key: cord-310121-npt8i9bc authors: poole, norman a. title: if not now, when? date: 2020-03-27 journal: bjpsych bulletin doi: 10.1192/bjb.2020.37 sha: doc_id: 310121 cord_uid: npt8i9bc the editor of the bjpsych bulletin reflects on the extraordinary recent events triggered by the covid-19 pandemic. mental health professionals are at the front line of managing the pandemic and emergency changes should lead to a much needed refocus on what is really vital. in these unsettling times we ought to review how we manage the crisis, and its aftermath, both personally and professionally. my 3-year-old daughter woke this morning with a cough. rather sweetly, she claimed she'd 'caught hold of the cough' which she knows is making people ill. instead of the group cycle i'd planned, i rode out on my bike alone, giving others an acceptably wide berth. well, i say acceptably wide, but how wide is that? two metres or more? should i even have been out exercising? is it a cold or covid? how worried should i be? pedalling into a cold northerly squall, it suddenly dawned on me: 'i'm scared'. not so much for myselfalthough perhaps i'm not yet willing to admit thatbut for my daughter, my family, friends, their families, colleagues and, of course, our patients. we are taught that insight in psychosis is impaired, but i've often found anxiety to be less well recognised by patients, and me it turns out, than the textbooks tell us. 1 it was an unsettling discovery because at that moment i also realised how powerless i am. the neuropsychiatry team at st george's where i work had spent the previous week switching to remote clinics, mainly from home, but also seeing neurology in-patients at st george's hospital. we learned that the liaison psychiatry service, led by the unflappable marcus hughes, had split into red and green teams; the former working exclusively in the new covid-19 unit. 'how noble?', i thought. 'how long will they last?', i fretted. everyone accepts that at some point they will have to take their turn in the red team. we heard how our in-patient colleagues on the mental health wards are also dividing themselves into teams and containing units to mitigate the virus's spread. 'how ironic?', i mused. doctors were first sent to the asylums some 200 years ago to prevent contagion seeping out into the community at large. 2 now we are struggling to do the opposite. community teams are restructuring services on the hoof to maintain care despite all the limitations imposed on them. as i write, it still feels like a phoney war, yet so unnerving to watch our futures unfolding before us in daily despatches from the frontlines in italy and spain. in this war against an invisible enemy the frontline is long, and thin. and mental health professionals are as much part of it as anyone. i personally hate churchill's quip about 'not letting a good crisis go to waste', which so blithely ignores human cost and personal tragedies. yet i am surely not alone in believing that covid-19 must change how we deliver mental healthcare for good. the pandemic, from which we will hopefully recover, and our catastrophic mismanagement of the environment are not unrelated events. pathogens are increasingly likely to cross species barriers as we pillage natural habitats. 3 tomlin's editorial 4 draws attention to healthcare's contribution to poisonous greenhouse emissions and a previous article in this journal described the damage that excreted ssri medications could be wreaking on our marine environment. 5 we are currently working towards a special edition of the bjpsych bulletin on the climate crisis and psychiatry, which will highlight the problems and point to some solutions. in this vein, i am hopeful that many of the new ways we are workingtelepsychiatry 6 and stripped-back bureaucracywill outlive the current crisis. psychiatry must resist successive governments' fantasy that individual risk can be managed on the basis of population-level statistics. 7, 8 it can't, and we must say so. the reality is, we would probably have the workforce to deliver a world-class mental health service if everyone wasn't so tied up inputting pointless data. if not now, when? the virus has also exposed glaring injustices in our society. some have the resources to weather the storm either through accumulated wealth or the luxury of being able to work from home. many others live hand-to-mouth in insecure jobs while paying extraordinary housing costs. how will they fare? the sacrifices being made across the board must lead to a rewriting of the social contract, as happened after the second world war. the debts currently being accrued cannot be repaid with regressive income taxes while personal and corporate wealth remains undertaxed. 9 unlike post-2008, 10 corporate bailouts must come with conditions that benefit the majority. later this year, with peter byrne's support, bjpsych bulletin will publish a themed edition on inequality as a major source of mental disorder. i'd say it is timely, but we have known this stuff for years yet not always, it seems, accepted the corollary: psychiatry must argue unflinchingly for a fairer society. if not now, when? this crisis will be demanding on us all, but social distancing also provides opportunities. as i cycled alone, which i expect to be doing a lot more of, i realised just how addicted i'd become to the relentless news cycle. i've resolved to limit my intake to once a day. much better to repurpose these new uninvited evenings spent at home. sadly, i doubt it'll be to learn the piano but in these strange times i'm opening up to music recommended by others (please send some suggestions!) and have been live streaming gigs from my favourite venue (café oto, if you're interested: https://www.cafeoto.co. uk). there are various writing projects that i aim to complete before unwinding with movie nights. i have already had an evening in a virtual pub and reconnected with longlost friends. all the while knowing that these are mere displacement activities to manage a gnawing fear. it will be harder still for the completely self-isolating over-70s. many i know are self-organising to support the vulnerable locally, and it will be a testament to our society if these activities endure. closer to home, i've started a book club with my mum to help keep her spirits up in the long months ahead and allow us to chat about something, anything, else. and there are plenty of books that have sat on my to-do list far too long. my apocalyptic reading starts here: if not now, when? 11 insight and psychosis: awareness of illness in schizophrenia and related disorders a history of psychiatry: from the era of the asylum to the age of prozac global rise in human infectious disease outbreaks the climate crisis and forensic mental health care: what are we doing? prescribing' psychotropic medication to our rivers and estuaries pokorny's complaint: the insoluble problem of the overwhelming number of false positives generated by suicide risk assessment the hcr-20 and violence risk assessment: will a peak of inflated expectations turn to a trough of disillusionment? use it or lose it: efficiency gains from wealth taxation (nber working paper 26284) crashed: how a decade of financial crises changed the world if not now, when? penguin modern classics none. key: cord-322033-f7s5t0wg authors: hang, haiming; aroean, lukman; chen, zhifeng title: building emotional attaching during covid-19 date: 2020-07-21 journal: ann tour res doi: 10.1016/j.annals.2020.103006 sha: doc_id: 322033 cord_uid: f7s5t0wg • shared emotions can establish emotional attachment with tourists. • emotional attachment increases intentions to visit after the current pandemic ends. • this can be crucial for tourism recovery after covid-19 ends. arguments in detail below. first, previous research suggests the feelings of fear and anxiety can trigger a desire for affiliation, increasing consumers' emotional attachment to a brand when consumers and the brand share the same emotional experiences (dunn & hoegg, 2014) . in other words, dunn and hoegg (2014) suggest shared emotional experience is a necessary condition for consumers to feel emotionally attached to a brand and such attachment does not require actual consumption. thus, we argue that crisis communication on shared emotions such as fear and anxiety can establish emotional attachment with tourists. extant literature also suggests when depicting brands with human-like minds (e.g. experiencing emotions), it makes consumers anthropomorphize them as humans (macinnis & folkes, 2017) . thus, we further argue emotional attachment is the result of tourists' anthropomorphising hotels to establish affiliation with them for reassurance. in other words, brand humanization mediates the impact of shared emotions on emotional attachment. thomson, macinnis, and park (2005) argue emotional attachment can lead to favourable brand attitudes and increased behavioural intentions. thus, we further argue shared emotions crisis communication can increase tourists' intentions to visit when covid-19 ends. this effect is mediated by their emotional attachment, which, in turn, is mediated by brand humanization. put formally: h1. shared emotions crisis communication leads to higher emotional attachment than cognitive crisis communication and control (no crisis communication). h2. brand humanization mediates the impact of crisis communication on emotional attachment. h3. shared emotions crisis communication leads to higher intentions to visit than cognitive crisis communication and control (no crisis communication). h4. brand humanization and emotional attachment sequentially mediate the impact of crisis communication on intentions to visit. we recruited 430 american participants whose travel plan was disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic via amazon mechanical turk (mturk). we focused on this group of sample because they are the main target of hotels' current crisis communication (e.g. cancelation policy and commitment to cleanliness). however, 25 participants failed our attention-check questions (hotel name and location), leaving an effective sample size of 405 (178 females, 227 males, m age = 40.6, sd = 11.58). the experiment was a one-factor (crisis communication strategy: control vs. cognitive vs. shared emotions) between-subject design. we first collected participants' travel plan details (purpose and destination), perceived severity, susceptibility and emotions (fear, anxious, worry, uneasy) towards current coronavirus pandemic. then participants were randomly allocated to one of the three experimental conditions. participants in all conditions were exposed to the same experimental stimulusa fictitious middle-market international hotel chain (xyz) to control participants' pre-existing knowledge of existing hotels. participants in the control condition were not exposed to any crisis communication message. in the other two conditions, the hotel's crisis communication focused on the same areascommitment to cleanliness and cancelation policy but they differed on why the hotel wanted to do this. in the cognitive condition, consistent with many hotels' current response (e.g. four seasons), the crisis communication explained the hotel's commitment to cleanliness was to reduce health risk. in the shared emotions condition, the crisis communication explained the hotel's commitment to cleanliness was because it shared the same emotions as tourists: the hotel employees and their families are susceptible to coronavirus just like everyone else. the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic also makes the hotel anxious and worry because "it makes it hard for us to know how exactly we will' be impacted or how bad things might get". the rest of materials were identical across conditions. participants then answered attention check questions and manipulation check question (to what extent the crisis communication focused on shared emotions). the 4-item 11-point scale in aaker, vohs, and mogilner (2010) was used to measure brand humanization. sample items in the scale were "xyz feels like a person" and "i've been think about xyz as a person". emotional attachment was gathered via the same items as in dunn and hoegg (2014) (also via 11-point scale). intention to visit was gathered via a single-item 11-point multi-category ordinal answer format. descriptive statistics and correlations are reported in table 1 . participants' emotions and perceived severity and susceptibility did not differ across conditions (all ps. > .05), and thus they were excluded from further analysis. manipulation check suggested participants in the shared emotions condition were more likely to agree that crisis communications focused on shared emotions than the other two conditions (f (2, 404) = 22.86, p < .001), suggesting our manipulation was successful. an anova with crisis communication strategy as the independent variable and emotional attachment as the dependent variable suggested emotional attachment differed across conditions (f (2, 404) = 23.47, p < .001). post-hoc contrast effects further suggested shared emotions condition (m = 7.85, sd = 2.48) led to higher emotional attachment than cognitive condition (m = 6.48, sd = 2.5, p < .001) and control (m = 5.72, sd = 2.8; p < .001), supporting h1. to test h2, we used a bootstrapping-based method (with 5000 resamples) and process macro (model 4) with crisis communication strategy as the independent variable, brand humanization as the mediator and emotional attachment as the dependent variable. we found brand humanization had a significant indirect effect on the impact of crisis communication strategy on emotional attachment (coefficient = 0.1587, se = 0.0298, 95% ci = 0.1003, 0.2160), supporting h2. another anova with crisis communication strategy as the independent variable and intention to visit as the dependent variable suggested intention to visit differed across conditions (f (2, 404) = 55.17, p < .001). post-hoc h. hang, et al. annals of tourism research xxx (xxxx) xxxx contrast effects further suggested shared emotions condition (m = 9.08, sd = 1.68) led to higher intentions to visit than cognitive condition (m = 8.46, sd = 1.99, p < .01) and control (m = 6.22, sd = 3.13; p < .001), supporting h3. finally, a bootstrappingbased method (with 5000 resamples) and process macro (model 6) with crisis communication strategy as the independent variable, brand humanization and emotional attachment as mediators and intention to visit as the dependent variable suggested: brand humanization and emotional attachment had a significant indirect effect on the impact of crisis communication strategy on intention to visit (coefficient = 0.1549, se = 0.0438, 95% ci = 0.0782, 0.2464), supporting h4 (fig. 1) . our experimental results suggest during covid-19, crisis communication emphasising on shared emotions can establish emotional attachment with tourists. this is because such approach makes tourists humanize the hotel to fulfil their desire for affiliation. thus, our research extends extant tourism risk perception literature by highlighting the importance of focusing on tourists' emotional responses to risks. our results further suggest crisis communication on shared emotions can increase tourists' intentions to visit when the outbreak ends. thus, our research also contributes to tourism crisis management literature by providing unique insights on the impact of crisis communication during a crisis. this can complement extant literature that is dominated by crisis communication after a crisis. finally, we theorize and empirically demonstrate brand humanization underlines the impact of shared emotions on emotional attachment. thus, our research goes beyond dunn and hoegg (2014) to demonstrate the key reason shared emotions can trigger emotional attachment. practically, our research challenges the cognitive approach that dominates hotels' current covid-19 communication. instead, our research suggests hotels should emphasis on shared emotions to build emotional attachment. this can increase tourists' intentions to visit afterwards. in terms of limitations, our research only measures tourists' behavioural intentions. thus, future research could measure tourists' actual behaviour to test the robustness of our framework. in addition, we encourage future research to examine the impact of hotels showing empathy on tourists' emotional attachment and behavioural intentions. note: *p < .05(one-tailed), **p < .01 (one-tailed), ***p < .001 (one-tailed). nonprofits are seen as warm and for-profits as competent: first stereotypes matter tourism, crisis, disaster: an interdisciplinary approach travelers' health risk perceptions and protective behavior: a psychological approach protecting organization reputations during a crisis: the development and application of situational crisis communication theory the impact of fear on emotional brand attachment humanizing brands: when brands see to be like me, part of me, and in a relationship with me chaos, crises and disasters: a strategic approach to crisis management in the tourism industry a review of research on tourism risk, crisis and disaster management: launching the annals of tourism research curated collection on tourism risk, crisis and disaster management the ties that bind: measuring the strength of consumers' emotional attachments to brands tourism risk and uncertainty: theoretical reflections focusing on consumer experience and strategic marketing in social media, creative & tourism industry, he has published in the international journal of operations & production management her work is cross-disciplinary by nature, characterized by the use of psychological theories and experimentation to gain insights into fundamental social and accounting issues his main research areas are consumer psychology, tourism, retailing and corporate social responsibility. he has published in leading journals such as annals of tourism research xxx (xxxx) xxxx key: cord-269200-9h2mmp0j authors: al-azri, nasser hammad title: antifragility amid the covid-19 crisis: making healthcare systems thrive through generic organisational skills date: 2020-10-05 journal: sultan qaboos univ med j doi: 10.18295/squmj.2020.20.03.001 sha: doc_id: 269200 cord_uid: 9h2mmp0j nan d isasters and crises are disruptive to the structures and functions of communities. however, the challenges they present also bring opportunities for learning and changing at both individual and organisational levels. healthcare systems owe much of their developments and advancements to crisis situations. hence, healthcare organisations need to pay attention to these opportunities for thrivingand not just surviving-amid the chaos of adversities. thriving through and within crises requires systems to be antifragile. taleb coined the term "antifragility" to describe systems that "benefit from shocks" and "thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty". 1 taleb advances the notion that "by grasping the mechanisms of antifragility we can build a systematic and broad guide to non-predictive decision making under uncertainty in business, politics, medicine, and life in general". 1 in other words, antifragile systems need to be built and designed so they not only survive during a crisis but thrive through it. the current global outbreak of covid-19 presents exceptional challenges that can serve as an opportunity for healthcare systems to thrive and boost their antifragility as the pandemic continues to spread and evolve over time. this makes the current time a valuable chance for healthcare systems to develop their organisational skills proactively in tandem with the development of the crisis itself. this opportunity to thrive, however, should not be taken for granted. instead, healthcare systems and organisations need to be prepared, guided and directed towards this thriving learning mode during the crisis. unfortunately, many healthcare systems are ill-prepared for pandemic crisis management and are not prepared at all for the opportunity to thrive under such circumstances. in 2019, both the global preparedness monitoring board and the global health security index reported a global lack of preparedness for health emergencies worldwide. 2,3 during a pandemic, health systems are typically absorbed in managing the chaos that ensues and these systems find themselves exhausted afterwards. hence, they may lose a great opportunity to thrive amid the chaos of a crisis. it is the responsibility of healthcare leaders to guide their systems through the transition of surviving the crisis to thriving in it. much like individuals, organisations have mechanisms and skills that allow them to survive and thrive. living organisms might survive with the provision of minimal requirements for living such as breathing, eating and drinking. however, these organisms need more proactive efforts for thriving and growing. each living organism has its own mechanisms for surviving and thriving. similarly, organisations and systems can survive with the provision of their basic requirements but thriving requires planned proactive efforts that best suit the organisation. there are two types of organisational skills used during crises: specific and generic. 4 on the one hand, specific skills are needed to manage a particular crisis, such as the development of management protocols and measures to manage the outbreak of covid-19. hence, specific skills can be viewed as the 'survival skills' necessary to allow the system to continue functioning despite the crisis. on the other hand, generic skills are necessary for the organisation to carry out its functions and duties to achieve its goals and are usually applied to routine duties. these generic skills are also the platform for applying specific skills during a crisis. generic skills include aspects such as leadership, teamwork and communication, and they can enhance the antifragility of the system. although generic organisational skills are not specific to a single type of crisis, they are critical for initiating, building and maintaining specific organisational capabilities before as well as during a crisis. moreover, because they are applicable to routine duties, generic skills remain relevant after the crisis. if these skills are well developed, they can help an organisation thrive well beyond the crisis, adding to the system's reservoir of antifragility mechanisms. much of the current literature concerning covid-19 management is focused on the specific organisational skills needed to control the outbreak. however, little is being said about generic organisational skills as the basis of specific skills and how they should be realised. hence, the focus of this article is on crisis management through the lens of five critical generic organisational skills that give healthcare systems an opportunity to grow and thrive amid the covid-19 pandemic. vuca is a military term used to describe situations characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. 5 disasters and crises are deemed to have a vuca nature. in the disruptive crisis environment of vuca, some systems become fragile and breakdown under pressure, while others remain robust and, relatively, indifferent to change. yet, there are systems that take the opportunity of the disaster to grow and develop their antifragility amid the crisis. many systems choose to adapt and survive, but antifragile ones evolve, grow and thrive, becoming more resilient in the future. 6 the following discussion briefly presents an example of five generic organisational skills that give healthcare systems a chance to boost their antifragility in a vuca environment like the current covid-19 crisis. these skills include leadership, teamwork, communication, system design and learning and feedback. leadership is a cornerstone for any system or organisation. the whole activity of a system revolves around the leadership style manifested in that system. leadership is not an individual task but rather a mindset that diffuses throughout the organisation. almost all other organisational skills, whether specific or generic, are dependent in their execution on organisational leadership, and crisis management relies heavily on leadership. 7 leadership is essential to build capacity and mitigate risks during pandemics. 2 the covid-19 outbreak has shown that leaders need to act now. 8 in particular, vuca environments, like the covid-19 pandemic, require unique leadership characteristics. lawrence suggests a set of leadership characteristics known as vuca prime to be used in vuca environments; 5 these characteristics include vision, understanding, clarity and agility. to be properly prepared, leaders need to have developed these traits well ahead of a vuca situation. this is achieved through practice and applying the correct type of leadership styles to daily/routine situations prior to a crisis. how systems and organisations perform is defined by the integrative activities of their actors. teams are the backbone of healthcare systems and teamwork is a rate-limiting factor for organisational outcomes. the execution of healthcare activities cannot be achieved without coordinated teamwork. however, a crisis is a hard test for teams as it stretches the systems' needs beyond the normal capacity of the system. teams in healthcare systems are the source of power in the system. in fact, there is sufficient evidence that teamwork is more important than technical prowess for preventing and mitigating a major crisis or disaster in high-risk fields such as healthcare. 9 unfortunately, it is not uncommon during a crisis for some managers to strip teams of their professional autonomy and ability to cooperate with others through the piling up of structures such as procedures and formal rules. 10 as systems are stretched beyond their means during a crisis, more gaps appear at critical times, and the organisational capacity for patching and stitching that prevails during routine work is no longer sufficient. undoubtedly, teamwork has been proved essential to address concerns related to the covid-19 pandemic, 11 and systems cannot succeed in managing the crisis without good teamwork. a crisis is a time for teamwork; leaders must equip their organisations with this invaluable skill. a single, reliable tool during a crisis has always been communication. over several decades, communication has been recognised as a key element for successful crisis management. 12 moreover, poor communication has been repeatedly associated with crisis management failure. 13 the joint commission in the united states asserts that "the success or failure of an eop [emergency nasser hammad al-azri operations plan] is often determined by timely access to communication that ensures the flow of critical information". 14 the covid-19 crisis has shown how effective communication is serving as a key factor in managing the pandemic through proper flow of information, handling uncertainty and fear and promoting behavioural changes in the community. 15 however, leaders must realise that this critical, key element cannot be developed overnight, especially during a crisis. instead, communication requires time and proactive efforts well in advance of the crisis in order to establish itself in the system. a crisis provides a live test for the quality of established communication strategies within an organisation. nevertheless, it is also a lesson for future planning. it is a fundamental concept in biology and physiology that the structure of a system determines its functions. 16 using a medical analogy, one might think of the system's structure as the anatomy and the system's processes and functions as the physiology. for any system to serve specific outcomes, it is not enough to adjust the physiological functions through enforcing new or modified processes, policies, protocols and standards of the system unless the anatomical structure of the system is fit for the intended purpose. as has been shown during the covid-19 crisis, many healthcare systems failed as their anatomy was not made to meet the physiological adaptations needed during a crisis. a system that is not structurally designed to meet the challenges of crisis management will not be able to cope with the stressors resulting from required functional changes during a disaster. although it might be late to review and modify a system's design during an emergency status, how the system responds to the challenges offers invaluable insight into how the anatomical structure of the system might present a constraint to its processes and functionality. this insight should inform a better, future system designone that takes into account the needs that may arise during crisis management, and beyond. social systems, such as healthcare, are informationbonded. they change their behaviour in response to information flow within the system. 17 hence, understanding the centrality of learning and feedback in such systems is massive as it provides the means for the system to adapt to a changing external, as well as internal, environment. the quality of embedded learning and feedback functionality within a system determines, to a large extent, the quality of change in response to a dynamic environment. the vuca nature of reality during any crisis precludes the ability to forecast much of the changes and prepare for them in advance. in such a dynamic and constantly unfolding environment, meadows once said: "we can't control systems or figure them out. but we can dance with them!". 18 responding within such a dynamic environment requires consciously planned and continuously monitored learning and feedback loops that allow the system to self-organise its behaviour as it emerges within the crisis. disasters and crises disrupt the 'normal' activities of systems and organisations. however, amid this disruption, crises also offer organisations the potential to grow and thrive. the current covid-19 pandemic is a good example of such a potential. as much as healthcare systems focus on their specific organisational skills to mitigate the effects of the crisis, one must also pay attention to the generic organisational skills through which they can develop and improve. by focusing on both specific and generic organisational skills, systems will not only survive through the crisis but will also grow and thrive towards antifragility. antifragility and thriving are, therefore, a reflection of how much we have invested in our generic organisational skills through leadership, teamwork, communication, system's design, and learning and feedback. systems will, almost always, output during a crisis whatever inputted in them at routine times. antifragile: how to live in a world we don't understand global preparedness monitoring board. a world at risk global health security index. global health security index everyday crisis management developing leaders in a vuca environment making sense of disaster medicine: a hands-on guide for medics thinking through crisis: improving teamwork and leadership in high-risk fields responding to covid-19 -a once-in-a-century pandemic? six simple rules: how to manage complexity without getting complicated covid-19: a critical care perspective informed by lessons learnt from other viral epidemics communicating throughout katrina: competing and complementary conceptual lenses on crisis communication crisis communication failure: a case study of typhoon morakot emergency management in health care: an all-hazards approach effective health communication -a key factor in fighting the covid-19 pandemic structure determines function systems thinking: managing chaos and complexity: a platform for designing business architecture thinking in systems: a primer key: cord-300223-ehabkd78 authors: jean, sébastien title: how the covid-19 pandemic is reshaping the trade landscape and what to do about it date: 2020-06-07 journal: inter econ doi: 10.1007/s10272-020-0890-4 sha: doc_id: 300223 cord_uid: ehabkd78 the covid-19 pandemic carries heavy threats, and preserving stable and coordinated international trade relations will be essential to avoid catastrophic disorders or conflicts. this general context is aggravated by the mounting tensions between the us and china. while the 'phase one' deal signed in january 2020 marked a ceasefi re in the trade war between the two countries, it did not resolve the underlying sources of tensions, far from it (jean, 2020) . moreover, the pandemic will probably call into question china's enforcement of its import commitments under this agreement. on 8 april 2020, the world trade organization (wto) released its forecast for world trade in 2020, announcing that it expected a fall in volume of between 13% and 32%. both the magnitude of the fall and the width of the forecasting range speak volumes about the violent blow the crisis dealt to international trade and about the uncertainty surrounding ensuing consequences. they refl ect the deeply disruptive economic impacts of lockdown measures taken to counter the pandemic. since these measures should be short-lived, part of their impact is temporary, and it is reasonable to expect that their removal will bring signifi cant economic relief. yet, i argue that this crisis will create lasting changes in the trade landscape and serious threats to the rules-based trading system, warranting a reconsideration of trade policy priorities in important respects. the fact that the shock is violent does not mean that its consequences will last. four types of reasons lead to the expectation that some of them will be irreversible, though. lasting changes in competitive positions and macroeconomic conditions the looming economic crisis, expected to be of unprecedented scale in peace time at least for decades, will cause a large number of bankruptcies and buyouts, in a manner that is far from homogeneous across countries and sectors. while it is diffi cult to predict the size of the wave, it is likely to signifi cantly alter competitive positions. given the recognised importance of hysteresis and irreversibilities in international trade (e.g. baldwin, 1990; ramanarayanan, 2017) , the consequences for international trade patterns might be longlasting. they are likely to trigger policy responses focused on domains deemed critical, to make sure the capacity to act forcefully is preserved even in conditions of crisis. for a long time, such concerns have been central to public policies in two areas: defence and food. they have translated into a different set of policies, warranting the special status of each of these domains in the international trading system and accommodating wide-ranging state intervention well beyond what is customary in other tradable sectors. but the covid-19 pandemic has brought two additional domains to the front of strategic importance: health and digital infrastructure. given the extraordinary tensions witnessed around procurement of, among other things, face masks and test reagents, there is probably no need to elaborate on the strategic status gained by the health sector. but it is worth emphasising that digital infrastructure also demonstrated its strategic importance, since it has been key to enabling the partial functioning capacities of many economies while maintaining fairly strict lockdown policies. this experiment will probably have lasting impacts on habits, norms and organisations, accelerating the increasing relevance of telepresence, a change with powerful disruptive potential (baldwin, 2019) . as heated controversies around 5g networks and the leading position of huawei illustrates, the critical nature of the infrastructure upon which such new organisations and practices rely was already largely recognised. it can only be reinforced by the present crisis, warranting increased state attention on their autonomy in this area. beyond these concerns of strategic autonomy, states may also have to adjust their policies to citizens' heightened expectations with regard to the state's protective role against potential threats. to be sure, governments will be eager to make sure that they are better prepared to face any future health crises, but expectations and possible measures may extend well beyond this specifi c area. an important open question is to what extent it will transform perceptions and policies regarding climate change and, more generally, sustainable development. after all, even though a direct causation cannot be established in the present case, this pandemic can be viewed as a cautionary tale about the dangers for mankind of disrupting ecological equilibria. finally, the role of the state in the economy is already being altered in practice as a result of the support programmes carried out to prevent the pandemics and the ensuing lockdown measures from wreaking havoc on their productive systems. these programmes are extraordinary in their size and in the scope of the measures involved, including guaranteed loans, bailouts, direct or indirect subsidisation, with partial or complete nationalisations likely in several cases. they profoundly alter the practices in most economies and change the background against which disciplines have been considered and discussed for years, particularly in relation while the woeful absence of us leadership in the pandemic response can only add to the strategic rivalry between the two countries, increased tension is also visible in the trade arena, as witnessed by the us administration's tightening of the rules restricting exports of sensitive products to china. the coronavirus pandemic is a crisis of epic proportions, in health as well as in economic terms. as such, it will probably leave a lasting imprint upon perceptions. since personal experience infl uences risk taking behaviours (e.g. malmendier et al., 2011; koudjis and voth, 2014) , it is likely that this crisis will increase risk aversion among a number of decision makers for a long time. this infl uence might lead to a reconsideration of effi ciency-robustness trade-offs, potentially altering fi rms' international strategies. this has led to debates and questions surrounding vulnerabilities of global value chains (gvcs), and in various cases to calls to relocate production in order to boost resilience. as miroudot (2020) emphasises, the capacity to maintain production during a crisis is referred to in the management literature as robustness, while resilience refers to the capacity to return quickly to normal operations after a crisis. and on both accounts, the vulnerability of gvcs is questionable compared to alternative, less international and less complex strategies, either in this crisis or in previous ones. however, the most pressing questions raised by the coronavirus crisis about gvc vulnerabilities may not be related to resilience or even robustness, but rather to autonomy and control. indeed, the pandemic shed crude light on the dependence of many advanced countries upon a very limited number of suppliers -frequently mainly upon china -to procure critical products such as active pharmaceutical ingredients, reagents or even personal protective equipment. to assess the uncertainties created by such a situation, one has to take into account not only the risk of disruption of production in a given area (which, after all, is no less at home than abroad), but also threats like trade confl icts or disruption in the transportation sector. with rising international tensions, such dependence might increasingly be seen as a weakness. firms might consider hedging this risk as well, which may lead them to re-assess their strategies, giving more weight to the benefi t of diversifi ed and easily controllable providers. changes in the role of the state in the economy from the state point of view, increased awareness of such situations of dependence raises concerns of strategic autonomy -understood in a broad sense -since it jeopardises its capacity to independently fulfi l missions of vital importance. since such issues were already high on the policy agenda before the coronavirus crisis, in particular in the eu, the consistency of the multilateral trading system is currently jeopardised by the failure to maintain two of its overarching principles: transparency and enforceability. safeguarding them is a priority. ensuring transparency requires that members live up to their notifi cation obligations. unfortunately, in many areas, notification obligations have been met with very long delays, when they have not been purely and simply ignored. this was the case, for instance, when the chair of the wto committee on subsidies and countervailing measures told members at a meeting in 2016 that compliance with the obligation to notify subsidies "remains discouragingly low". 1 judging by the recent wto information on export-restrictive measures, the problem is far from being resolved: on 23 april, only 13 out of 46 members (counting the eu as one) had notifi ed the wto of the measures they introduced since the outbreak of the coronavirus crisis (wto, 2020, 2). more political emphasis should be put on the necessity of accurate and timely notifications, as well as substantial deliberation, as preconditions for an orderly trading system. the binding adjudication of trade dispute settlement, widely lauded as one of the main achievements of the wto, is now paralysed by the us veto on the appointment of appellate body members. while the multiparty interim arbitration agreement is a poor substitute for this institution, it consists of several major players from the trading system, including the eu, china and brazil. as such, it is a useful temporary solution to retain some enforceability, and hopefully to create positive dynamics, making it possible at some point to get the appellate body back to normal operation. until then, it should be maintained and, to the extent possible, reinforced. in addition to these cross-cutting principles, strengthening disciplines on export restrictions is another priority. while article xi ( §2.a) of the general agreement on tariffs and trade (gatt) allows "export prohibitions or restrictions temporarily applied to prevent or relieve critical shortages of foodstuffs or other products essential", their use is especially costly for trading partners, particularly infl ammatory in times of crisis, and rarely serves meaningful purposes. agreement should be sought whereby exporters refrain from resorting to export restrictions, 2 even though the enforceability of such commitments is notoriously diffi cult to achieve because they tend to be used as emergency responses to crisis situations, in a temporality that is incompatible with rules-based dispute settlement, at least in the existing form. to industrial subsidies and state-owned enterprises (soes). as a matter of fact, several of these measures are probably in breach of commitments made in the wto agreement on subsidies and countervailing measures (scm). this is fully understandable given the circumstances, but it modifi es signifi cantly and, in all likelihood, for a long time, the background against which the highly sensitive question of industrial subsidies and soes will be discussed in the years to come. the bottom line is grim for the rules-based trading system: exacerbated tensions will make it all the more diffi cult to propose a coordinated response to the need to adapt public policies to the exceptional circumstances created by the covid-19 crisis and to lasting pressures to protect domestic producers. worse, these threats materialise in a context where the multilateral trading system was already destabilised not only by the ongoing trade war between the us and china but also, and more deeply, by its inability to address the structural challenges raised by the transformation of the world economy since the marrakech agreement was signed in 1994 (jean, 2019) . the pandemic and the ensuing structural changes can only add to the feeling that wto rules have been conceived in a context that differs substantially from the one we are living in, increasing the risk of a loss of legitimacy. the rules-based trading system is threatened with irrelevance, and the inability of the wto to play an active role in coordinating responses since the outbreak of the crisis does not help to assuage these concerns. lessons about the costs and dangers of disorderly responses to trade tensions had been learnt the hard way in the interwar period. preserving coordination and stability in international trade relationships is thus more essential now than ever and should be the priority of any european trade policy response. it is, however, utterly challenging, both because of the frailty of the existing multilateral trading system and because of the necessity to make trade a lever, not an obstacle, to legitimise public objectives such as health, security and sustainable development. a rigid application of existing rules is unlikely to work, given their eroded legitimacy and the fl aws already apparent in their enforcement. a multilateral agreement to reform the wto would be the best solution that would allow for an updating of the rules, organising of mutually profi table grand bargains and coordinating of responses to global challenges. unfortunately, it is clearly out of reach in the near future. a more pragmatic approach is needed, building upon political understandings and piecemeal reform, combining all available levels of political dialogue -at the wto but also in the g20 and other international forums -so as to retain the trading system's consistency, but also to allow it more fl exibility. forum mote sustainable development are not stymied by excessively rigid trade disciplines. finally, the changes entailed by the pandemic on the role of the state in the economy make it even more necessary than before to tackle the question of industrial subsidies and soes. this issue was already a central point of contention between big trading powers before the pandemic, with china as the main focal point, in a context marked by the lack of transparency and by the importance of subsidies in some industrial sectors (jean and nicolas, 2019) . the sanitary crisis and ensuing massive public support plans are only adding to these concerns. in order to avoid a negativesum competition game between subsidising programmes, a coordinated approach is urgent. an agreement, let alone new rules, is probably out of reach in the short term. however, enhancing transparency and deliberation might be a useful fi rst step to at least assess the situation more accurately. discussions about the respective merits and shortcomings of different types of public support could follow. the public support programmes being carried out in response to the coronavirus crisis are not going to vanish overnight as the present exceptional situation is here to stay at least for some time. seeking agreed rules intended to minimise their distortive impacts is probably the most pragmatic approach to preserve some coordination in this area. in the longer term, it is the articulation between state and market that needs to be reconsidered in the multilateral trading system, but this is a daunting challenge that cannot be expected to be dealt with quickly. the covid-19 pandemic carries heavy threats, and preserving stable and coordinated international trade relations will be essential to avoid catastrophic disorders or confl icts. the eu has an important role to play in defending the multilateral consistency, while also promoting fl exibility. at least in an initial stage, damage control should be the main focus, but this crisis will also make it necessary to reconsider how trade disciplines should be articulated with other public policy objectives. given the intense pressure that the crisis has put on the multilateral trading system, improved fl exibility is also required. the rules must not only be acceptable to stakeholders, they should also be consistent with vital public policy objectives such as health, security and sustainable development. this principle is already explicit in wto agreements and, for instance, the objective of "allowing for the optimal use of the world's resources in accordance with the objective of sustainable development" is emphasised in the fi rst paragraph of the preamble of the agreement establishing the wto. given the situation described above, however, it is fundamental to clarify the articulation between trade disciplines and other public policy objectives. as mentioned above, the covid-19 crisis has shed light on the specifi city of critical products, and as a result, public policies are primarily guided by the need to respond to citizens' demands for protection and security. while defense and food products are already treated as exceptions for this reason, health-related products and digital infrastructures are not. agreements leaving more space for state intervention for these products should be considered. irrespective of opinions about the right policy response to these concerns, it should be recognised that organising public policies so as to secure due availability of the corresponding resources is up to each state and that the corresponding objectives have precedence on trade rules. this principle is actually consistent with gatt article xx (general exceptions), stating inter alia that "nothing in this agreement shall be construed to prevent the adoption or enforcement by any contracting party of measures: … (b) necessary to protect human, animal or plant life or health". however, the conditions of application of these general exceptions are very strict, making their use diffi cult in practice. the predictability and usability of these provisions could be greatly enhanced by coordination on the interpretation of what policies are authorised. an agreement specifi cally focusing on the limited scope of products concerned could even be sought to go beyond such interpretation, in particular in the case of health products. the same logic should prevail with regards to policies tackling climate change. while responses to this existential challenge are second to none in importance, institutional asymmetries between subject areas have de facto created what johnson (2015) calls the structural supremacy of trade law over environmental law (bellora et al., 2020) . this is increasingly troublesome, especially as global environmental challenges are looming larger. the rules on general exceptions and their interpretations should be clarifi ed to make sure that efforts to combat climate change and prohysteresis in trade the globotics upheaval: globalisation, robotics and the future of work trade and biodiversity covid-19: demand spikes, export restrictions, and quality concerns imperil poor country access to medical supplies china's factory defl ation deepens as pandemic hits demand beliefs and leverage: personal experience and risk taking in margin lending, cepr discussion paper depression babies: do macroeconomic experiences affect risk taking? resilience versus robustness in global value chains: some policy implications imported inputs, irreversibility, and international trade dynamics staggering' collapse in infl ation expectations may force fed's hand markets point to defl ation risks for us economy export prohibitions and restrictions, information note uk-china-economy-infl ation/chinas-factory-defl ation-deepens-aspandemic-hits-demand-idukkbn22o0co preparing for a second wave of covid-19 a trade bargain to secure supplies of medical goods rethinking the global food crisis: the role of trade shocks international trade disagreements: beyond trump, politique étrangère the 'phase one deal': a truce that creates more problems than it solves international trade: rekindling interest in a multilateral rules-based approach information revelation and structural supremacy: the world trade organization's incorporation of environmental policy longer-run economic consequences of pandemics key: cord-023104-dpftawj3 authors: boin, arjen title: the transboundary crisis: why we are unprepared and the road ahead date: 2018-07-22 journal: nan doi: 10.1111/1468-5973.12241 sha: doc_id: 23104 cord_uid: dpftawj3 modern societies rely on complex technological systems that are deeply intertwined with other complex systems that stretch across geographical, judicial and administrative borders. when threats emanate from this transboundary space, national governments are often surprised and discover that existing crisis management arrangements do not suffice. this article describes the political and administrative challenges that accompany transboundary crises. it argues that arrangements and processes that work reasonably well for “bounded” crises are unlikely to work in the case of transboundary crises. it formulates an agenda for political debate and academic research. the bottom line is that we need to rethink traditional crisis management arrangements in order to prepare for these increasingly common type of threats. much has been done in recent decades to prepare modern society for all sorts of crises and disasters. one might say that many societies have never been as prepared for crises and disasters as they are today. that is a good thing. but here is the bad news: modern societies are woefully underprepared for dealing with a type of threat that is on the rise. this is what i refer to as the transboundary crisis. the transboundary crisis effortlessly exceeds geographical, policy, cultural, public-private and legal boundaries that normally enable public managers to classify, contain and manage a crisis. it escalates rapidly and mutates constantly, creating confusion about causes and possible consequences. it ends up on many administrative tables, but it is not obvious which of those tables is or should be "in the lead." these features make a fast and adequate response difficult, to say the least. the transboundary crisis comes in many guises: • in 2002, a mysterious virus spread from china, via hong kong, to 37 countries causing hundreds of deaths. the sars virus caused a major health crisis in toronto. in all these examples, national governments were confronted with a crisis that had origins in faraway domains. however well prepared