The Incident: Not Just Another Organizational Disruption |
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Authors: | Rebecca A. Hayes Peter M. Smudde |
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Affiliation: | 1. School of Communication, Illinois State University, Normal, USArahayes@ilstu.edu;3. School of Communication, Illinois State University, Normal, USA |
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Abstract: | Issue and crisis: These concepts are well-understood, even though various definitions exist. A third concept, incident, is less defined. This article reports a content analysis of articles from two public relations journals (n = 67) and three prominent public relations industry publications (n = 56) to understand how incident is contextualized and applied. Findings reveal a statistically significant difference in how academic and industry publications contextualize the concept and expose a need for a formal conceptualization. Building on the results of the analysis, this article, then, argues that incident is (a) defined as a theoretical concept and pragmatic communication-management matter, (b) implemented within a continuum of organizational disruption, (c) presented as a necessary concept for greater precision for the reporting and analyzing of disruptive events, and (d) needs to be included in future scholarly research about and models of disruptive events. |
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