Organizing for crisis response

Crises are turning points in organizations. When crisis strikes, fast-response management depends on quickly configuring and deploying information and communications. This paper brings together research and practice in crisis response management, information technology and news media fast-response methods to derive principles for using information technology as an organizational resource. Firms increasingly recognize the need to view their information technology (IT) platform as a key business resource for just-in-time scheduling, distribution, coordination, service and logistics. If they see it as an equally key resource for just-in-time crisis response, it then creates a powerful base for crisis response management. Exxon Valdez and the Gulf War illustrate these requirements. They provide a stage model of crisis response. The model is not intended as a general description of crisis, but as a more specific modelling of organizational response capability. This stage model is illustrated by Dow Corning's recent silicon-gel implant crisis.