they may have been for traditional crises, they soon discovered that their response repertoire was insufficient in the face of the transboundary challenges. when the state has no answer to a crisis, consequences follow. in times of crisis, the public expects representatives of the state to take charge. it is, after all, a core task of the state to protect its citizens against the consequences of threat and calamity. if the state fails in this core task, the legitimacy of public institutions and the especially when the legitimacy of public institutions is already under question. the transboundary crisis is the ultimate nightmare for crisis managers. it marks the moment they discover their traditional crisis arrangements do not suffice in the light of the political-administrative challenges that this crisis brings. it sheds light on a structural governance deficit, which presents politicians with a pressing design, let alone management, challenge. this study offers a roadmap for a discussion about possible solutions. this roadmap hinges on a strategic choice between two options that emerge from our discussion of theory: move backward by decoupling from modern systems or move forward by strengthening transboundary crisis management capacities. transboundary crises may come in different guises, but they share common characteristics that make them difficult to manage: the transboundary crisis reaches across multiple countries and/or multiple policy areas. there is no defined geographical location (a "ground zero") or policy sector around which to organize. that creates diversity in perspective: what in one domain is experienced as a problem of scarcity may become a matter of public safety in another; what in one country is considered a local matter is chefsache in another country. the transboundary crisis brings a critical challenge to any administrative system that is based on boundaries and demarcation. by crossing borders, the transboundary crisis challenges borders. in a democratic state that is based on the principle of political accountability and makes use of the bureaucratic organization form, most organizations are organized around demarcated areas of expertise and authority. the bureaucratic organization is based on boundaries among task fields, responsibilities, divisions, departments and policy sectors. two mechanisms have been traditionally used to address blurring of borders: coordination (negotiating boundaries) and centralization (transcending boundaries). these mechanisms can be problematic in the best of times; they are especially problematic in a transboundary crisis. coordination mechanisms may work fine for complex problems and the traditional crisis. the mechanisms, however, do not work in the world of the transboundary crisis for two reasons. first, in a transboundary crisis, it is not clear who the critical actors are or should be, and what their authority in the matter is. second, it is hard to establish or negotiate ownership in a short time frame (time is always scarce in a crisis). we may thus say that the transboundary crisis robs bureaucracy of its most effective tool. centralizing emergency powers in the hands of a leader or a central body is the traditional catch-all solution. in the roman empire, unlimited powers were placed in the hands of a dictator. in modern democracy, crisis centralization is still a valued mechanism. but it comes with constraints: it is not easy to centralize power, and it does not happen often. moreover, the "high command" is not always defined clearly enough, and the mechanisms that should regulate such a concentration of power are cumbersome. a quick look at the legal terms that condition the authorization of exceptional violence (the deployment of special police units) makes clear that a tension exists between legal considerations and the required speed of action. this tension can often only be circumvented in an environment in which political actors know and trust each other. in a transboundary crisis, the nation state may not be the only actor. but how to centralize power in an international context? governments are reluctant to shift decision-making authority to international institutions. think, for example, of eu agencies, which in principle could play a decisive role during a transboundary crisis. but these organizations were never endowed with decision-making powers. we should, then, not be surprised that an eu agency such boin | 95 as frontex accomplished so little during the immigration crisis that peaked in 2015. in sum, transboundary crises pose a wide and deep challenge to the standing governance arrangements of democratic states. that is problematic. the state is left rudderless in a time when citizens look to their elected leaders and trusted institutions to navigate them through the storm. a transboundary crisis can thus rapidly become a crisis of legitimacy. a vicious cycle threatens. the effectiveness of the crisis response relies to a large extent on legitimacy. but the legitimacy of public institutions is already under attack. if institutions do not function effectively during a crisis, they lose even more legitimacy. the transboundary crisis makes vulnerable institutions even more vulnerable. what can be done to protect our country, our prosperity and our well-being in a world of new, unprecedented crises that effortlessly bypass existing lines of defence? to answer this question, we must understand the underlying drivers of the transboundary crisis. two books, both classics, provide a great starting point: barry turner's (1978) man-made disasters and charles perrow's (1984) normal accidents. both authors focus on the relentless modernization of socio-technical systems. we build increasingly complex systems that we connect to other complex systems with one goal: to enhance the efficiency of critical processes (such as food supply, transport, production chains, internet and energy), that is, to increase the speed of service delivery at ever-lower costs. the thesis that emerges from both books can be summarized as follows: these "highways of efficiency" become the "highways of failure" that allow, if not actually enable, routine disruptions to travel very quickly from one system to another. perrow's argument is simple and convincing. if a system becomes evermore complex, it also becomes evermore difficult to understand. when something goes wrong, it is not immediately clear for system operators what is happening. if a complex system is tightly connected with other systems, we know that even a small disturbance can affect the functioning of these other systems. by the time the problem is recognized in one system, others may have been infected. complexity and tight coupling create fertile ground for small incidents to jump from one domain to another and thus escalate into larger-scale crises. new threats exploit these "highways of failure." the rise of revolutionary technologies-artificial intelligence, dna editing, drones, 3d-printing, self-propelled cars, the "internet of things"-brings happiness and economic prosperity, but they also speed up failure and create unknown shortcuts for unprecedented threats. from this theoretical perspective, two options emerge. a country can move backward by decoupling from the modern complexity ecology or move forward by a strategy of protecting complexity. perrow opted for the way back: simplify and unbundle critical systems. if complexity and tight coupling are the problem, perrow's solution-decoupling-is the obvious solution: return to simpler systems that are isolated from other systems. by decoupling from modernity, many crises simply cannot happen. the choice for decoupling does not come free, however. withdrawal entails a decoupling from the benefits that complex systems generate. it is a costly affair, as economists are fond to explain. but this rational argumentation collides with the growing unease about the negative effects of modern systems. in times of uncertainty, the call for entrenchment behind hard borders may not be evidence based, but it is intuitively convincing and politically attractive. we should therefore expect that "decoupling" remains an option as long as modern systems generate uncontrollable hazards. an alternative (or complimentary) strategy is prepared in the face of complexity. if we accept that disturbances can and will emerge, perhaps we are better off investing in early detection and timely intervention. aaron wildavsky (1988) argued that enhanced resilience through a trial-and-error strategy, relying on the human capacity for innovation and learning, is a much more fruitful strategy than a short-sighted focus on prevention through entrenchment. resilience became a dominant feature of many policy efforts in the domain of safety and security. governments that are unable or unwilling to protect their citizens against systemic risks appeal to the ability of citizens (also organizations and communities) to "absorb shocks" and "bounce back" after a disruptive event. the underlying idea is that citizens know what is good for them. in this line of thinking, it is not necessary that government arranges full protection for all citizens from all those complex systems surrounding them. begins with understanding the many ways in which incidents can develop into cross-border threats. how are systems connected? how can a system be infected by a disruption in another system? how can one system be protected against another without undermining the fruits of the existing connection? we need to understand the vulnerabilities of complex and tightly coupled systems. vulnerability thinking is still in its infancy. intelligence services seek to recognize potential threats in a timely manner. hedge funds bet on "big data" to foresee political upheavals. the eu has more than 100 detection and early warning mechanisms in place (but nobody knows if they are effective). research funded by the eu (horizon 2020) focuses on understanding escalation mechanisms in critical infrastructures. complexity researchers study "tipping points." other researchers focus on the ability of people in control rooms to detect early aberrations in critical processes. the need for detection mechanisms is clearly and widely acknowledged, but we await major breakthroughs. the transboundary crisis will continue to surprise us for the time being. the transboundary crisis is difficult to comprehend. the causes are hidden in system complexity and pile up when the dominoes start falling. to understand how a threat unfolds, where exactly and how quickly, it is necessary to bring together as much relevant information as possible, that is, to authorize, analyse and share it with the right parties-quickly and effectively. where critical information about the broken levees in new orleans disappeared. it took the federal authorities more than 24 hours to understand that the city was under water. the solution does not lie in the development of new technologies. what is needed is an approach that helps information managers to quickly collect information from a variety of organizational domains. they must learn to locate sources of critical information; they must also learn to make sense of that information, which is likely to be difficult as the information emanates from very different sources. it is a truism that critical decisions must often be made quickly on the basis of very little information when in a crisis. from a legitimacy perspective (see below), it is important that those critical decisions are made by the appropriate officials or institutions. the transboundary crisis makes this quite tricky, as it challenges the underlying logic of bureaucracy (where responsibility is tied to a person, position or institution). when a crisis involves multiple actors, each with their own responsibilities, interests and working methods, it must be clear who is authorized to decide what. this rarely has been determined beforehand, as a transboundary crisis tends to involve a unique constellation of actors. as we have seen, the typical solution to this type of problem involves a combination of centralization and coordination. centralization is hard enough for the more routine crises; it is even less likely to work in the international arena. national governments do not lightly cede authority to international organizations (certainly not during a crisis where so much is at stake). the international arena has produced some innovative solutions: think of nato's article five boin | 97 (centralization in case of defined threats) and the european central bank (centralization by stealth). the most important problem is that crisis centralization tends to create serious legitimacy issues. if the ownership on critical issues is allocated to an official or institution, and thus not allocated somewhere else or taken away from someone, it is crucial that the "crisis owner" can rely on political and public support. if this is not the case, the legitimacy of public institutions may come under pressure. without a solid legitimacy basis, effective crisis management becomes difficult. centralization that has not been subjected to processes of democratic deliberation and control is risky in this regard. the european central bank became increasingly powerful during the financial crisis and is hardly subject to democratic control. the impotence of the european parliament is telling. the european central bank has made decisions that large groups of citizens perceive as unjust. the lack of democratic control opens the door for politicization of the crisis response. coordination, on the other hand, may work. but that requires a degree of "instant trust" that is often lacking between actors that have never worked together before. promising initiatives can be found at the interface of public and private. for instance, the netherlands has the ict response board in which private parties work with government to prepare for cyber disasters. the louisiana business emergency operations center is another innovative example. the question is whether such practices can be scaled to the international level. theoretical progress is being made. by formulating transboundary crisis management as a collective action problem, we can apply theoretical insights from this body of research. this type of research may provide a view of the conditions under which crisis cooperation is possible, and the strategies that may be helpful. one such strategy, for example, is based on that idea of "instant trust"-unilaterally taking the first step, without being sure of reciprocity (majchrzak, jarvenpaa, & hollingshead, 2007) . but, overall, we can state that mechanisms for the delineation of authority are lacking for transboundary crises. in the absence of serious political discussion, real progress will likely only happen after a disastrous encounter with a transboundary crisis. the transboundary crisis is, of course, not a new phenomenon. crises have always traversed boundaries. think of the plague sweeping across europe, the 1918 flu epidemic, food shortages in the roman empire or the two world wars. the optimist may claim that the western world has managed the really big threats in the postwar era. the pessimist may argue that the connections among international systems have spectacularly increased, problems have become more complex, and the number of actors has increased dramatically. even if the pessimist is only half right, we may justifiably ask whether we are sufficiently prepared. the good news is that crisis management has professionalized in the past few decades. since the beginning of this century (after the millennium computer bug and 9/11), western countries have heavily invested in crisis management capacity, both in the public and private sectors. municipalities, schools, hospitals, businesses-crisis management is now firmly on the radar just about everywhere. more, even though public bureaucracies are not designed to deal with exceptional situations, "work arounds" have been created to deal with routine crises. i have argued, however, that these existing crisis management structures are no match for the transboundary crisis. when the system under threat becomes spread too far, and workarounds do not we leave it to the national crisis institutions. we can instruct these institutions to pay more attention to the transboundary dimensions of crises. it will not be easy to introduce a new way of working in institutions that are built around traditional practices that work for traditional incidents and crises. these organizations do not have to unlearn standing practices; they must learn to deal with the transboundary crisis. we must, in other words, make those institutions "ambidextrous." this will require a lot of work, because national crisis institutions have little affinity with transnational and cross-border crisis management. perhaps it is better to invest in organizations that are already active in cross-border domains. nato and the european union have in recent years developed crisis management capabilities which, in principle, are intended for cross-border crises. the eu, in particular, has developed in embryonic form abilities needed for a transboundary crisis. but these capabilities and assets are scattered across the many agencies and commission parts of the eu. and the crisis performance of the eu is not always considered effective or legitimate. in particular, the response to the financial crisis and the immigration crisis has become sources of controversy. the eu will need time to become an effective and legitimate actor in the crisis domain. 1 3. build transboundary crisis management institutions. think in terms of a new organization, with new people, a respected leadership, real powers and a realistic budget. an institute that invents and tests new forms of crisis management practices. new processes and forms of organization that can effectively address the transboundary crisis. the advantage is that a brand new institution can devise novel methods or ways of thinking from scratch. that is, at the same time, the downside: it will take a long time and the outcome is by no means guaranteed. we conclude by setting out a research challenge. it is important to study the different guises in which the transboundary crisis comes, which allow for classification. it may well turn out that some types of transboundary crises are more amenable to certain interventions (such as centralization and coordination, decoupling or resilience) than others. it may well be that certain types are more politically or analytically challenging. the research challenge is to find out how characteristics relate to preparatory and management efforts. we may discover that certain types are intractable, whereas others may lend themselves to early detection and intervention. by studying cases of actual crises and near misses, we should be able to enhance our understanding of the transboundary crisis. acknowledgment i wish to thank emery roe for his extensive and constructive comments, which greatly improved this article. this study has benefitted from funding provided by the european union's horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no 649484 (transcrisis). the politics of crisis management managing hurricane katrina: lessons from a megadisaster coordinating expertise among emergent groups responding to disaster man-made disasters searching for safety how to cite this article: boin a. the transboundary crisis: why we are unprepared and the road ahead key: cord-339855-oqe8rcbu authors: laufer, daniel title: academics engaging through the media—insights from creating a monthly column on crisis management date: 2020-06-06 journal: public relat rev doi: 10.1016/j.pubrev.2020.101932 sha: doc_id: 339855 cord_uid: oqe8rcbu universities increasingly expect academics to engage with external stakeholders. this includes providing media commentary. in this article i describe my experience writing a monthly column on crisis management in the new zealand herald, the most widely read newspaper in new zealand with an average daily readership of over 460,000 people (new zealand herald, 2019). the article also describes the benefits of writing a newspaper column including educating the public about issues relating to crisis management such as managing covid-19, creating a platform for enhancing collaboration between academics and public relations firms, and enhancing the reputation of both the academic and university. this article will benefit academics in the field of public relations who are interested in writing a newspaper column to engage through the media. research and teaching-oriented universities increasingly expect academics to engage with external stakeholders. these stakeholders include companies, the government and the general public. leading academic organizations also recognize the need for increased external engagement. for example, the american political science association created a task force to discuss how to generate effective engagement (mcmurtrie, 2014) . an important type of engagement activity for academics is commentary in the media which is a way to educate the public about an important topic related to a scholar's area of expertise. an academic's perspective is viewed by many in the public as an informed and relatively unbiased opinion compared to other commentators. this is especially important during the covid-19 crisis when trust in the government in many countries is in decline, and the public is looking for credible sources of information. whereas writing op-eds, speeches and granting media interviews are beneficial for both the academic and university, i believe other types of activities are more reputation enhancing. for example, writing a column in one's area of expertise for an influential media outlet enables academics to have a longer-term impact that goes beyond occasional commentary. in this article i describe my experience writing a regular column about crisis management for the new zealand herald, the most widely read newspaper in new zealand with an average daily readership of over 460,000 people (new zealand herald, 2019) . in the following sections i describe the benefits of writing a newspaper column, and my experience writing a column from 2019 to 2020. a key difference between writing a regular column and providing occasional commentary is control over content. when being interviewed for a story, an academic typically spends a considerable amount of time speaking with reporters and answering questions through email correspondence. despite these lengthy and in-depth conversations with reporters, in most cases when the news articles are published, only select quotes from the academic expert's commentary are included. unlike providing occasional commentary for the media, writing a regular column for a newspaper provides a much greater level of control and autonomy for an academic. since i started writing my monthly column on crisis management in early 2019, i've always chosen the topic of the column, as well as the content included in the 800−1,000word monthly column. my column has appeared 15 times in the newspaper since i was hired to write the column, and the editor has made only minor editing changes on rare occasions before publishing the column. having greater control over the content minimizes the risk of being misquoted or taken out of context. this is a major concern of academics when dealing with the media. in many situations journalists will choose the quotes they prefer to use, and this may distort the views of academics in a published newspaper article or a news clip on tv or the https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2020.101932 e-mail address: dan.laufer@vuw.ac.nz. radio. a good example of this is a tv interview with cynthia miller-idriss a professor of education and sociology at american university. she was interviewed on nbc's today show in the usa for a segment on how white nationalists were trying to infiltrate college campuses. the sound bite used by the today show featured professor miller-idriss calling a white-nationalist group "smart" and "savvy". after the interview aired, professor miller-idriss mentioned that her comments were taken out of context and did not include "the context of my larger points about why the mainstreaming of extremism in the united states is so dangerous" (miller-idriss, 2018). commentary in the media enhances both the reputation of the academic and the university. the academic benefits from commentary in the media because the general public learns more about the expertise of the scholar, which enhances the reputation of the scholar as an expert in his or her area of specialization. this can create opportunities for the academic including invitations for giving presentations, membership on advisory boards, and consulting projects (miller-idriss, 2018) . in addition, the university benefits because it is viewed by the public as a prestigious institution employing scholars highly sought after by the media for commentary on important issues related to their areas of expertise. this can influence prospective students in deciding whether to apply for programs at a university, or alumni in donating to the university. according to orr (2010) "universities are now competitive businesses as much as spaces for advancing knowledge. universities market themselves as brands, hence media attention is one way university bureaucrats measure success". writing a column in a newspaper can enhance the reputation of an academic and a university even more than occasional commentary in the media. the frequency of exposure to the public through the publication of a column can strengthen perceptions of the public regarding an academic's standing in his or her area of expertise. in addition, the academic's name and university is typically featured more prominently in a column when compared with being quoted in the media. in order to maximize the chances of convincing a newspaper to launch a new column, it is important to demonstrate that an academic has the ability to write a regular column. an effective way to show that an academic can be successful as a columnist is to prepare a portfolio of previous media commentary. when in addition to the importance of prior experience writing commentary in the area of crisis management for a well-known global media outlet, experience with media commentary in new zealand was also important. my commentary for radio new zealand about a product tampering crisis involving imported strawberries from australia (laufer, 2018) , and an interview about my research on tv1's q + a, the leading weekly news program on tv in new zealand, played an important role in the new zealand herald's decision to hire me as a columnist. finally, beyond demonstrating relevant experience, an academic also needs to convince the newspaper that its audience will be interested in reading a new column. in my case the new zealand herald had never previously published a regular column focused exclusively on crisis management. in pitching the idea, i emphasized the success of the "crisis of the week" column in the wall street journal, as well as the interest of major media outlets in new zealand for commentary on topics related to crisis management. this was compelling support for the potential of the new column in attracting interest among the newspaper's readers. my efforts to convince the new zealand herald to launch a new column on crisis management were successful, and i received a oneyear contract to write a monthly column in 2019 (800−1,000 words). due to the success of the column, the contract was extended for another year in 2020. in determining the topics and content to include in my column, there were a number of factors that influenced my decision: in writing my column, i wanted to educate the public about topics related to all three phases of a crisis (for a list of topics in my column, see appendix a). it is worth noting that most research published in the area of crisis management focuses on the crisis phase (coombs & laufer, 2018) , and the media also tends to focus on issues around managing a crisis. despite the importance of knowing how to respond to a crisis when it happens, how to prevent a crisis from occurring (precrisis phase), and how to learn from a crisis (post-crisis phase) are also important topics in crisis management which i wanted to incorporate in my column. in order to emphasize the importance of crisis prevention, i decided to write about a topic related to the pre-crisis phase in my inaugural column. my focus in the column was on crisis contagion, or how a crisis occurring in one organization can spillover to others (laufer & wang, 2018) . the column described ways a company can assess the risk of crisis contagion, and how it can manage the risk. an example of a topic related to managing a crisis in my column was a discussion about whether to use a ceo as a spokesperson during a crisis (laufer, 2020) . this topic is of great interest to companies who need to decide the best way to communicate their message during a crisis. should they use the ceo, or perhaps another spokesperson may be more effective in communicating during the crisis? the column discussed several factors to consider in deciding whether to use the ceo as a spokesperson during a crisis. another topic related to managing a crisis in my column involved carnival cruise's response to the covid-19 crisis on its cruise ships. in the column, the company was criticized for its poor response. according to claudia macdonald, managing director, mango communications nz, who provided commentary in my column "their lack of communication to date is not helping them repudiate an already shaky health reputation. the president of princess cruises only spoke this week for the first timemore than a month after the first incident". finally, my column also covered topics related to the post-crisis phase. for example, i discussed conducting an investigation after a crisis. what increases the likelihood that learning will take place after the findings from an investigation are published? in the column i discuss factors that enhance the credibility of an investigation, and the likelihood that recommendations from an investigation will be accepted by stakeholders. when deciding on topics for my column, my research provides me with a lot of useful ideas. these included writing about crisis contagion public relations review xxx (xxxx) xxxx (laufer & wang, 2018) , how crisis management in china differs from the west (wang & laufer, 2020) when to use the ceo as a spokesperson during a crisis (einwiller, laufer, & ruppel, 2017; laufer, garrett, & ning, 2018) and how to manage customer rage (gregoire, laufer, & tripp, 2010) . however, in deciding whether to focus on my research topics for my column, an important consideration is my target audience. is my research of interest to the general public, or is it primarily of interest to an academic audience? for example, an article about the usefulness of a scale would be of great interest to academics, however it would not be a good topic for the column. in addition to my research, i incorporate information from other sources as well, including government officials. for example, i interviewed a senior government official from the ministry of business, innovation and employment in new zealand for a column about managing product recalls. during the interview, i asked the senior product safety analyst about the most common mistakes companies make in new zealand during a product recall. this type of information is of great interest to the readers of the herald, and it was included in the column. as previously mentioned, the relevance of a topic to the newspaper's readers is an important consideration in choosing the topic for the column. an important issue related to relevance is whether the audience is familiar with the organizations involved in the crises. as a result, i include examples of well-known new zealand companies that have experienced crises in my column. for example, when i wrote my column on consumer outrage, i discussed a crisis involving burgerfuel, a well-known fast-food restaurant chain in new zealand. the crisis occurred when an employee at a burgerfuel franchise in auckland used blackface to promote a new jamaican burger launched by the company. in the same column i also describe the outrage directed towards air new zealand, the country's national carrier, after the christchurch mosque shootings in march 2019. the airline raised its prices after the shooting due to the increased demand in flights to christchurch. despite the importance of including local content in the column, i also believe it is important to discuss global topics. new zealand is a country that relies heavily on international trade, and readers of the herald are interested in news from overseas. in one of my columns i wrote about how crisis management in china differs from the west. china is new zealand's largest trading partner, and there is also a free agreement between new zealand and china. finally, covid-19 is an example of a crisis with a significant impact both globally and domestically. the crisis has dominated the news over the past few months, and my column has covered covid-19 three times. there is enormous interest in the topic, and no other crisis has been covered as frequently in my column. covid-19 was also the first topic that was covered under the new format of the column involving an exchange of views between academics and practitioners. in the next section, i will discuss the new format of the column. after my contract as a columnist for the herald was renewed in 2020, i decided to make changes to the column. the newspaper was pleased with the column, however i felt that through changes to the format i could achieve another important objective, creating a platform for an exchange of views between academics and practitioners. collaboration between academics and practitioners has long been identified as an important objective in the field of public relations. for example, the commission on public relations education (cpre) states that increasing collaboration between educators and practitioners advances excellence in public relations education and practice throughout the world (http://www.commissionpred.org/). an important prerequisite to collaboration is creating a greater understanding of the different ways practitioners and academics view issues. before considering collaboration, both practitioners and academics need to assess the potential benefits of collaboration. through the mutual exchange of ideas in the column, practitioners can assess the potential benefit of academics' ideas for improving their practice, and academics can assess the potential for research collaboration and improvements in teaching by incorporating the practitioner's perspective. newspaper readers of the column also benefit from this exchange of views by getting different perspectives on crisis management. in redesigning the column, i incorporated the approach taken by the wall street journal with their "crisis of the week" column by creating a panel of experts. as part of the new format for the column, i decided to incorporate commentary from both a practitioner and an academic on how an organization or individual performed during a crisis. both experts would have up to 350 words to give their perspective. the response to the new format of the column has been overwhelmingly positive from both academics and practitioners. academic experts in crisis management from most of the major universities in new zealand have agreed to provide commentary for the column. similarly, most of the leading public relations firms in new zealand with expertise in crisis management have also agreed to provide commentary. in total, i have a pool of 20 people on my panel of experts comprising of both academics and practitioners. each month i choose two different experts to provide commentary for the column. the herald has already published the column three times with the new format. with covid-19 dominating the news, i decided to focus on how individuals and companies are managing the pandemic. the column has focused on the prime minister of new zealand's response to the crisis, how air new zealand is managing covid-19, and how carnival cruises' is managing the pandemic. feedback from the new format has been very encouraging. for example, my column about the prime minister of new zealand's response to covid-19 was included on an influential list of recommended news articles by one of the leading online news outlets in new zealand (newsroom, 2020) . writing a newspaper column is a very fulfilling experience that can greatly benefit academics and universities. despite the considerable amount of time involved in writing a column, i believe the benefits greatly outweigh the costs. in writing my column on crisis management, in addition to the benefits to academics and universities, i believe that the field of public relations can benefit as well through the potential for future increased collaboration between academics and practitioners. the public also benefits through exposure to a diversity of views expressed on topics related to crisis management by leading experts from both academia and public relations firms. writing a column has enabled me to share my expertise with the general public, which has resulted in a number of opportunities. these include receiving invitations to give presentations at high profile industry events and to teach webinars. it is worth noting that one event has been especially gratifying. as a result of the column, i was invited to give a presentation to high school teachers in auckland to discuss how the column can be used to teach their students about crisis management. i believe teaching crisis management in high schools will increase the demand for crisis management courses at universities in the future. my university has also benefited from the column. as part of my contract with the new zealand herald, my university has permission to post the column on its website one month after it is published in the newspaper. by sharing the column with its stakeholders, the university can highlight that its faculty provide commentary on a regular basis in their area of expertise in leading media outlets. this enhances the reputation of the university. creating a platform through the column that incorporates the views of both academics and practitioners can also play an important role in bridging the gap between these groups. in many cases, academics and practitioners are not familiar with each other's work. by including commentary in the column from both groups, this increases the chances that they will become more familiar with each other's views and ideas. to facilitate this, i email a copy of the column to my panel of experts after it is published, so they can read the commentary of the academic and practitioner. finally, the public also benefits from a diversity of views. this is especially important during times of crises such as covid-19 when there is a need for reliable information from credible sources. by presenting the views of leading experts from academia and public relations firms, the public learns about important concepts in crisis management. for example, in his commentary on the response of air new zealand to covid-19 (new zealand herald, 2020) , dr. chris galloway from massey university mentioned that "this is the time when lessons need to be absorbed, new operational procedures and structures introduced, and reputations rebuilt where damage has occurred". neil green, chief executive, senate shj, a leading public relations firm in new zealand, also provided useful commentary in the same column: "clarity of communication and calmness under pressure are highly regarded leadership attributes and foran (ceo of air new zealand) has consistently demonstrated both, earning respect and goodwill from staff, customers, shareholders and other stakeholders". after reading the column, readers gain a better understanding of best practices when dealing with a pandemic. this is of great value to the public and represents an important contribution in the area of engagement. appendix a. list of topics in column on crisis management in the new zealand herald (2019-2020) • how companies can protect themselves from crisis contagion. • beware of judging during uncertain times. • should the ceo of a company be a spokesperson during a crisis? • what causes consumer outrage, and how can companies prevent it from happening? • can celebrity endorser crisis spread to companies? • when trouble strikes, investigate. • how to avoid costly mistakes when managing a product recall. • firms losing victim status in data hacks. • what foreign companies can learn from past crises. • crisis management in the era of social media. • crisis management in china: how it differs from the west. • think long term before going on a limb: weigh the risks before you take a stand that can later prove controversial. • how has prime minister jacinda ardern been managing the coronavirus crisis (includes expert commentary from academic and practitioner). • covid-19 coronavirus: air new zealand's response (includes expert commentary from academic and practitioner). • carnival cruises' response to covid-19 (includes expert commentary from academic and practitioner). global crisis management -current research and future directions believe me, i am one of you! the role of common group affiliation in crisis communication a comprehensive model of customer direct and indirect revenge: understanding the effects of perceived greed and customer power should ceos of multinationals be spokespersons during an overseas product harm crisis strawberry crisis: how nz growers can prevent "crisis contagion guilty by association -the risk of crisis contagion examining the effectiveness of the ceo as a spokesperson during a product harm crisis: insights from china and south korea political scientists propose new ways to engage policy makers and the public lessons i learned -and you can, too -from my 'today' show appearance nz herald defies trends with soaring readership covid-19 coronavirus: air new zealand's response. retrieved from media monitoring -bernard's pick of the links-mar 5 academics and media in australia. retrieved from:the university of queensland tc beirne school of law legal studies research papers series how does crisis management in china differ from the west? -a review of the literature and directions for future research key: cord-340427-kirtoaf2 authors: misztal-okońska, patrycja; goniewicz, krzysztof; hertelendy, attila j.; khorram-manesh, amir; al-wathinani, ahmed; alhazmi, riyadh a.; goniewicz, mariusz title: how medical studies in poland prepare future healthcare managers for crises and disasters: results of a pilot study date: 2020-07-09 journal: healthcare (basel) doi: 10.3390/healthcare8030202 sha: doc_id: 340427 cord_uid: kirtoaf2 in the event of a crisis, rapid and effective assistance for victims is essential, and in many cases, medical assistance is required. to manage the situation efficiently, it is necessary to have a proactive management system in place that ensures professional assistance to victims and the safety of medical personnel. we evaluated the perceptions of students and graduates in public health studies at the medical university of lublin, poland, concerning their preparation and management skills for crises such as the covid-19 pandemic. this pilot study was conducted in march 2020; we employed an online survey with an anonymous questionnaire that was addressed to students and graduates with an educational focus in healthcare organization and management. the study involved 55 people, including 14 men and 41 women. among the respondents, 41.8% currently worked in a healthcare facility and only 21.7% of them had participated in training related to preparation for emergencies and disasters in their current workplace. the respondents rated their workplaces’ preparedness for the covid-19 pandemic at four points. a significant number of respondents stated that if they had to manage a public health emergency, they would not be able to manage the situation correctly and not be able to predict its development. managers of healthcare organizations should have the knowledge and skills to manage crises. it would be advisable for them to have been formally educated in public health or healthcare administration. in every healthcare facility, it is essential that training and practice of performing medical procedures in full personal protective equipment (ppe) be provided. healthcare facilities must implement regular training combined with practical live scenario exercises to prepare for future crises. rapid economic development combined with urbanization has led to significant human encroachment on the natural environment; this has exacerbated climate change, increasing the severity and frequency of extreme weather events that often result in morbidity and mortality [1, 2] . the covid-19 pandemic has exposed vulnerabilities in healthcare systems globally. it is imperative to review what healthcare managers are currently being taught to determine gaps in the curriculum to better prepare healthcare leaders for future disasters and pandemics. when crises occur, rapid and effective assistance to victims is essential. medical assistance is often necessary, and a significant number of victims require coordinated treatment and transport to healthcare facilities. the work of medical facilities cannot be carried out without an appropriate management system. therefore, managers of healthcare facilities must have the knowledge and skills needed to manage crises effectively [3] . in poland, public health is the only field of study that prepares potential healthcare managers. in recent years, this field of study has not attracted much interest as it does not have a standardized accredited curriculum or a defined set of competencies for healthcare administrators. in many high-, middle-, and low-income countries, schools of public health have developed competency-based curriculums focused on healthcare administration [4] [5] [6] . the healthcare institutions law states that a healthcare facility manager is a person who possesses higher education and has proper knowledge and experience to perform managerial duties [7] . the presented requirements indicate that the function of a manager in a healthcare facility can be performed by a person who does not necessarily have prior medical or managerial education specific to healthcare. management of healthcare organizations is complex. unlike most industries, unfamiliarity with healthcare operations may result in the director of a healthcare facility being unable to assess the risk of an epidemic or a disaster objectively. in turn, this may result in inadequate management and, consequently, may contribute to negative consequences for patients and staff of the medical facility. the aim of this study was to evaluate the perceptions of students and graduates in public health studies at the medical university of lublin, poland, concerning their preparation and management skills for crises such as the covid-19 pandemic. the standard of the polish medical training in 2019 may raise some concerns about the preparation of future medical staff in management of mass casualties resulting from major incidents and disasters, as well as an overwhelming amount of sick patients that can stress a healthcare system due to a pandemic. for example, the subject of disaster medicine is only included in the medical rescue course. the preparation of medical students for crises and infectious diseases at the medical university of lublin's department of public health is presented in table 1 . public health studies are not regulated in poland and therefore do not have a specific standard of education. it is the only field of study in poland that prepares potential healthcare managers. graduates from the medical university of lublin's department of public health curriculum are taught epidemiology, infectious diseases, and crisis management. during the students' first level of study (undergraduate studies), they are taught the following subjects: basics of epidemiology, virology, basics of sanitary-epidemiological monitoring, epidemiology, environmental epidemiology, basics of nosocomial infections, and crisis management. at the second level of studies (postgraduate studies), the subjects are disaster medicine, general epidemiology, nosocomial infections, and other threats. the current covid-19 pandemic necessitated revisiting the current preparedness in the polish medical facilities and among medical professionals for the next event. thus, we aimed to investigate the readiness level among trained professionals in public health with organizational knowledge in management of healthcare services. we conducted an extensive analysis of the literature. the findings were analyzed using the nominal group technique (ngt) and the acquired knowledge was sorted using categorization and knowledge mapping to develop a questionnaire. using instant messaging, the respondents had the opportunity to contact and ask questions if necessary. people working in healthcare facilities used this option to clarify the problems they encounter at work connected with the pandemic. an extensive analysis of literature and then the arrangement of the acquired knowledge through categorization and knowledge mapping led to the development of a research tool in the form of a questionnaire. a qualitative method was used to verify the research tool, and the questionnaire was tested on a sample of 6 students to check whether the respondents understood the questions it contained. this group was then excluded from the pilot study and their answers were not included in the final analysis. in the pilot study, an original questionnaire was available in online versions, which contained 6 closed questions and 2 questions that were open and allowed the respondents to express their opinions freely. statistical and frequency analyses, and review of basic descriptive statistics were conducted using ibm spss statistics version 26. the study was not a medical experiment and legally did not require the approval of the bioethics committee. the study involved 55 students and graduates, including 25.5% (14 subjects) men and 74.5% (41 subjects) women. among the respondents, 41.8% (23 subjects) currently worked in a healthcare facility and 58.2% (students) did not. among people working in healthcare facilities, only 21.7% (5 subjects) in the present workplace had participated in preparation training related for mass-casualty incidents and disasters (e.g., epidemics). in comparison, 78.3% (18 subjects) had not undergone such training. the respondents evaluated their workplaces' preparedness for pandemics on a likert scale from 0 to 10. table 2 presents the subjective evaluations of the respondents. most respondents rated the preparedness of their workplaces at three points (26%) and five points (26%), followed by 13% for six points, and 9% for zero points or one point. no one rated the preparedness of their workplace at the maximum of 10 points. the highest rating was seven points. however, some of the respondents worked in hospitals. in contrast, others worked in healthcare facilities such as outpatient clinics or primary care practices. in these workplaces, the risk is lower and advanced life-saving equipment, such as respirators, is not required in the workplace. as many as 96.4% (53 subjects) of the respondents acknowledged that healthcare managers should receive education and training concerning the management of healthcare facilities during emergencies and disasters, only 3.6% (two subjects) were of the opposite opinion. respondents were asked what kind of training should be included in the curriculum to develop competences and skills in crisis and disaster management. similar responses were grouped thematically. most often, respondents reported the need for practical classes and simulation of crisis events (26.44%), and some reported that these should be theoretical classes (13.79%). they proposed classes on the organization of the work of personnel and human resources management during crisis events (6.90%). they indicated that there should be more classes on the subject of crisis management (6.90%). furthermore, 6.90% of respondents reported the need for ppe training (learning to put on and take off suits, goggles, visors, and protective masks). the respondents reported that they never had the chance to put on or see others put on ppe during their studies, so they did not know how to use it properly and safely at work. they reported significant difficulties in performing patient care and the need to practice procedures in full ppe beforehand, as the range of movement in such situations is limited. only two of the respondents expressed that they did not feel the need for any additional training. respondent answers are presented in table 3 . the majority of the respondents (49 subjects) responded that healthcare management students should educate themselves about climate change and its impact on health. in the second question, where respondents were free to express their opinion by submitting an answer, they were asked to state their concerns if they did not have sufficient skills or competencies to manage crises as a current/future healthcare facility manager. the respondents (25%) were most often afraid that they would not be able to cope with the situation and that they would not be able to predict the development of the situation and make the right decisions. nearly 15% of the respondents were worried about the lack of experience in such situations, and 13% were afraid that the competencies they had would not be sufficient to manage a crisis. all of the respondents' answers are presented in table 4 . table 4 . concerns the respondents felt about their ability to manage a crisis independently. answers % concerns about the proper functioning of the facility 4 5.88% ability