Crisis management in a complex world

 by Dawn R. Gilpin. Gilpin (Arizona State Univ.) and Murphy (Temple Univ.) ask, "To what extent is it possible to control events and stakeholder responses to them in order to contain escalating crises or safeguard an organization's reputation?" Their book is multidisciplinary (communications, physical sciences, psychology, and business) and strongly theoretical in orientation. They employ tools of complexity theory to suggest a new approach to crisis management for complex systems. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1, "Complexity, Crisis and Control," contains a review of the history of the field of crisis communication, an overview of key principles of complexity theory, and a redefinition of the concept of predictability. Part 2, "The Complexity of Knowledge and Learning," explores and integrates important concepts such as information and assimilation, organizational learning, and sense making in decisions. The last part, "Reconfiguring the Dominant Paradigm," reframes the dominant crisis paradigm in complexity theory terms. Crisis assumptions made before, during, and after a crisis are challenged using the complexity theory lens. For example, complexity-based crisis planning may work better than traditional approaches given uncertainty, lack of control, and emotion. This well-written book is valuable for research and practice. --Choice (Check catalog)