews conducted.

Insights from this exploratory study contribute to answering the “how” questions with empirical data that enhance the clarity on the roadmap of ethical factors in crisis communication practice.

Unlike other conceptual work that explores moral philosophies in ethics, this study aims to offer a practical approach – rather than a philosophical argument and persuasion – that is rooted in the practitioner’s world.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors influencing user adoption behavior in the context of conflicting health information, thereby contributing to the understanding of users' information decision-making and adoption processes within intricate information environments. Furthermore, this research endeavors to offer guidance for mitigating the adverse effects of contradictory health information on users' cognitive perceptions.

First, this study used literature coding to identify factors that influence user adoption behavior in the context of conflicting health information. Secondly, we utilized the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method to unveil the key influencing factors based on centrality and causality. Lastly, utilizing the Interpretive Structural Model (ISM), we constructed the multilevel hierarchical structure model of influencing factors to delineate the relationships among factors across different levels.

The key causal factors influencing user adoption behavior in the context of conflicting health information include user basic characteristics, experience accumulation, and information type. The key result factors consist of psychological emotion, perceived trade-offs, and the source credibility. The significant elements include users' psychological emotions, perceived trade-offs, emotional support, source credibility, and informational support. Furthermore, user adoption behavior in the context of conflicting health information is a manifestation of the interplay among surface-level, mid-level, and deep-level factors.

Theoretically, this paper enriches the existing relevant theoretical framework and offers a novel perspective for further investigation into user adoption behavior concerning conflicting health information. Practically, this study extracts factors that can influence user adoption behavior in the context of conflicting health information which is an essential reference value for guiding and optimizing user adoption behavior.

This paper expands the system of factors influencing user adoption behavior in the context of conflicting health information from individual, information and social perspectives. Utilizing DEMATEL quantitative analysis and ISM multilevel hierarchical models, this research examines and illustrates the significance of the influencing factors and their interrelationships.