to allocate responsibilities well among employees 4 5.88% the stress of endangering the life and health of a large group of patients and staff 6 8.82% fears that their competencies are not insufficient 9 13.24% fear that i will not be able to cope, that i will not anticipate the development of the situation, and the fear of chaos 18 25 .00% concerns about the lack of experience in such situations 10 14 .71% concern about the lack of specific procedures 5 7.35% fear of responsibility and fear that i will make a mistake 6 8.82% the fear that i will become infected with an infectious disease 1 our findings suggested that among the respondents who worked in healthcare facilities, as many as 78.3% had not received any training related to preparation for crises and disaster. similar research was conducted in yemen in 2017, where 531 healthcare workers were surveyed using a questionnaire. the analysis showed that the general state of knowledge of yemeni healthcare workers was insufficient in relation to crisis and disaster preparedness. a total of 41% of all respondents had not participated in any disaster preparedness courses, and 58.9% of respondents had not participated in any practical exercises on crisis and disaster preparedness. additionally, managers seemed insufficiently qualified in emergency planning and crisis management, as their level of knowledge was lower than that of the medical personnel [9] . in poland, the first diagnosed covid-19 patient (patient zero) was recorded on 4 march, 2020 [10] , whereas in china, according to official sources, the first patient was diagnosed on 8 december, 2019 [11] . in poland, during those three months before the coronavirus was diagnosed and reported, people had started to buy mainly protective masks and thermometers. large quantities of ppe (e.g., protective masks, gloves, thermometers) were exported to china, as there was a huge demand in this region. due to this, a few weeks before the coronavirus's appearance in poland, the amount of available ppe was insufficient. the biggest problem turned out to be the lack of ppe for medical personnel. until then, hospitals that rarely had to deal with highly infectious diseases did not have a sufficient quantity of protective clothing, visors, or appropriate protective facemasks at their disposal. managers of healthcare facilities had not anticipated such a problem, most of them had no supplies, and the situation was a complete surprise to them. respondents working in the hospitals reported that visitors of hospitalized persons were taking protective gloves and disinfectant supplies out of the wards. a mandatory total ban on visits was introduced shortly after the first covid-19 patient's appearance, which brought an end to this practice. donors and community members came to the rescue, sewing masks and making homemade visors in a spontaneous gesture of help. an important problem, which the respondents pointed out, was the training on ppe use. wax and christian outlined the correct use of ppe for medical personnel, including guidelines on how to safely remove their protective clothing to not expose themselves to secondary contamination. the researchers stressed the need to define clear protocols for cleaning ppe for subsequent use [12] . according to the united states occupational safety and health administration (osha), it is essential for medical personnel to know the requirements for a given emergency [13] . these guidelines should serve as a basis for national protocol development in the standardized use and training of ppe in medical facilities. most respondents, when asked to express their concerns about being able to manage a healthcare facility in a crisis situation independently, indicated a lack of experience in such circumstances, a fear that their competencies would prove insufficient, and an inability to predict the development of the situation and to manage it properly. management in crises is difficult, stressful, and raises several concerns. unfortunately, a review of polish and foreign literature on the management of healthcare facilities in crises has shown that there is a paucity of published research in this area [14, 15] . a significant problem reported by the respondents is the need for training in operations management and human resource management. nowadays, in a healthcare organization's preparation for crises and disaster, the human factor plays a vital role. a shortage of medical personnel, high workloads, an increasing amount of documentation, and the fulfillment of several necessary formalities make medical practitioners reluctant to participate in training [16] . complacency also plays a contributing factor during a prolonged period of relative calm when no unexpected events occur. in this case, it can be difficult to expect staff to familiarize themselves with the documentation, standard procedures, and plans of mass-casualty incidents and disasters. in most cases, it consists of a quick, cursory review. in times of prolonged periods of security, people do not feel an imminent threat and, therefore, do not have the strong motivation to prepare for a crisis. the situation related to the spread of covid-19 is unprecedented and difficult for all managers [17] . the creation of hospital crisis management plans, evacuation plans, or handling of mass-casualty incidents, and the obligation for staff to become familiar with them, is an important step toward preparedness for these events. however, the lack of such plans can lead to chaos and complete disorientation. the effects of disasters can be mitigated by adopting risk management measures and appropriate planning, education, and training measures [18] . the most frequently mentioned need identified by students and graduates in public health was additional training (26.5%), which was based on practical exercises and simulations of real crises. the foundation for effective healthcare operations management should consist of regularly scheduled exercises and training in the procedures related to crises. skills rehearsed in practice improve preparedness and confidence, allowing one to verify knowledge and analyze the effectiveness of their actions, all of which cannot be achieved using only theoretical training or assumptions [19, 20] . a significant number of respondents, 89.1% (49 persons), felt that healthcare management students should receive education about climate change and its impact on health. many threats result from global climate change. these threats are caused mainly by rapidly developing industries and excessive human expansion into nature, raising the probability of various types of types of extreme weather events and new diseases, including infectious diseases and cancers, and their occurrence is increasing. the world health organization (who) identified climate change impacts on health and epidemics as the most urgent health challenges in the next decade [21] . medical and management personnel should be prepared for the possibility of an event that will exceed the local response capacity and lead to excessive morbidity and mortality [22] [23] [24] . the approach to crisis management issues adopted by the manager of a healthcare facility is an essential and decisive aspect. if a healthcare facility's management approaches the problem of preparedness for crisis incidents seriously, it can force the employees to read the documentation and participate in practical exercises [25] . this can be achieved by organizing several rounds of practical exercises so that all employees can participate. in addition, management should carry out tests to check employees' knowledge of plans and procedures for dealing with mass-casualty incidents and disasters, evacuation of buildings, and dealing with infectious diseases. if the head of the healthcare facility treats these issues as important, hospital staff will address them in the same manner [20] . healthcare organizations are challenging to manage on a day to day basis. a crisis event creates additional operational issues that require specialized knowledge and skillsets to manage effectively and safely. poland should consider increasing healthcare threats to its citizens as a catalyst to introduce new a curriculum in healthcare administration. at the undergraduate and graduate levels, programs can be created that develop competencies in disaster management and crisis leadership to prepare the workforce to manage future healthcare emergencies resulting from epidemics, natural disasters, or man-made events such as terrorism [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] . the main limitation of this study was that only one university was surveyed. however, it was a pilot study that revealed gaps in training and education related to crisis and disaster management in the public health studies curriculum, one that is preparing students to manage and lead healthcare organizations. to date, no similar research has been conducted in poland. this research forms the basis for planned future studies with more respondents and a more comprehensive approach aimed to determine the preparedness and training of healthcare administrators currently managing healthcare facilities in poland. another limitation is the low number of respondents in total. however, as a pilot mixed methods study, the outcome indicates a need for further studies with a larger population. managers of healthcare facilities should have the knowledge and skills to manage crises. they should have an education in public health with core courses in healthcare management. the public health curriculum should also develop competency-based programs that build knowledge and skillsets for managers to deal with emergencies and disasters effectively. training in ppe use and exercises in performing medical procedures in full protective clothing should be mandatory in all medical facilities. in poland, regular tabletop and live scenario exercises must be an integral operational consideration for all healthcare facilities to remain prepared for future crisis management of major incidents, disasters, and public health emergencies is complex and requires a multidisciplinary approach. future managers of healthcare facilities should be taught public health and medical knowledge but also be trained to collaborate, cooperate, and communicate effectively during a crisis. developing a competency-based healthcare management program together with regular tabletops and scenario-based simulation training should be considered to facilitate and improve the future polish preparedness for disasters and pandemics. natural disasters, climate change, and their impact on inclusive wealth in g20 countries challenges in implementing sendai framework for disaster risk reduction in poland education in 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review cognizant healthcare logistics management: ensuring resilience during crisis covid-19 epidemic in the middle province of northern italy: impact, logistics, and strategy in the first line hospital how should u.s. hospitals prepare for coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19)? disaster preparedness and professional competence among healthcare providers: pilot study results bioterrorism preparedness and response in poland: prevention, surveillance, and mitigation planning the authors declare no conflict of interest. key: cord-241351-li476eqy authors: liu, junhua; singhal, trisha; blessing, lucienne t.m.; wood, kristin l.; lim, kwan hui title: crisisbert: a robust transformer for crisis classification and contextual crisis embedding date: 2020-05-11 journal: nan doi: nan sha: doc_id: 241351 cord_uid: li476eqy classification of crisis events, such as natural disasters, terrorist attacks and pandemics, is a crucial task to create early signals and inform relevant parties for spontaneous actions to reduce overall damage. despite crisis such as natural disasters can be predicted by professional institutions, certain events are first signaled by civilians, such as the recent covid-19 pandemics. social media platforms such as twitter often exposes firsthand signals on such crises through high volume information exchange over half a billion tweets posted daily. prior works proposed various crisis embeddings and classification using conventional machine learning and neural network models. however, none of the works perform crisis embedding and classification using state of the art attention-based deep neural networks models, such as transformers and document-level contextual embeddings. this work proposes crisisbert, an end-to-end transformer-based model for two crisis classification tasks, namely crisis detection and crisis recognition, which shows promising results across accuracy and f1 scores. the proposed model also demonstrates superior robustness over benchmark, as it shows marginal performance compromise while extending from 6 to 36 events with only 51.4% additional data points. we also proposed crisis2vec, an attention-based, document-level contextual embedding architecture for crisis embedding, which achieve better performance than conventional crisis embedding methods such as word2vec and glove. to the best of our knowledge, our works are first to propose using transformer-based crisis classification and document-level contextual crisis embedding in the literature. crisis-related events, such as earthquakes, hurricanes and train or airliner accidents, often stimulate a sudden surge of attention and actions from both media and the general public. despite the fact that crises, such as natural disasters, can be predicted by professional institutions, certain events are first signaled by everyday citizens, i.e., civilians. for instance, the recent covid-19 pandemics was first informed by general public in china via weibo, a popular social media site, before pronouncements by government officials. social media sites have become centralized hubs that facilitate timely information exchange across government agencies, enterprises, working professionals and the general public. as one of the most popular social media sites, twitter enables users to asynchronously communicate and exchange information with tweets, which are mini-blog posts limited to 280 characters. there are on average over half a billion tweets posted daily [1] . therefore, one can leverage on such high volume and frequent information exchange to expose firsthand signals on crisis-related events for early detection and warning systems to reduce overall damage and negative impacts. event detection from tweets has received significant attention in research in order to analyze crisis-related messages for better disaster management and increasing situational awareness. several recent works studied various natural crisis events, such as hurricanes and earthquakes, and artificial disasters, such as terrorist attacks and explosions [2, 3, 4, 5] . these works focus on binary classifications for various attributes of crisis, such as classifying source type, predicting relatedness between tweets and the crises, and assessing informativeness and applicability [6, 7, 8] . on the other hand, several works proposed multi-label classifiers on affected individuals, infrastructure, casualties, donations, caution, advice, etc. [9, 10] . crisis recognition tasks are likewise conducted such as identifying crisis types, i.e. hurricanes, floods and fires [11, 12] . machine learning-based models are commonly introduced in performing the above mentioned tasks. conventional linear models such as logistic regression, naive bayes and support vector machine (svm) are reported for automatic binary classification on informativeness [13] and relevancy [8] , among others. these models were implemented with pre-trained word2vec embeddings [14] . several unsupervised approaches are also proposed for classifying crisis-related events, such as the clustop algorithm utilizing community detection for automatic topic modelling [15] . a transfer-learning approach is also proposed [16] , though its classification is only limited to two classes. the ability for cross-crisis evaluation remains questionable. more recently, numerous works proposed neural networks (nn) models for crisis-related data detection and classification. for instance, alrashdi and o'keefe investigated two deep learning architectures, namely bidirectional long short-term memory (bilstm) and convolutional neural networks (cnn) using domain-specific and glove embeddings [17] . nguyen et al. propose a cnn-based classifier with word2vec embedding pretrained on google news [14] and domain-specific embeddings [18] . lastly, parallel cnn architecture was proposed to detect disaster-related events using tweets [19, 20] . while prior works report remarkable performance on various crisis classification tasks using nn models and word embeddings, no studies are found to leverage the most recent natural language understanding (nlu) techniques, such as attention-based deep classification models [21] and document-level contextual embeddings [22] , which reportedly improve state-of-the-art performance for many challenging natural language problems from upstream tasks such as named entity recognition and part of speech tagging, to downstream tasks such as machine translation and neural conversation. this work focuses on deep attention-based classification models and document-level contextual representation models to address two important crisis classification tasks. we study recent nlu models and techniques that reportedly demonstrated drastic improvement on state-of-the-art and localize for domain-specific crisis related tasks. overall, our main contribution of this work includes: • proposing crisisbert, an attention-based classifier that improves state-of-the-art performance for both crisis detection and recognition tasks; • demonstrating superior robustness over various benchmarks, where extending crisisbert from 6 to 36 events with 51.4% of additional data points only results in marginal performance decline, while increasing crisis case classification by 500%; • proposing crisis2vec, a document-level contextual embedding approach for crisis representation, and showing substantial improvement over conventional crisis embedding methods such as word2vec and glove . . . to the best of our knowledge, this work is the first to propose a transformer-based classifier for crisis classification tasks. we are also first to propose a document-level contextual crisis embedding approach. in this section, we discuss the recent works that propose various machine learning approaches for crisis classification tasks. while these works report substantial improvement in performance over prior works, none of the works uses state of the art attentionbased models, i.e., transformers [21] , to perform crisis classification tasks. we propose crisisbert, a transformer-based architecture that builds upon a distilled bert model, fine-tuned by large-scale hyper-parameter search. various works propose linear classifiers for crisis-related events. for instance, parilla-ferrer et al. proposed an automatic binary classification, based on informative and uninformative tweets using naive bayes and support vector machine (svm) [13] . a svm with pretrained word2vec embeddings approach was also proposed [14] . besides linear models, recent works also propose deep learning based methods with different neural network architectures. for instance, alrashdi and o'keefe investigated bidirectional long short-term memory (bilstm) and convolutional neural figure) and passed into a distrilbert model. since we are performing classification task, the cls token vector, i.e. the first output vector, is then passed into a linear classifier for detection or recognition task, whereas the remainder of the output vectors are average-pooled to create crisis2vec embeddings. network (cnn) models using domain-specific and glove embeddings [23] . nguyen et al. proposed a cnn model to classify tweets to get information types using google news and domain-specific embeddings [18] . in 2017, vaswani et al. from google introduced transformer [21], a new category of deep learning models which are solely attention-based and without convolution and recurrent mechanisms. later, google proposed the bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (bert) model [24] which drastically improved state-of-the-art performance for multiple challenging natural language processing (nlp) tasks. since then, multiple transformer-based models have been introduced, such as gpt [25] and xlnet [26] , among others. transformer-based models were also deployed to solve domain specific tasks, such as medical text inferencing [27] and occupational title embedding [28] , and demonstrated remarkable performance. the bidirectional encoder representation of transformer (bert), for instance, is a multi-layer bidirectional transformer en-coder with attention mechanism [24] . the proposed bert model has two variants, namely (a) bert base, which has 12 transformer layers, a hidden size of 768, 12 attention heads, and 110m total parameters; and (b) bert large, which has 24 transformer layers, a hidden size of 1024, 16 attention heads, and 340m total parameters. bert is pre-trained with self-supervised approaches, i.e., masked language modeling (mlm) and next sentence prediction (nsp). while transformers such as bert are reported to perform well in natural language processing, understanding and inference tasks, to the best of our knowledge, no prior works propose and examine the performance of transformer-based models for crisis classification. in this work, we investigate the transformer approach for crisis classification tasks and propose crisisbert, a transformer-based classification model that surpasses conventional linear and deep learning models in performance and robustness. [29] , optimizers, learning rates, and batch sizes. table 1 shows the breakdown of the search space and the final hyper-parameters for crisisbert. each set of parameters is randomly chosen and ran with 3 epochs and two trials. in total, we evaluate over 300 hyper-parameters sets using a nvidia titan-x (pascal) for over 1,000 gpu hours. taking into consideration of performance and efficiency trade-off, we select the distilbert model for our transformer lm layer. distilbert is a compressed version of bert base through knowledge distillation. with utilization of only 50% of the layers of bert, distilbert performs 60% faster while preserving 97% of the capabilities in language understanding tasks. the optimal set of hyper-parameters for distilbert includes an adamw [30] optimizer, and initial learning rate of 5e-5, and a batch size of 32. output layer. the output layer of distilbert lm is a set of 768-d vectors led by the class header vector. since we are conducting classification tasks, only the [cls] token vector is used as the aggregate sequence representation for classification with a linear classifier. the remainder of the output vectors are processed into crisis2vec embeddings using mean-pooling operation. as discussed in section 2.3, crisis2vec embedding is a byproduct of crisisbert, where the embeddings are constructed based on a pre-trained bert model, and subsequently fine-tuned with three corpora of crisis-related tweets [6, 31, 32] to be domain-specific for crisis-related tweet representation. crisis2vec leverages the advantages of transformers, including (1) leveraging a self-attention mechanism to incorporate sentencelevel context bidirectionally, (2) leveraging both word-level and positional information to create contextual representation of words, and (3) taking advantage of the pre-trained models on large relevant corpora. to the best of our knowledge, we are the first who propose a document-level contextual embedding approach for crisis-related document representation. upon convergence, we construct the fixed-length tweet vector using a mean-pooling strategy [22] , where we compute the mean of all output vectors, as illustrated in algorithm 1. in this work, we conduct two crisis classification tasks, namely crisis detection and crisis recognition. we formulate the crisis detection task as a binary classification model that identifies if a tweet is relevant to a crisis-related event. the crisis recognition task on the other hand extends the problem into multi-class classification, where the output is a probability vector that indicate the likelihood of a tweet indicating specific events. both tasks are modelled as sequence classification problems that are formally defined below. we define the crisis detection task d = (s, φ), which is specified by s = {s 1 , ..., s n } a finite sample space of tweets with size n. each sample s i is a sequence of tokens at t time steps, i.e., s i = {s 1 i , ..., s t i }. φ denotes the set of labels that has the same sequence as the sample set, φ = {φ 1 , ..., φ n } and φ i ∈ {0, 1} where φ i = 1 indicates that sample s i is relevant to crisis, and φ i = 0 indicates otherwise. a deterministic classifier c d : s → φ specifies the mapping from sample tweets to their flags. our objective is to train a crisis detector using the provided tweets and labels that minimizes the differences between predicted labels and true labels, i.e., where j d denotes some cost function. similarly, we define a crisis recognition task r = (s, l), where sample space s is identical to that in crisis detection. l denotes a sequence of multi-class labels that have the same sequence as s, i.e., l = {l 1 , ..., l n }, and l i ∈ r m for m number of classes. a deterministic classifier c r : s → l specifies the mapping from the sample tweets to the crisis classes. the objective of the crisis classification tasks is to train a sequence classifier using the provided tweets and labels that minimizes the differences between predicted labels and true labels, i.e., where j r denotes some cost function for classifier c r . in this section, we discuss the experiments performed and their results in order to propose a highly effective and efficient approach for text classification. three datasets of labelled crisis-related tweets [6, 31, 32] are used to conduct crisis classification tasks and evaluate the proposed methods against benchmarks. in total, these datasets consist of close to 8 million tweets, where overall 91.6k are labelled. these data sets are in the form of: (1) 60k labelled tweets on 6 crises [6] , (2) 3.6k labelled tweets for 8 crises [32] , and (3) 27.9k labelled tweets for 26 crises [31] . table 2 describes more detail about each dataset and their respective classes. for our experimental evaluation, the 91.6k labelled crisis-related tweets are organized into two datasets, annotated as c6 and c36. in particular, c6 consists of 60k tweets from 6 classes of crises, whereas c36 comprises all 91.6k tweets in 36 classes. both datasets are split into training, validation and test sets that consist of 90%, 5% and 5% of the original sets, respectively. crisisbert. we evaluate the performance of crisisbert against multiple benchmarks, which comprise recently proposed crisis classification models in the literature. these works include linear classifiers, such as logistic regression (lr), support vector machine (svm) and naive bayes [33] , and non-linear neural networks, such as convolutional neural network (cnn) [20] and long short-term memory [34] . furthermore, we investigate the robustness of crisisbert for both detection and recognition tasks. this is achieved by extending the experiments from c6 to c36, which comprise 6 and 36 classes respectively, but with only 51.4% additional data points. we evaluate the robustness of the proposed models against benchmarks by observing the compromise in robustness performance, while realizing the drastically improved classification performance. as described in section 2.3, we use the optimal set of hyper-parameters for crisisbert in the experiments, which include the use of a bert model with distillation (i.e. distilbert), an adamw [30] optimizer, an initial learning rate of 5e-5, a batch size of 32, and a word dropout rate of 0.25. crisis2vec. to evaluate crisis2vec, we choose the two classifiers with the aim to represent both traditional machine learning approaches and the nn approaches. the two selected models are: (1) a linear logistic regression model, denoted as lr c2v , and (2) a non-linear lstm model, denoted as lst m c2v . we evaluate the performance of crisis2vec with the two models by replacing the original embedding to crisis2vec, ceteris paribus. we use two common evaluation metrics, namely accuracy and f1 score, which are functions of true-positive (tp), false-positive (fp), true-negative (tn) and false-negative (fn) predictions. accuracy is calculated by: for a f1-score of multiple classes, we calculate the unweighted mean for each label, i.e., for n classes of labels as: where p recision = t p t p + f p and recall = t p t p + f n we select and implement several crisis classifiers proposed in recent works to serve as benchmarks for evaluating our proposed methods. concretely, we compare crisisbert with the following models: • lr w2v : logistic regression model with word2vec embedding pre-trained on google news corpus [33] • sv m w2v : support vector machine model with word2vec embedding pre-trained on google news corpus [33] • n b w2v : naive bayes model assuming gaussian distribution for features with word2vec embedding pre-trained on google news corpus [33] • cn n gv : convolutional neural network model with 2 convolutional layers of 128 hidden units, kernel size of 3, pool size of 2, 250 filters, and glove for word embedding [20] • lst m w2v : long short-term memory model with 2 layers of 30 hidden states and a word2vec-based crisis embedding [34] models overall, the experimental results show that both proposed models achieve significant improvement on performance and robustness over benchmarks across all tasks. the experimental results for crisisbert and crisis2vec are tabulated in table 4 . robustness. comparing crisis detection task between c6 and c36, crisisbert shows 1.7% and 1.3% decline for f1-score and accuracy, which is much better than most benchmarks, i.e., from 1.7% to 6.3%, except cnn. however, when we compare the more challenging crisis recognition tasks between c6 and c36, the performance of crisisbert compromises marginally, i.e., 1.6% for f1-score and 0.7% for accuracy. on the contrary, all benchmark models record significant decline, i.e. from 6.0% to 67.2%. discussion. based on experimental results discussed above, we observe that: (1) crisisbert's performance exceeds state-of-theart performance for both detection and recognition tasks, with up to 8.2% and 25.0% respectively, (2) crisisbert demonstrates higher robustness with marginal decline for performance (i.e. less than 1.7% in f1-score and accuracy), and (3) crisis2vec shows superior performance as compared to conventional word2vec embeddings, for both lr and lstm models across all experiments. 5 related work event detection from tweets has received significant attention in research in order to analyze crisis-related messages for better disaster management and increasing situational awareness [4, 5, 2, 3] . parilla-ferrer et al. proposed automatic binary classification of informativeness using naive bayes and support vector machine (svm) [13] . stowe et al. presented an annotation scheme for tweets to classify relevancy and six [8] . furthermore, use of pre-trained word2vec reportedly improved svm for crisis classification [14] . lim et al. proposed clustop algorithm utilizing the community detection approach for automatic topic modelling [15] . pedrood et al. proposed to transfer-learn classification of one event to the other using a sparse coding model [16] , though the scope was only limited to only two events, i.e. hurricane sandy (2012) and supertyphoon yolanda (2013). a substantial number of works focusses on usign neural networks (nn) with word embeddings for crisis-related data classification. manna et al. [33] compared nn models with conventional ml classifiers [33] . alrashdi and o'keefe investigated and showed good performance for two deep learning architectures, namely bidirectional long short-term memory (bilstm) and convolutional neural networks (cnn) with domain-specific glove embeddings [17] . however, the study had yet to validate the relevance of model on a different crisis type. nguyen et al. applied cnn to classify information types using google news and domain-specific embeddings [18] . kersten et al. [20] implemented a parallel cnn to detect two disasters, namely hurricanes and floods, which reported a f1-score of 0.83. the cnn architecture was proposed earlier by kim et al. [19] . word-level embeddings such as word2vec [35] and glove [23] are commonly used to form the basis of crisis embedding [18, 36] in various crisis classification works to improve model performance. for context, word2vec uses a neural network language model (nnlm) that is able to represent latent information on the word level. glove achieved better results with a simpler approach, constructing global vectors to represent contextual knowledge of the vocabulary. more recently, a series of high quality embedding models, such as fasttext [37] and flair [38] , are proposed and reported to have improved state of the art for multiple nlp tasks. both word-level contextualization and character-level features are commonly used for these works. pre-trained models on large corpora of news and tweets collections are also made publicly available to assist in downstream tasks. furthermore, transformer-based models are proposed to conduct sentence-level embedding tasks [22] . social media such as twitter has become a hub of crowd generated information for early crisis detection and recognition tasks. in this work, we present a transformer-based crisis classification model crisisbert, and a contextual crisis-related tweet embedding model crisis2vec. we examine the performance and robustness of the proposed models by conducting experiments with three datasets and two crisis classification tasks. experimental results show that crisisbert improves state of the art for both detection and recognition class, and further demonstrates robustness by extending from 6 classes to 36 classes, with only 51.4% additioanl data points. finally, our experiments with two classification models show that crisis2vec enhances classification performance as compared to word2vec embeddings, which is commonly used in prior works. natural disasters detection in social media and satellite imagery: a survey situational awareness enhanced through social media analytics: a survey of first responders processing social media messages in mass emergency: a survey earthquake shakes twitter users: real-time event detection by social sensors crisislex: a lexicon for collecting and filtering microblogged communications in crises semi-supervised discovery of informative tweets during the emerging disasters identifying and categorizing disaster-related tweets extracting information nuggets from disaster-related messages in social media online public communications by police & fire services during the 2012 hurricane sandy on semantics and deep learning for event detection in crisis situations verifying baselines for crisis event information classification on twitter automatic classification of disaster-related tweets distributed representations of words and phrases and their compositionality clustop: a clustering-based topic modelling algorithm for twitter using word networks mining help intent on twitter during disasters via transfer learning with sparse coding deep learning and word embeddings for tweet classification for crisis response robust classification of crisis-related data on social networks using convolutional neural networks convolutional neural networks for sentence classification robust filtering of crisis-related tweets attention is all you need sentence-bert: sentence embeddings using siamese bert-networks glove: global vectors for word representation bert: pre-training of deep bidirectional transformers for language understanding language models are unsupervised multitask learners xlnet: generalized autoregressive pretraining for language understanding ncuee at mediqa 2019: medical text inference using ensemble bert-bilstm-attention model ipod: an industrial and professional occupations dataset and its applications to occupational data mining and analysis distilling the knowledge in a neural network what to expect when the unexpected happens: social media communications across crises analysing how people orient to and spread rumours in social media by looking at conversational threads effectiveness of word embeddings on classifiers: a case study with tweets a deep multi-modal neural network for informative twitter content classification during emergencies a neural probabilistic language model applications of online deep learning for crisis response using social media information enriching word vectors with subword information contextual string embeddings for sequence labeling key: cord-338934-61wnbf1t authors: fay, daniel l.; ghadimi, adela title: collective bargaining during times of crisis: recommendations from the covid‐19 pandemic date: 2020-05-19 journal: public adm rev doi: 10.1111/puar.13233 sha: doc_id: 338934 cord_uid: 61wnbf1t the covid‐19 dramatically changed employment across sectors in 2020. this viewpoint essay examines public sector labor relations during the pandemic and describes the impact bargaining process used to protect public employees. we draw on our own experience in impact bargaining negotiations and the public labor relations, conflict management, and civil service reform literatures to develop recommendations for public union labor leaders in times of crisis. we suggest that public unions have an important role in crisis management, but must act strategically in order to develop good working relationships with leadership and successfully negotiate employee protections in uncertain times. this article is protected by copyright. all rights reserved. 1) union leaders should initiate negotiations with leadership early and often during times of crises. 2) as part of the negotiations, unions must mobilize union members and the workforce represented by the collective bargaining agreement immediately. 3) negotiations should prioritize issues for the workforce groups most affected by the crisis. 4) labor relations leaders must integrate governmental crisis response to negotiations 5) impact bargaining agreements must be formalized upon completion. the global coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic of 2020 has disrupted many aspects of normal life, including the work processes and responsibilities of public employees. many in the public sector workforce have been on the front lines as first responders directly dealing with those infected with covid-19, and enforcing government protective orders. others have been forced to rethink how to effectively accomplish their job responsibilities virtually while adhering to protective orders. every public employee has faced challenges, uncertainty, and anxiety as a result of the covid-19 pandemic affecting their dayto-day and long-term employment. the bureau of labor statistics estimates that 37.2% of public sector employees, including police officers, firefighters, and teachers, are covered by union or employee association collective bargaining agreements. (u.s. bureau of labor statistics, 2020). public sector unions use collective action to improve the working conditions of workers during normal operations, but emergencies which disrupt normal operations further underscore the role of collective bargaining to protect the public workforce and in negotiating new "impact agreements" to protect employees during times of uncertainty. in march 2020, one of our authors participated in "impact bargaining" for a unit of a large state education union: uff-fsu-gau, a graduate assistant (ga) union, which is a unit of the statewide united faculty of florida 1 . the union proposed beginning the impact bargaining process to the university leadership on march 13, 2020, and after negotiations, the university accepted the memorandum of understanding (mou) on april 10, 2020. estimates suggest that 27% of faculty and graduate students are covered by collective bargaining agreements at more than 500 institutions across the u.s. representation for both groups, including part-time and adjunct faculty has been growing since 2006 (berry & savarese, 2012) . florida has had a long history of legislative efforts to weaken public unions in the state, including the state house passing hb 1 in early march, prior to public protective orders in response to covid-19 (dailey, 2020) . at the time of these writing there has been no further action to diminish public unions by the state government. in our roles as public management and policy scholars, and using our experience as practicing public labor relations leaders, we describe the challenges of collective bargaining during the covid-19 pandemic and present five general recommendations for public sector unions impact bargaining during times of crisis: 1) initiate negotiations with leadership early and often; 2) mobilize union members and the workforce represented by the collective bargaining agreement immediately; 3) prioritize issues for the workforce groups most affected by the crisis; 4) integrate governmental crisis response to negotiations 5) formalize impact bargaining agreements. while our negotiations occurred in a higher education setting, our recommendations apply to general public labor relations in times of crisis. as industries quickly adapted to the covid-19 pandemic, employers made swift decisions that directly impacted collective bargaining agreements (cbas) across the country in terms of working conditions, compensation, benefits, and workforce reductions. when circumstances in times of crisis arise that allow employers to make these sweeping changes, bargaining units are then entitled to begin "impact bargaining," which is also known as "effect bargaining" or "implementation bargaining." the process allows the bargaining team to negotiate the impact that these crisis-time decisions have had on their terms and conditions of employment as outlined in their cba. impact bargaining, when successful, results in the creation of a mou which serves as an addendum to the collective bargaining agreement and can create additional protections for employees during the crisis which are otherwise not covered under the cba. this process was commonly used by european labor unions in response to the great recession of 2008 (glassner, keune, & marginson, 2011; lehndorff, 2011; malo, 2016) . it is imperative that bargaining units react as soon as possible to begin these impact negotiations. doing so helps manage conflict by establishing a sense of shared mission between management and labor in addressing the challenges presented by the crisis. the labor challenges of covid-19 are far different than those presented by the global financial crisis of 2008, but, regardless, timing is critical, with the best defense being a good offense to protect public employees. units which delay negotiations may be perceived as self-interested and reactionary, which could generate hostility, win-or-lose situations, and long-term resentments (yates, 1985) . given the state of the covid-19 pandemic, unions must consider that these newfound conditions have an undetermined end date. units may have to develop several mous throughout the duration of the crisis, so establishing an open communication channel early allows management and labor to provide contemporaneous information, which is an effective strategy to manage conflict (yates, 1985) . research has identified several other strategies and tactics to constructively manage conflict including using an incremental approach focused on winning concrete issues (rainey, 2009) . unions that begin negotiations early can request protections and resources before other competing groups or agencies, thereby increasing the likelihood of success. as conflict endures, barriers to communication (e.g. aggressive language, biased interpretations, selective information, and dissolved collaborations) decrease the likelihood of agreement (rainey, 2009) . early success can prevent prolonged conflict and may help future negotiations in a prolonged crisis. delaying fervent and frequent negotiations and communications with administration can lead to unilateral decision-making by the administration without consulting the union, leaving unions retroactively trying to combat issues that could have been circumvented. our own experience in the covid-19 bargaining process demonstrated that when early success is achieved in the mou, it is advantageous for the bargaining team to recognize the uncertain duration of the crisis and include a clause providing open-ended language allowing for agreed upon protections to stay status quo throughout the duration of the crisis. the longer the crisis will last, the more dire circumstances will become, and once agreed upon protections and gains are made, this open-ended language will provide a baseline of worker protections that will not have to be renegotiated every few months with potentially increased hostility. the necessity of physical distancing for the duration of the covid-19 crisis has significantly impacted the typical means by which unions mobilize members and their workforce. during "normal" working conditions, it is beneficial to mobilize and engage members of one"s bargaining unit to urge negotiations forward during collective bargaining. often staging public showings of support, organizing a demonstration, or simply packing a bargaining session full of bodies can lead to increased cooperation from leadership and adds social pressure to avoid enmity during negotiations and increases the likelihood of success (flavin & hartney, 2015) . a specific example of the value of physical mobilization can be seen in the various calls to action made by uff-fsu-gau. over its ten-year tenure, mobilizing members in large numbers to occupy a physical presence during bargaining creates a noticeable shift in the tone and conversation with leadership, which is dramatically different than if the room is equitably represented with about a dozen individuals on both sides of the bargaining table. prior to the pandemic, this same union has packed the room at board of trustees (bot) meetings (florida state university board of trustees, 2020), utilizing the public comment section at the front end of these public, live streamed meetings to have several speakers attest to the harmful deficiencies and unsavory working conditions of gas. during times when physical presence is impossible, such as during mandatory social distancing orders adopted in response to covid-19, there are alternative modes of group mobilization that are effective and raise the profile of one"s bargaining efforts. building up a social media presence that incorporates as many people as possible and mobilizing massive contact campaigns to reach out to key administrative offices on a set issue are also effective and important. the need for this group involvement and additional visibility and applied pressure is even more critical during the covid-19 crisis. creating multiple opportunities for stakeholder involvement from your unit is critical during a regular bargaining period, but embracing public employees at all levels and providing complete information to members as part of the negotiation process empowers the unit. this does not change during impact bargaining. one effective strategy for conflict management is to include all affected parties in negotiations (yates, 1985) . this will make a critical difference in impact bargaining during times of crises, particularly if most negotiations take place on virtual online platforms. while technology can be seen as a challenge for successful negotiations during an emergency period, it also offers an opportunity to engage more of the represented group and involve them in the negotiation process. most unions have never had to engage in virtual bargaining, and adjusting to the changing format requires some intentionality. leadership is responsible for setting up the virtual forum for formal impact bargaining, which is a public meeting open to anyone. however, during caucus 1 , unions will want to operate their own separate virtual platform not tied to their administration and switch between these two with attending members to keep them engaged and visible. this is quite different than bargaining at a physical table, in person, with administration on one side, and the bargaining team and unit members on the other, presenting and discussing proposals face to face, and then separating into two separate physical spaces for caucus periods. one of the largest opportunities for unions to come from this is to increase member turnout and engagement; unions should take every opportunity to increase email communications during this emergency period to ensure members are informed, included, and empowered to participate in a larger way in these virtual spaces. while the essence of collective bargaining stems from the desire to achieve the best outcomes for the bargaining unit as a whole, advocating for those most affected and least advantaged during times of crisis must be prioritized in a search for just conditions (rawls, 2001) . during crises such as the covid-19 pandemic, this may not inherently default to those who are the lowest paid in the bargaining unit, as one might assume. certainly low-wage workers are deeply affected by crises that generate financial instability, because they may not have amassed enough savings to weather the storm, but even high-wage public sector employees may be on the front-line of emergency management and therefore disproportionately exposed to risk. in the higher education system, graduate assistants (gas) are easily categorized as one of the most marginalized and vulnerable employment groups within a university system, despite the critical role they play in organizational operations. in the example of uff-fsu-gau, gas across departments are compensated very differently. in response to covid-19, uff-fsuparty leaving the main room in which they are meeting and going to another private space before they both agree to reconvene and resume discussions. gau, quickly prioritized protecting two of the most vulnerable groups of employees -on one end of the spectrum, vulnerable employees typically paid the least -gas in the music, theater, and dance departments, because immediately many of their summer appointments were eliminated in an effort to defer mounting university deficits. moreover, university departments have, in the past, manipulated these employees" appointment start and end dates to the point that these workers actually earn less than the minimum stipend outlined in the cba. while summer appointments are not guaranteed because regular appointments are on a nine-month timeline covering the fall and spring semesters, many gas are approved to take on teaching duties in the summer for additional income. many were going to be conducting one-on-one instruction, and in a term when assistantships are not guaranteed, the university decided to offer fewer positions that could not easily accommodate multitudes of students in online sections. while these gas did not yet have their summer offer letter in hand, experiencing this unit loss early on in covid-19 response helped guide building in added protections for subsequent semesters, to help especially those most vulnerable. this solidified the need to advocate that part of the mou which flushed out reappointment protections. however, another marginalized group also exists and was identified on the opposite side of the spectrum. gas in the stem fields, which are typically paid among the highest rates within the university, were still required to go in to work during the initial few weeks of closures when virtually everyone else was working from home. their own full-time faculty who oversee their work were no longer coming into the labs, but deemed their gas as essential employees and had required them to show up to campus in person, often in smaller groups, to complete lab research. this created a great deal of anxiety and frustration, from the fear of running out of essential supplies such as personal protective equipment (ppe). uff-fsu-gau elevated this as a need to start impact bargaining with administration to address this issue, and while it was resolved and administrative review procedures for who would be considered "essential" were put into place, perhaps those three weeks of anxiety-inducing work could have been avoided if impact bargaining could have started even sooner. while a very small handful of gas are still classified as essential, it is now a much smaller number, and they have safeguards and guarantees that they will receive what they need to complete their job safely. the context of this example can be transferred to nearly any other bargaining unit: a large bargaining unit with vastly different job duties and associated compensation, some portion of the employees being deemed essential frontline workers and therefore facing significant personal risk, shortage of adequate and necessary supplies, and disproportionate change in their day-to-day ability to perform job duties. this reinforces the need for a comprehensive evaluation of who is most affected within a unit and to ensure the ways in which they need to be supported and protected are clearly delineated in impact bargaining strategies. state policy can dramatically influence union membership, mobilization efforts, and civic participation of members, but public employee unions also influence policy making at every level of government, and union commitment can directly and indirectly increase employee job satisfaction (davis, 2013; flavin & hartney, 2015; riccucci, 2011) . public employee unions should be mindful of the interconnectedness of public policy