Overview of what is international crisis communication.

1. Dr. Timothy Coombs
Eastern Illinois University
INTERNATIONAL CRISIS
COMMUNICATION
Trends
International Crises
Research Directions

2. TRENDS
 Globalization
 Transnational organizations
 Geographically dispersed supply chains
 Internet messaging
 Risk and crises

3. GLOBALIZATION
 Foreign trade
 Foreign direct investment
 Travel

4. TRANSNATIONAL
 Produce goods or market services in more
than one country
Home: where base of operations located
Host: where other assets located
 NGOs are transnational too
 Can be transnational via supply chain

5. TYPES OF INTERNATIONAL CRISES
 Host Crisis: isolated to one or so host
countries
 Global Crisis: home plus one or more host
countries (includes supply chain)
Complete
Select

6. HOST CRISIS

7. GLOBAL CRISIS COMPLETE

8. GLOBAL CRISIS SELECT

9. WHY DIFFERENCE MATTERS
 Host crises can be handled
ethnocentrically
 Global crises require international crisis
communication

10. INTERNATIONAL CRISIS
COMMUNICATION
 Communicating crisis-related information
to stakeholders in multiple countries.

11. SUPPLY CHAIN

12. SUPPLY CHAIN AND CRISES
 Raw materials
Dirty Gold
Conflict Diamonds
Harmful leather
 Processing
Child labor
Environmental damage
 Finished product

13. CHALLENGES
 Avoid ethnocentrism
 Adapt to international stakeholders, role
of culture
What constitutes a crisis
How people react to crisis response
efforts
 Adapt to media systems and online usage
 Conform to legal requirements

14. RESEARCH: RANGE OF CRISIS
MANAGERS
 Corporations
 NGOs
 Nations (earliest international public
relations efforts)
 How does type of organization affect crisis
communication?

15. RESEARCH: APPROACHES
 Contextualresearch
 Comparative research

16. RESEARCH: BEYOND THE
RESPONSE
 Focus on public response
Crisis team actions
 Pre-crisis
Prevention
Preparation
 Post-crisis
Learning
Healing

17. FUTURE RESEARCH
 Fertileground for international crisis
communication
 More questions then answers at this point
 Only increase in importance