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Perception and organizational crisis management

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Abstract

The crisis management literature suggests that under crisis pressures decision makers (1) develop a highly negative attitude, and (2) move toward centralizing the decision process in policy areas. It is hypothesized here that these behavioral consequences do not accompany all cases of crisis confrontation but occur when the decision maker perceives a significant discrepancy between one's coping abilities and what is viewed to be necessary to abate the crisis. This hypothesis has been empirically tested. The evidence supports this perceptual nature of organizational crisis management.

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The survey for this study was sponsored by School of Business, North Carolina Central University and was conducted by the author and Terry Hogan. The author is grateful to Terry Hogan, Dean Tjosvold, William Savage, and Marian Thorne for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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Kuklan, H. Perception and organizational crisis management. Theor Decis 25, 259–274 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00133165

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