and public labor relations during impact bargaining and integrate the government response to the crisis and negotiations. in both require officers to interact with the public thereby increasing likely exposure to covid-19 (cohen & kupferschmidt, 2020; eligon & macfarquhar, 2020) . other public employees were also deemed essential to ensure that government operations and revenue generation continued during the crisis, and therefore had to show up to work despite the dangers and the lack of ppe (mays & goodman, 2020) . in each of these cases, public sector unions intervened in certain jurisdictions to provide public employees with protections and conditions that these policy makers overlooked in the protective orders. labor relation leaders must be keenly aware of the public policy responses to crises and the disproportionate impacts for certain employee groups, both contemporaneously and after the crisis has ended. in our own experience, we understood that operational disruptions would disproportionately harm graduate assistants that require scientific lab workstations, archival materials, travel, or other fieldwork to make progress in their degree program, a necessary employment condition. all covered employees benefited from the guaranteed protections that targeted these unique circumstances resulting from state policy response to covid-19. public policy change itself may necessitate impact bargaining across sectors, such as when food workers unions challenged working conditions in meat processing plants, which were mandated to stay operational through an executive order (swanson & yaffe-bellany, 2020). public unions must therefore remain hypervigilant of policy change during crises in order to protect members during a rapidly changing policy landscape. when formulating impact bargaining negotiation plans, union leaders should be strategic and intentional about securing agreements that are achievable in the current crisis and provide the best employment protections for members. this can be best achieved by focusing on nonresource-based protections since leadership may be unable to provide financial commitments during financial catastrophes. in our own experience, we initially proposed a refund of graduate student fees, since campus operations ceased on march 13 th , 2020, as one resource-based request for university leadership. this was a particular sticking point, which the union dropped to focus on other non-resource-based priorities. union leadership should therefore consider the fiscal environment and policy changes which address the causes of financial crises. during the farreaching covid-19 crisis, financial impacts remain unknown and unpredictable across sectors and industries, but the effects will likely last for years. as a result, rather than trying to impact bargain for 100% salary guarantees, for example, it is more advantageous to focus on general job security, protecting health insurance coverage, and working conditions for public employees. putting guarantees on the longevity of job security and health insurance over direct salary benefits enables a union to protect the largest number of people possible. this also allows leaders to use tools such as furloughs to solve budget crises. aggregate public employee groups view furloughs as reasonable during troubled times and have little influence on employee turnover (grissom, viano, & selin, 2016; lee & sanders, 2013) . a furloughed employee is better off than a terminated employee. at the time of this writing, cities and states have already signaled that, without federal intervention, hundreds of thousands of public employees could be terminated in response to the covid-19 fiscal crisis (romm, 2020) . limiting the flexible tools available to leadership during financial crises through an impact bargaining mou is not in the best interest employees. labor relations leaders should acknowledge that workforce reduction tools are inevitable, but should embrace the least harmful and temporary options such as furloughs and work-sharing arrangements that may reduce pay, but maintain long-term employment (skuterud, 2007; wright, christensen, & isett, 2013) . it is crucial that public unions take the extra steps needed to ratify their mous from impact bargaining. during normal conditions, at the conclusion of bargaining, the union would disseminate the agreed upon and signed contract to the bargaining unit for review, giving them two weeks" notice to review the new contract, and are provided with several dates and locations where dues-paying members can appear in person to submit a secret ballot. at the conclusion of vote collection, the ballots are counted, numbers are reported and the contract is considered certified in accordance with the state-level public employer relations commission (perc) (public employees relations commission, 2020). without ratification, the mou is an unenforceable agreement with leadership based on a goodwill commitment. the cba is what is enforceable and applicable for grievance procedures as needed, and without ratifying a newly established mou, negotiated protections may lack legal force. for example, if the administration takes action that causes direct harm to members of your unit in violation of the mou, the union will not be able to follow grievance procedures or file an unfair labor practice (ulp). while some states allow for online ratification, a 2008 case in florida set precedent (united teachers of dade v. the school district of miami-dade county, 2008), and florida"s perc has not allowed online ratification due to issues tied to voter custody and transparency, factors that at that time they deemed difficult to uphold in an online format. at the time of this writing, florida"s perc is currently working with unions to approve ratification procedures virtually during this covid-19 emergency period. currently these procedures can vary by state perc offices, so units should contact their statewide office to complete the appropriate forms required to apply for a variance to conduct ratification of covid-19 mous online. once the variance is granted, unions can utilize a host of online vendors through which to case their online ratification vote. to uphold validity, it is best to use a platform that provides a tracking number for each case vote, allowing the caster of the vote to see that their vote was in fact counted correctly, and answers the transparency issue of concern to the union. once the vote is ratified, similar to during normal times, the union can communicate the outcome to administration and have now established solid legal protection for the mou. completing this virtual ratification also connects back to recommendation 1, because this step gives people in the bargaining unit power and ownership in this process. importantly, we are not suggesting that the mous should attempt to finalize the labor relation response to the crisis. the end date of the crisis may be unknown, such as the case for covid-19. this uncertainty reinforces the importance of flexibility in the mou"s language to ensure that the agreed-upon guarantees will be in effect for the duration of the crisis. the mou is not something that should be time-bound by a specific date, but rather kept in effect for as long as normal operations are disrupted as a result of the crisis (uff-fsu-gau, 2019). a crisis such as covid-19 is a pressure cooker, decreasing the time but increasing the pressure on both administrative leadership and employees in the negotiation process (venn, 2009 ). public labor relations leaders must respond quickly and strategically to protect employees. impact bargaining is infrequent, but can dramatically affect the lives of public employees for years after the end of the crisis. we have identified several strategies to increase the likelihood of successful negotiations during times of crises such as covid-19 or the great recession. of utmost importance is for union leaders to identify how the crisis will affect public workers and negotiate accordingly. in these uncertain times, impact bargaining should be a dynamic communication process between public leaders and public sector unions. notes: the directory of us faculty contracts and bargaining agents in institutions of higher education collective bargaining; approval or rejection florida house passes hb1, called an opt out measure by supporters, 'union busting' by opponents. wfsu news unionization and work attitudes: how union commitment influences public sector job satisfaction when government subsidizes its own: collective bargaining laws as agents of political mobilization collective bargaining in a time of crisis: developments in the private sector in europe understanding employee turnover in the public sector: insights from research on teacher mobility fridays are furlough days: the impact of furlough policy and strategies for human resource management during a severe economic recession before the crisis, in the crisis, and beyond: the upheaval of collective bargaining in germany collective bargaining reforms in southern europe during the crisis: impact in the light of international standards. employment relations in an era of change understanding and managing public organizations justice as fairness: a restatement mass layoffs begin in cities and states amid coronavirus fallout, threatening education, sanitation, health and safety identifying the potential of work-sharing as a job-creation strategy united teachers of dade v. the school district of miami-dade county union members summary legislation, collective bargaining and enforcement: updating the oecd employment protection indicators motivated to adapt? the role of public service motivation as employees face organizational change the politics of management jossey 1 uff-fsu-gau is the legal union representing all teaching assistants (tas), graduate assistants (gas), and research assistants (ras) employed by florida state university. uff-fsu-gau represented a total bargaining unit of 2,700-3,000 gas, with more than 600 dues paying members. uff-fsu-gau is one of thirty-two chapters of united faculty of florida (uff), which includes more than 9,000 dues paying members across the state. key: cord-023140-ytal7wog authors: henderson, joan c.; ng, alex title: responding to crisis: severe acute respiratory syndrome (sars) and hotels in singapore date: 2004-12-09 journal: nan doi: 10.1002/jtr.505 sha: doc_id: 23140 cord_uid: ytal7wog the sudden outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (sars) in singapore in 2003 was a grave crisis for the tourism industry as a whole and highlights the importance of effectively managing and planning for such occurrences. this study looks at the particular consequences of the infectious virus for the hotel sector and reactions to the challenges posed. further health‐related crises seem inevitable in the modern world and some guidelines for dealing with these are proposed, based on the singapore experience and an existing framework for tourism crisis management. copyright © 2004 john wiley & sons, ltd. i n an increasingly uncertain world, almost all organisations connected to the tourism industry face the likelihood of experiencing some form of crisis. however, levels of preparedness and the competence with which difficulties are handled vary and the topic of tourism crisis management is attracting greater attention from both academics and practitioners. this study is concerned with severe acute respiratory syndrome (sars), a new and potentially fatal virus, which affected much of the east asian region during early 2003. it focuses on how the epidemic impacted on singapore's hotel sector and management reactions to it, affording insights into the problems caused by outbreaks of infectious disease at destinations and possible responses. after an opening summary of the literature on tourism and crisis, certain features of sars and the implications of its presence in singapore are outlined. steps taken by hotels are reviewed and the paper concludes by presenting proposals for the management of similar hospitality crises which might lie ahead. findings are derived from a sample survey of singapore's largest hotels, supplemented by interviews with managers, and the analysis also draws on secondary data from published sources. crisis and disaster are prevalent nationally and internationally (blakie et al., 1994) and commentators maintain that it is no longer a question of whether they will arise, but when and how they will be dealt with (barton, 1994; kash and darling, 1998) . faulkner (2001) distinguishes between disasters resulting from exogenous catastrophic change and crises due to organisational problems such as weak management. the conditions are closely related, however, and an outside disaster can evolve into an institutional crisis so that the terms are frequently used interchangeably. tourism has proved itself sensitive to a host of internal and external influences that can disrupt operations (faulkner and russell, 1997; mckercher, 1999; nankervis, 2000) , and fink's (1986, p. 7) observation that 'any time you're not in a crisis, you are instead in a precrisis, or prodromal mode' would seem especially apt. the industry's exposure to crisis has been acknowledged by researchers, its vulnerability revealed by the wave of adverse events that marked the opening years of the 21 st century and their harmful repercussions. terrorist activity has become a primary concern (pizam, 2003) , but health scares should not be overlooked and have the capacity to inflict serious damage (travel business analyst, 2004) . the world health organisation (who) warns of the risks of known and unknown communicable diseases, the progress of which could be accelerated by tourism movements (who, 2002) . members of the world tourism organisation (wto) have also been called on to formulate tourism health policies incorporating mechanisms for reporting conditions at destinations (wto, 1991 (wto, , 1996 . the expanding literature on the theme of tourism and crisis includes case studies of good and bad practice, with a consensus that planning for various scenarios and allocating responsibilities in advance could be vital in averting crisis or surviving it and even finding new commercial opportunities to exploit (pottorff and neal, 1994; roberts, 1994) . the significance of good communications is highlighted in many accounts, and the media is seen to occupy a central role in the dissemination of information and formation of opinions and images (berno and king, 2001 ). nevertheless, not every public or private sector tourism organisation is in possession of a plan (cassedy, 1991; prideaux, 2003) and those that do exist are often informal and undocumented, addressing only one particular type of hazard (drabek, 1995) . neglect of such an important area as crisis management is surprising and an untenable position given contemporary global instability. faulkner's (2001) exploration of the dynamics of a tourism disaster is commonly cited by researchers and he traces the disaster process through a series of stages noted in table 1 . although derived from evaluation of a natural disaster, the theory is agreed to have a broader relevance that permits its applicability to other emergencies (ritchie, 2004) . the model thus provides a suitable framework for examining the ways in which the disruption created by sars was handled by singapore's hotels. appropriate actions to combat a health-related the coronavirus caused a contagious atypical pneumonia, with a mortality rate of 14-15%, which spread rapidly after its discovery. the epidemic centred on east asia and locations such as china, hong kong, singapore and taiwan were amongst the worst hit. fears of infection by the potentially deadly disease were widespread, aggravated by intense media publicity and speculation about its means of transmission, which is now assumed to be through vapour droplets. there is no vaccine or cure as yet, control depending on the identification and isolation of suspects. air travel was seen as facilitating diffusion of the virus and the who advised aircraft disinfection and health screening of outbound travellers from areas with local transmission in a bid to prevent further contagion (who, 2003) . given the lack of knowledge and limited understanding of sars, singapore was initially unprepared for and unprotected from the disease. this was imported by three residents returning from hong kong and confirmation of their state in early march 2003, accompanied by a wave of infections, precipitated public health and tourism crises. visitor arrivals fell dramatically for the april to june quarter, reaching a nadir in may when figures were over 70% lower than the previous year (stb, 2002 (stb, , 2003a . tourists from around the globe either cancelled or postponed their trips and passenger traffic at singapore's changi airport halved, several airlines halting flights altogether (the straits times, 2003a). travel warnings were issued by the who, as well as governments overseas, and leisure and business travel both slumped. several companies turned to alternatives of video and teleconferencing and prohibited staff from travelling to countries where sars had been reported (the straits times interactive, 2003) . many locals also chose to avoid public places, thereby contributing to the decline in leisure spending. the unanswered questions originally surrounding the virus should be stressed and these added to anxieties and complicated decision making, nobody knowing how long the outbreak would last and its ultimate extent. as the epidemic ran its course, the number of those who succumbed dwindled and there was growing confidence that the battle was being won. however, the crisis remained acute until late may when singapore was declared free of local transmission of sars by the who and travel warnings were downgraded. the final death toll was 33, another 238 patients recovered and thousands had been subject to a rigorous system of home quarantining for individuals having contact with sars sufferers. although the wto announcement was an occasion for celebration, the industry sought to guard against complacency. worries persisted at home and abroad that the virus might return and scientists cautioned that total eradication would be impossible, but the downturn in tourist arrivals was arrested and there were signs of a return to normal flows by the end of the year. nevertheless, sars proved an unprecedented tourism crisis and seriously undermined singapore's reputation as a destination synonymous with safety and security (henderson, 2003) . hotels in singapore have to be registered by law and there are 101 that are formally gazetted, a status determined by features such as the number of rooms, attached bathrooms and food and beverage outlets (hlb, 2003) . these are liable for cess duty payments, unlike nongazetted units, which are generally very small establishments. of the total gazetted in 2003, 24 were classed as medium sized (201-400 rooms), 26 as large (401-600 rooms) and nine as very large (over 600 rooms); these collectively constituted the sample population. the postal questionnaire survey sought details about the consequences of sars for hotels and their attempts to overcome the problems it brought in its wake, being completed at the close of 2003 when recovery was well underway. only nine hotels responded, or 18.6%, but the different sized properties were almost consequences of sars for hotels in singapore 413 equally represented and their guests came from all singapore's principal tourist generating countries with an emphasis on asia. the findings thus represent an industry view of the gravity of the crisis and policies pursued during its lifecycle, although the limitations of such a disappointing response are accepted. singapore tourism board (stb) statistics confirm the severity of the situation for the hotel sector as a whole. the average hotel occupancy rate (aor) for the second quarter of 2003 was 21%, compared with 74.5% for the previous year, and average room rates contracted by 18.8%. industry-wide data correspond to those for the surveyed hotels, which had an average aor in april of 35.8%; this dropped to 27.7% in may, before rising to 42.3% in june. there were some contrasts in the performance of individual hotels and one saw occupancies of only 10% in june (stb, 2002 (stb, , 2003a . the respondent hotels tended to rely on corporate clients, who made up over 60% of customers. demand from both business and leisure travellers was, however, almost equally eroded by an estimated 52.4% and 58.1% respectively. the greatest decreases were recorded by guests from japan and hong kong, followed by those from australia, america and europe; in comparison, the indonesian, thai and indian markets were perceived to be more robust. on average, the hotels surveyed calculated that they would lose at least one-third of their annual revenues because of sars, two hotels expecting to sacrifice 50% of earnings for 2003. the singapore hotel association expected revenue losses as a result of cancellations and postponements to be in excess of $28 million for all singapore's hotels (sha, 2003) . expressions of government concern reflected an acute awareness of the havoc being wreaked by sars as it reverberated through the economy and also the direct and indirect value of international tourism to the republic, justifying a degree of official intervention to protect the industry during the depths of the crisis. several assistance programmes were assembled, the most prominent being an s$230 million relief package aimed at the tourism and transport industries, which included property tax rebates and bridging loans for small and medium enterprises (smes) facing cash difficulties (the straits times, 2003b). a major portion was allocated for hotels, comprising measures such as a halving of the unskilled foreign worker levy and the waiver of television licence fees (the straits times, 2003c) . the stb, together with the standards, productivity and innovation board, also launched a fixed interest rate financing scheme to help smes gain access to short-term funds (stb, 2003b) . the moves were welcomed by hoteliers, although some felt that the amounts of financial support could have been more generous. the sudden onset of the crisis and its nature cut short any pre-event or prodromal stages, with no chance of evasion and very little time to prepare. the crisis cycle thus commenced almost immediately at the emergency period when the principal worry for hoteliers was shrinking revenues linked to falling occupancy, priority being allocated to cost savings and generating income. with regard to human resources, none of the respondents retrenched permanent staff. however, seven terminated the services of contract workers, salaries were reduced at three hotels and all requested employees to go on unpaid leave. multitasking was another popular option. to minimise other operating costs, six respondents took rooms or floors out of service and one shut down for a major renovation and revamp in the middle of the year. at the same time, the crisis was an opportunity to upgrade skills and six respondents accordingly sent members of their workforce for training, taking advantage of the sars relief tourism training assistance (srtta) programme. this was a component of the government aid package designated for the retraining of employees in approved tourismrelated courses, one objective being to minimise redundancies (stb, 2003c) . in the face of mass cancellations and very few new bookings, hotels were anxious to sustain their day to day business and ensure some cash flow. with many foreign visitors 414 j. c. henderson and a. ng shunning singapore, all respondents turned to residents and devised promotional packages targeted at them. this was considered a temporary arrangement only due to a long standing belief that the domestic market was too small to be commercially viable as geographical factors encourage singaporeans to escape to neighbouring malaysia and indonesia for inexpensive breaks, instead of holidaying in their own very urbanised environment. one respondent described adding value through the offer of extra amenities to local and foreign guests, rather than discounts on room charges. half of the respondents engaged in advertising campaigns and seven stated that they had collaborated with airlines, travel agencies and the stb in assorted schemes to attract more tourists. hotels sought to demonstrate a commitment to exemplary standards of hygiene and cleanliness in an effort to reassure customers and build confidence. the tourism board's cool singapore project aimed to communicate the message that singapore was not dangerous and specific venues were uncontaminated by sars, providing guidance for industry participants on keeping the infection out of their premises. hotels that met the criteria were granted cool awards which they could display to try and convince the public that they were sars-free and sars-ready (stb, 2003d) . most hotels surveyed were quick to be certified 'cool' and also abide by ministry of health (moh) instructions. all hotels procured thermometers and daily temperature-taking of employees was conducted in accordance with moh directives, fever being a key and easily identifiable symptom of sars. the stb itself circulated information and proffered advice on practical matters, which hotels complied with, guests too being asked to complete health declaration forms. all but two of the respondents declared that they had crisis management plans prior to sars, but these were not always strictly relevant and covered either eventualities unconnected to such a disease or were generic in scope. a sars manager was appointed from the existing management team by most hotels to be in charge of liaison with the stb and moh, as well as helping the general manager, with final decisions commonly left to the latter. the above measures were in place throughout the emergency, which prevailed until singapore was removed from the who list of countries with local transmission of sars on 31 may. the who declaration propelled the crisis nearer to recovery, judged by respondents to have begun in july. common indicators of progress were an upturn in room occupancy, revenue and reservations and a slowdown in the decline of tourist arrivals. june therefore might be seen as the intermediate month, during which many aspects of the emergency regimes were maintained. initiatives designed to secure and accelerate recovery were introduced after the who decision when attention shifted to marketing. hotels retained certain procedures they had installed at the height of the crisis, with a gradual relaxation of some of the more stringent precautions such as constant screening for fever. five indicated that they had or would be undertaking more advertising in a bid to increase customer awareness and stimulate demand, and six collaborated with other tourism organisations such as airlines and travel agencies in promotional campaigns. only two hotels carried on actively selling to the singapore market. in terms of product development, half the respondents were seeking to improve the quality of their facilities and seven of them to provide superior customer service. business was deemed to have returned to pre-sars levels by the last quarter of 2003 when room occupancies averaged 73.2%. as the recovery advanced and resolution seemed closer, there was time for reflecting on the past and looking ahead. most hotels felt better able to cope with another sars epidemic after having survived the first in which positive attributes such as team spirit, adaptability and professionalism had been fostered. in addition, procedures had been devised and tested that could be reintroduced at short notice should the virus resurface. the handling of sars in singapore does not entirely correspond to theories of crisis man-consequences of sars for hotels in singapore 415 agement as there was little advance warning of the virus or appreciation of its significance. the pre-event and prodromal periods, preceding the emergency, were therefore of very short duration. the delisting of singapore by the who marked the cessation of the emergency and start of recovery, separated by a brief intermedial transition. although the hotels surveyed were in possession of crisis management plans before the onset of sars, discussions indicated that these were not entirely apposite and managers were caught unawares and forced to act instinctively. decision makers initially were largely at the mercy of the epidemic's evolution until later when there were opportunities to take the initiative and seek to direct events. responses ranged from reactive and defensive to proactive and offensive, incorporating collaboration with other agencies within and outside the tourism industry. actions undertaken can be categorised as disease and hygiene controls, cost savings, marketing and lobbying for official aid. these tactics were also evident in hong kong where singapore's hotel crisis was repeated (chien and law, 2003; pine and mckercher, 2004) and echo measures of 'marketing, hotel maintenance, human resources and government assistance' implemented in other examples of hospitality crises (israeli and reichel, 2003, p. 353) , suggesting a common pattern of response. partial recovery in singapore had been achieved by the end of 2003, but resolution was still incomplete in the opening months of 2004 because of the threat of a resurgence of sars and a few isolated cases across asia. these circumstances created anticipation of a second outbreak and round of crisis, leading the industry to assume a pre-event stance of intensified vigilance. foreseen damaging developments in the arena of public health were not confined to sars and encompassed the mutation of a strain of avian influenza, which was erupting across asia into an extremely infectious and deadly human virus (the straits times, 2004) . although the direst predictions about so-called 'bird flu' had not been realised at the time of writing, the fact that it was hailed immediately as a potential tourism crisis indicates that lessons had been learnt from sars. such learning is a crucial final outcome of crisis and should inform and strengthen strategic planning. the singapore experience of sars offers a perspective on the demands made of the hotel sector when dealing with rampant infectious disease. although suggesting the benefits of being in a state of readiness, the study does raise questions about the wisdom of investing scarce resources in formulating plans tied too closely to specific crises. more common incidents such as fire, power failure and food poisoning are relatively easy to plan for, but the uniqueness of certain situations frustrates advance identification and limits the general value of a narrow response strategy. it could be argued that hotels should avoid being overly prescriptive and maintain a flexible approach, giving some attention to drafting a series of protocols that provide broad guidance on structures and procedures to use in order to accommodate the unpredictable. external forces may also be a major influence on the efficacy of any plans, illustrated in this case by the who and the impact of its decisions. the imposition and continuation of advisories are likely to have undermined certain aspects of attempts to manage the sars tourism crisis, not least marketing activity, by setting the pace of recovery. another striking feature of the virus was that it affected both destinations and source markets, bringing tourism throughout much of the region to a halt. it was consequently beyond the ability of any single business or destination to manage comprehensively and, however competently the singapore industry and authorities reacted to conditions in the republic, they were partly dependent on the manner in which public and private organisations elsewhere dealt with their own crises. individual hotels, alongside other enterprises, were thus relatively powerless within the overall picture of the international crisis and its complicated dynamics. nevertheless, outbreaks of existing or new types of infectious disease might be expected to recur and the risks should not be ignored by hoteliers. a set of guidelines to assist in coping with such a scenario is presented in table 2 , drawing on faulkner's tourism disaster directives. the proposals recommend fully utilising the preliminary pre-crisis stages to prepare for the climax of the crisis when a machinery of systems, processes and personnel can be installed with minimum delay and maximum efficiency. meeting immediate needs gives way to a medium term perspective as the emergency recedes, to be replaced by an intermediate step when normal business operations can begin to be restored. recovery requires marketing and development programmes, as well as government involvement if necessary, and a return to regular modes of operation. resolution is a time for review when formal plans can be revised in the light of the knowledge gained from living through one crisis, enhancing their applicability to any of a similar character that might materialise in the future. the epidemic of sars in 2003 was an exceptional crisis for singapore's hotels and an exacting test for its managers, in which advances to near normality were dictated by outside developments and agencies as much as their own efforts. the struggle against the virus and its repercussions reveals the importance of being prepared and of devising strategies to provide direction and limit any damage when facing the potentially destructive forces unleashed by a crisis. crisis management planning thus emerges as an essential responsibility of the tourism industry as a whole and it is hoped that this account has contributed to the debate about the 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approach to tourism dreams and realities: vulnerability and the tourism industry in southeast asia: a framework for analyzing and adapting tourism management toward the impact of sars on hong kong's tourism industry terrorism and tourism marketing implications for post-disaster tourism destinations the need to use disaster planning frameworks to respond to major tourism disasters: analysis of australia's response to tourism disasters in 2001 chaos, crises and disasters: a strategic approach to crisis management in the tourism industry disaster prevention and management consequences of sars for hotels in singapore 419 key: cord-296500-hrxj6tcv authors: bunker, deborah title: who do you trust? the digital destruction of shared situational awareness and the covid-19 infodemic date: 2020-08-04 journal: int j inf manage doi: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102201 sha: doc_id: 296500 cord_uid: hrxj6tcv developments in centrally managed communications (e.g. twitter, facebook) and service (e.g. uber, airbnb) platforms, search engines and data aggregation (e.g. google) as well as data analytics and artificial intelligence, have created an era of digital disruption during the last decade. individual user profiles are produced by platform providers to make money from tracking, predicting, exploiting and influencing their users’ decision preferences and behavior, while product and service providers transform their business models by targeting potential customers with more accuracy. there have been many social and economic benefits to this digital disruption, but it has also largely contributed to the digital destruction of mental model alignment and shared situational awareness through the propagation of mis-information i.e. reinforcement of dissonant mental models by recommender algorithms, bots and trusted individual platform users (influencers). to mitigate this process of digital destruction, new methods and approaches to the centralized management of these platforms are needed to build on and encourage trust in the actors that use them (and by association trust in their mental models). the global ‘infodemic’ resulting from the covid-19 pandemic of 2020, highlights the current problem confronting the information system discipline and the urgency of finding workable solutions . information system (is) artifacts 1 have been developed and used throughout human history and over time we have witnessed their disruption of business, industry and society. the current wave of digital disruption 2 has been caused by the development of mobile phones (that are really computers), resource sharing services such as uber and airbnb and social media communications platforms that are centrally managed (but socially distributed) like facebook, instagram and twitter. unfortunately, our is development trajectory also now sees us https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102201 in a time of post-truth 3 , fake news 4 and an 'infodemic' 5 which have wreaked digital destruction and havoc on our shared mental models 6 of what we understand to be real and true i.e. shared situational awareness 7 . it is becoming increasingly difficult to agree on what information represents the reality and truth about crisis events within the echo chamber of social media and the opaque algorithmic biases which underpin platform providers, search engines and data aggregators (bunker, stieglitz, ehnis, & sleigh, 2019; himelboim, smith, rainie, shneiderman, & espina, 2017; noble, 2018; sismondo, 2017) . fig. 1 shows the current level of concern with fake news about the covid-19 epidemic from a survey conducted in canada, china, france, germany, india, japan, mexico, saudi arabia, s. korea, u.k. and u.s. (edelman trust barometer, 2020) . this survey highlights that 67 % of respondents worry that there is a lot of fake news being spread about covid-19 while 49 % of respondents are having difficulty finding trustworthy and reliable information. if these levels of concern are reflected in the global population at large, then managing an adequate pandemic response through shared situational awareness becomes an impossible task. while profiling is not a new approach to the treatment of data, communications and service platform providers and data aggregators have found new ways of combining the techniques of individual user profiling (iup), data analytics (da) and artificial intelligence (ai) to monetize 8 the vast amounts of data that have been increasingly generated by their users (liozu & ulaga, 2018) . iup, da and ai are applied to better understand, influence or manipulate an individual's opinions and social, political and economic behavior through 'nudging' mechanisms (lanzing, 2019) . this approach to profiling is a powerful tool (zuboff, 2019) which is used to exploit the individual, their decisions and behavior for financial gain, but which does not effectively address issues of critical and optimal decision making and behavior for societal and group benefit e.g. pandemic management. this is due to the creation of mental model dissonance through the misinformation and rumors that are produced and propagated by this approach. for example, in the current covid-19 pandemic, in order to stop the spread of the virus, health agencies across the globe are urging us to stay socially distant, wash our hands at every opportunity, wear masks (when necessary), and get tested if we develop symptoms. unfortunately, rumors propagated on social media platforms quite often reinforce multiple and conflicting mental models of virus conspiracies, 'quack treatments' and inaccurate information regarding government motivations for lockdowns. this can severely hamper crisis management efforts. some examples 9 of misinformation propagated during the current pandemic include: dissonant mental models are reinforced by recommender algorithms (lanzing, 2019 ), bots (mckenna, 2020 and trusted individual platform users or influencers (enke & borchers, 2019) resulting in alarming levels of digital destruction which is turn undermines social cohesion and creates a barrier to shared situational awareness and effective crisis response. we therefore see a tension and conflict arising from: 1) the need for alignment of mental models and shared situational awareness to support effective crisis management; and 2) the developments of digital disruption, destruction and the facilitation and reinforcement of dissonant mental models through post truth perspectives and conflicting situational awareness. shared situational awareness is developed through the alignment of our mental models to represent a shared version of truth and reality on which we can act. this is an important basis for effective information sharing and decision making in crisis response (salas, stout, and cannon-bowers et al., 1994) . aligned mental models help us to agree about the authenticity, accuracy, timeliness, relevance and importance of the information being communicated and give concurrence, weight and urgency to decisions and advice. harrald and jefferson (2007) highlight that shared situational awareness implies that "(1) technology can provide adequate information to enable decision makers in a geographically distributed environment to act as though they were receiving and perceiving the same information, (2) common methods are available to integrate, structure, and understand the information, and (3) critical decision nodes share institutional, cultural, and experiential bases for imputing meaning to this knowledge" (page 3). we know that most crisis management agencies have established, agreed, authenticated and qualified mental models on which they base their internal operational command and control systems. this gives them assurance and governance of the information they produce (bunker, levine, & woody, 2015) and qualifies their decisions and recommended actions to manage crisis situations. it also engenders public trust in these agencies, to provide relevant and critical crisis information and advice for public action. fig. 2 highlights the current high and increasing levels of trust in government institutions during the covid-3 "…that truth has been individualized or that individuals have become, to borrow a turn of phrase from foucault, the primary and principal points of the production, application, and adjudication of truth is one important point. that emotion and personal belief are able now to outflank even objective facts and scientific knowledge is another (the claim that literature, for example, has truths to tell has long fallen on deaf ears). their articulation is decisive: with the regime's inflection, even inflation, of the indefinitely pluralized and individualized enunciative i who, by virtue of strong feeling, is able at any moment not only to recognize or know but, also, to tell or speak the truth, truth is privatized and immanitized, its universal and transcendental dimensions nullified altogether. hence, what is true for any one person need not be true for everyone or anyone else; what is true for anyone now need not necessarily be true later" (biesecker, 2018pp 331-332) . 4 we posit that fake news is, in essence, a two-dimensional phenomenon of public communication: there is the (1) fake news genre, describing the deliberate creation of pseudojournalistic disinformation, and there is the (2) fake news label, describing the political instrumentalization of the term to delegitimize news media " (egelhofer & lecheler, 2019page 97) ." 5 "an over-abundance of informationsome accurate and some notthat makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it." (who, 2020) 6 "a concentrated, personally constructed, internal conception, of external phenomena (historical, existing or projected), or experience, that affects how a person acts" (rook, 2013 )page 47. 7 "refers to the degree of accuracy by which one's perception of his current environment mirrors reality." (naval aviation schools command (032) 19 pandemic (edelman trust barometer, 2020). when digital destruction produces mental model dissonance shared situational awareness between crisis management agencies and the general public becomes impossible to maintain and communicate (both to and from) due to inconsistencies in what constitutes reality and truth, making crisis response unmanageable. centrally managed communications and service providers and data aggregators treat your personal data as a commodity/resource which they are generally entitled to use as they wish, however, they largely ignore the deeper understanding of the mental models on which data is produced by any one system (bunker, 2001) . "in the social sciences, in particular, big data can blend wide-scale and finer-grained analytic approaches by providing information about individual behaviour within and across contexts" (tonidandel, king, & cortina, 2018)page 531. data science harnesses the belief that data created by an individual using different applications or platforms, can be seamlessly combined then analyzed using sophisticated data analytics and ai. conversely, this belief has also fundamentally changed the way that all individuals view and interact with data and information in their daily lives. for instance, our trust in the google maps application on our phone to tell us exactly where we are at any given moment, extends to the belief that all information coming to us via our mobile phones and the applications we choose to use, must be some version of reality or the truth. we selfselect our filters (applications and services) for engagement with the wider world and our reliance on mobile technology and applications to navigate the world is now at an all-time high i.e. 3.5 billion or 45.04 % of the global population. 10 if we are a social media platform user, however, we can be bombarded with paid advertising or 'nudged' by recommender algorithms to make contact with other platform users, information sites and products and services that are deemed to be relevant to us and part of our 'shared reality' (echterhoff, higgins, & levine, 2009 ). nudging performs three functions : meeting platform user 1) epistemic; and 2) relational needs; and 3) adding to the platform owner's profitability'. for instance, the platform user is directed to people, products, information and communities of interest that help them to "achieve a valid and reliable understanding of the world" (levine, 2018) -pg 54; this then fulfills their "desire to affiliate with and feel connected to others" (levine, 2018) -pg 54; and ; platform owners and managers (and their influential users) then make lots of money selling targeted advertising by directing platform users in this way. this might be a desirable situation when sharing situational awareness within a social media platform community of interest where mental models align, but when combined with platform characteristics like user anonymity and lack of information assurance, then treating a social media platform as a trusted information source for shared situational awareness becomes problematic. for example, social media platform users can be a valuable source of eyewitness information for crisis management agencies to enhance the production of shared situational awareness for crisis decision making. social media information when generated in large volumes in a crisis, however, is difficult to process. the source of the information can take time to identify and authenticate and the information provided by them can be a problem to verify, validate, analyze and systematize. this produces a general lack of trust by crisis management agencies and other social media users, in the crisis information produced on social media platforms. this can have catastrophic consequences for shared situational awareness through failure to detect and use important and relevant information or through the belief in, and the propagation of, mis-information produced on these platforms (bui, 2019, ehnis and which can also impact and undermine social benefit and cultural cohesion in times of crisis (kopp, 2020) . we are currently living in an era of digital disruption which provides many economic and social benefits, but we must also be able to support crisis management based on shared situational awareness. post truth perspectives, fake news and the resulting infodemic has resulted in wide ranging digital destruction and the enablement and encouragement of mental model dissonance. how can we best address this problem? seppanen, makela, luokkala, and virrantaus (2013) have outlined the connection characteristics of shared situational awareness in an actor network. fig. 3 highlights the configuration of the connection which includes three requirements: 1) informationto bridge the information gap through the identification of key information elements; 2) communicationto understand the fluency of how actors communicate through describing this communication in detail; and 3) trustto analyse the role of trust on the quality and fluency of communication. they reason that "if trust could be increased the availability, reliability, and temporal accuracy of information could be improved". recent research conducted on the use of social media platforms for crisis communication purposes, so far concludes that: 1) trusted agencies have an early mover information advantage in crisis communication on social media platforms such as twitter (mirbabaie, bunker, stieglitz, marx, & ehnis, 2020) ; 2) information communicated by trusted agencies can be amplified and intensified by influential social media users and others to "communicate, self-organize, manage, and mitigate risks (crisis communications) but also to make sense of the event (commentary-related communications)", for example through retweets on twitter (stieglitz, bunker, mirbabaie, & ehnis, 2018); 3) trusted agencies and the information they supply is influential in shaping the human response to crisis situations (mirbabaie, bunker, stieglitz, & deubel, 2019) ; 4) trusted agencies find processing the high volumes of information communicated through social media platforms problematic due to the difficulty in authenticating the information source (user) and establishing the accuracy, timeliness and relevance of the information itself ; and 5) there are a number of tensions which emerge in the use of social media as a crisis communications channel between trusted agencies and the general public. these tensions occur in the areas of: information, generation and use i.e. managing the message; emergence and management of digital and spontaneous volunteers; management of community expectations; mental models which underpin prevention, preparation, recovery and response protocols (pprr); and management of the development of the large-scale adoption of social media technologies for crisis communications (elbanna, bunker, levine, & sleigh, 2019) . this knowledge points us to a number of areas of research focus in is for the future development of data analytics and artificial intelligence to more effectively align mental models for shared situational awareness. these should: • build on the trust in government and their crisis management agencies, as well as other influential actors in crisis management communications, to provide and amplify advice and information as early as possible in a crisis; • build frameworks that create algorithmic transparency, information governance and quality assurance for platform and service providers and data aggregators to create and reinforce trust in them as information sources i.e. so they become trusted actors in the communications network; • address how platform and service developers and government communication system developers can share concepts and build systems that address crisis communication requirements, including those used in iup, ds and ai; and • address government failures to provide robust is services, during the covid-19 pandemic, and the subsequent impacts this has had on trust in government and their systems for tracking and tracing infections (chakravorti, 2020) . these areas of focus are important given the negative impacts that are already emerging from the use of ai during the covid-19 pandemic i.e. varying levels of data quality and comprehensiveness, development of covid-19 treatments based on the use of this variable data, use of social control and surveillance methods to minimize virus spread (smith & rustagi, 2020 , naughton, 2020b . it is time to critically analyze and evaluate how centrally managed platforms, their data and systems algorithms are being used during the covid-19 pandemic (and other crises) by the companies who own and run them. how are they using the information they collect i.e. development of services, influencing users, creation of profits etc., (how) are they limiting the spread of post truth arguments and fake news/information and are they exacerbating or assisting with the management of crises? some platform owners (youtube, twitter, whatsapp) are currently making efforts to be more transparent in their platform operations, data governance and quality assurance (hern, 2020; naughton, 2020a) . there have also been growing calls from critics for regulation of these companies and their business practices (lewis, 2020) . there is a long way to go, however, to address the problems, issues and barriers caused by these companies for the production of shared situational awareness to support crisis management. for instance, the latvian government wanted to access the google/apple designed contact tracing framework (a bluetooth enabled api) which "can later be translated into covid-19 exposure notifications" and which are sent to contacts of a covid-19 positive person. google and apple set preconditions to accessing this framework, however, by only allowing the registration of one government/health authority approved contact tracing app per country and by not allowing government health agencies access to the personal details of contacts, due to their evaluation of potential privacy issues (ilves, 2020) . multi-jurisdictional legal definitions and treatment of privacy issues is also a complicating factor in this decision. this situation presents a problem to any country wishing the use the api, as contact