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expand as the nature of banking business
increases in complexity’ (1982).
Thus tactical, empirically derived evidence
for communication programme planning and
budgeting is no longer good enough. Strategy
also informs tactics at both research and evaluation
levels to a very high degree, which is
why the professional studies programme at
Thames Valley University in London is one of
the first, if not the first European University to
incorporate knowledge and information
management as a core learning module in its
masters degree programme in addition to the
ability to critically analyse best practice
models of performance.
What the books say
Given the limitations of empirical research
underpinning the professional era of public
relations between the post-war period and
the present day, academics have attempted to
apply business or corporate strategy models
to the management of communication as a
value added component of linked organizational
mission and goals. However, awareness
of the need for companies and investors to
maintain relationships with all stakeholders in
the interests of corporate performance, puts
pressure on companies to reassess levels of
influence which could be reliably measured in
respect of the bottom line. Gaved (1997)
argues that ‘a new model of corporate change
and evolution needs to be developed, which
enables management teams to be renewed
without major discontinuity. This need is quite
independent of the issue of takeovers. What
we currently have is a system of informal
influence, which increases the pressures on
companies – which normally means the CEO
and chairpersons – in response to deteriorating
performance. For most companies, most
of the time there is very little of this ‘behind
closed doors’ influence, but when it does take
place, it is the largest shareholders who get
most involved and who have disproportionate
influence on the company, board and senior
management team.
Table 18.2 identifies and distinguishes the
difference between routine emergencies and
disasters. For an international bank experiencing,
say, cyberspace terrorism as a result of
systems intervention from a hostile hacker,
dependency on a geographical measure to
define the scale of such crisis is unlikely to be
very helpful. Prior to the mid-1980s, PR practitioners
thought in terms of ‘routine emergencies’
and suggested that a crisis has five
stages. Fearn-Banks argues that crisis management
is strategic planning to prevent and
respond during a crisis or negative occurrence,
a process that removes some of the risk and
uncertainty and allows the organization to be
in greater control of its destiny. However, if as
she says a crisis has five stages, the banking
culture has to create for itself an anticipatory
model of crisis management which ‘guides
practitioners toward a position in which they
can proactively investigate their organization
to determine the most likely cause of technological
crisis’. With a foundation in anticipation
and empowerment, each bank’s model
would optimize the precautionary abilities of
the organization to prevent and cope with a
crisis, ‘routine emergency’, but would they be
adequate for a ‘disaster’ Table 18.3 suggests
the range of routine emergencies and disasters
which might occur.
Olaniran and Williams (2001) argue that
‘crisis prevention requires a thorough understanding
of the technology and the context in
which the technology is being used’. This
includes processes of enactment and expectation
as well as vigilant decision making and
they suggest there are two key issues involved,
namely rigidity and control.
© 2004 Sandra Oliver for editorial matter and selection;
individual chapters, the contributors