Post-crisis communication and renewal: Expanding the parameters of post-crisis discourse

Crisis communication is growing as a field of study due in part to the frequency and high profile nature of recent crises such as 9/11, Anthrax and bioterrorism in the mail supply, the Tsunami in the Southeast Asia, and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In each of these crises, the role of communication has been highlighted. Communication is particularly challenging during crises because an immediate response is necessary, because of the looming threat, and because these situations are inherently uncertain. Much of the present literature suggests that managing image during a crisis is critical to an effective response [Benoit, W. L. (1995). Accounts, excuses and apologies. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press; Coombs, W. T. (1999). Ongoing crisis communication: Planning, managing, and responding. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Hearit, K. M. (1995). “Mistakes were made”: Organizations, apologia and crises of social legitimacy. Communication Studies, 46, 1–17]. Although image is important and embedded within the threat, uncertainty, and chaos of crisis so too is the opportunity for growth and renewal. In this case, depending upon the crisis, either issues of image restoration or renewal may emerge as more of a central theme in the post-crisis discourse. This paper argues that renewal, along with image restoration, is an important genre of post-crisis discourse. As a result, efforts to understand post-crisis communication should be expanded to include both image restoration and the discourse of renewal.     

An analytic model for strategic control of corporate development

The concept of strategic control as described by the authors [8] partitions the decision horizon of the firm into two segments. In the long term, information is not precise, goals are vague and constraints are unclear. The problem for the firm is, in spite of this ambiguity, to establish a development window at the beginning of this period that reflects long-run factors and can serve as a guide for short-term behaviour. In the short run, information is precise enough for conventional mathematical programming models to be used to guide attainment of the development window. This paper presents an analytic model that solves the long-run problem defined by the strategic control framework and generates the required development window. A numerical example is presented for illustrative purposes.     

A comparison of encoding techniques

A limiting constraint of many management science techniques is that inputs from the decision maker based upon his experiences, opinions and intuition are not considered. For those models that do allow this type of input, it is assumed that they can be accurately and precisely defined in a subjective probability distribution. Little attention, however, has been directed towards evaluating the techniques to define these distributions in a management setting. This study investigates the relative merits of four of the most commonly used techniques for the quantification of subjective assessments. When these techniques were used with professionals whose jobs entail evaluation of uncertainty, a clear preference was shown. Additionally, some concluding observations concerning the selection and the application of assessment techniques are presented.     

The Swiss Equal Rights Amendment: A case study

In June, 1981, the Swiss passed a constitutional amendment providing legal equality for men and women. How that could happen in a legal system that appears to be more than most designed to maintain male privilege is the major topic of this case study. The nature of the political system into which the Swiss equal rights amendment was introduced and of the support and opposition to the amendment are examined. The impact of the amendment since its passage is reported. Each major aspect of the Swiss situation is compared with the American experience with the Equal Rights Amendment and the significance of the Swiss case for American social action is delineated.Richard Kerckhoff is Professor of Family Studies and Timothy Leupp is a graduate student in the Department of Child Development and Family Studies. The study reported here was made possible by time and resources provided by Purdue University, School of Consumer and Family Sciences.     

The sexual abuse questionnaire: a preliminary examination of a time and cost efficient method in evaluating the presence of childhood sexual abuse in adult patients

This paper provides the results of two studies designed to evaluate a newly constructed self-report instrument, the Sexual Abuse Questionnaire (SAQ). The SAQ was designed as a brief screening device to aid in the identification of a childhood sexual abuse history. A "unique" feature of the SAQ is the inclusion of a number of non-face valid questions derived from clinical experience. Both studies used an undergraduate population of self-reported abused and non-abused participants. Based upon the combined results of the two studies, the final version of the SAQ was developed, which is comprised of 45 items that manifest good test-retest reliability, internal consistency, and convergent and discriminative validity. The SAQ can discriminate between abused and non-abused male and female participants.     

Familial obesity as a proxy for omitted variables in the obesity-mortality relationship

In a conventional survival analysis of a sample of the U.S. population in 1971-1974, the association between mortality and obesity is compared with the analogous risk from the presence of an obese person in a household. The two factors have similar risk profiles, with a hazard ratio of 1.44 for nonmorbid obesity and 1.48 for nonmorbid familial obesity in one sample. If "familial obesity" cannot directly affect personal longevity, and if shared factors determine both personal and familial obesity, the mortality risk of family and actual personal obesity is similarly overstated. This false positive in the estimated risk arises from correlations among obesity and unobserved environmental, behavioral, or genetic factors.     

Adult child and elderly parent household

Intergenerational households—adult child and elderly parents—are an alternative lifestyle. A review of the literature suggests that several factors are related to the level of stress in these households. A number of structural, individual family member and family factors which may influence the stress level in intergenerational households are explicated. It is suggested that community resources mediate the linkages between the structural factors, individual family member factors, family factors, and the level of stress in intergenerational households. A number of practice strategies for preventing and dealing with stress are discussed.