Defining the characteristics of a lingering crisis: Lessons from the National Zoo

This article begins to define the characteristics of a new type of organizational crisis—a “lingering crisis.” A qualitative case study involving the National Zoo indicated that a lingering crisis may involve (1) multiple events occurring over an extended timeframe; (2) intense media scrutiny; (3) escalating involvement of external organizations, including watchdog/regulatory/oversight agencies; (4) incongruent organizational messages and stakeholder perceptions; (5) external/internal charges of organizational deception; (6) insufficient organizational responses to stakeholder concerns; (7) organizational failure to address leadership responsibility for crisis.