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Article published In:
Strategic Communication: Beyond nation cultural adaption, images and identity
Edited by Hassan Abu Bakar and Bahtiar Bin Mohamad
[Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 28:1] 2018
► pp. 107–128

Towards measuring internal crisis communication

A qualitative study

| Universiti Utara Malaysia
| Universiti Utara Malaysia
| Universiti Utara Malaysia

Researchers are often faced with challenges of measurements for the phenomena of their interest. Progress in such situation can only be done through developing new measurements. Therefore, grounded on the pool of items generated from previous literature, this study takes a qualitative approach to develop a valid measure for internal crisis communication following two stage of Churchill’s seminal theory. This study used semi-structured in-depth interviews for collecting data with a sample of 12 informants who are employees of an electric distribution company in Nigeria. The findings of this study indicated that the new internal crisis communication measure improved the quality of communication between management and employee during crisis. This study could provide policy makers, regulators, managers, and government on how to improve the crisis management among stakeholders. Also, the study is significant to the literature particularly in developing economy on crisis management that is lacking. Further study could look at internal stakeholders during crisis in other sectors.

Keywords: internal crisis communication, employees’ sensemaking, qualitative
Article outline
  • Review of literature
    • Internal crisis communication
    • Sense making
    • Attributes of internal crisis communication
  • Method
    • Interview administration
    • Results and discussion
      • The concept of internal crisis communication
      • Pool of items generated from the literature
      • New items generated from the interview
  • Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 19 January 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/japc.00006.ada
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