tracers need to be able to: 1) assess the level of potential exposure to the virus of the contact; and then 2) provide advice to the contact as to what action they should take. this could be anything from "get a test and self-isolate for 14 days" through to "take no action at all, socially distance from others, but watch for symptoms". as covid-19 health advice can have critical health, economic and social consequences for an individual, the advice needs to be tailored for the individual and be as least impactful as possible. merely sending an exposure notification to a contact of a covid-19 infected person, does not guarantee any action, or the correct action being taken by that person. by prohibiting access to data and controlling their api in this way, google and apple are not sharing available data with not sharinggovernment health agencies that would allow them to tha perform effective contact tracing which could save many lives while preventing large scale economic hardship and vice versa. this presents us with a difficult legal and ethical situation to ponder i.e. does the individual requirement for data privacy outweigh the opportunity to save lives and livelihoods? we are now in the midst of a pandemic and the 'infodemic' that has followed in its wake and to counter the effects of this overload of inaccurate and misinformation, the who has collaborated with the providers of social media platforms (e.g. facebook, twitter, etc.) to mitigate the impact of false information on social media (who, 2020) in order to support shared situational awareness and effective crisis management. this is an unsustainable and unrealistic situation, however, due to the ongoing cost, level of resources and necessary skills required for such an intervention. while many countries have been unable to adequately deal with the pandemic, there are many success stories of shared situational awareness supporting health agency and public response for effective virus containment through day-to-day decisions and actions. australian governments (federal and state) have had mixed results in the containment and management of the covid-19 pandemic. there have been communications and is missteps along the way e.g. ruby princess cruise ship (mckinnell, 2020) and the melbourne quarantine hotels (kaine & josserand, 2020) where quarantine protocols were breached, as well as the current technical problems with the collection and use of the data from the australian federal government covidsafe tracking and tracing app (taylor, 2020) . we are also currently seeing the rapid development of a covid-19 outbreak in metropolitan melbourne (victoria), where previously there had been a successful pandemic response. this has necessitated the reinstatement of lockdowns, strict social distancing enforcement and the closure of the nsw/victorian border. this outbreak has been exacerbated by misinformation circulating on social media targeting specific cultural groups, which has caused general confusion (especially in non-english speaking communities) as well as the promotion of racist tropes and hate speech (bosley, 2020) . while managing a pandemic is a complex and complicated process with many stakeholders, to achieve a more effective level of crisis management there are benefits to be obtained by shared situational awareness through the alignment of mental models that represent more broadly acceptable situational reality and truth. this alignment would further support our trust in government as well as develop trust in other organizational and individual actors in the communications network. individual differences in political, social and cultural contexts also add a layer of complexity to the alignment of mental models for shared situational awareness. government agencies should refine their mental models of situational awareness to accommodate those variations in factors of significance which impact alignment e.g. cultural behavioral practices, housing conditions, working environments and practices, access to services, regard for community leadership, digital literacy, access to technology etc. or they risk the ongoing development and reinforcement of dissonant and alternative mental models and erosion of their trusted status. (mirbabaie et al., 2020) both government and platform providers have public interest and safety information communications requirements to satisfy in both the short and long-term, which directly impact our ability to manage pandemics and other types of crises and disasters effectively. there must be collaboration and cooperation (either legislated or voluntary) to build on the trust in government to provide information as early and as often as possible in a crisis (and enable the amplification of, and action taken from this advice) as well as ensure algorithmic transparency, information governance and quality assurance for robust and trusted communication and information services overall. to remain successful in managing the pandemic, however, requires long term vigilance and effort by both the pandemic managers and the international journal of information management xxx (xxxx) xxxx public alike. as we can see by the current covid-19 outbreak in victoria, mental model alignment (and realignment) during a crisis is a continual process which requires constant attention, effort and resources. "a critique of how science is produced is very different from the post-truth argument that there are alternative truths that you can choose from. post-truth is a defensive posture. if you have to defend yourself against climate change, economic change, coronavirus change, then you grab at any alternative. if those alternatives are fed to you by thousands of fake news farms in siberia, they are hard to resist, especially if they look vaguely empirical. if you have enough of them and they are contradictory enough, they allow you to stick to your old beliefs." bruno latourinterview (watts, 2020) . guest editor's introduction: toward an archaeogenealogy of posttruth reports melbourne coronavirus cluster originated at eid party could stoke islamophobia, muslim leaders saythe guardian (online) 25 social media, rumors, and hurricane warning systems in puerto rico a philosophy of information technology and systems (it&s) as tools: tool development context, associated skills and the global technology transfer (gtt) process repertoires of collaboration for common operating pictures of disasters and extreme events bright ict: social media analytics for society and crisis management digital contact tracing's mixed record abroad spells trouble for us efforts to rein in covid-19. the conversation (online) july shared reality: experiencing commonality with others' inner states about the world spring update: trust and the covid-19 pandemic fake news as a two-dimensional phenomenon: a framework and research agenda repertoires of collaboration: incorporation of social media help requests into the common operating picture emergency management in the changing world of social media: framing the research agenda with the stakeholders through engaged scholarship social media influencers in strategic communication: a conceptual framework for strategic social media influencer communication shared situational awareness in emergency management mitigation and response youtube bans david duke and other us far-right users. the guardian (online) classifying twitter topic-networks using social network analysis why are google and apple dictating how european democracies fight coronavirus? the guardian (online) 16 melbourne's hotel quarantine bungle is disappointing but not surprising. it was overseen by a flawed security industry. the conversation (online) 8 fake news: the other pandemic that can prove deadly strongly recommended" revisiting decisional privacy to judge hypernudging in self-tracking technologies going back to basics in design science: from the information technology artifact to the information systems artifact socially-shared cognition and consensus in small groups facebook and google must move away from the zero-sum game. the sydney morning herald -opinion (online) monetizing data: a practical roadmap for framing, pricing & selling your b2b digital offers queensland researchers analysing coronavirus conspiracy theories warn of social media danger ruby princess passengers disembarked before coronavirus test results to get flights, inquiry hears social media in times of crisis: learning from hurricane harvey for the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic response who sets the tone? determining the impact of convergence behaviour archetypes in social media crisis communication twitter taking on trump's lies? about time too. the guardian (online) 31 silicon valley has admitted facial recognition technology is toxic -about time. the guardian (online) 14 algorithms of oppression: how search engines reinforce racism defining and measuring shared situational awareness a kuhnian analysis of revolutionary digital disruptions mental models: a robust definition. the learning organization the role of shared mental models in developing shared situational awareness developing shared situational awareness for emergency management editorial 'post-truth? the problem with covid-19 artificial intelligence solutions and how to fix them. stanford social innovation review sense-making in social media during extreme events australia's covidsafe coronavirus tracing app works as few as one in four times for some devices. the guardian (online) 17 big data methods: leveraging modern data analytic techniques to build organizational science this is a global catastrophe that has come from within' interview. bruno latour: the guardian (online) 7 novel coronavirus (2019-ncov) situation report the age of surveillance capitalism: the fight for a human future at the new frontier of power i would like to thank the communications and technology for society research group at the university of sydney business school,and the marie bashir institute for infectious diseases and biosecurity for their continued support for this work, and adjunct associate professor anthony sleigh and dr christian ehnis for their encouragement and invaluable feedback on this paper. key: cord-023773-sqojhvwx authors: araújo-vila, noelia; fraiz-brea, jose antonio; de araújo, arthur filipe title: spanish economic-financial crisis: social and academic interest date: 2020-04-21 journal: j bus cycle res doi: 10.1007/s41549-020-00045-z sha: doc_id: 23773 cord_uid: sqojhvwx the present study analyses the interest of both experts and the general population in the economic-financial crisis that has affected spain up until 2019. to examine the interest of the general users, google searches were analysed through the google trends tool. meanwhile, the interest of scholars was assessed through the analysis of academic papers published on scopus, one of the most relevant peer reviewed literature database. to this end, a scopus search was made for papers containing the fragment “spanish financial crisis” on their tittles, abstracts, or keywords, which ensued a sample of 632 studies. findings show that the spanish financial crisis worries the general population as well as scholars. peaks in searches by general internet users take place in the years preceding the crisis (2004 and 2005) as well as throughout its duration (2008, 2010, and 2012). accordingly, the academic interest has also grown substantially up from 2008. the years preceding the beginning of the spanish financial crisis-2002-2007-are characterised by a cumulative economic imbalance. many countries had extremely negative checking account balances, while others achieved atypical surplus values, which led to a global financial crisis. some countries had loose monetary policies, and at the same time, a great amount of savings. this led to the inflation of assets' prices, especially real state, which came to be known as the real estate bubble (garcía 2005) . in spain, construction was financed by international loans. the instability in the construction industry led to high rates of indebtedness, which soon affected the country's whole economy. an excessive amount of money was being loaned to an industry that was no longer profitable. in this context, banks were increasingly uncertain about whether the debts would be liquidated. moreover, productivity problems tend to lead to future economic issues. in the years preceding the crisis, spain's gdp grew more than that of the united kingdom and the united states (eu-klem 2013) . this was already a sign that something was not right, or that, at the very least, the situation was temporary and unrealistic. a significant part of this growth was caused by the construction industry, which was responsible for 25% of the country's economic growth between 2000 and 2007. as garcía (2005) points out, this was caused by the increase in working hours and the intensive use of technological capital. the so-called real estate bubble led to the beginning of a global liquidity crisis in the banking system, which was intensified by the frequent trade of complex and structured financial products. initially, this crisis did not affect spain, as the national banks had focused on retail banking and refrained from selling structured mortgage products (alonso-almeida and bremser 2013). however, economic-financial problems brought about by the global recession increased the perceived risk and the real estate market's adjustment, which eventually reached spain as well (álvarez 2008) . the present work analyses the interest demonstrated by both the general population and economic scholars (and those from related areas) in the economic-financial crisis that affected spain up until the observed period (2019). naturally, the health crisis currently being faced by the whole world due to the outbreak of covid-19 is an even bigger problem, which is expected to have catastrophic consequences for many countries' economies, including spain. in this context, it is important to observe that the present research does not consider such phenomenon, which started after the data collection and analysis period. regarding the methodological steps carried out as part of this investigation, first the extant literature on the spanish financial crisis was systematically reviewed, which allowed the authors to understand the factors that led to this situation. then, to achieve this paper's objective, the interest of the general population was assessed through the analysis of google searches on the subject throughout the selected timeframe (2007) (2008) (2009) (2010) (2011) (2012) (2013) (2014) (2015) (2016) (2017) (2018) (2019) . meanwhile, the interest of academics was examined through the analysis of scientific papers published on the scopus database during the same period. since the end of the twentieth century, spain had been one of the fastest growing and most successful economies in europe. immigration, low interest rates, and a recently liberalised and modernised economy had contributed to this great economic status (royo 2009 ). this condition, however, was interrupted in 2007, when the country started facing a severe economic recession. although the global economic crisis significantly contributed to this deceleration, domestic imbalances have also played an important role. in this context, 2007 is arguably the year when the financial crisis reached spain, along with many other european countries. in the spanish instance, the crisis was the result of a 5-year period of high liquidity in the financial market (álvarez 2008) . in other words, during this time, it was particularly easy to convert any financial asset into money with minimal loss. this is shown by the increase in monetary aggregates (adrian and shin 2008) noticed in this period, which led to an overcapacity of the financial system. this, in turn, led to a general state of distrust, in which neither employers nor families were willing to not take credit. the only cases in which credit was taken were those when people needed to renew their debts or cover their losses. naturally, as capitalist economies are based on credit, such situation would necessarily have a negative impact on the country's economy. along with this deterioration of economic conditions, a poor management of the situation by the bank of spain, the dependence on wholesale financing, and weaknesses in the regulatory framework, all contributed to this recession (royo 2013) . however, the key factor that led spain to the current crisis was the channelling of the financial sector into the real estate market (alvarez 2008; montalvo 2014; taylor 2009 ). the so-called system of perverse incentives, adopted as a temporary solution to fund construction activities, made the real estate market very attractive (montalvo 2014). for the families, buying a house started to look like a very attractive proposal. for the sake of comparison, in the united states, there is the "lease with the option of purchase" model, which became a very favourable option, even for those who could not afford the mortgage payments. moreover, if the prices happened to increase, which was expected, all parts would benefit from capital gains (case et al. 2012 ). on the other hand, if prices remained stable, one could simply stop paying the mortgage and lose the purchase option. in this case, the deal would effectively become a regular rent. another incentive was the barriers of entries, through which people could also request a loan (mayer et al. 2009 ). in spain, however, the scenario was quite different, as the financial product normally employed for the purpose of buying a house is the personal loan with mortgage. in such a deal, if one does not liquidate the debt, they must give back the house. nevertheless, the general belief was that there was an incredibly low chance of decrease in prices, which encouraged many families to buy houses anyway (garcía-montalvo 2006) . there was a whole chain of factors that encouraged this model of purchase. for example, bank workers needed to sell mortgages in order to hit sales targets and gain bonuses. therefore, they lowered the criteria for granting this type of loan (montalvo 2014) . moreover, all this housing construction and urbanisation methods did not take place in an institutional void (garcía 2010) . part of the problem was exactly the lack of spatial planning. more precisely, as observed by maldonado and pérez (2008) , specific plans for urban development either did not exist or were totally disregarded. the described scenario led the spanish construction industry to a great recession, which significantly affected the country's economy (kapelko et al. 2014) . the difficulty in liquidating loan payments was also linked to a decrease in the demand for finished buildings (both residential and non-residential), which resulted in a large amount of unsold real state (vergés 2011) . in sum, as concluded by stiglitz (2010: 21) spain allowed a massive real estate bubble to arise, and now faces an almost total collapse of this market. as opposed to the united states, however, spanish banks were more prepared to endure this trauma, due to the country's banking regulations. nevertheless, they country's economy had much greater losses. this led to a general distrust by bank clients, which, as concluded by carbó-valverde et al. (2013) , is an indicator of a significant negative impact of banks' activities in the economy. moreover, the bursting of the real estate bubble contributed directly and indirectly to almost 2.3 million job losses and a large private debt (garcía 2010) , which further aggravated the situation and forced the government to save banks by financing them with foreign savings. therefore, spain was one of the european countries where the late 2000′s global economic crisis had the most devastating outcomes. this happened due to internal factors that amplified the crisis' effects, especially the country's massive real estate bubble. the present study examined the interest of two distinct groups in the spanish financial crisis: 1. the general internet user; and 2. scholars and specialists in economy and related areas. the interest of the first group was assessed with the help of google trends, a tool that allows researchers to examine general trends in google searches. google searches were selected as an indicator of the general internet users' interest because google is the most popular web searcher in the world (ebizmba 2018). the interest of the second group was assessed through the examination of scientific papers published on scopus's database, which is one of the peer-reviewed literature databases with the highest number of citations and abstracts (andalial et al. 2010; bosman et al. 2006) . the analysis carried out through google trends encompassed searches made with the keywords "crisis española", "crisis financiera española", and "spanish financial crisis", made worldwide up from 2004 (year in which the tool started registering searches). this allowed the authors to verify whether the general internet user's interest in the topic increased up from 2008, the year after the beginning of the crisis. the analysis of articles published on scopus was a slightly more complex, due to the nature of the database. first, a search for papers containing the fragment "spanish financial crisis" in their tittles, abstracts, and keywords was made. the phrase in english was adopted for the search because most studies in the database are in in this language. a total of 632 works was found, from which 49% had been published between 2016 and 2019 (see table 1 ). researches on the topic started being published in a considerable amount from 2009-2010, following the beginning of the crisis. studies published in the 1990′s refer to previous financial crises, such as the one that took place between the 1970′s and the 1980′s, or even crises in previous centuries. scientific studies were also subjected to a content analysis, which considered their tittles, abstracts and keywords. qualitative content analysis is a method for analyzing text data and delve into their meaning by following systematic procedures (schreier 2012) . the term includes a series of different techniques to analyse texts (powers et al. 2010 ). more specifically, content analysis serves to "identify, analyse and inform patterns within the data" (braun and clarke 2006 p. 79) . it includes the codification and classification of textual units, which makes it very useful to explore big volumes of textual information and determine tendencies, patterns within the words employed, as well as relationships between their meanings (gbrich 2007) . qualitative analysis methods are not only a useful tool for generating knowledge, but also an effective vehicle for presenting and addressing meanings and findings (holloway and todres 2005; sandelowski 2010 ). to assure these methods' validities, researchers must clearly explain how the results were achieved (schreier 2012 ). in the case of content analysis, the preparation phase starts with the definition of the unit of analysis (guthrie et al. 2004) , to which researches must consider what they want to analyse (cavanagh 1997) . in the present investigation, the object of analysis was the academics' interest in the subject of the spanish financial crisis. in this context, the units of analysis were, as previously stated, the tittles, abstracts and keywords of scientific studies on this topic. content analysis may serve two main functions, the heuristic and the proofing function (bardin 2000) . naturally, the goal of the present study was not verifying any previously proposed hypothesis about the interest of academics in the spanish financial crisis, but simply exploring the trends and patterns in such interest through the analysis of published researches. therefore, within this investigation, the content analysis serves the heuristic function, as it enriches the exploratory attempt, increasing the likeliness of discovery. moreover, within the available content analysis techniques, the one adopted in the present study was the categorical content analysis, which consists in dismembering text units, or categories, according to pre-established criteria. in this context, the chosen total 632 studies registry of unit was the word-rather than the theme-which facilitated the systematic analysis of a big volume of texts. moreover, the main enumeration rule for coding, as it considers that the registry unit's relevance increases with its frequency of appearance. a quantitative summary of the content analysis' results is presented in table 1 . the google trends analysis indicated that searches for "crisis financiera española" were only made in spain. some related searched topics include "crisis", "crisis financiera", "finanzas", "españa" and "ciencia económica", which showed a consisted increase in searches from 2008. the terms also show two punctual peaks in searches in november 2004 and march 2005, which were indeed the highest search rates within the analysed period. these peaks are followed by april 2009 and september 2008 (fig. 1) . when considering searches for more generic terms, such as "crisis española", the number of countries from which searches were made increases. among the additional countries, the ones with the highest numbers are peru, ecuador, colombia, and argentina (all spanish speaking countries) (fig. 2) . related search terms include "crisis económica española", "la crisis económica", "crisis económica españa", "crisis política española" and "la economía española" all of which had a puntual increase in searches in 2008, and then consistently decreased, especially after 2014. for these terms, search peaks took place in september 2008, june 2012, november 2012, and may 2010 (fig. 3) . when considering the english term "spanish financial crisis", the peak in searches was in march 2004, followed by april 2005 and june 2012. up from 2014, the numbers decrease significantly (fig. 4) . related search terms that present a punctual increase include "spain financial crisis" and "spanish economic crisis". when considering searches for the more generic term "spanish crisis", the countries from which the most searches were made are spain, singapore, united kingdom, australia, nigeria and united states (fig. 5) . searches for this term had their peak in june 2012, followed by may 2010, and unlike in the previous cases, october 2017, which is particularly recent (fig. 6) . as mentioned in the methodology chapter, the search for papers published on scopus's database ensued 632 studies addressing the spanish financial crises since 1990, 96% of which have been published in the last decade. studies on the subject come from three main areas: social sciences (46.2%), economy, econometry, and finances (32.3%), and business, management, and accounting (30.7%)-it must be observed that the same paper can be classified into more than one area. most of the researches were published on journal papers (83.1%). the remaining documents include reviews (6.9%), book chapters (5.7%), and conference papers (2.1%). to delve deeper into the topic, it is important to know which items are more often addressed within these studies. to this end, a frequency analysis of the whole sample of keywords (n = 1,643) was carried out. results indicate that the most frequent research topics are spain, financial crisis, economic crisis, crisis, human, article, economic recession, and finances (table 2) . to analyse the topic even further, the works of the most proliferous authors in the field-kapelko, m., lara-rubio, j., navarro-galera, a. and perles-ribes, j.f.-were analysed. each of these authors published five studies within the last 5 years. the titles, abstracts and keywords of such studies were subjected to a content analysis (table 3) . results show that although the crisis took place over a decade ago, back in 2007/2008, it still attracts significant academic interest. moreover, this interest comes from different research areas, as the mentioned authors investigate areas as distinct as the public sector, the banking sector, the construction industry, and the tourism industry. the concepts analysed within those studies include inefficiency, financial sustainability, and all the effects of the economic and financial crisis worldwide, in the euro zone, and especially in spain. the construction industry was one of the most affected, as it depends on economic cycles. therefore, the situation initiated in 2007 has led to a significant drop in productivity. the country's economic situation had a great impact on the sector. on the other hand, part of the studies analysed focus on the public sector. these studies emphasize the need for financial transparency, especially on official websites. the solvency problems, risk premiums, and bank loans brought about by the financial crisis ultimately affected local governments, which must deal with the consequent increase in levels of (public) debt. the banking sector is also one of the most affected by the economic situation. one of the biggest problems for the sector is the risk of loyalty loss and abandonment by its clients. at last, studies analyse how this situation affects one of the star industries of the country: tourism. more specifically, they examined which types of tourist destinations (e.g., seaside, cities, etc.) have already overcome the crisis, as well as how the economic cycles have affected the tourism industry, namely its employment growth rates, since the beginning of the crisis (2007/2008) . studies also examined the opposite effect, that is, how tourism development affects the crisis, specially through the sale of vacation houses, which ultimately affects the construction industry. finally, analogous to the analysis carried out with the web searches, the published papers' origins were examined and the countries that show the greatest scientific interest in this topic were identified. as expected, the country from which the highest number of studies was published is spain, which accounts for 78.4% of studies. with significantly lower numbers, the following countries account for most of the remaining researches: united kingdom (5.8%), united states (5.7%), germany (3.0%), italy (2,2%), netherlands (1.7%), portugal (1.6%), france (1.4%), and poland (1.1%). next, with less than 1% each, comes sweden, australia, canada, chile, peru, austria, belgium, colombia, and denmark (fig. 7) . table 3 academic studies from the most proliferous authors on the spanish financial crisis transparency about sustainability in regional governments: the case of spain current crisis; demand for greater transparency in the public sector; sustainability in public administration; regional governments; websites; sustainability information in the beginning of the twenty-first century, a series of economic circumstances triggered a global economic-financial crisis. these circumstances included the contrast between countries with extreme deficits in their commercial balances and those enjoying atypical surplus values. in europe, one of the countries that suffered the most as a result of the crisis was spain. in the years preceding the beginning of the crisis, the country experienced several favourable economic circumstances, such as a higher gdp growth than that of global leaders, i.e., the united states, which eventually proved to be an illusion. in 2007, the economic boom came to an end, following the solvency crisis in the banking system and the decrease in the demand for products and services, especially houses. in this context, the construction industry was one of the most affected, and arguably one of the main factors responsible for amplifying the crisis effects in the country (due to the real estate bubble). to the present day, spain has not fully recovered, and the aftermath of the crisis still worries its population. it is particularly striking that, in the years preceding the crisis, there was already an uneasiness about it. this is evidenced by web searches on the topic, which begin to increase already in 2004. in fact, the peak in searches for "crisis financiera española" took place in november 2004, which was an omen of what was about to happen. moreover, searches related to the spanish economic crisis, spanish economy or simply the economic crisis have also been quite frequent, which indicates that the population is still worried and interested in this topic. once the crisis begins, peaks in searches are once again observed, especially between 2008 and 2012. when considering searches worldwide (for terms in english), the data shows that the interest in the topic starts decreasing in 2014. therefore, the peaks in interest from the general internet users take place in two specific moments: years before 2007, when some people already inferred that a crisis was about to come, and the fig. 7 countries that investigate the spanish financial crisis first years of crisis. it must be observed, as well, that although the topic is particularly related to one country, spain (which is evidenced by the fact that the majority of searches were made from this country), the analysis of searches in english shows that internet users from other countries are also interested in the situation. those include several european countries, such as united kingdom (in second place, immediately after spain), germany, italy, portugal, and france; but also countries from other continents, such as the united states (in third place), and with a significantly lower volume in searches, australia, canada, chile, peru, and colombia. regarding the academic world, the subject starts attracting a great deal of interest up from 2009/2010, when the crisis had already begun. the peak in number of published papers takes place in 2017 (114 works). however, the biggest growth is noticed between 2011 and 2013, when the number of studies practically doubled. in sum, academic studies show a continuous growth from 2011 to 2017. the most frequently addressed topics amongst the 632 analysed studies are the economic or financial crisis, the economic recession, unemployment, and the banking system. many studies share some of the same keywords, from which "spain" is by far the most frequent. the content analysis carried out on the works from the most proliferous authors within the topic indicates that construction is amongst the most addressed industries or sectors in researches related to the crisis. this is in line with previous literature on the subject, as addressed on the theoretical overview, the construction industry played a relevant role in amplifying the crisis' effects in spain and was also one of the most affected economic activities. other particularly affected area was the public sector, which was also one of the leading figures of the situation, due to the lack of a proactive attitude and preventive measures, and to its actions during the actual crisis. other authors focus on tourism, a key industry to the spanish economy, and one that was also affected by the crisis. finally, similarly to the general internet user's interest, academic interest in this subject does not come exclusively from spain, but also from other european countries, such as germany, italy, france, and portugal. moreover, studies also come from countries outside europe, such as the united states, peru, and chile. this data indicates that there is a coincidence regarding the countries that show high levels of social preoccupation on the subject, demonstrated by the web searches, and those that show particularly high academic interest. funding this research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. transparency about sustainability in regional governments: the case of spain. convergencia-revista de ciencias sociales strategic responses of the spanish hospitality sector to the financial crisis la banca española ante la actual crisis financiera. estabilidad financiera scopus: la mayor base de datos de literatura científica arbitrada al alcance de los países subdesarrollados análise de conteúdo scopus reviewed and compared: the coverage and functionality of the 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jp5ge300 abstract since the pilots’ strike of 1989, the australian tourism industry has experienced a series of ‘shocks’ or crises which have included the 1991 gulf war, the asian economic crisis in 1997, the dotcom crash of 2000, the collapse of the hih insurance company, the world trade centre attacks and the demise of ansett airlines in 2001, the bali bombings in 2002 and the iraq war and the outbreak of the sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic in 2003. in 2002, a research project was carried out in a range of sectors of the australian tourism industry to investigate the impact of the collapse of the hih insurance company, the world trade centre attacks and the demise of ansett airlines on these organisations and the range of responses adopted to these events. this paper describes the preparedness of organisations to respond to these events; the personnel or human resource (hr) strategies implemented and the postscript, the organisational learning which had occurred. interview findings indicate that there was little preparation for such events, a widespread reluctance to retrench staff, and limited organisational learning had taken place. since the pilots' strike of 1989, the australian tourism industry has faced a series of crises, which have included the gulf war in 1991, the asian economic crisis in 1997, the dotcom crash of 2000, the collapse of the hih insurance company, the world trade centre attacks and the demise of ansett airlines in 2001, the bali bombings in 2002 and the iraq war and the outbreak of sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic in 2003. in 2002, a research project was carried out among a number of sectors of the australian tourism industry to investigate a variety of issues associated with the collapse of the hih insurance company, a major australian insurance company, the world trade centre attacks and the demise of ansett airlines, australia's second largest airline. issues explored included identifi-cation of the factors influencing the impact of these events, the relative impact of these three events on these organisations, and their short-and medium-term responses. the study also highlighted aspects of the broader operating environment, such as role of organisational policies in guiding responses to these events, and compared the events of 2001 with other 'shocks' experienced by the tourism industry. this paper, drawn from the broader study, focuses specifically on the preparedness of organisations to respond to these events, in terms of the role of policies in guiding their responses; the personnel or human resource (hr) strategies implemented, and the postscript, the extent of organisational learning which had occurred. faulkner (2001, p. 136) suggests that crises or disasters can be described as 'sudden challenges which might test the organisation's ability to cope'. pearson and mitroff (1993, p. 49) suggest that crises are events which pose threats to the viability of organisations. faulkner (2001, p. 138) has distilled the work of a number of authors and indicated that the key elements of crisis situations are: a triggering event, which is so significant that it challenges the existing structure, routine operations or survival of the organization, high threat, short decision time and an element of surprise and urgency, a perception of an inability to cope among those directly affected, a turning point, when decisive change, which may have both positive and negative connotation, is imminent, characterised by 'fluid, unstable, dynamic' situations. the attacks on the world trade centre clearly demonstrate the potential risk which terrorism poses for the tourism industry. a number of authors have highlighted the fact that tourists have become soft targets and are at risk from hijacking and terrorism (faulkner, 2001) . furthermore, studies have shown that tourists substitute risky destinations with safer choices, demonstrate a delayed reaction to terrorism and exhibit cultural differences in their reactions to risk (sonmez, 1998, pp. 427-428) . for example, as a result of terrorist activity in 1985, 1.8 million americans changed their foreign plans their following year (sonmez & graefe, 1998, p. 121) . when the hih insurance company collapsed on 15 march 2001, it was australia's second largest general insurer, with almost 40 per cent of the public liability market. in the following (june) quarter, the net premium for insurers increased by 7.5 per cent, indicating that hih's rivals had taken advantage of its collapse to obtain premium price rises which had been limited by competition (white, 2002) . the terrorist attacks further compounded the impact on insurance premiums. switzer (2002) records that premium forecasts made before september 11 indicated that the rises would be 25 per cent at the most, but after these attacks, the increases could be as high as 1000 per cent in some cases, as occurred in thorpedale, victoria. the public liability premium for the annual potato festival has risen 1000 per cent since 2000. in tumbarumba, southern new south wales, the 2002 easter tooma gymkhana was cancelled after premium rises from $1600 to $10,000 (hughes, 2002) . ansett airlines, owned by air new zealand and a partner in the star alliance of airlines, had 35 per cent of the domestic market at the time that it was placed into receivership on 14 september 2001. this event had a number of serious implications for the australian tourism industry, which included the loss of tourists from new zealand, disruption of services to rural australia and customers of star alliance partner airlines were no longer able to use their frequent flyer points for travel to and within australia (prideaux, 2003) . in response to a crisis, invariably, urgent management decisions, which are not part of an organisation's normal operating procedures, will have to be made. pearson and mitroff (1993, p. 59) suggest that 'the purpose of crisis management is not to produce a set of plans; it is to prepare an organization to think creatively about the unthinkable so that the best possible decisions will be made in time of crisis'. indeed, faulkner (2001, p. 137) suggests that good management means having strategies for coping with unexpected events over which organisations have no control. spillan and hough (2003, p. 399) suggest that 'crisis management entails minimizing the impact of an unexpected event in the life of an organization'. effective crisis management means that senior management must manage the impact of the crisis on various sections of the organisation, such as information systems, operations and human resources (hickman & crandall, 1997) . with respect to human resources, management must be mindful that its employees may experience considerable personal loss in such times and that there may be a decline in their workplace performance (heath, 1998; hickman & crandall, 1997) . moreover, employees may be working in conditions of greater levels of stress. crisis-induced and post-crisis stress may increase under a number of circumstances, which include 'when informational certainty is low; y the size and scale of the event appears overwhelming; y executives, managers and even onsite team leaders show little support' (heath, 1998, p. 400) . in response to these circumstances, heath (1998, p. 400) recommends that managers ensure that as much reliable information is provided as possible and use a range of 'post-crisis stress reduction strategies', ranging from informal peer interaction to formal professionally conducted programs. these recommendations highlight the need to obtain reliable information as a means of protecting an organisation's workforce (heath, 1998, p. 14) . crises are also times in which the relationship between management and employees can potentially become stronger, as they work together in the face of adversity to restore their organisation (hickman & crandall, 1997) . however, during such times, staffing levels may have to be adjusted and it is imperative that organisations have appropriate policies in place to guide their responses. the use of casualised workforces has been one strategy which has allowed organisations to cope with variations in demand. indeed, workforce 'flexibility' has been seen as the answer to uncertainty (pollert, 1988, p. 281) . the deregulation of the industrial relations system has been carried out in the name of increased labour flexibility in the following areas: 1. numerical-the right to hire and fire staff to suit prevailing economic conditions; 2. work time-the ability to adjust time and quantity of work time with relation to overtime, shift work, flexible starting times and stand down arrangements; 3. functional-the ability to extend the range of tasks a worker can perform; 4. wage-the ability to alter wages and conditions to suit the prevailing economic conditions; 5. procedural-the establishment of a procedural framework which will allow consultation and negotiation to occur at an enterprise level between an employer and their employees (buultjens & howard, 2001, p. 61) . a study involving registered club managers in new south wales indicated that the most important areas of flexibility were work-time, functional and numerical flexibility (buultjens & howard, 2001, p. 68 ). crises such as those which occurred in 2001 create critical periods of learning readiness in organisations. this period of learning has three phases, namely, defensiveness, openness and forgetfulness. when faced with a crisis, managers and employees involved may feel defensive and be moved to protect themselves. however, once the immediate threat or incident has passed, they may be open to understanding their organisation's vulnerabilities and assessing its performance in managing the crisis. it is in this phase of openness when most learning can take place. however, the extent to which organisational members are open to learning and the duration of this phase are largely dependent on the behaviour of the top management. after the crisis, operations must be restored as soon as possible. hence, the sense of urgency which motivates a desire for change is lost and all the superficial learning is forgotten (kovoor-misra & nathan, 2000) . they suggest that 'healthy forgetfulness involves moving on, but only after the necessary lessons have been learned.' (kovoor-misra & nathan, 2000, p. 32) . although there is the potential to learn from crises, indeed, faulkner (2001, p. 137 ) observes that crises have 'transformational connotations'; with potentially positive as well as negative consequences, it has become evident that many organisations do not learn from them (kovoor-misra & nathan, 2000; roux-dufort, 2000) . roux-dufort (2000, p. 26) suggests that 'the organization's priority is to come back and maintain the status quo as soon as possible rather than exploring the extent to which the crisis is a privileged moment during which to understand things differently.' confirming this view, henderson (1999, p. 177) reports that the results of a survey of leading tourist attractions in singapore investigating the consequences of the asian financial crisis indicated that there was no crisis management planning and that there was a need for such planning in the light of the nature of the travel and tourism industry, with its exposure to risk and disaster. this finding confirms the observation made by cassedy (1991, p . 