Crisis management involves coordinating an organization's response to incidents that threaten its people, structures, operations, valuables, or reputation. It includes planning for automatic responses as well as dynamically dealing with unpredictable situations. The goal of crisis management is to minimize damage to an organization, its stakeholders, or the public. Common types of crises include natural disasters, technological accidents, confrontations between groups, organizational misdeeds, workplace violence, and damaging rumors.

1. Dr. Rajeev Babel, FCS

2.  Crisis Management is the management and
coordination of an organization’s responses
to an incident that threatens to harm, or has
harmed, that organization’s people, its
structures, its ability to operate, its
valuables and/or reputation. It takes into
account its planning and automatic incident
response, but it must also dynamically deal
with situations as they unfold, often in
unpredictable ways.

3.  Crises management is the process of responding
to an event that threatens the operations, staff,
customers, reputation or the legal and financial
status of an organization. Its aim is to minimize
the damage.
 Crisis management is the process by which an
organization deals with a major event that
threatens to harm the organization, its
stakeholders, or the general public. The study of
crisis management originated with the large
scale industrial and environmental disasters of
the 1980’s. Therefore, the defining quality is the
need for change.
 If change is not needed, the event could more
accurately be described as a failure or incident

4.  Crisis management involves dealing with
threats after they have occurred, whereas
risk management is one which involves
assessing potential threats and finding the
best ways to avoid those threats. It is a
discipline within the broader context of
management consisting of skills and
techniques required to identify, assess,
understand, and cope with a serious
situation, especially from the moment it first
occurs to the point till the recovery
procedures start.

5.  (i) Natural Disaster: Natural crises or disasters
are the ‘Acts of God’. They are environmental
phenomena as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions,
tornadoes and hurricanes, floods, landslides,
tsunamis, storms, and droughts that threaten
life, property, and the environment. For example
the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, i.e., Tsunami
was a natural crisis.
 (ii) Technological Crisis: Technological crisis are
caused by human application of science and
technology. Technological accidents inevitably
occur when technology becomes complex and
something goes wrong with the system as a
whole. For example, Chernobyl disaster.

6.  (iii) Confrontation Crises: It occurs when
discontented individuals and/or groups fight
with government and other interest groups to
win acceptance of their demands and
expectations. The common type of confrontation
crises are boycotts, ultimatums to those in
authority, blockade or occupation of buildings,
and resisting or disobeying police.
 (iv) Crises of Organizational Misdeeds: It
occurs when management takes actions without
adequate precautions, knowing well that they
will harm or place the stakeholders at risk.

7.  (v) Workplace Violence: It occurs when an
employee or a former employee commits
violence against other employees on
organizational premises.
 (vi) Rumours: False information about an
organization or its products creates crises
thus hurting the organization’s reputation,
e.g., linking the organization to radical
groups or spreading stories that their
products are contaminated or such standard.