1) that many tourism organisations do not include the possibility of disasters in their strategic plans. indeed, cassedy observes that 'given the travel industry's dependence on transportation, the exchange rate, the political situation, discretionary income and weather, this industry is highly susceptible to unexpected change' (cassedy, 1991, p. 3) . this absence of some form of crisis management planning perhaps reflects the fatal mistake made by many businesses that a crisis will not happen to them (spillan & hough, 2003) . they report the results of a survey of small businesses in pennsylvania and new york, which indicated from the 162 responses, that little emphasis had been placed on crisis planning in these businesses, the majority of which had less than 25 employees. the study also concluded that 'concern for crises was generated from the past experience of those crisesy' (spillan & hough, 2003, p. 406) . it would appear that not only tourism organisations were unprepared to respond to the events of 2001 but also the australian government did not have any predetermined response guidelines; hence, its responses were made largely on an ad hoc basis without a complete understanding of the problems being faced or thought given to their longer-term implications (prideaux, 2003) . the manner in which governments respond to shocks in the tourism industry is important, as it may influence the rate of recovery of the industry (prideaux, laws, & faulkner, 2003) . queensland was the first state to have a tourism crisis management plan, which was formulated after the events of september 11 and ansett's demise in 2001 (tourism queensland, 2004) . development of the national tourism incident response plan commenced after the bali bombings, in october 2002, and was ready for activation in time for the start of the iraq war in 2003. in summary, in view of the volatile environment in which the tourism industry is now operating, it is imperative that appropriate policies are in place, at governmental, sector and organisational level, to guide decision-making in key areas such as the management of human resources. it is also important to ensure that in the rush to return to the 'status quo', valuable lessons are not forgotten which would help guide responses to the next crisis which will inevitably occur. a qualitative methodology was considered most appropriate to describe and explore the complex issues associated with organisational responses to the events of 2001, namely, the collapse of the hih insurance company, the world trade centre attacks and the demise of ansett airlines. the use of semi-structured interviews, with a number of pre-determined questions, allowed some comparison between the responses of the participating senior managers, and also afforded the opportunity to digress and probe further, when appropriate. these senior managers were drawn from organisations in a range of tourism sectors, namely, accommodation, business tourism, entertainment, tourism management and transportation, which includes car hire and tour operators and in a range of locations around australia (adelaide (a), alice springs (as), sydney (s), melbourne (m), cairns (c) and the gold coast (gc)). by conducting interviews in different sectors of the tourism industry and locations, an understanding of how a variety of tourism operators in a number of destinations around australia responded to the events of 2001 could be ascertained. a profile of the interviewees is given in table 1 . some of these organisations had operations in more than one sector and geographical location. the interviews, lasting between 30 and 45 min, were audio-taped and later transcribed. interviewees' names have been changed to preserve their anonymity. at the end of each quotation, the following information is provided as follows: (pseudonym of interviewee, tourism sector, location, total number of employees (when provided)). it should also be mentioned that the phenomenon of 'self-presentation' was observable amongst a number of interviewees. general, broad, sanitised answers were given frequently. as it is not possible to report all the responses here, a range of quotations have been provided to illustrate the issues under consideration. in this section, the interview findings and discussion are presented under the following headings: preparedness, personnel: hr strategies and postscript: organisational learning. in discussing the short-term responses to these events, a certain sense of helplessness was detected in the one interviewee's comment, 'just pulled our hair out, played more golf, there was nothing we could do' (trent, car hire, c: 4). however, it was also widely recognised that there was the need to be flexible, as can be judged from these comments: y so therefore, the industry had to re-adjust and y we live in a changing world and if, if you're not in tune with what is happening in the world, you're quickly out of business. (douglas, business tourism, a: 600) y one lesson out of those 2 events was that y we need to have that flexibility to be able to y make some changes with the direction of the companyy (paul, accommodation and tours, s) the importance of the ability to be able to act quickly and change in response to such events being embedded in an organisation's culture was highlighted by one tour operator, who indicated that this had allowed her employees to cope better with the changes which had to be made in response to events of 2001: yi think if you make them [personnel] y comfortable with the idea that the company has to be quick on it's feet all the time, then when something happens, they won't be phasedy (renata, tour operator, s) from the responses to a question regarding the role of organisational policies in guiding responses to these events, it became clear that the majority of organisations had not been prepared for such events by the development of appropriate policies, confirming numerous reports in the literature about the absence of this type of planning. we didn't have any plans in placey (david, car hire, a: 8) ypolicies, that presupposes we have a long-term vision and plan. no, no, we're a small business y (lachlan, transportation, a: 300) however, one interviewee did acknowledge the need for plans in the following comment, 'i just think that businesses the size of ours have to have plans in place, because in fact, that [crises] happens everyday, all you're looking at is the magnitude', (ray, entertainment, gc). the comment of another interviewee who had found that his organisation's crisis plans had not been of any value, highlighted the need for appropriate or relevant policies: and normally you would have crisis plans which you would pull out of the drawer every year or two and dust it off and say 'is it still relevant?' but the crisis plan didn't even address anything like this, so i don't think anybody could have planned what they were going to doy being honest, y we literally ran around for a couple of weeks wondering what the hell we were going to doy the normal business practices did not seem to apply. (nigel, accommodation, c) while a number of organisations did not have any formal policies to guide their responses to the events of 2001, the organisational learning which had been acquired during other times of crisis was acknowledged as having guided their actions. yi can remember myself in 1988 or 89 y and the pilots went on strike, it was a similar sort of thing, so you called on your experience and did what the best you could and you relied on your experiencey (mark, car hire, as: 9) y2 examples, which would have provided a precedent for management, would have been the gulf war and the pilots' strike in 1988 y the boss has been in the game now for 30-40 years, i think that y in the background, these guys had some y sort of strategy in place so that, should something like that arise again, they would put into place. (martin, coach company, s: 500) these comments confirm the influence of previous experience of crises on organisations reported by spillan and hough (2003) . organisations, irrespective of size, sector and location, responded to these events by adopting a range of hr strategies. there was widespread reluctance to retrench staff as it was acknowledged that they would be needed when the industry recovered from its decline. we tried to cut costs as much as possible y the first thing that comes to mind is retrenchment which we wouldn't do, we tried to push people out on holidays, as much as possible, fortunately, this company isy owned 100% by one man y and he's sort of been in the business now for many, many years, so he's seen the ups and downs. so, y rather than flicking people, when the business comes back, you're then left with a, not enough staff or b, you have to retrain everybody, so the customer service goes down, consequently you lose more business. (martin, coach company, s: 500) nobody lost their job, and y that's why the management volunteered to take a 20% pay cut, because they wanted to have their staff there, so that when business picked up, they wouldn't have lost all crucial staffy (renata, tour operator, s) all staff were met and because ours are on hourly shiftwork arrangements yall the drivers that were working y 40 or 50 hour weeks, were reduced to 15 and 20, and they agreed, because we wanted to maintain the skill base that we had, y (pat, tour operator, gc: 100) many interviewees acknowledged the importance of keeping staff informed as to what was happening and involved them in decision-making about employment options: [we] kept them very much informed of what was going on within the market. i also made a commitment to them that y there would not be any kneejerk reactions to what was transpiring and that we would keep them informed as to what y the consequences of any, if any significant down-turn in business would occur. i think if you communicate well with your staff and they have an understanding of what's going on, they also understand what is required and the needs of the business y they feel comfortable about things that are happening around them. (michael, accommodation, a: 130) i spoke to my staff and i had 2 choices, either put some off y or cut back their hours. so i brought them in here [coffee shop] y one by one, had 10 coffees a day, and they all agreed that they'd be happy to just have a day or so off during the week, no pay, so we effectively got rid of 2 staff y just generally tighten up, try and ride it out because we knew that eventually consumer confidence would return. (peter, transportation, a: 6) y from a company's point of view, we did realise that at the time, that there would be some anxt and anxiety amongst our staff and y we had a meeting with our staff y from an employment point of view, y it takes y a long time to get, to find the right people, it takes a long time to get settled in, it takes a long time to get them being a very important person for our clients, y the thought of having to lose any of them, it's not a good thought in anybody's mind y and so, i'm very pleased to say no, we didn't have to retrench anybodyy (trevor, business tourism: 500) i addressed 100 staff out in the depot standing on step and i'm crying y and i said to them, ''i'm sorry, but it's not out of poor service or poor management or poor practices by you or i or anybody, it's totally out of our control and we're just going to do the best we can to hold it together and i'm imploring you to help us to that''. they did, you know, they did, which was really good. (pat, tour operator, gc: 100) in summary, the importance of communicating with staff in times of uncertainty was widely recognised, confirming heath (1998) . it was also generally accepted that it was imperative to retain staff if at all possible and flexible work-time arrangements were instrumental in allowing this to happen, corroborating the findings of buultjens and howard (2001) . there was also evidence of management and staff 'pulling together' during this time, as suggested happened by hickman and crandall (1997) . with respect to the organisational learning which had taken place as a result of the events of 2001, there were a variety of responses. a number of interviewees were satisfied with their responses and did not see the need to do anything differently should a similar situation happen again: i just think that that what happened actually probably reinforced the way we went around doing our business, that we basically had in place the necessary procedures to actually alter the business accordingly to what was happening at the time. (michael, accommodation, a: 130) i don't think they should change anything, they did a good job. (kate, car hire, as: 7) no, i don't think so. no, because we, we came through about as well as we could have come through it. (renata, tour operator, s) other interviewees reported that certain lessons had been learned from these events, e.g.: y it's made us much more cautious than what we were previously y if we'd had our time over again y a number of things i would have done differentlyy (david, car hire, a: 8) our yield management is more sophisticated now, so that would work better. but no, i wouldn't change much. (lachlan, transportation, a: 300) one interviewee (trevor, business tourism, m: 500) acknowledged that people in his organisation had been caught up in the emotion of the time, and that the next time such an event occurred, they would wait for reliable information before planning their response. indeed, confirming heath (1998) , there was broad acknowledgement that any responses should be based on accurate information: first one was, to rapidly y increase our intelligencegathering information, so to ensure that the decisions we were making were based on fact, not on reaction. (ray, entertainment, gc) well the very first thing we had to do was to try to establish what effect it was going to have on those traditional feeder markets because it caught us totally unawares. (nigel, accommodation, c) in discussing the perceived benefits of the events of 2001 to the tourism industry, a number of interviewees again highlighted the value of organisational learning as a result of these events: i think the operators get a chance to sit down and really look at what their business is all about y it forces people to also explore other markets that they probably wouldn't have explored in the first place, had the business been just bopping along. it also gives operators an opportunity to review their cost structures and rationalize if they need to and understand that their, their existing clientele is of utmost importance and their staff morale and staff, ability to be able to hold staff during those periods is also important in producing a product that continues to be outstanding. (michael, accommodation, a: 130) one interviewee suggested that there were benefits at the industry and organisational levels: the benefits are, i reckon, for the industry would be just working out smarter ways of doing business, being more efficientythings like this made people sit up and pay attention and be a bit more strategic in their approach, marrying up short-term gain with long-term objectives. from our point of view, it's caused us to look fairly closely at the business in that respect. y it sharpens us up in our business management approach, it sharpens us up in our service delivery, because we're now competing for a tighter market. (brad, tour operator, s) side-benefits should always be that we increase our level of understanding and the knowledge and intelligence y that is, despite a negative event, what do we learn from it? y so as to avoid it in the future, to be able to manage it more effectively in the future, but more importantly, to increase organisational capabilities to responding to events in the future, so everything is a learning experience, at a strategic and an organisational culture level. (ray, entertainment, gc) hence, while a number of interviewees learnt that their responses to these events had been adequate and hence would not change their response to future such events, other interviewees did learn a variety of lessons resulting in a number of organisational changes. indeed, the value of the organisational learning which occurs at such times was acknowledged by some interviewees as a benefit of these events. the events of 2001 considered in this study display the characteristics of crises, in that they presented sudden challenges which had tested the ability of organisations in the tourism industry to cope (faulkner, 2001) . the lack of preparedness for such events was demonstrated by the widespread absence of policies to guide organisational responses, confirming the observations of henderson (1999) , that while there was a need for crisis management planning, none had been done. the need to support personnel in such times by the provision of reliable information, reported by heath (1998) , and the importance of workforce flexibility in areas such as work-time, mentioned by buultjens and howard (2001) , have also been confirmed. in contrast to the comments of kovoor-misra and nathan (2000) and roux-dufort (2000) , there was evidence that organisational learning had taken place, which confirmed the observation of faulkner (2001) that such events can have positive consequences. these findings have a number of implications for the australian tourism industry. most importantly, it must be recognised that organisations are now operating in an increasingly volatile environment and it is imperative that good networks are developed and maintained so that accurate information can be gained on which appropriate responses to any crisis can be planned. it is vital that organisations become flexible in their approach to their operations, one aspect of such flexibility being with respect to staffing. in this study, work-time flexibility has been shown to be particularly important means whereby staff could be retained, as there was a widespread reluctance to retrench staff, who would be needed once the industry had recovered. it is also critical that lessons learnt during such times are not lost, but become part of the 'corporate memory', such that they can guide future decision-making. the findings of this study are limited by the small sample size and it is recommended that a similar study be conducted in other sectors and geographical locations to confirm the findings. also, a follow-up study of participating organisations investigating their responses to the outbreak of the sars epidemic and the iraq war would be particularly valuable. indeed, one interviewee suggested that the timing of another crisis would dictate his organisation's response: y i would say that it that happened within the next year and business dropped, we'd probably have to retrench staff-2 big hits like that, 2 years runningy in the short-term, it would be harder to hold staffy (martin, coach company, s: 500) in addition, such a study would identify the extent of organisational learning which has taken place in that time. labour flexibility in the hospitality industry: questioning the relevance of deregulation crisis management planning in the travel and tourism industry. the pacific asia travel association towards a framework for tourism disaster management crisis management for managers and executives. london: financial times management managing the asian financial crisis: tourist attractions in singapore before disaster hits: a multifaceted approach to crisis management give back our source of funds, and fun. the australian timing is everything: the optimal time to learn from crises from crisis prone to crisis prepared: a framework for crisis management the 'flexible firm': fixation or fact? work the need to use disaster planning frameworks to respond to major tourism disasters: analysis of australia's response to tourism disasters in 2001 events in indonesia: exploring the limits to formal tourism trends forecasting methods in complex crisis situations why organizations don't learn from crises: the perverse power of normalization tourism, terrorism, and political instability influence of terrorism risk on foreign tourism decisions crisis planning in small businesses: importance, impetus and indifference premiums soar as insurers fear backing the wrong horse. the weekend australian tourism crisis management plan post-hih premium spike inflates insurers' profits. the weekend australian the funding for this study was provided by a grant from the co-operative research centre-sustainable tourism. key: cord-289981-ut61qxyc authors: ghaderi, zahed; mat som, ahmad puad; henderson, joan c. title: tourism crises and island destinations: experiences in penang, malaysia date: 2012-04-26 journal: tour manag perspect doi: 10.1016/j.tmp.2012.03.006 sha: doc_id: 289981 cord_uid: ut61qxyc crisis management and tourism is attracting increasing attention as an industry practice and subject of academic enquiry, not least in south east asia which has been affected by a number of severe crises in recent years. however, organisations are not always well prepared and response strategies can be deficient. the paper discusses issues of tourism crisis management with specific reference to the popular malaysian destination of penang. findings are based on qualitative research consisting of semi-structured interviews with industry leaders from assorted sectors. tourism in penang emerges as vulnerable to regional and global events which act as a trigger for tourism crises, demanding a response in which various strategies are employed. the destination is also seen to recover fairly quickly from experiences of crises, but a well designed and formulated tourism crisis management plan under the stewardship of the public sector is necessary to mitigate further damage in the future. since the late 1990s, the tourism industry in the south east asian region has been subjected to several crises accompanied by substantial falls in inbound tourism. the loss of business, albeit temporary, posed severe challenges for the public and private sectors, raising questions about their ability to manage crises and readiness for future eventualities. this paper investigates tourism crises and their impacts in the malaysian state of penang which is one of the country's most popular destinations. semi-structured interviews were conducted with key industry players from a range of businesses in which questions were asked about the degree of exposure to crises, the most common types experienced, consequences and coping strategies. although there is an expanding volume of research on tourism crisis management, the field is relatively new and few studies have investigated the effects of tourism crises in malaysia as a whole and penang in particular. the current exercise is intended to help fill this gap and enhance understanding of the dynamics of tourism crises and their management within a south east asian framework. after a brief introduction to the study area, the literature is reviewed and findings are then presented before a final conclusion which highlights the main points. tourism has been an important industry in malaysia for a number of years (khalifah & tahir, 1997; musa, 2000) and international arrivals reached 24.6 million and 24.7 million respectively in and 2011 , compared to 10.5 million in 2003 (tourism malaysia, 2012a . table 1 shows international tourist arrivals to revenues received from 1998 until 2011. growth rates have averaged around 5% since 2007, but slowed in 2011 due to adverse economic conditions globally. malaysia's popularity can be attributed to a rich natural and cultural heritage and the diversity of attractions in the different states which make up the federation. one of the most visited states is penang which recorded just under six million hotel guests in 2010, almost equally divided between domestic and foreign (tourism malaysia, 2012b) . see table 2 which shows international and domestic tourist arrivals to penang. the state comprises the island of penang and a narrow strip of land on the mainland to which it is connected by bridge. it has a long history as a destination dating back to colonial days when it was governed by the british and known as the pearl of the orient (hooi, 2006) . present day visitors are drawn primarily by its modern beach resorts as well as inland forests, ethnic cultures and heritage sites. the main city is georgetown which is one of the designated historic cities of the straits of malacca and a unesco world heritage site. the federal government in kuala lumpur has actively pursued a policy of tourism development and state officials awarded responsibility for promoting and developing the industry in penang to the penang development council (pdc) in 1972. the pdc works with the central ministry of tourism (motour) and the malaysian tourism promotion board (mtpb), related government agencies and private enterprises to market penang as a premier holiday destination (ishak, aziz, & mohamed, 2004) . however, tourism in malaysia and penang has been regularly and negatively affected by a series of crises which have struck the industry in the past two decades. these include the 1997 asian financial crisis, the 2004 indian ocean tsunami; regional conflicts, the threat and incidents of terrorism and the 2003 sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic and subsequent outbreaks of avian influenza (bird flu) and h1n1 (swine flu). in certain cases, these resulted in sharp declines in international tourist arrivals throughout south east asia and threatened the sustainability of some tourism businesses and destinations. crisis is derived from the greek word krisis which means differentiation or decision (glaesser, 2003) and is applied in various contexts (laws & prideaux, 2005) . there is no universally accepted definition, but most analysts agree that a business crisis is an unexpected event or occurrence which has the capacity to disrupt everyday operations and which requires action from managers (faulkner, 2001; laws, prideaux, & chon, 2007; santana, 2004) . appropriate steps can minimise any damage and enable a return to the status quo, but the worst crises may threaten the survival of the entity in the critical situation. in other incidences, fundamental change may occur. with regard to tourism, it is often the destination which is hit by crisis and the country as a whole may be implicated so that a response by relevant bodies is demanded at a national level. disaster and crisis are terms which are sometimes used interchangeably (kim & lee, 1998) and one can evolve into the other within the tourism arena (faulkner, 2001; ritchie, 2008) . at the same time, they are distinct (drabek, 1995; hills, 1998) and faulkner (2001) observes that disasters usually owe their origin to external factors, exemplified by extreme weather. organisational crises are the product of institutional stresses, perhaps provoked or exacerbated by outside happenings. crises are therefore by implication more amenable to control than disasters and some can be avoided. emergency is another term which is regularly employed, but refers to a less serious and therefore more easily managed development or threat. for the purposes of this exercise, a tourism crisis is defined as an event of sufficient magnitude to give rise to circumstances in which the routine functioning of the tourism industry is severely upset. a number of researchers have devised typologies of crises which can be helpful in management decision and policy making (evans & elphick, 2005) . various classifications pertain to business crises and are based upon measures such as underlying reasons, gravity, form and scale (booth, 1993; meyers & holusha, 1986; mitroff, shrivastava, & udwadia, 1987) . seymour and moore (2000) identify cobra and python crises, the first erupts suddenly while the second creeps up on an organisation. writing specifically about tourism, glaesser (2003) applies time pressure criteria to describe potential, latent and acute crises. other categorisations relate to scope and magnitude (laws & prideaux, 2005) and cause (henderson, 2007) . triggers are numerous and can be considered under the broad headings of economic, political, socio-cultural, environment, technological and commercial which act internally and externally. it seems that the tourism industry is especially prone to crises and faulkner and russell (1997) maintain that it exemplifies chaos theory whereby even apparently stable structures and processes exist on the edge of chaos. occurrences that might be judged minor have the power to precipitate instability and uncertainty which endangers whole systems. all industries can, however, be deemed to be vulnerable to crisis and, according to fink (1986) , any organisation not in crisis is in a pre-crisis mode. a review of the literature suggests that tourism crisis management is still relatively new as an industry practice and field of academic enquiry, even though it has been a recognised business and management research topic since the early 1970s (keown-mcmullan, 1997) . for the commercial world in general, crisis management is the 'art of removing much of the risk and uncertainty to allow you to achieve more control over your destiny' (fink, 1986, p. 15) . managers need to envisage the evolution of a crisis as a series of steps covering signal detection, prevention, preparation, containment, damage limitation and recovery (pauchant & mitroff, 1992) . they should be proactive, not reactive, by seeking to predict crisis situations and getting ready for different scenarios as well as learning lessons from experiences of crises which can inform future policies for coping (mitroff, pauchant, finney, & pearson, 1989) . authors writing about tourism crisis management echo these ideas and santana (2004, p . 308) depicts it as an 'ongoing and extensive effort that organisations put in place in an attempt to understand and prevent crisis and to effectively manage those that occur, taking into account in each and every step of their planning and training activities, the interest of their stakeholders'. glaesser (2003) speaks of devising strategies, processes and measures to avoid and deal with crises while henderson (2007) describes managing the cycle of crisis from readiness through to resolution with the main objective of minimising damage. it is clearly difficult to anticipate and manage many tourism crises, taking into account the complex and multi-faceted nature of the industry (faulkner, 2001; prideaux, laws, & faulkner, 2003) , and endeavours to do so can generate conflict and dissonance (tse, 2006) . the character and dynamics of tourism crises also pose challenges for researchers and faulkner (2001) highlights the lack of systematic research, especially into the consequences of disasters. he calls for more work to be done to assist the tourism industry and destinations recover when disaster strikes. nevertheless, the body of literature is expanding in parallel with the number of actual crises (hall, 2010) and especially those linked to terrorism attacks which appear increasingly prevalent. several authors examine the relationship between terrorism and tourism (aziz, 1995; goodrich, 2002; hall, 2002; henderson, 2002; mckercher & hui, 2004; pizam & smith, 2000) while the repercussions of epidemics of human and animaltransmitted diseases (chien, 2003; kuo, chen, tseng, ju, & huang, 2007; mcaleer, huang, kuo, chen, & chang, 2009; page, yeoman, munro, connell, & walker, 2006; wilder-smith, 2006 ) and economic and financial turbulence (leiper & hing, 1998; pine, chan, & leung, 1998; prideaux & witt, 2000) have also received attention. tourism crises from around the world are discussed by researchers, with many asian illustrations, but analyses of malaysia remain comparatively few in number (de sausmarez, 2003; lean & smyth, 2009 ). as stated in the introduction, this paper seeks to illuminate attitudes towards tourism crises and ways of dealing with them from the perspective of senior industry managers based in penang. a qualitative research methodology was considered most suitable for the purpose, involving semi-structured face-to-face interviews in which a set of pre-determined questions were asked. such an approach allowed comparisons amongst the responses of participants and afforded the chance to digress and probe further when appropriate. issues raised were the types of tourism crises that had struck the businesses, outcomes, industry reactions and crisis management strategies. a total of twelve key persons judged to be industry leaders were interviewed and the sample was selected using the purposeful snowball method. according to this method, personal links were used to identify suitably knowledgeable respondents. the sample size for this study was determined by using the criterion of 'saturation', as defined by patten (2007, p.152) : "at the point at which several additional participants fail to respond with new information that leads to the identification of additional themes, the researcher might conclude that the data collection process has become saturated". the managers represented hotels, official tourism departments, airlines, tour operators and travel agents. material collected was subject to qualitative thematic analysis which is a means of identifying, describing and reporting the content of data and emergent patterns. it aims to uncover the themes which are prevalent within a text at different levels and is a well established tool in qualitative research. results thereby discerned are outlined in the next section which features direct quotations to support the findings. according to respondents, tourism in penang had been affected by various regional and global crises which had become crises for the tourism industry. these could be classified in terms of health (sars, h1n1, avian influenza), natural disasters (tsunami, indonesian and icelandic volcanic eruptions, climate change), terrorism and political instability (bali bombings, unrest in thailand, iraq war, 2001 attacks in the usa) and economics (global downturn, fuel costs). originating largely outside of malaysia, these crises were a matter of grave concern to the tourism industry and confirm the statement by laws and prideaux (2005, p. 3) that 'there is scope for a crisis that has a local or regional origin to have impacts that reach far beyond the geographic boundaries of the local area or the region.' the spectrum and types of crises confronted indicates that the tourism industry on the island is not immune to exogenous shocks and is highly dependent on existing and perceived levels of international safety and security. crises in nearby and occasionally distant locations had a ripple effect which permeated the industry in penang in a manner previously observed by lean and smyth (2009) . regarding crises that had the greatest effect, there were divergences in opinion amongst respondents. natural disasters and diseases were identified by representatives of hotels catering mainly to the leisure market, resorts and airlines while tour operators, travel agents and hotels serving corporate clients cited adverse economic conditions and escalating fuel costs. the manager of a hotel with a largely business clientele said that the 'global financial crisis was very bad for us; it hit us twice in 12-16 months' and an airline manager explained that 'one of the most significant factors is the crisis of fuel which affects the bottom line of airlines. nearly 35% of airlines costs are from fuel. whenever there are shocks in the oil market, panic will also happen to airlines equally due to many reasons.' the force of the impacts was partly determined by dependency on certain source markets and reflective of the volatility of tourist demand which fluctuates with changing economic, social, political and environmental circumstances. susceptibility has a geographic dimension and a tour operator spoke about how 'some tour packages consist of many countries and they have been cancelled or postponed because of crises. for example, when there is a package that involves singapore-malaysia-thailand, if there is a crisis in one of these countries, the whole package may be cancelled.' the consequences of the crises for business operations included cancellation and postponement of travel, declining tourist volumes, erosion of customer confidence and reduced incomes and profits. hotel occupancies and airline load factors fell, corresponding to a general pattern whereby tourists alter their plans because of budgetary constraints and risks to personal safety and security at destinations (mansfeld, 2006; rittichainuwat & chakraborty, 2009) . a hotel manager recalled that 'we always have 60%-65% occupancy rate, but during sars our occupancy rate was down to 40%-45%. we lost our half market share, but in proportion we suffered less than bangkok, bali, phuket, singapore.' as the middle men in the distribution channel (evans, 2000) , tour operators and travel agents were also exposed to assorted hazards in ways which emphasised the inter-dependency of the various sectors and countries of arrival and departure. air travel is also an intermediary good and demand is influenced by many factors (rhoades & reynolds, 2007) , but especially economics. troubled economic times favoured budget carriers because of their more affordable prices, compared to scheduled airlines which lost a considerable amount of revenue as travel patterns changed. the national carrier was forced to revise its schedules and close loss making routes because of 'some slow down or decrease in demand at least for a short time. for example, in the case of zurich, we used to bring travellers from zurich to malaysia, but we stopped this route because of the global financial crisis.' although crises are disruptive events with the capacity to jeopardise the functioning and sustainability of the tourism industry, they can yield benefits for those involved. in tourism, as in other fields, crises are a source of commercial opportunities. people do not necessarily cease travelling, but may travel in different ways and fears about visiting a particular place can render alternatives more attractive. such an effect was apparent in penang and one respondent commented that 'certainly, those two crises, a coup in thailand and bali bombing, drove more business into destinations such as penang, langkawi and kuala lumpur. in the last minute, tourists will decide not to travel to unsafe countries. malaysia is relatively stable and safe destination.' another advantage of undergoing crises was organisational learning and improved preparedness to tackle future disruption, an actual and desired outcome which has been acknowledged by many analysts (cassedy, 1991; evans & elphick, 2005; henderson, 2002; miller & ritchie, 2003; sonmez, apostopoulos, & tarlow, 1999) . the enterprises represented by those interviewed responded to the various crises by implementing a range of measures which exhibited some similarities irrespective of organisation size and sector. the most common strategies were shifting attention from long haul to regional and medium haul inbound markets and endeavouring to cultivate domestic tourism. managers of hotels, travel agents and tour operators and destination marketers all sought new sources of visitors, depending on the crisis. one hotel employee spoke of looking at 'other safer international markets such as middle east, japanese market and so on, particularly within arab countries and certainly, iran' in light of economic turmoil in the western world. tourism authorities also prioritised their market segments, distinguishing between primary and secondary; whenever there was a crisis involving the former, for example the recession in much of europe, they would turn to other markets which were less affected. an interviewee from the government confirmed that the 'uk, australia, singapore, indonesia, china and so on, were malaysian traditional tourist market, but we are gearing to focus on middle east market, (saudi arabia, syria, iran, oman, uae), india in south east asia, japan and south korea in north asia, hong kong and taiwan in east asia, south africa in africa continent.' fellow association of south east asian nation (asean) members were also an ongoing target. considerable importance was attached to enticing more visitors from the middle east who were especially welcome because they are estimated to stay twice as long as tourists from other parts of the world and spend nearly three-times as much. malaysia has a particular appeal to arabs because about two-thirds of its population are followers of islam so that muslims can be assured of being able to meet the strict dictates of their religion. in addition to working in nations where muslim citizens predominate, marketers were active in countries with sizeable minority muslim populations. officials also advertised existing niche products more aggressively such as the homestay programme malaysia my second home for long stay visitors, healthcare and education tourism. advertising campaigns were directed at specific groups such as young executives, retirees, families and students. another strategy adopted by hotels, airlines and government organisations was the promotion of domestic tourism. the tactic had been initially used during the asian financial crisis of 1997 when malaysians were urged to visit and spend money at destinations within the country (de sausmarez, 2003; musa, 2000) . heightened domestic activity serves as a buffer in times of contracting international arrivals, offsetting losses and protecting jobs and services which might otherwise be lost (unwto, 2010) . demand is usually steadier and many respondents shared the view expressed by an hotelier that 'in any crisis, we will try to see whether we could gain some benefits. during crisis, we tried to boost our domestic tourism. when there is a crisis, we rely on local tourists.' another spoke of diverting 'our marketing strategy towards domestic tourism because this market was quite stable and it reduced our dependency on foreign tourists.' in contrast, tour operators and travel agents were interested in exploiting the potential of overseas tourism by malaysians. foreign travel was seen to generate higher revenues than domestic and a manager said that 'to be very honest with you, when we had such crises, we did actually a lot of outbound to other countries as well in order to survive.' additional tools and techniques to deal with crises were discounting and intensified marketing. cost savings and greater efficiency were pursued, amongst them staff redundancies, and airlines engaged in fuel hedging because, according to a manager, 'in every energy crisis, we had hedging fuel, because fuel is very vital for survival and when the oil price will go up, airlines will buy fuel in advance for their future needs.' there was a degree of product diversification designed to attract special interest markets and sometimes compensate for problems with established offerings caused by the crisis. for example, the state authorities sought to encourage cultural and heritage tourism in the aftermath of the indian ocean tsunami which damaged some of penang's beaches. an official stated that 'we have all diversity of products, but we need to focus on our heritage and preserve it. we have heritage, culture, heritage architecture and eco heritage. therefore, we need to focus on sustainability and preserve these heritages for the future generations. our beaches are polluted and over carrying capacity.' the natural disaster was thus an occasion for reflection and reassessment, although there was little sign of any serious efforts to address the environmental degradation which had accompanied resort development along stretches of the coastline. despite the challenges posed, there was a widespread belief that tourism in penang had recovered fairly quickly from each crisis encountered. respondents quoted a recovery period of a week to six months, with the exception of one hotel manager who was less optimistic. aspects of crisis impacts may thus be transitory as proposed by commentators discussing destinations generally (sonmez & graefe, 1998) . with specific reference to malaysia, studies that have been completed (de sausmarez, 2003; lean & smyth, 2009) conclude that the harm caused to tourism arrivals by the asian financial crisis, avian influenza epidemic and terrorist outrages was only temporary and followed by resumption of long term growth. whether the speed at which normality or near-normality was restored can be attributed to the effectiveness of response strategies in penang is a matter for debate. many respondents had mixed feelings about the public sector's success in handling assorted crises and some asserted that government agencies had not done enough. others had more positive views and spoke about how authorities had recognised the vital need to support the industry and initiated publicity drives. guidelines had been drawn up and attempts made to ease the financial pressures on businesses and boost investment. one interviewee agreed that 'like in any industry, the government both at federal and state levels helped us. they were trying to provide the necessary infrastructure during natural disasters to rebuild the industry and increase marketing exposure.' there were two different perspectives when respondents were asked about their former and current crisis management or contingency planning. it appeared that state organisations did not have any plans or pre-determined guidelines. according to an official, 'i never heard of it before. we just are trying to come out with this fiveyear plan and secondary ten year-plans for the state's tourism. i admit that we had not looked into tourism crisis management plan and no budget has been allocated to it.' past responses had been made largely on an ad hoc basis, sometimes without a complete appreciation of the problems faced. the lack of preparedness, suggesting an assumption of invulnerability and a somewhat inflexible attitude, is surprising given the increasing awareness of the significance of crisis management. however, the finding is similar to that of prideaux et al. (2003) who reported that governments rarely have written plans and often do not want to dwell on the possibility of incidents of crisis. unlike government agencies, private businesses had given thought to crisis management planning and possible benefits that they could attain from crisis situations. managers in the hotel and airline sectors acknowledged that they had documented plans which had been applied during each crisis, one representative of the former describing how 'we have crisis management plan at hotel level. we have various crisis manuals focusing on different phenomena such as terrorism, diseases, protest, etc. for example, in the case of the tsunami that hit penang, we had a manual here, how to cope with tsunami, first warning, second warning and after that we had to prepare ourselves. we have meetings once in month, we share our information, and we all think about penang as a destination not just for our business.' tour operators and travel agents professed to have unwritten plans, the contents of which were conveyed verbally to their employees. airlines had also drawn up contingency plans to deal with uncertainties of various types and a manager noted 'because we have been through the multitude of crises, we have fuel crisis management plan. for example, in every crisis, we had to hedge fuel cost. it is very important for crisis management. more importantly, we also embark on a renewal programme, trying to get newer aircraft with the latest technology and fuel-efficient. in order to reduce costs, we also undertake a business transformation programme for the airline business.' a critical aspect of crisis management is communications and there was a consensus that the media plays an important role since it has the power to shape the public's understanding of events and destination conditions as well as the performance of those with responsibility for managing the crisis. news disseminated by the media has an effect on attitudes, particularly if information is sought and opinions are being formed for the first time (glaesser, 2003) . respondents concurred that accurate media coverage was essential, but that negative stories had often tarnished the image of the destination and impeded the recovery process. almost all respondents believed that the media exaggerated the extent and harmful outcomes of crises and neglected the post-crisis period, failing to help rebuild tourist confidence by circulating positive stories. this is a universal phenomenon and there are many instances where media coverage has exacerbated and perhaps prolonged a destination crisis, although reports in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami did refer to the manner in which tourists were contributing to recovery through charitable donations and by returning to stricken destinations (beeton, 2006) . penang has therefore been struck by a range of regionally and globally inspired crises encompassing economic downturn, natural disasters, disease epidemics, terrorist attacks, political instability and volatile energy costs. the list reflects the vulnerability of the tourism industry to events in the external environment and the ensuing fluctuations in tourist demand. incidents discussed in this paper reveal how happenings in distant countries can affect tourism operations in another, illustrated by the consequences of the volcanic eruptions in iceland in 2010 which caused massive disruption to air travel around the world. at the same time, the tourism industry and demand from tourists has demonstrated great resilience as recovery from crisis appears to be fairly quick with a return to the status quo after a relatively short period. nevertheless, the findings indicate the need for close cooperation and coordination amongst the numerous stakeholders in the industry, both public and private. well designed and executed tourism crisis management plans under the stewardship of official agencies are vital to minimise risks and mitigate the 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crisis management date: 2020-06-17 journal: gend work organ doi: 10.1111/gwao.12491 sha: doc_id: 330171 cord_uid: l7p0sxqu the covid‐19 pandemic threatens both lives and livelihoods. to reduce the spread of the virus, governments have introduced crisis management interventions that include border closures, quarantines, strict social distancing, marshaling of essential workers and enforced homeworking. covid‐19 measures are necessary to save the lives of some of the most vulnerable people within society, and yet in parallel they create a range of negative everyday effects for already marginalized people. likely unintended consequences of the management of the covid‐19 crisis include elevated risk for workers in low‐paid, precarious, and care‐based employment, over‐representation of minority ethnic groups in case numbers and fatalities, and gendered barriers to work. drawing upon feminist ethics of care, i theorize a radical alternative to the normative assumptions of rationalist crisis management. rationalist approaches to crisis management are typified by utilitarian logics, masculine and militaristic language, and the belief that crises follow linear processes of signal detection, preparation/prevention, containment, recovery, and learning. by privileging the quantifiable ‐ resources and measurable outcomes ‐ such approaches tend to omit considerations of pre‐existing structural disadvantage. this paper contributes a new theorization of crisis management that is grounded in feminist ethics to provide a care‐based concern for all crisis affected people. how anthropogenic (human-made) crises can be transformed by feminism towards a sustainable future (e.g., see biesecker & von winterfeld, 2018) . in contrast, i focus on how institutions and organizations manage high impact, low probability exogenous crisis events (pearson & clair, 1998) . this paper responds to calls for organizational concepts of care to be "grounded in philosophies of care rather than business theories" (elley-brown & pringle, 2019, p. 1). by drawing on the ethics of care approach brought to prominence by carol gilligan (1993) , i propose that crisis management ought to be considered "…not as a math problem with humans but a narrative of relationships that extend over time…" (gilligan, 1993, p. 28) . gilligan (1993, p. 62) suggests that, "the ideal of care is thus an activity of relationship, of seeing and responding to need, taking care of the world by sustaining the web of connection so that no one is left alone." this conceptualization emphasizes the importance of ongoing, interdependent relationships as sites of care (lawrence & maitlis, 2012; sevenhiujsen, 2003) and in so doing brings discourses of care from the background of crisis management to its foreground. held (2006) contends that recognizing the ethical centrality of care is transformative, because it shifts the normative focus towards issues that are often marginalized, makes these issues visible, and in so doing improves lives. i begin by reflecting on the complications and concerns that arise from the approaches adopted to managing the covid-19 pandemic, before unpacking the assumptions and dimensions of rationalist crisis management in more detail. next, drawing upon an ethics of care perspective i present a feminist alternative to rational crisis management, entailing a heightened appreciation of reciprocal care and relational needs and capacities within a feminist crisis management. finally, i outline the social change that could be provoked by a care-based approach to crisis management. as i write this paper, on the 15th of may 2020, the novel influenza virus has infected 4,443,986 people and caused 302,468 deaths (john hopkins, 2020) . troubling images of the effects of the virusbody bags, overwhelmed medical facilities and hazmat suits -have become "matter out of place" (douglas, 1966) . in italy, the us and the uk, the number of severe covid-19 cases (i.e. those requiring hospitalization) has exceeded the capacity of hospitals, medical personnel, and healthcare supply chains to respond. the threat posed by a novel influenza outbreak was well known. in the 100 years prior to 2019, there had been four major influenza outbreaks: "spanish influenza" in 1918/19, severe acute respiratory syndrome (sars) in 2003, "swine influenza" (h1n1) in 2009, and middle east respiratory syndrome (mers) since 2012 (cdc, 2019a (cdc, , 2019b . "spanish flu" is estimated to have caused between 20-50 million deaths worldwide (cdc, 2018), casting a long institutional shadow and becoming totemic of the risks posed by a runaway novel influenza outbreak. references to the outbreak still appear in national risk registers globally (e.g. uk national risk register, 2008). more recently, sars and mers were largely contained through traditional public health interventions, such as, quarantine and contact checking (bell, 2004) , and h1n1 spread to a large population but produced only moderately severe illness (who, 2009) . despite prior knowledge about the threat posed by a novel influenza outbreak the people, health systems, businesses and legislative authorities of many countries were insufficiently prepared for covid-19. the management of the covid-19 crisis has led to unprecedented impacts. in a first wave of crisis measures, the virus was constructed as a threat from the outside. countries such as australia closed their borders to visitors and introduced enforced quarantines for returning citizens and residents. as evidence of community transmission emerged, a second wave of crisis measures were introduced. many countries issued social distancing guidance that recommended staying six feet from other people (cdc, april 4, 2020) and/ or introduced "shelter-in-place" orders that required residents to only leave their homes for "essential activities" (city and county of san francisco, 2020) . together, these measures transformed daily life. covid-19 policies originated from government but were translated into action by organizations. employers made decisions about whether, when, and how to move to remote working. although some of us were required to stay at home, essential workerssuch as cleaners, doctors, nurses, porters, supermarket cashiers, and delivery drivers -were asked to stay at work. as more people self-isolated, businesses struggled to remain financially viable and millions of employees were furloughed or lost their jobs. globally, it is estimated that covid-19 will lead to the loss of up to 195 million full-time jobs (international labor organization, 2020) . the world was waking up to a new reality triggered by a large-scale public health crisis and worsened by the threat posed to the economic system. how a crisis is managed can result in unintended consequences (grabowski and roberts, 1997) . evidence began to emerge that people from already structurally disadvantaged groups were being disproportionately impacted by both covid-19 and the measures put in place to control its spread. an american study found that structural factorshealthcare access, density of household, and unemploymenthad contributed to counties with a higher composition of african americans experiencing greater rates of both covid-19 infection and death (barron-lopez, 2020). in england, people are more likely to die from covid-19 if they live in a socio-economically deprived area (pidd, barr & mohdin, 2020) . those in low-paid care-based employment, disproportionately women and people from ethnic minority backgrounds, also face disproportionate risks as the essentialness of their roles and precarity of their employment reduces their ability to stay at home. a recent united nations report (2020, p. 2) highlights that "the impacts of covid-19 are exacerbated for women and girls simply by virtue of their sex." the report goes on to say that due to covid-19 women are facing compounded economic impacts due to the disproportionately precarious nature of their work, adverse health effects due to the redirection of resources, greater levels of unpaid work, and increased exposure to gender-based violence. covid-19 is likely to have long-run impacts on workplace equality, as women are potentially excluded from a shrinking job market and/ or experience stalled career progression. alessandra minello (2020, paragraph 7), speaking about academia in an article in nature, argued "in the long run, these changes in productivity will affect careers. those with fewer care duties are aiming for the stars." crises, and crisis management, have become the subject of a growing and increasingly prominent strand of management research and practice (see bundy et al., 2017; williams et al., 2017 for reviews), with major strands of research oriented to organizational preparation for, mitigation of, and learning from crisis events (what bundy et al., 2017 call the "internal" approach), and communication with, and management of, stakeholders affected by crisis events (referred to as the "external" approach by bundy et al., 2017) . in order to critically reflect on and surface the often implicit ethical assumptions inherent in mainstream crisis management research and practice, i focus on the classic and highly cited contributions of mitroff and colleagues (mitroff, 1988; mitroff, shrivastava, & udwadia, 1987; pearson & mitroff, 1993) because they continue to exert considerable influence on crisis management research and practice, and exemplify the rational crisis management paradigm. the principal ethical orientation of classical crisis management is ego-istic, calculative, and broadly utilitarian. mitroff (1988) characterizes the central purpose of crisis management as addressing the following question: "is there a rational way to select which potential crises an organization should prepare for, and which can be 'safely' ignored?" (mitroff, 1988, p. 15 ), noting that "the trick is to think about potential crises as logically as you think about other business issues" (op. cit. p. 20). the objective of crisis management is principally to protect and sustain the organization, and only secondarily to protect and advance the interests of other stakeholders. crises are conceived of as "disasters precipitated by people, organizational structures, economics, and/or technology that cause extensive damage to human life and natural and social environments. they inevitably debilitate both the financial structure and the reputation of a large organization" (mitroff et al., 1987, p. 283) . the discourse of crisis management emphasizes the calculation of impacts in financial, legal or human terms, and implicit in classic crisis management is a boundedly rational calculus, in which a focal organization is seen as weighing the costs and benefits associated with planning for and mitigating specific crisis events. for example, mitroff et al. (1987, p. 283 ) cite the following motivating insight regarding the incidence and impacts of crises, "the number of product-injury lawsuits terminating in million-dollar awards has increased dramatically in the past decade: in 1974 fewer than 2,000 product injury lawsuits were filed in u.s. courts; by 1984, the number had jumped to 10,000". central to most models of crisis management (for classic conceptualization see pearson and mitroff, 1993) are the assumptions of linear multi-stage crisis processes, and clearly delineated, bounded, and relatively brief, crisis events. crisis management encompasses: (i) the pre-crisis phase which focuses on detecting/ identifying/ anticipating and preparing for crises, to reduce the likelihood of a crisis emerging, and to ensure that the organization is as prepared as it can be; (ii) the during crisis phase, where the organization is concerned to manage/respond to the crisis and to mitigate its effects; and (iii) the post-crisis phase, emphasizing recovery and repair, in which the organization takes measures to return to "normal" and to learn from a given event in the hope that it isn't repeated in future. together, the stages of crisis management emphasize the agency of firms at various points in the crisis management process, and the capacity of firms to avoid, mitigate, and learn from crises. inherent to crisis management is a philosophy of crises being "manageable", even to the point that "organizations do create the crises they face in the special sense that the kinds of early warning, prevention, damage limitation, learning and recovery mechanisms they institute are one of the most important factors affecting what kinds of crises occur" (mitroff, 1988, p. 20) . this extends to deploying discourse that characterizes adverse events that affect an organization as being the result of various "failures", "faults", "deficiencies" or as a reflection of "poor company culture" (mitroff et al., 1987, p. 288) . regarding how rational crisis management conceives of the management of crises, the emphasis lies with the need to develop a specialist organizational function charged with managing crises. as pearson and mitroff (1993) put it, crisis management requires that, an appropriate infrastructure must be in place…permanent crisis management teams must be established…membership on such teams includes all functions and specialities required to deal with crises, such as the ceo and top executives from operations, legal, human resources, management information systems, security and safety, environmental health, public affairs, and finance (1993, p. 54 ). thus, the emphasis is on coordination via a specialist managerial function which leverages the full authority and hierarchical power of the organization's senior management. before embarking on a discussion of ethics of care and how it might inform the theory and practice of crisis management, it is important to recognize that conceptualizations of crisis appear frequently in feminist works and to distinguish crisis as understood in feminist writing from crisis management as a specific activity undertaken within institutions and organizations in society. feminist writing in sociology and political science has problematized a focus on specific crises, in favor of provoking a broader recognition of the endemic presence and wider societal significance of notions of crisis. for example, otto (2011) highlights that "crises have become an everyday technique of global governance, authorizing the operation of a more hegemonic legal order and reducing (though not eliminating) the space for political contestation and critique" (otto, 2011, p. 6) . similarly, griffin (2015) critiques "neo-liberalism's gendered techniques of crisis governance, facilitating 'effective' crisis management while censoring challenges to the hierarchies, shock tactics and austerity measures on which crisis governance depends for its smooth operation" (griffin, 2015, p. 67) . these accounts analyze crisis management at a societal level of analysis, placing an emphasis on how crises are leveraged to reinforce existing hegemonies. a smaller body of work addresses how individuals (primarily women) draw upon care to overcome the challenges of large-scale crisis. for example, meliou's (2020) qualitative study examines how female entrepreneurs in greece drew upon familial resources of care during periods of financial crisis and austerity. in contrast, my concern in this paper is to explore the value of directing a feminist lens, in the specific form of ethics of care, to the management of specific crises at individual, organizational, and societal levels. thus, notwithstanding the broader role of crisis in societal governance, my concern lies with feminizing the practices of crisis management at multiple levels of analysis. in a conversation between inbar livnat and paula-irene villa braslavsky (2020) that appeared in gender, work & organization's feminist frontiers a theme emerged regarding who or what "takes care of care" (p. 270). the conversation progressed to consider the "crisis of care" in capitalist economic settings, and the ways in which "everyday caring have to be taken care of by somebody, somehow; an arrangement, an organization, by other people." (livnat & braslavsky, 2019, p. 72) . these notions of care as solution, and care as liability, resonate with how the covid 19 crisis has been managed. notions of care are frequently invoked in relation to the management of the covid-19 crisis. we are asked to take care for ourselves and each other by socially isolating. if we are parents, we are asked to care for children and their education as schools close. if we have been lucky enough to keep our jobs, we are expected to continue to care about our work and our productivity. we are even asked to care for the economy, by getting back to working and spending as normal. the management of covid-19 has led to unbalanced expectations about who is doing caring (minello, 2020) , masculinized ideals of competitive performance (ivancheva, & keating, 2019) , and for some a loss of access to care as resources are diverted towards the covid crisis. these care-based discourses are problematic because they lack both (a) an intimate understanding of what it means to take, give, and receive care (sevenhuijsen, 2003) , and (b) reflexivity regarding the likely gendered and other inequitable consequences of mobilizing care instrumentally towards managing the covid crisis. carol gilligan's (1993) [first published in 1982, 1993 edition referred to throughout] conceptualization of "ethic of care" provides a basis to illuminate the normative dimensions of crisis management and to feminize its focal concerns and praxis. gilligan recasts moral problems as "problems of human relations" (1993, p. xix) and the approach to moral reasoning and action is therefore notably experiential. the ethic of care emerges from gilligan's (1977, p. 482) search "…to identify in the feminine experience and construction of social reality a distinctive voice, recognizable in the different perspective it brings to bear on the construction and resolution of moral problems." drawing on psychological interviewing techniques gilligan was able to demonstrate that girls and women tended to speak differently about morality when compared to boys and men. jake's judgments reflect the logic of the justice approach. her incipient awareness of the "method of truth," the central tenet of nonviolent conflict resolution, and her belief in the restorative activity of care, lead her to see the actors in the dilemma arrayed not as opponents in a contest of rights but as members of a network of relationships whose continuation they all depend upon. (gilligan, 1993, p. 30 ). gilligan (1993) therefore came to identify a paradox in that "…the very traits that traditionally have defined the "goodness" of women, their care for and sensitivity to the needs of others, are those that mark them as deficient in moral development" (1993, p. 18 ). gilligan's research (1977 gilligan's research ( , 1993 subsequently challenged kohlberg's "so-called objective" (1993, p. xviii) position on the stages of moral judgment development (1993, p. 18) , reflecting that rather than being "…seen as a developmental deficiency, this bias appears to reflect a different social and moral understanding" (1977, p. 482 ). gilligan went on to suggest, (1993, p. 18 ). in the two excerpts above, gilligan introduces four central tenants of her theory: non-violent conflict resolution, contextual and narrative understanding, the activity of care, and networks of relationships and responsibilities. nonviolence is central in gilligan's writing, because "the injunction against hurting" enables a conceptualization of care that asserts "moral equality between the self and other and to include both in the compass of care" (1993, p. 90) . moral equivalence between care for others and care for oneself is important because care is 'easy to sentimentalize and privatize' (tronto, 1993, p. 118) . held (2006, p. 95) clarifies that "neither is it satisfactory to think of caring relationships as merely what rational individuals may choose to care about as long as they give priority to universal, impartial, moral principles." care in this sense is not a virtuous disposition (i.e. women behaving selflessly), but rather both a value and a practice (held, 2006; tronto, 1993) that is pursued relationally and results in enhancing the other's well-being (noddings, 2003) . care is also dependent upon context because it "is distorted if abstracted from particular contexts and specific relations" (fitzgerald, 2020, p. 4 ). relationships, with others and larger society, are important in gilligan's (1993) work because they are "sites of care" (lawrence & maitlis, 2012, p. 642) . our individual lives are only possible because of our caring relationships with other people (sevenhuijsen, 2003) . critical to gilligan's (1993, p. 126 ) theory is the "rediscovery of connection, in the realization that self and other are interdependent and that life, however valuable in itself, can only be sustained by care in relationships." at the same time, ethics of care also reflect "the tie between relationship and responsibility" (gilligan, 1993, p. 173) and therefore "concern about how to fulfill conflicting responsibilities to different people." in gilligan's (1993) approach, human relationships are not only socially but politically situated. as held (2006, p. 95 ) explains, "turning everyone into a liberal individual leaves no one adequately attentive to relationships between persons, whether they be caring relations within the family or social relations holding communities together." ethics of care challenge notions of neo-liberal individualism and resist the centrality of justice ethics and the primacy of rationality (gilligan, 2011) . ethics of care and justice are often presented as alternative moral positions (gilligan, 1993; lawrence & maitlis, 2012) , however care can be understood as "the wider moral framework into which justice should be fitted" (held, 2006, p. 71 ). the ethic of care perspective therefore critiques the norm of independent citizenship that is common to neo-liberal modes of governing and organizing and the centrality of individualism in many moral theories (sevenhuijsen, 2003) . ethics of care have been applied in a wide range of management research settings. for example, nicholson and kurucz (2019) examine the potential for ethics of care to illuminate the ethical dimensions of relational leadership for sustainability. they conceptualized an ethical framework for relational leadership for sustainability that distinguishes between "what we do" ("caring for" and "caring about") and "who we are" (i.e. primacy of relationships, complexity in context, mutual wellbeing focus, engaging whole person) (nicholson & kurucz, 2019, p. 36) . lawrence and maitlis's (2012) conceptualize "how an ethic of care might be enacted inside organizations among their members" (p. 644) to understand organizations as potential "sites of care and compassion" (p. 659). they propose that the care enacted through discursive practices and everyday working relationships increases organizational members' feelings of support and connection. carmeli, brammer, gomes, and tarba (2017, p. 1380 ) also apply gilligan's work at the organizational level of analysis to empirically examine "why and how an organizational eoc fosters employee involvement in sustainability-related behaviors at work." they found that organizations that exhibited care towards their employees foster higher levels of employee satisfaction and involvement in sustainability-related activities. the ethics of care perspective therefore enabled carmeli et al. (2017) to provide a micro-foundational understanding of organizational sustainability. a further relevant literature develops ethics of care in the context of public policy. stensöta (2015, p. 185) suggests that while ethics of care were traditionally applied in carebased settings (e.g. nursing) that they are now being used "to dissect the current arrangement of care provision (or rather non-care provision) in policies and administrative procedures." a new strand of literature has thus developed on normative public policy. for example, fitzgerald (2020) seeks to reimagine government through an application of ethics of care (understood as critical political theory), by creating a thought experiment about the creation of a "department of care" which provokes reconsideration of "the norms underpinning governments and institutions more broadly" (p. 9). building on the work of tronto (1993) , sevenhuijsen's (2003) application of ethics of care to dutch social policy provokes discussion of four key dimensions of care. caring about stands for the recognition that there is a need for care. the corresponding value is attentiveness. essential to good care is the ability and willingness to put ourselves in a situation where we understand the needs and the perspectives of others. taking care of consists of taking the necessary steps in the care situation in question. 'taking care of' is based on the willingness and capacity to take responsibility that 'something' is done to provide for the need in question. caregiving, the third dimension, consists of carrying out actual caring activities that ensure that the caring needs are met. this supposes that people have the competence and the resources for care-giving in accordance with what is needed in the situation concerned. care receiving refers to the interaction between the care-giver and care recipient: for the caring process to succeed it is important that there is room for responsiveness in order to assure that the care receiver responds well to the care received. (sevenhuijsen, 2003, p. 184) . these granular notions of types of care are important because they enable a conceptual distinction to between the carrying out care (caregiving) which is often associated with carebased contexts, with recognition of the need for care (caring about), taking responsibility for care (taking care), and the connection between the care giver and care recipient (care receiving). a multifaceted consideration of care highlights two complications. first, as sevenhuijsen (2003) notes, ethics of care requires consideration of trust in the context of care-based relations. sevenhuijsen (2003, p. 186) observes that if the care given and received becomes one-sided it exhibits an "asymmetrical reciprocity" which can lead to adverse effects such as paternalism, social divisions, or unhelpful role signification (e.g. "rescuer and victim"). second, jordan (2020, p. 21) , writing about "caring masculinity/ies" in the context of fathers' rights groups, raises a parallel point about the mobilization of care towards the notions or protection / protector. jordan's (2020) work therefore highlights the importance of context within which narrative of care emerge and the complexities they provoke. phillips and willatt (2020, p.214) also recognize the possibility for "regressive and paternalistic care practices to emerge in relation to the raced, classed and gendered structures." trust therefore matters to care, because without openness about vulnerability and an empathetic quality of understanding towards others, connection is eroded (sevenhuijsen, 2003) . having considered the basic tenets of ethics of care, i now return to crisis management, and to more formally comparing rational crisis management literature with an alternative feminist crisis management informed by an ethic of care. writing at the individual level of analysis, gilligan (1993) makes two key observations about personal crisis: (a) that crisis reveals the "predicament of human relationships" (p. 108), and (b) that crisis can create "a return to a missed opportunity for growth" (1993, p. 109) . the link between crisis, caring (including self-care), social relationships and responsibility is also applicable to crisis at other levels of analysis. prior work by simola (2003) considers ethics of justice and care in the context of corporate crisis management. simola's (2003) research is therefore primarily concerned with corporate responses to organizational crises, rather than a feminist perspective on crisis management. this is demonstrated in the article's conclusion, where simola (2002, p. 358) suggests that, first, further consideration should be given to the circumstances under which one approach might be more appropriate than the other approach. is there a particular set of circumstances under which corporate leaders might be well advised to use either an ethic of justice or an ethic of care? choosing between ethical framings depending upon their utility seems somewhat problematic in relation to how both ethics of care and justice are theorized (e.g., see held, 2006) . i present my comparison of the rational approach to crisis management and feminist crisis management in table one, below. table one contrasts the two alternative approaches to crisis management along several dimensions that relate to the underlying assumptions and understanding of crisis that each approach embodies. table one encapsulates the key dimensions on which the alternative approaches differ. regarding the underlying assumptions of crisis management, perhaps the principal points of divergence between the two approaches relate to their underlying logicsrespectively calculative and relationaland their assumptions regarding the objectives of crisis managementrespectively, a return to "normal" versus individual and social transformation. rational crisis management emphasizes a weighing of costs and benefits and implementing practices that return a society or organization to its original state following a crisis. in contrast, a feminist crisis management might emphasize a relational logic grounded in preserving and extending relationships through a crisis through caring and seeing opportunities for a crisis to lead to a social transformation. perhaps the most significant points of difference in the two approaches' understandings of crises relate to assumptions about temporality and boundedness. rational crisis management tends to see crises as episodes in isolationboth in the sense of isolation from broader contexts in which they arise, and in the sense of separation from other, related, crises that co-occur. in this view, crises are temporally and socially specific. in contrast, feminist crisis management would see crises as multiple and contextualized, as enduring and overlapping phenomena that are enmeshed and embedded within each other to a significant extent. crises compound and confound each other within webs of relationships informed by care. covid-19 has shown the limitations of rational crisis management, and the need for an alternative approach grounded in different assumptions and oriented to distinct outcomes. lawrence and maitlis (2012) propose that ethic of care scholarship tends to focus more on theory than action, and in this paper i highlight the practical advantages that could flow from thinking and acting differently about crisis, especially socially disruptive extreme crises like covid-19 that have multiple effects on societies globally. my analysis of crisis management is explicitly feminist in orientation and transformational in objective. i draw upon gilligan's ethic of care as a theoretical viewpoint to "provide a language" for crisis management which could "…transform the social norms that impact on individual behavior and effect institutional and organizational arrangements" (pullen, lewis, & ozkazanc-pan, 2019, p. 3) . to do this, i contrast rational crisis management and an alternative perspective that is concerned with caring about, taking care, care giving and care receiving (sevenhuijsen, 2003) in the context of large-scale crisis events like covid-19. i have proposed that feminist crisis management rests on fundamentally different foundations, embodies distinct behaviors, policies, and perspectives, seeks alternative ends, and follows alternative processes. coronavirus: prime minister jacinda ardern's full covid-19 speech a new study shows just how badly black americans have been hit by covid-19 public health interventions and sars spread dangerous knowledge: the political, personal, and epistemological promise of feminist research in management and organization studies notion of multiple crisis and feminist perspectives on social contract why resilience managers aren't resilient, and what human resource management can do about it this article is protected by copyright. all rights reserved crises and crisis management: integration, interpretation, and research development an organizational ethic of care and employee involvement in sustainability-related behaviors: a social identity perspective history of 1918 flu pandemic 2009 h1n1 pandemic (h1n1pdm09 virus) middle east respiratory syndrome (mers) social distancing, quarantine, and isolation city and county of san francisco, department of public health johnson says this is war stop calling coronavirus pandemic a 'war'. the conversation purity and danger: an analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo sorge, heideggerian ethic of care: creating more caring organizations reimagining government with the ethics of care: a department of care in a different voice: women's conceptions of self and of morality in a different voice: psychological theory and women's development joining the resistance risk mitigation in large-scale systems: lessons from high reliability organizations crisis, austerity and gendered governance: a feminist perspective oxford: oup. international labor organization (2020) ilo: covid-19 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crisis prone to crisis prepared: a framework for crisis management embodiment, care and practice in a community kitchen calls for health funding to be prioritised as poor bear brunt of covid-19 a critical moment: 25 years of gender public ethics of care: a general public ethics the case against waging 'war' on the coronavirus the place of care: the relevance of the feminist ethic of care for social policy ethics of justice and care in corporate crisis management this article is protected by copyright. all rights reserved moral boundaries: a political argument for an ethic of care policy brief: the impact of covid-19 on women organizational response to adversity: fusing crisis management and resilience research streams extreme events, organizations and the politics of strategic decision making statement to the press by who director-general dr margaret chan who director-general's opening remarks at the media briefing on covid-19 -11 this article is protected by copyright. all rights reserved key: cord-026376-8doxts85 authors: moorkamp, matthijs; torenvlied, rené; kramer, eric‐hans title: organizational synthesis in transboundary crises: three principles for managing centralization and coordination in the corona virus crisis response date: 2020-05-19 journal: nan doi: 10.1111/1468-5973.12294 sha: doc_id: 26376 cord_uid: 8doxts85 boin (2019) argues that in transboundary crisis management it is almost impossible to achieve centralization and coordination. this article identifies three principles through which actors in a transboundary crisis can balance centralization with autonomy while shaping coordination along the way. we reanalysed three transboundary cases: the dutch military mission in afghanistan, the downing of mh17 and hurricane irma striking sint‐maarten. the principles we found are as follows: (a) reformulating key strategic priorities, (b) flexible adaptation of crisis management protocols and (c) the emergence of multifunctional units. with these three principles, we reflect on challenges in the dutch crisis response to the corona outbreak and propose improvements for progressing current crisis management efforts. in transboundary crisis management, there is a dual challenge of centralization and coordination that makes crisis response highly problematic (boin, 2019) . boin argues that centralizing decision power in the hands of political leaders does not work because the involvement of many different political actors makes it hard to define a unified "high-command." coordination between crisis responders is highly problematic as well, because many of them are involved in different activities, without established coordination routines. boin (2019, p. 99 ) calls for a research agenda that studies conditions under which preparatory and management efforts can be effective in transboundary crises. our paper contributes to this agenda by providing three principles for transboundary crisis management. the principles enable crisis responders, across different organizational levels, to successfully develop centralization and coordination during the crisis response. based on thompson's (1967) classic concept of the "synthetic organization," we conceptualize a process of organizational synthesis. by means of this process, we show how crisis managers balanced centralization with autonomy by quickly reformulating key strategic priorities. also, crisis workers established coordination through flexible adaptation of existing crisis management protocols and the creation of multifunctional units. we captured these achievements in three principles for transboundary crisis management, visualized in figure 1 . (torenvlied et al., 2015) . the third case is the crisis response on the island of sint-maarten after hurricane irma destroyed most of the island's infrastructure in 2017 (moorkamp & wolbers, 2019) . the empirical material gathered for studying the cases is presented in table 1 . the three principles of transboundary crisis management are being observed in the dutch corona crisis response (april 2020). however, important elements are absent, and this has consequences, we argue here. in that light, we first briefly reflect on the dutch crisis response to the outbreak. the third and fourth sections of this paper detail the support for the three approaches, both theoretical and empirical. in the initial dutch crisis response, key priorities were reformulated multiple times (wallenburg & helderman, 2020) : from containing the virus outbreak through location-specific measures in the most affected north-brabant province-to a much contested "herd immunity" priority protecting frail elderly while keeping open schools-then to an "intelligent lock-down" priority closing universities, schools, bars, restaurants and "contact" jobs. these reformulations are informed, foremost, by expert advice from the outbreak management team (omt) initiated by the dutch national institute for public health and the environment (rivm)-enabling coordination between hospitals across the country. the ability to include different perspectives and crisis domains into the way strategic priorities are reformulated is, however, a challenge in the present crisis response. experts argue that the primary focus on health care seriously jeopardizes economic stability and social security (see e.g., crisislab, 2020) . including multiple perspectives in prioritizing future responses to the corona virus outbreak is important as a recent harvard study foresees intermitting recurrence of the virus until 2022 (kissler, tedijanto, goldstein, grad, & lipsitch, 2020) , which necessitates alternating between medical, economic and societal priorities. in the netherlands, national-level crisis protocols allow for some flexibility (torenvlied et al., 2015) . a newly formed centralized national coordination platform for spreading patients (lcps 1 ) became responsible for moving covid-19 patients from overcrowded hospitals to other (less affected) parts of the country. the lcps is a good example of an ad hoc adaptation to national-level crisis management protocols as this platform did not exist as such in present national-level crisis protocols. the newly established central lcps has some multifunctional characteristics as it consists of medical specialists, actors from the ministry of defense that support command and control and logistics, and civil servants from the ministry of health, welfare and sports. the previously mentioned omt, however, appears to lack multifunctionality to the extent it consists only of closely related specialisms such as virologists, epidemiologists, clinicians and other medical specialists. in relation to the first point on reformulation of key priorities, reliance on mono-disciplinary advice may seriously jeopardize the ability of the transboundary crisis response organization in managing the crisis in time. the moment we have entered the "warm phase" of the virus outbreak, we may be in the "hot phase" of the social-economic crisis, when holding onto domain-specific silos in a transboundary crisis management is known to be a recipe for disaster. not only does thompson describe the challenges of centralization and coordination in (transboundary) crisis response organizations, he also hints at a process of organizational synthesis that emerges as the organization swings into action. our current interpretation of the organizational synthesis process is the following. crisis response actors in transboundary crises shape, and reshape, organizational context while simultaneously enacting multiple uncertain, emerging and evolving crisis contexts. in doing so, they develop their organizational context in such a way that centralization and coordination are, ultimately, achieved. the more recent notions of sensemaking and organizing concepts (kuipers & boin, 2015; weick, 1979 weick, , 1995 help to understand how organizational synthesis among many different crisis response actors is achieved when it comes to transboundary crises specifically. on the one side, crisis response actors have to make sense of their own specific and continuously evolving crisis context. sensemaking hence refers to dealing with the "outside," the way in which actors together attempt to create a "workable level of certainty" (cf. weick, 1979) in inherently uncertain, equivocal, reactive and specific crisis contexts. on the other side, crisis response actors engage in organizing processes by "assembling ongoing interdependent actions into sensible sequences that generate sensible outcomes" (weick, 1979, p. 3). organizing, thus, places emphasis on the "inside," the creation of a sensible social structure. sensemaking and organizing together constitute, in our view, a general process of organizational synthesis. the process of organizational synthesis is at the heart of our understanding how crisis response actors in a transboundary crisis successfully deal with the challenges of centralization and coordination in their crisis management. three examples of transboundary cases make this very clear. our reanalysis of the transboundary cases from the perspective of organizational synthesis revealed three principles for successful transboundary crisis management, namely: reformulating key strategic priorities, flexible adaptation of crisis management protocols and the emergence of multifunctional units. when it comes to the first, we witnessed the quick reformulation of key priorities at the central level-ranging from the ministerial level in the mh17 case to the task-force command level in uruzgan and the company command level in the sint-maarten case. in the mh17 case, the dutch crisis cabinet, headed by the dutch prime minister, immediately attended to the initial impact of the mh17 crash in dutch society by formulating three priorities: "repatriation of victim's remains," "investigation of the crash" and "bringing those responsible to justice". commanders of the marine unit who were present on the island of sint-maarten during the passing of hurricane irma quickly formulated three priorities: "saving life and limbs," "controlling luting" and "evacuation." during the uruzgan mission, "reconstruction" goals were reformulated to "peace enforcing" goals, after patrols in the mission area discovered a subsequently more dangerous mission area than expected. the reformulated priorities placed more emphasis on combat activities and were more in tune with the nature of the experienced mission area at the time. the formulation of key priorities certainly was a product of central level actors making sense of environmental cues, trying to simplify environmental turmoil. these priorities were not set in granite. simultaneously, the formulation of priorities provided key cues for shaping coordination between dispersed crisis response actors at the contextualized. this resulted in the creation of a so-called "steering group mh17 recovery" in which different actors from different ministries coordinated their activities to govern the task-force on site in ukraine. the steering group refrained from a "top-down" command and control approach, but instead promoted the effective, autonomous operation of this task force and its commanders. the marine crew that was deployed on the island of sint-maarten abandoned their standard "hurex" protocols in favour of combat heuristics developed in a recent peace-keeping mission in mali. the heuristics facilitated the creation of a centralized "pocket of force" engineers and infantry integrated their activities within multifunctional platoons for the passing of a second hurricane (maria). within tfu, the so-called smallest unit of action-principle was developed in which soldiers from different functional specialisms (such as: engineers, infantry, cavalry) regrouped themselves into multifunctional patrols, better able to deal with the uruzgan mission environment. the three principles visualized in figure 1 are we thank marie-anne van stam for her design of figure 1 . 1 in dutch: landelijk coördinatiecentrum patiënten spreiding. the transboundary crisis: why we are unprepared and the road ahead analyse: in de strijd tegen corona balt de macht zich samen in den haag projecting the transmission dynamics of sars-cov-2 through the postpandemic period task force uruzgan and experimentation with organization design exploring the eu's role as transboundary crisis manager: the facilitation of sense-making during the ash crisis operating under high-risk conditions in temporary organizations: a sociotechnical systems perspective (series: routledge advances in management and business studies) crisis response at the island of sint-maarten in the wake of hurricane irma: introducing the process of bricolage at the organizational level organizations in action disaster, community organization and administrative process evaluatie nationale crisisbeheersingsorganisatie vlucht mh17 de impact van de coronacrisis op gemeenten: eerste tussenrapportage een maand na de uitbraak the netherlands response to the coronavirus pandemic the social psychology of organizing organizational synthesis in transboundary crises: three principles for managing centralization and coordination in the corona virus crisis response key: cord-275542-dpay83k8 authors: hsiu-ying kao, grace; wang, stephen w.; farquhar, jillian dawes title: modeling airline crisis management capability: brand attitude, brand credibility and intention date: 2020-08-23 journal: j air transp manag doi: 10.1016/j.jairtraman.2020.101894 sha: doc_id: 275542 cord_uid: dpay83k8 crisis management consists of a number of capabilities which evaluate crisis signals and implements actions to minimize damage. both identifying these capabilities and understanding their influence on perceptions of brand attitude, credibility and intention to purchase offers significant theoretical and managerial insights. this paper, therefore, proposes a cause-effects model of perceived airline crisis management capabilities and their influence on brand credibility, brand attitude and purchase intention in the aftermath of large-scale taiwanese airline strikes. using data collected via an online survey, the study makes three contributions to airline crisis management. it, firstly, identifies a set of crisis management capabilities for strike-hit airlines, secondly, it offers a causal chain of perceived airline crisis management capabilities, brand attitude, brand credibility and purchase intention. furthermore, it the full mediating effects of brand credibility and brand attitude in the causal chain. this study, thus, makes conceptual and methodological contributions to crisis management and purchase intention research and provides practical insights into effective airline crisis management and brand management for the airline industry. the airline industry has been hit extremely hard by the covid-19 crisis, with consequences even graver than the sum of the events of 9/ 11 and the 2008 global financial crisis (molenaar et al., 2020) . the international air transport association (iata) has updated its analysis of the revenue impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the global air transport industry and estimates that industry passenger revenues could plummet by $252 billion or 44% below 2019's figure. this figure takes into account the severity of travel restrictions as well as the anticipated global recession. these estimates are a dramatic increase on earlier analyses of $113 billion loss of revenue just three weeks earlier. the current scenario is one in which severe travel restrictions will last for up to three months, followed by a gradual economic recovery later this year (alexandre, 2020) . strategic options for airlines include determining the optimal size and dimensions of their networks and fleet, considering mergers and consolidation opportunities or restructuring their operating models. however, the most critical question currently concerns the duration of the crisis in light of government responses and the progression of the virus (molenaar et al., 2020) but as yet there are no answers. unlike the comprehensive crisis faced by all airlines and, indeed, practically everyone else, this investigation draws on crises that arose from airline industrial action in taiwan during 2016/2019 during which time three large-scale strikes initiated by flight attendants and pilots took place. the first strike was by china airlines' flight attendants in 2016, which affected more than 30,000 passengers and 123 flights. airline revenue was reduced by about 300 m ntd, and about 200 m ntd to compensate travelers and travel operators (wiki, 2016) . the second strike was by china airlines pilots in february 2019, which lasted for 7 days, in which 163 flights were cancelled and 30,000 travelers affected. the airline lost 825 m ntd in revenue and compensated travelers for losses and related expenses, totaling 154 m ntd and further compensation claims from travel agencies of 1bn ntd compensation, the total market value of china airline has dropped by more than 3.4bn ntd (wiki, 2019a) . these two large-scale strikes china airlines staff not only incurred significant loss of revenue but also exacts hidden losses such as image and goodwill -far harder to assess. in june 2019, a third strike the longest and largest strike in taiwan's aviation history occurred, initiated by the taoyuan flight attendants' union (tfau). this strike lasted from june 20 to july 9, 2019, leading to the cancellation of 735 flights of eva air with more 278,420 travelers affected and with cumulative revenue losses of 3.24 billion ntd and compensation for passenger losses and related expenditures of 805 million ntd (wiki, 2019b) . the average airline strike by a union not only brings about a decline in the brand's shareholder equity (becker and olson, 1986 ) but may also have a significant redistributive effect on the whole industry in that whilst the value of the strike hit airline decreases, that of competing and strike-free airlines increases (de fusco and fuess, 1991) . evidence from strikes experienced by lufthansa, indicates that not only do daily costs rocket but that passenger numbers subsequently decline (atkins, 2010; sheahan, 2016) . as part of managing a crisis, in such a way as to avoid returning to the pre-crisis state and to create a less strike-prone environment (hätty and hollmeier, 2003) , the significance of branding (grundy and moxon, 2013) , specifically brand attitude (wang, 2014) , brand credibility (wang and close, 2018) and intention to purchase needs clearer delineation. the purpose of this study is therefore to identify passenger perceptions of airline strike crisis management capabilities and how these capabilities influence brand credibility, brand attitude and passenger intention to use that airline brand. specifically, it addresses the following points: • why airlines with better crisis management capabilities strengthen passenger attitudes towards airline brand, airline brand credibility and intention to use. to date, scholars have only investigated airline safety characteristics and trustworthiness with relation to passenger intention to use (wang, 2014; wang and close, 2018) . this study extends this work by investigating how airline crisis management capabilities influence passenger brand attitudes, brand credibility and intentions to use a specific airline brand. • owing to the homogeneity of service provision in airline transportation, airlines use brands as a means of differentiation (doganis, 2006) , however, with the loosening of regulations and environmental norms, distinctions between airlines have begun to undergo significant changes and differences (collison and boberg, 1987) , thus prompting enquiry into how airlines manage brands in a crisis situation. the structure of this paper is as follows: the conceptual background providing the reasoning for the formulation of the hypotheses, the methodology, the results and the conclusions. in this section of the paper, the theoretical background to the study is presented beginning with crisis management. although crisis management is often envisaged as being concerned with natural disasters, firms have to deal with human induced crises such as strikes (crandall and menefee, 1996) . even if the strike or crisis cannot be averted, there is scope for improving the organizations preparedness through detection and prevention (mitroff, shrivastava and udwadia, 1987) . the management of crises consists of two distinct perspectives, one focused on the internal dynamics and the other directed externally at managing external stakeholders. (bundy et al., 2017; pearson and clair, 1998) . it has been asserted that by adopting a stakeholder-based model for crisis management a more favorable outcome might be achieved (alpaslan et al., 2009 ). an essential element, therefore of crisis management, is for organizations to understand how key stakeholders might react to a crisis, what resources and information stakeholders might have available to assist in the management of a crisis, how stakeholders might be impacted by the crisis and how stakeholders might exert a negative impact on the organization's ability to manage the crisis (mitroff et al., 1996) . from an internal perspective, crises, are intrinsically processual (roux-dufort, 2007) with three distinct stages being identifiedpre-crisis prevention, crisis management and post-crises outcomes but even then, the second and third stages are reliant on stakeholders (bundy et al., 2017) . it is evident that organizations need to learn from managing crises (pearson and mitroff, 1993) , fine honing their cognitive and emotional capacities (mitroff and anagnos, 2001; williams et al. 2017 ). drawing on the framework developed by bundy et al. (2017) , this study defines airline strike crisis management capabilities as: the pre-crisis preparation and preparedness exhibited by airlines when facing a strike crisis, the ability to respond during a strike crisis, and the service resilience capability after strike crisis. as brand crises negatively affect brand attitude (dutta and pullig, 2011) , there is a strong argument for airlines to acquire capabilities so that they can manage strikes effectively. therefore, even if a strike is likely to occur, well-prepared and resilient organizations such airlines are better protected (mitroff et al. 1987) and in a better position to protect their brand and influence passenger intention to use. within the airline industry specifically, challenges such as command incompetence, information ambiguity and coordination difficulties were identified (yin and jing, 2014) . later research proposed four capabilities as follows: command, coordination, information, and environmental pressure have been proposed (chang et al. (2018) . whilst they provide an initial framework to airlines for managing crises, an essential addition learning that airlines need to engage in to overcome crises (for example, pearson and mitroff, 1993) . accordingly, this study summarizes airline crisis management actions with reference to chang et al. (2018) , yin and jing (2014) , and doug and hugh (2008) , developing a framework of crisis management capabilities to include those five. command should cover clear authority and full authorization of senior management, emergency response of operating units, clear command chain, decentralization, duties and responsibilities of senior management, implementation of standard operating procedures, crisis response management team, regular crisis management training programs, crisis drills and preparedness drills, and links to external rescue and medical services. coordination includes internal coordination of emergency management, feedback and review, timely communication with relevant groups, personnel scheduling, logistics support, coordination with government agencies, coordination with company partners, communication with the media, communication with the victim's family, and communication with the injured passenger. information should be transparent, accurate and timely. environmental pressure covers responses to pressure from stakeholders such as publics, governments, media that address complexity and uncertainty. finally, learning comprises improving resilience, learning from experience and solutions. based on existing studies, this investigation develops second-order reflective construct that measures airline strike crisis management capabilities. the hypotheses are: h7 a …… h7 n : perceived airline crisis management capability consists of several underlying dimensions: command (h7 a ), coordination (h7 b ), information (h7 c ), learning (h7 d ), response (h7 e )……environmental pressure (h7 n ). in the following section, the second part of the model that pertains to brand attitude/credibility and intention to use is presented. in particular, further insight is needed on how passengers might perceive the relationship of crisis management capabilities on their attitudes to the airline brand, its credibility and their subsequent intention to use. from the passenger perspective as opposed to the airline itself, additional airline capabilities come into play, for example, safety, professionalism and punctuality are important considerations when choosing an airline (medina-muñoz et al., 2018) . passenger intention to use a particular airline, however, will be influenced both by brand preference and brand equity (wang, 2014) , therefore, passenger perceptions of an airline having strong crisis management capabilities are likely to influence their intentions to use a particular airline brand. research into brand management includes investigation into brand crises where advice has been to take an analytical approach to the crisis and to adopt a forthright communications strategy with substantive changes to behaviors (greyser, 2009) . the ability of a brand to weather a crisis is also embedded in existing consumer attitudes (pullig et al., 2006) , which means that stronger brands are better able to withstand crises (cleeren et al., 2008; van heerde et al., 2007) but much of this work refers to product brands rather than services and airlines in particular. knowledge about a brand crisis in transport or airlines is and how it affects passenger brand attitudes and intention to use is limited in spite of airline crises being quite common (mason, 2001; ray, 1999) and worldwide. we contend that the combining passenger perceptions of crisis management combined with brand perceptions and how that combination impacts on intention to use extends passenger and consumer theory in airline transport. the theoretical foundation of this study rests on the theory of planned behavior (tpb), which over the years has received extensive attention from researchers in various disciplines and is widely used to explain consumer decision-making behaviors. past researches (wang and ngamsiriudom, 2015a, 2015b; wang and hsu, 2016; lee et al. 2018) revealed that tpb has a solid performance in observing and predicting consumer behavior intentions. in the context of airline crisis management, tpb enables novel insight into the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors of airline passengers of airline crisis management capabilities. brand attitude is a fairly stable summary evaluation of a brand, which goes on to stimulate consumer behavior (spears and singh, 2004) . the following hypotheses are therefore developed beginning with h 1 h1. perceived airline crisis management capability positively influences passenger brand attitude. as well as and attitude, brand credibility is a related but distinct brand outcome and is defined as the plausibility of the information conveyed by a brand so that consumers perceive that it has the ability to deliver its promise swait, 1998, 2004; erdem et al., 2006) . brand credibility affects consumer choice of brand (erdem and swait, 2004) and moderates price sensitivity (erdem et al., 2002) . whilst it is an established construct (e.g., erdem et al., 2006; erdem and swait, 2004; rao and ruekert, 1994; rao et al., 1999; wernerfelt, 1988) , brand credibility has yet to be considered as a function of crisis management capability in aviation. airlines can attempt to build brand credibility through concentrating on information strategies about crisis management capabilities. information on crisis management capability may strengthen ensure consumer intentions to use. favorable brand attitudes may also affect brand credibility. h2. perceived airline crisis management capability significantly influences passenger intention to use. perceived airline crisis management capability positively influences brand credibility. h5. passenger attitude towards brand positively impacts brand credibility. an individual's intentions represent their motivation to perform a particular behavior (eagly and chaiken, 1993) , which in this study is represented by tpb (fishbein & ajzen, 1975) . intention is a key criterion variable in a typical tpb model and has been previously used in tourism, hospitality, and travel research (alvarez and campo, 2014; casaló et al., 2010) . it is argued that there is a positive effect of brand credibility and brand attitude on, in this research, passenger willingness to use an airline service (daneshwary and schwer, 2000) . this model tests the extent to which brand attitude, brand credibility and intentions are associated (see for example mackenzie, lutz, and belch, 1986; mackenzie and spreng, 1992) within the context of airline crisis management capability. h4. passenger attitude towards the airline brand positively affects their intention to use. h6. airline brand credibility positively affects passenger intention to use. having developed the model of airline crisis management capabilities and their influence on brand attitude, credibility and intention to use, the study now provides detail of the methodology. the model of airline crisis management capability is based upon a framework of perceptions, attitudes and intention to use. in addition to the antecedent of brand attitude, we have reasoned that perceived crisis management capability and brand credibility are significant. the model hypothesizes that perceived crisis management capability has both direct and indirect impacts on airline brand credibility and passenger intention. the data were collected by means of a survey that consisted of items drawn from existing consumer behavior literature. brand attitude was measured with five items (brett et al., 2008; mitchell and olson, 1981 ; five items), brand credibility with seven items (erdem and swait, 2004) and intention to use with two items (jamieson and bass, 1989; putrevu and kenneth, 1994) . for crisis management sub-dimensions, 19 items were adapted from a range of sources (chang et al., 2018; doug and hugh, 2008; yin and jing, 2014) . the wordings of the items were slightly modified so that they fitted the context of the study. as the scale was drawn from existing sources written in english, the questionnaire used in taiwan was translated from english to mandarin chinese involving translation, back-translation, followed by third-party re-translation (kotabe and helsen, 2000) . the items on brand attitude, brand credibility and intention were measured with a five-point likert-type scale, with strongly disagree = 1 and strongly agree = 5. the data for the study were collected using the pollster online survey service in taiwan (www.pollster.com.tw). the advantages of using this type of service is the large number of members, for example there are over 100,000 pollster members. these members have already registered their real name supported by government-issued id number. fully registered members receive a mail invitation from pollster to complete any new survey promptly. members who complete a survey will earn points, dependent on the amount of time and the difficulty of the task. these points can be exchanged for cash. members took ten days to complete this survey. however, 848 useable responses from the pollster site were generated (see table 1 ). the first step in the analysis used exploratory factor analysis (efa) to extract four factors from the airline crisis capability items as follows: coordination and integration (six items), management and learning (six items), command and information (five items) and assurance (two items) as shown in table 2 . a further check using efa to detect notable deviations from the structure of the constructs, in particular to see whether the data conformed to the multi-normality requirement required for structural equation modeling (sem) technique (mcdonald and ho, 2002). as the data conformed to this requirement, the proposed model was tested in a two-stage structural equation framework, using confirmatory factor analysis (cfa). here the aim was to assess the validity of the constructs prior to conducting structural path analysis. as common method variance (cmv) may present problems in behavioral research (bagozzi and yi, 1990; williams et al., 1989) , we employed a set of procedures assess and address with any issues (podsakoff et al., 2003) . after applying the cmv remedy procedure, the unmeasured latent method construct (ulmc, p-value = 0.962) showed an insignificant level of common method bias (richardson et al., 2009) . when comparing the difference of cfa from single factor and multi-factor structure (lindell and whitney, 2001) , the δχ2 = 745.348, δdf = 56, p-value < 0.05 (δχ2/δdf = 13.308), indicated that the validity of this study was not affected by common method bias (carson, 2007) . the sample size of 848 was believed to be sufficiently large to compensate for any model misspecification and model complexity (hair et al., 2006) . checks were also made for possible univariate and multivariate outliers but no significant violations were found. the analysis showed that the value of kurtosis ranged from − 0.565 to 1.295 and of skewness ranged from − 1.780 to − 0.077 and so satisfied standard evaluation criteria (mardia (1985) . the measurement models were estimated using lisrel 8.80 (jöreskog and sörbom, 1989) with the goodness of fit indices summarized in table 3 . the chi-square statistics are significant at the 0.05 level, which is not unusual with a fairly large sample (doney and cannon, 1997) . the values for comparative fit index (cfi), non-normed fit index (nnfi), root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), and standardized root mean residual (srmr) were all .802 • feedback and review of plan. .798 • timely communication with relevant parties. .793 • coordination with government agencies. .792 • coordination with company partners. .752 • communication with the media. .739 • retain complete crisis management related data for further use .816 • learning and improving from the crisis experience .751 • regular crisis management training programs and exercises. .734 • referring to similar crisis from other airlines, learning and improving for a better crisis management capability. .733 • personnel scheduling and logistic support. .696 • response and action under complicated situations, governmental pressure and partners. .646 • clear lines of authority and sufficient authorization from top management. .763 • information flow is clear and unblocked. .763 • information disclosed is transparent, complete, accurate and consistent. .754 • responsibilities and accountabilities of top managers and crisis response management team. .730 • prompt and timely disclosure of information. .717 • airline service staff are reliable, providing safety air transport service for passengers. .904 • airline service staff has full authorization from airline, providing qualified air transport service politely. considered acceptable for the proposed model (hu and bentler, 1999) and are as follows: 0.95 for cfi and nnfi, 0.06 for rmsea, and 0.08 for srmr. since the results from goodness-of-fit indices were acceptable and the firm theoretical basis for the proposed model, no further modifications were made to the model specifications. subsequently the quality and adequacy of measurement models was investigated by assessing its unidimensionality, reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. unidimensionality was assessed on the basis of principal component analyses performed on all items with all items loading at 0.65 or higher on the hypothesized factors. no significant cross-loading was identified thus supporting unidimensionality for each of the studied constructs. for composite reliability, again, there was evidence that all the cronbach alpha values exceeded the suggested 0.6 benchmark (bagozzi and yi, 1988) . for cfa, convergent validity, that is the degree of association between measures of a construct, was assessed by examining t statistics related to the factor loadings. all the t statistics are statistically significant at the 0.05 level, suggesting that the indicator variables provide good measures with their respective construct (hoyle and panter, 1995) . the average variances extracted (ave) values relating to the constructs are at or higher than 0.50, which also provide evidence of convergent validity (fornell and larcker, 1981) . discriminant validity was checked using a series of chi-square difference tests on the nested models to find out whether their values are significantly lower for the unconstrained models where the phi coefficient is constrained to unity (anderson, 1987) . the critical values related to the chi-square difference at the 0.05 significance level are higher than 3.84 in all possible pairs of constructs, suggesting that the models are unrelated. it seems safe to conclude therefore that the constructs in the study meet standard reliability and validity checks. the sample size (n = 848) is considered sufficiently large for model specification and further analysis. the overall fit of the model is reasonable. simultaneous maximum-likelihood-estimation procedures are used to examine relationships among perceived crisis management capability, brand attitude, brand credibility, and intention (table 4 ). the analysis results reveal that all significant relationships between latent constructs match the hypothesized directions, except for h2 (crisis management capability→intention). in our proposed models, perceived airline crisis management capability consists of four sub-dimensions, they are: command and information, coordination and integration, management and learning, and assurance. meanwhile, perceived airline crisis management capability has significant positive effects on brand attitude and brand credibility, supporting h1, and h3. further, brand attitude has significant positive effect on both brand credibility and intention, supporting h4 and h5; brand credibility positive significant affects intention, supporting h6. as to the structure of the second order perceived crisis management capability, perceived crisis management capability were proved to consist of four sub-dimensions (command/ information, coordination/integration, management/learning, and assurance), supporting h7a, h7b, h7c, and h7d. since the construct of perception of airline crisis management capability didn't have a significant influence on air passengers' intention, we proceeded to examine the mediating effects (sobel, 1982) of brand attitude (ba) and brand credibility (bc). specifically, both brand attitude and brand credibility are thought to mediate the relationship between air passengers' perception of airline crisis management capability (acmc) and intention (i). the analytic results shown in table 5 that for the mediating effect of brand attitude, the direct paths between perceived airline crisis management capability and brand attitude and perceived airline crisis management capability and intention are significant. when controlling for brand attitude, the relationship between perceived airline crisis management capability and passenger intention to use remains significant with beta being reduced from 0.589 to .125 -indicative of a partial mediating effect. following similar processes, analyses of the mediating effect of brand credibility indicate that the direct paths between perceived airline crisis management capability and brand credibility and perceived airline crisis management capability and intention are all significant. once more, after controlling for brand credibility, the relationship between perceived airline crisis management capability and intention is insignificant with the coefficient being reduced from 0.589 to .053, which is indicative of a full mediating effect. to conclude, table 3 measurement scales and summary statistics. • airline service staff are reliable, providing safety air transport service for passengers • airline service staff has full authorization from airline, providing qualified air transport service politely. brand attitude (brett et al., 2008; mitchell and olson, 1981) • this brand's product claims are believable. • over time, my experiences with this brand have led me to expect it to keep its promises, no more and no less. • this brand has a name you can trust. • this brand doesn't pretend to be something it isn't. intention (jamieson and bass, 1989; putrevu and kenneth, 1994) whereas brand attitude has partial mediating effects on the relationship between perceived airline crisis management capability and intention, brand credibility has a full mediating effect on the relationship between perceived airline crisis management capability and intention. it is therefore noteworthy that perceived airline crisis management capability does not influence passenger intention to use directly at a significant level. however brand attitude partially mediates and brand credibility fully mediates the relationship between perceived airline crisis management capability and intention. the purpose of this research was to propose a cause-effects model of perceived airline crisis management capabilities and their influence on brand credibility, brand attitude and purchase intention in the aftermath of large-scale taiwanese airline strikes. the study confirms the causal relationship between perceived airline crisis management capability, brand attitude, brand credibility and intention. meanwhile, the results also reveal the partial mediating effects of brand attitude and full mediating effects of brand credibility on the relationship between passengers' perception of crisis management capability and intention. of the four airline crisis management capabilities (command/information, coordination/integration, management learning and assurance) all of them have relatively high explanatory power of overall airline crisis management capability. specifically, management learning is the single most important factor of airline crisis management capability. the results above indicate that passengers perceive airline brands having crisis management capability if the airline retains complete crisis management related data, learning from the crisis experience (pearson and mitroff, 1993) , apply regular crisis management training programs and exercises, referring to similar crises from other airlines, have better capability in personnel scheduling and logistic support, and response and action under complicated situations, governmental pressure and partners. in addition to the management and learning factor, coordination/integration, command/information, and finally, providing assurance are all constructs with significant effectiveness perceived by passengers on airline crisis management capability (see fig. 1 ). providing assurance emerges strongly from this research as a factor in crisis management, where it has been often overlooked (see for example macleod, 2015) . most of crisis management related studies focused on managing the crisis itself and/or solving the strike movement. our study revealed that not only is crisis management itself important, but also the service provided by staff, in particular their reliability. moreover, such service needs to be offered without breaching usual standards of politeness. in times of strikes and other upheavals, passengers are not tolerant of breaches of usual service levels nor may they understand their role in such situations (elliott et al., 2005) . perceived airline crisis management capability has positive significant effects on attitude, brand credibility and intention. however, the results show that perceived airline crisis management capability does not influence intention directly at a significant level. thus, if air passengers perceived airline with outstanding crisis management capability, they will have a more favorable attitude toward the airline brand. the results are similar with brand credibility, where perceptions of crisis management capability engender belief in the brand, such as competence and trustworthiness. although perceived crisis management capability had insignificant influence on air passengers' intention, it is their brand attitude toward airline crisis management capability that transforms their perception into the intention to adopt the airline brand. moreover, airlines with a strong brand credibility are more likely to benefit from the feedback of air passengers, while air passengers who perceived airline brand with excellent crisis management capability seek opportunities to echo their intention to adopt the airline brand. however, the presence of brand attitudes and brand credibility both weaken their intention directly from perceived airline crisis management capability. while the sem test revealed that perceived airline crisis management capability did not directly lead to passenger intention to use the airline brand, perceived airline crisis management capability does influence passenger intention through the mediators (i.e., brand attitude and brand credibility). the results of the mediating effect test show that passengers are willing to adopt the airline brand only if they have a positive brand attitude toward the airline brand with a strong crisis management capability, or if they find the brand credible. therefore, without positive brand attitude and brand credibility, airline crisis management capability would not have a significant effect on air passengers' intention to use the airline brand. this finding underlines the significance of branding in influencing passenger intent in crisis cleeren et al., 2008; greyser, 2009; van heerde et al., 2007) . in this paper, we have presented a causal effects analysis of crisis management capabilities and brand attitude, capability and passenger intent to use as an extension of theory in air transport management. we now summarize the implications of the research. given the challenges in influencing passenger intentions in a highly competitive industry, the results of this study contribute to strategic airline crisis management in three novel ways. firstly, this study demonstrates the capabilities from a passenger perspective which capabilities airlines need to build. secondly, that process affects passenger attitude and credence in the brand, and in turn, intention to use. thirdly, among the empirically supported dimensions of crisis management capability, the emergence of providing assurance is an important addition to the crisis management literature. furthermore, the study has highlighted the need to use second-order multi-dimensional crisis management capability as antecedent of airlines' brand attitude, brand credibility and behavior intention. the evaluation study conducted has demonstrated the practical advantages of the causal analysis as a means of both examining an airline's crisis management capabilities and efforts towards effective crisis management and brand management. in addition to its conceptual and methodological contributions to airline crisis management capability research, the outcomes of this study provide useful insights for the case airlines and other airlines to improve their capabilities for effective crisis management capability for strike or air safety crises. the results suggest that airlines can influence passenger intention to use by enhancing customer's perception on brand attitude and brand credibility through making explicit to passengers their airline crisis management capabilities. the study has a number of implications for managers in the airline industry. the study indicates the benefits of visibly building crisis management capability as a means of enhancing passenger attitude towards the airline brand and its perceived credibility. there should be further advantages to the airline through communicating these capabilities within brand-led communications. based on the relationships within the causal model ( fig. 1) airlines can that can upgrade passenger perceived brand attitude, brand credibility and hence intention to use. the novel dimension of providing assurance also has implications for staff development as it is they who are the 'face' in many instances of crisis management. whilst this study was initiated by crisis management during prolonged strikes of airlines in taiwan, there is scope for extending this work into services, with much of the literature on crisis management investigating natural disasters and instances of product harm, no less that covid19. as indicated by elliott et al. 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crisis management he has papers published in referred journals jillian's research interests include marketing strategy particularly in financial services as well as case study research methods. she has authored books, book chapters and papers and is former editor of the international journal of bank marketing supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi. org/10.1016/j.jairtraman.2020.101894. key: cord-024316-nc38gr2f authors: meade, rosie r title: cdj editorial—what is this covid-19 crisis? date: 2020-04-27 journal: community dev j doi: 10.1093/cdj/bsaa013 sha: doc_id: 24316 cord_uid: nc38gr2f nan 2 editorial all presuming of course, that homes are safe, that we have places to go and a means of washing at our disposal. maybe we are so 'vulnerable' that we will be cocooned and protected or maybe we are too vulnerable, and so risk being deemed expendable by economies that simply must 'keep calm and carry on'. when we are told that death primarily stalks those with 'underlying conditions', that most of 'us' will be fine, does that accentuate our deepest fears or bring grim but shameful relief? as we grieve our mundane routines, the public spaces we cannot share, the kin or comrades we cannot grasp, we still must find the resilience and imagination to believe in better futuresfutures that are as yet unwritten. but even to write these words smacks of privilege of the kind of life where the everyday is not already a constant struggle to conquer dread and negotiate uncertainty. many of us have been struck by the dawning awareness that it is those doing the most poorly rewarded and precarious jobs that we rely on the most; the cleaners, carers, shop workers, delivery people, agricultural labourers . . . even though 'we are all in this together', the consequences of the virus are not shared equally. illnesses discriminate because societies do. as cdj readers you are probably already asking what does this mean for refugees and displaced peoples, for prisoners and those in institutions, for those who are homeless or badly housed, for those excluded from health systems, for those who are the poor and 'racialized others, for the victims of war and state violence? neither are the consequences of lockdowns and collective quarantines borne equally. homes are hells for many women and children. some jobs are never coming back. isolation can be a mental torture. the policing of new restrictions and regulations may licence old prejudices and legitimise constant surveillance. many who are making the necessary sacrifices for the collective good have never known what it feels like to have their own welfare protected by the state or community. the consequences for democracy, for the economy, for capitalist globalisation, for life as we thought we knew it, are still impossible to predict. some governments seem humbled, tentatively steering populations through the crisis, affirming any and all demonstrations of civic responsibility, dripfeeding and parsing restrictions, sequencing the asks according to urgency and legitimacy. others are letting their authoritarian impulses off the leash, seizing powers and suspending freedoms for the most tenuous of reasons. why waste a good crisis, when it's possible to use it to purge and 'purify', to spread racism and communal hatred? and still others lurch from distortion to denial, from platitudes to empty promises, from macho displays of invulnerability to wheedling appeals to nationalist sentiment. science, expert opinion and mathematical modelling have been stripped of any remaining innocence. this crisis is ideological. and still there are occasions of hope and traces of utopian possibility. community development workers and activists weary of begging editorial 3 governments for funding for essential services and welfare nets have learned that in the right/wrong circumstances money can be found. covid-19 has outed even the most reluctant keynesians. performativity targets and indicators are being set aside to allow people to get on with their jobs in the health and social spheres. previously disregarded voluntary groups are being called upon for their local knowledge, their abilities to organise and mobilise and for their rapid responses to need. volunteering and community have become the watchwords of this crisis. years of neoliberal pillage and austerity mean that states have ceded ground, capacity and legitimacy: now that networks of support must be created or restored, civil society seems to matter again. activists and social movements are keeping careful watch, to ensure that temporary measures do not become permanent, to speak up for the forgotten ones and the outcasts so that oppressions are not multiplied, to lead by example when governments fail to recognise that economies must service societies and not the other way round. covid-19 might break community but it might also recharge it. perhaps it will do both. it is too early to know for sure, and this is no time for easy answers to the non-stop flood of questions. having been kept at a distance from each other, will we trust again in sociability? will we long for but still fear the physical proximity of others? will our minds crack from the weight of anxiety and trauma? will being indoors make us more selfinterested or will it fill us with love for the world beyond us? in this moment of restriction and uncertainty, it is easy to lapse into judgementalism about those 'irresponsible others'-those who won't stay far enough away, the toilet paper hoarders, the ones who insist that their lives must continue as normal. but we might take our cues from elsewhere, when worrying about the fate of collective action and fellow feeling. we might think instead of the exhausted chinese doctors travelling to make-shift field hospitals across the globe to share their learning about the virus; of the grief-stricken neighbourhoods breaking into song because those are the only words left to them; of the unknown online artists and eejits endlessly creating memes and videos to lift our spirits; of the ones who 'come together while staying apart' to make sure that care, affection, food and attention are given to those without them. we might think of all those who do these things, not because governments or political leaders exhort them to, but because they know and have always known that humanity must be re-socialised, especially at times of crisis. director-general calls on g20 to fight, unite, and ignite against covid-19 key: cord-029228-hgnch1ug authors: gigliotti, ralph a. title: looking beyond covid‐19: crisis leadership implications for chairs date: 2020-06-30 journal: nan doi: 10.1002/dch.30330 sha: doc_id: 29228 cord_uid: hgnch1ug nan looking beyond covid-19: crisis leadership implications for chairs r a l p h a . g i g l i o t t i t he coronavirus crisis has seized our individual and collective attention over the last few months. crises of all kinds, and especially the current pandemic, are challenging moments for academic leaders. in my research on crisis leadership in higher education, i define crises to be "events or situations of significant magnitude that threaten reputations, impact the lives of those involved in the institution, disrupt the ways in which the organization functions, have a cascading influence on leadership responsibilities and obligations across units/divisions, and require an immediate response from leaders" (gigliotti 2019, 49) . the impact of the pandemic on all sectors, including colleges and universities, has been extensive. in short order, college and university campuses announced the transition to virtual instruction, restrictions on employee and student international travel, and new policies for working from home. the unprecedented activities of recent months, coupled with the uncertainty surrounding the upcoming academic year, further complicate the work of department chairs and other academic administrators across our institutions. for chairs, the challenges posed by the pandemic are plentiful and include concerns related to undergraduate and graduate student enrollment; course registration, delivery, and quality; changes in faculty tenure and promotion processes; the ability to reappoint nontenured and adjunct faculty; the financial health of the department; and the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of one's colleagues and students. effective leadership during times of crisis requires a dual focus on triaging immediate needs while also making strategic decisions that serve the long-term interests of one's unit, department, or institution. as we make sense of the short-and long-term effects of the pandemic, what follows are considerations for effectively navigating the present crisis while also looking ahead to collectively advance department strategic priorities. the role of the department chair is challenging enough in normal circumstances. crises add much complexity to the work of academic leadership, due in part to the increasingly high stakes, the varying and at times competing expectations from one's primary stakeholders, and the real and perceived loss of control and influence. the literature on this subject tends to emphasize the importance of certain characteristics for effective crisis leadership, including agility, clarity, compassion, honesty, preparation, resilience, trust, and transparency. furthermore, as i acknowledge in my writing on this topic, crisis leadership involves more than simply saying the right message(s) to the right audience(s) to uphold the reputation of one's department or institution. take the time to carefully consider your personal, departmental, and institutional values, and use these values as an anchor to inform the decisions you make as chair. treating this moment as a laboratory for leadership development, consider your response to the coronavirus pandemic. using the following questions as a guide, engage in active self-reflection to assess the leadership lessons that will help you to navigate these increasingly complex roles: • what has the pandemic taught you about leadership more generally and leadership within the context of higher education? • in what ways do you feel best prepared or least prepared for managing this crisis and future crises that might impact your department? • how would you rate your effectiveness in each of the crisis leadership competencies noted previously, and would your colleagues and students provide a similar assessment? • in what areas would you hope to develop to more effectively lead in this current crisis and in any future crises? opportunity, innovation, and reinvention can be found in the aftermath of crisis. in their characterization of organizational renewal, ulmer, sellnow, and seeger (2009) describe the fresh sense of purpose and direction an organization or system discovers after it emerges from a crisis. based on our experience at the rutgers center for organizational leadership, what follows are several strategies for engineering and advancing renewal efforts within one's academic department. facilitate an effective postmortem. provide colleagues with an opportunity to reflect on the department's handling of various dimensions of the crisis. through the use of a pre-session survey, encourage faculty and staff colleagues to offer honest insights into the strengths and areas for improvement, identify the major themes to emerge from the data, and use these themes to organize a constructive and meaningful discussion on the topic. ideally, the learning that comes from this session can inform future approaches to dealing with departmental and institutional crises. recalibrate, review, and reassess strategic priorities. determining a path forward after a disruption of this kind seems daunting. consider leading your department in a review of the unit's mission, vision, and values; the strategic priorities that existed in place prior to the crisis; and the ways in which the crisis might impact the strategic direction of the department. establish measurable goals and action plans that are collaborative and sensitive to personal and professional obligations. assess dimensions of organizational excellence. using an available external framework, such as the baldrige excellence framework or the excellence in higher education adaptation of the baldrige framework (ruben 2020), engage in a systematic review of the department's strengths and areas for improvement, and explore needed changes that may result from the coronavirus crisis. honor the emotions and experiences of department stakeholders. faculty, staff, and students have been affected in different ways by the pandemic, and there will be a need for collective healing in the aftermath of the crisis. in addition to advancing a shared strategic direction for the department, chairs can help advance the healing process by recognizing faculty and staff colleagues for going above and beyond one's job duties during the crisis, acknowledging students for their patience and persistence throughout this unprecedented period, demonstrating gratitude for individuals and offices across the institution who played an important role in the department's response to the crisis and ability to continue with core operations, and honoring those with a direct or indirect connection to the department who perished from covid-19. unlike past crises, the coronavirus pandemic is unique in its ability to so quickly and dramatically impact all colleges and universities. it is a deeply troubling and disorienting moment for higher education, yet there is also much for us to be proud of during this time. higher education is not typically recognized for agility and speed, yet the immediate and what some have characterized as heroic response by our institutions is most impressive. (2019), it is in the darkness and chaos of crisis where values-based leadership becomes most critical, most visible, and most desired. this is a moment of reckoning for higher education. looking ahead, we will undoubtedly see many changes across our institutions, and the crisis could provide a valuable opportunity to reimagine, reinvent, and renew our work in higher education, all the while remaining sensitive to the needs of students, faculty, and staff. ▲ t r e y g u i n n c ovid-19 is top of mind, front and center, and continues to drive most conversations in the media, (virtual) workspace, and among family, friends, and communities across the globe. in addition to the actual health crisis and associated compromises to well-being, the upheaval to business as usual continues to be tremendous. colleges and universities everywhere are not immune but instead play a central role in all this. students being displaced and learning environments being in transition are part of the evidence suggesting that higher education is feeling a bit upside down. while many of our colleagues are eager to return to normal, i pray that we don't. let us not waste this crisis. a rubber band stretched is designed to return to its original form, but we can be different and do better. as we are being pulled and stretched in this season, may we "return" having learned valuable lessons and having grown into something better. institutions of higher education have much to learn from what's happening. similarly, individual members, meaning you and me, all have growth areas that will be exposed and can be maximized for the future. while some people i love are battling the virus, most are not-we are battling the related challenges. most leaders i speak to recognize that this crisis will reveal institutional shortcomings as well as expose leaders' strengths (and weaknesses). one of my favorite questions to ask my colleagues, clients, students, family, friends, and neighbors during this crisis is: "what are you learning about yourself during all this?" just ponder for a moment. what are you learning about yourself during this time? and what are you learning as a chair? wrestling with questions like these allows us to get beyond the mind-set of managing amid crisis and into the mind-set of leading through one. what would you like this crisis to reveal about you and your leadership? in early march, when the coronavirus was starting to escalate in the united states, i talked with my core group about how to manage and lead during the upheaval that would surely come. i noted three key areas-managing department communication during crisis, leading and advancing our learning community during crisis, and modeling compassion for self and others during crisis. in this article, i will share just a bit about all three. crisis leadership in higher education: theory and practice departmental and institutional renewal in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic: applying the excellence in higher education framework effective crisis communication: moving from crisis to opportunity key: cord-345627-0mikqjpj authors: obal, michael; gao, tao title: managing business relationships during a pandemic: conducting a relationship audit and developing a path forward date: 2020-07-31 journal: industrial marketing management doi: 10.1016/j.indmarman.2020.05.025 sha: doc_id: 345627 cord_uid: 0mikqjpj abstract during stable times, firms will generally aim to create reliable b2b relationships that provide increased efficiency and profitability. however, tumultuous times, such as the time during a major pandemic, cause many significant disruptions in both internal and external environmental domains. thus, we argue that it is critical during this time to reevaluate the company's business relationships as a whole. while long-term partnerships are great for handling incremental changes during stable times, disruptive environmental changes may require managers to consider disruptive changes to their businesses. a pandemic may also present opportunities for establishing new relationships as there may be other partners/suppliers who are better equipped to help the company address urgent short-term needs and to capitalize on significant long-term opportunities. in this paper, we design a new relationship audit template to help b2b firms weather the immediate crisis at hand and position themselves more strategically for the future. we explore this idea in relation to the coronavirus outbreak, introduce the idea of a b2b crisis relationship audit, and offer potential steps forward for firms. the existing industrial marketing literature provides numerous guidelines to b2b managers on how to build and sustain key business relationships to support their essential business operations (e.g., dwyer, schurr, & sejo, 1987; heide, 1994; jap & anderson, 2007; kumar, stern, & achrol, 1992; lusch & brown, 1996; palmatier, dant, grewal, & evans, 2006; wilson, 1995) . generally speaking, b2b companies should consider both internal factors (such as company objectives and resources) and external factors (such as supply and market conditions and regulatory factors) in designing their relationship marketing strategies (buchanan, 1992; pfeffer & salancik, 1978) . within a stable environment, firms are usually motivated to focus on improving profitability and efficiency by leveraging trusted b2b relationships (dwyer et al., 1987; mcquiston, 2001; weber, 2001) . however, unstable environments can make it more difficult for firms to focus on such narrow criteria and can make reliance on existing relationships more risky (gao & eshaghoff, 2004a; larson, 2011; baker, 2020) . in a crisis situation, we argue that firms should consider reevaluating their existing relationships based on criteria that are uniquely appropriate for such an unstable environment. given the disruptive nature of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, we believe it is appropriate for firms to conduct a relationship audit on their existing b2b relationships and consider necessary (and even drastic) changes to their relationship portfolio. within this paper, we develop a research-based template that is straight-forward and practical to use for managers. we ground this template on prior literature on b2b relationship value (e.g., cost vs. benefits) (ulaga & chacour, 2001; walter, ritter, & gemünden, 2001; zeithaml, 1988) and relationship states (e.g., trust, commitment) (dwyer et al., 1987; lusch & brown, 1996) . we then introduce some emerging considerations that are unique to the pandemic crisis: health-related threats, economic threats, humanitarian needs, regulatory changes, and emerging opportunities (gao & eshaghoff, 2004a; smith 2005; larson, 2011) . we ask managers to evaluate the velocity, volatility, and criticality of changes in these factors and formulate appropriate responses to them (gao & eshaghoff, 2004b; palmatier, houston, dant, & grewal, 2013) . then, we offer managers some practical advice based on the results of this relationship analysis, including when to leverage an existing relationship and when to begin a new b2b relationship. in the next section, we discuss the motivations and structure of the relationship audit template. before moving forward with any specific relationship management strategy to cope with a major public crisis, we recommend that firms "audit" their relationships to better understand the virtues and limitations of each existing partnership in light of the evolving pandemic (weber, 2001; mcquiston 2001; lindgreen, palmer, vanhamme, & wouters, 2006) . early on in a crisis, it is important to figure out which relationships can be leveraged in both the short-term and the long-term. further, firms must decide what the criteria to use in judging their relationships. we specifically propose that companies should evaluate both the unique contextual factors surrounding each business relationship during a pandemic (e.g., arising health and humanitarian challenges) and key attributes of the relationship itself, most notably the relationship value and relationship states. while the focus of this audit is to identify the areas of the b2b relationship that have changed most during a crisis, we also encourage managers to provide some baseline information detailing the relative strength of the relationship value and state immediately before a crisis. the b2b company should attend to all kinds of business relationships that have major impacts on the company's performance, whether those impacts are direct (such as key suppliers, distributers, and customers) or indirect (such as key innovation and information partners, the community, or broader regulatory environment) (walter et al., 2001) . companies can decide on their own as to how to define the scope of their relationship audit efforts. while we do suggest including relationships with various stakeholders, the b2b company can choose to limit the scope of the audit to only include major partnerships in each domain if the number of general relationships is very large. alternatively, the company can expand the audit to cover more relationships if the total number of relationships is relatively small. companies are advised to closely monitor changes in key domains of their external business environment and seek to address immediate and critical threats arising from the pandemic. drawing on a study on how multinational companies responded to the 2002 argentine financial crisis (gao & eshaghoff, 2004b) , we consider two factors as being particularly important to emphasize in designing the company's pandemic response strategies: (1) volatility -the size of the possible change to a factor caused by the pandemic or economic crisis, and (2) criticality -the factor's relevancy to strategic decision-making during a pandemic/ crisis. we also consider the velocity of the possible change to a factor caused by the pandemic (c.f. palmatier et al., 2013) . by considering these factors, we aim to provide managers with a manner in which to evaluate the size, speed, and importance of the relationship changes that could be triggered by a crisis. during stable times, a firm is likely motivated to focus on how their b2b relationships can benefit their economic/financial standing, help identify emerging opportunities, and perhaps enable regulatory compliance (dwyer et al., 1987; mcquiston, 2001; weber, 2001) . however, new concerns emerge during a pandemic. the economic, regulatory, and opportunities considerations become more salient, while new humanitarian and health-related concerns arise (gao & eshaghoff, 2004a; smith 2005; baker, 2020) . larson (2011) argues that traditional business logistics often do not match up with health and humanitarian logistics, which often deal with changing partners and uncertain demand. "in business logistics, actors have the profit motive and generally operate in uninterrupted environments. to the contrary, in humanitarian logistics, …interrupted environments are the norm, especially in the case of disaster relief" (larson, 2011, p. 2) . along this line of thinking, we argue that firms must go beyond generic profit motives and consider health-related and humanitarian factors during a crisis. thus, we propose that companies consider the impact of the following five major contextual factors on each b2b relationship during a pandemic: healthrelated, economic, humanitarian, regulatory, and opportunities factors. within a crisis scenario, a company would want to build and retain relationships that will allow it to minimize any immediate impacts. thus, a company should aim to identify which relationships have a direct impact on the physical health of the company's key stakeholders (kuckertz et al., 2020) . for example, a company may question if there are suppliers, perhaps due to contaminated production facilities, that cause direct health risks to the company's other stakeholders such as employees and customers (baker, 2020; rassy & smith, 2013) . conversely, there may be existing suppliers who are capable of shifting production capabilities to produce products that can enable a healthy work environment (distilled spirits, 2020) . in both scenarios, the company should identify those relationships and address the associated challenges accordingly (larson, 2011) . a firm should also ask itself within a crisis scenario: which relationships are causing the most disruptions in the supply chain and marketplace for the company (rassy & smith, 2013; turner & akinremi, 2020) ? prior research has shown that companies tend to focus on economic stability, perhaps at the cost of prior goals (e.g., market share growth), during a crisis situation (kunc & bhandari, 2011) . it is imperative that the company identify relationships at most risk of causing major and urgent impacts on product sales, sourcing of key supplies, and continuity of essential operations (singh & yip, 2000) . decisions should be made on whether to retain these relationships and how to find substitutes for them should be explored. at the same time, the firm should identify the existing relationships that can be leveraged in the short and long term (kunc & bhandari, 2011) . just as the company should pay attention to the job security of its current employees, it should also consider the business security (i.e., threats to survival) for its key, long-term business and community partners. this criterion takes on a more holistic look at b2b relationshipsas opposed to simply asking how a relationship can benefit the firm, this asks how the relationship can benefit the entire ecosystem including employees, business partners, and communities (weber & hine, 2015) . once such relationships are identified, the company should take a humanitarian approach to the management of the concerned relationships. humanitarian activities can include providing food and shelter for vulnerable populations and offering financial assistance for those partners in immediate need (starr, van wassenhove, & l. n., 2014) . starr et al. (2014) note that prior logistics literature often overlooks the role of humanitarian management and that there is a need to connect theory to practice in this area. specifically, they argue that the largest gap in this area is the relative lack of empirical data. thus, tracking the role of b2b relationships on changing humanitarian needs provides a novel method to connect theory to practice, provides instruction for managers in the near term (e.g., "who are the most at risk partners in our supply chain?"), and adds to the lack of data in this area. as has been demonstrated in the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, there could be emerging regulations from the federal/national, state/provincial, and local governments during a crisis, such as lock-down decrees and limiting the operations of the focal company and its key business partners (glass, glass, beyeler, & min, 2006) . it is important to monitor such regulatory developments and develop contingency plans for the current and/or impending disruptions (singh & yip, 2000) . it has been claimed that firms are often unprepared for regulatory changes related to crisis management and that supply chain complexities can exacerbate this unpreparedness (barnes & oloruntoba, 2005) . along these lines, we argue that firms should identify relationships within the supply chain that lead to a weak response capability to crisis management regulations. conversely, the firm should aim to leverage b2b relationships that best enable regulatory compliance. while it is essential to address any urgent threats from the pandemic, the company should also look at the unique, often transient opportunities emerging at a time of major crisis, especially those that do not usually occur in normal business conditions (gao & eshaghoff, 2004a; teece, 2007) . a crisis can be an inexpensive time to build relationships, perhaps with partners/suppliers/customers who would not have been available otherwise due to interests, costs, or time constraints. it is also important to consider that the terms of trade (e.g., what it takes to effectively establish a relationship) will have likely changed to a prospective relationship partner during a crisis. furthermore, a crisis may be the time to decide if current partnerships should be replaced with those that offer more short-term and long-term benefits, perhaps addressing some of the aforementioned considerations in the process. if all firms are expected to suffer during a crisis, then there is less of a switching cost in making relationship changes during this time. as such, it could be argued that it is less risky to proactively search for new partnerships during a crisis than to rely on older relationships that may or may not survive the crisis. the marketing literature presents numerous insights on how companies can build relationships with key internal and external stakeholders. the basis for building and sustaining long-term relationships is a provision of mutual value by relationship partners (zeithaml, 1988; walter et al., 2001; ulaga & chacour, 2001; lindgreen & wynstra, 2005) . existing research in marketing typically conceptualizes customer value as the customers' assessment of the worthiness of a purchase based on considerations of both benefits and costs associated with buying from the supplier (zeithaml, 1988) . according to ravald and gronroos (1996) , in order to fully understand how customers assess value in purchase relationships, both transactional (or episodic) and relational benefits and costs need to be examined. episodic benefits are the core procurement benefits (functional benefits related to concerns such as quality, volume, and delivery) that are important to each and every purchase task (gao, joseph sirgy, & bird, 2005; ritter & walter, 2012) . relational benefits are utilities beyond the core performance offerings that the customer can obtain from the formation, development, and maintenance of a long-term buyer-seller relationship (eggert, ulaga, & schultz, 2006) , which may include confidence, interpersonal goodwill, customization, and supply stability benefits (gremler & gwinner, 2000; walter et al., 2001) . episodic costs mainly consist of product costs (i.e., price), acquisition costs, and operating costs (cannon & homburg, 2001) . gao et al. (2005) define relational costs as the resources committed to initiating, managing, and dissolving a buyer-supplier relationship (cf. heide, 1994; williamson, 1985) . flint, woodruff, and gardial (1997) emphasize the need for companies to keep track of changing value needs by their customers. in particular, payne, storbacka, and frow (2008) discuss the importance for the supplier to seize opportunities provided by external forces such as technological breakthroughs and changing industry logics to cocreate value with the customers. we suggest that the b2b company should reevaluate the evolving virtues and limitations of each existing relationship in the context of the pandemic in terms of the above benefit and cost categories. aside from auditing the relationship on the value it provides the focal company, the b2b company should also reevaluate the changing states of the relationship. the marketing literature generally views trust, commitment, dependence, and relational norms as the four most notable relationship states (zhang, watson iv, palmatier, & dant, 2016) . thus, it is particularly important to monitor the velocity of each relationship or the rate and direction of changes in these key relational states in each stakeholder relationship (palmatier et al., 2013) . adverse, fast moving business situations such as a pandemic, an economic crisis, or both as what is transpiring in the current covid-19 pandemic provide touchstones for true business partnerships. trust is a company's perceptions of reliability and integrity of its exchange partner (morgan & hunt, 1994) . for example, a b2b company is said to have trust in a supplier if it believes the supplier possesses the ability to perform effectively and reliably and considers the buyer's best interests in taking actions (doney & cannon, 1997) . commitment refers to an enduring desire of an exchange party to maintain a valued relationship (moorman, zaltman, & deshpand'e, 1992) . dependence reflects an exchange party's realization that its relationship partner provides key resources for which few alternative sources exist (emerson, 1962; kumar, scheer, & steenkamp, 1995) . relational norms represent shared expectations about exchange behaviors in a relationship (heide & john, 1992) and their presence can help ensure equitable sharing of benefits and costs, curtail opportunism, and provide normative governance to a relationship (gundlach, achrol, & mentzer, 1995) . zhang et al. (2016) note the nonredundant and complementary nature of these four relationship constructs in capturing the overall climate of an exchange relationship. while trust, commitment, dependency, and relational norms tend to take a long time to develop and are generally stable overtime (dwyer et al., 1987; lusch & brown, 1996) , they could all quickly change during a pandemic. for example, certain suppliers may use the pandemic as an excuse to renege on their past promises or they simply may have lost the capacity to fulfill their volume commitments made in a much quieter time. also, when both internal and external situations are fast evolving, some firms may no longer display the same collaborative orientation in dealing with tough issues quickly arising in a business partnership. further, as demands for old products sink and opportunities for developing new products especially needed during a pandemic (such as masks, ventilators, and disinfectants) arise, the balance of interdependency could change rapidly as well (jap & anderson, 2007; pfeffer & salancik, 1978) . table 1 shows the relationship audit template we propose based on the above discussions. each factor is evaluated on three criteria pertaining to changes occurring during the pandemic to a relationship (its contextual conditions, value to the focal company, and relationship states): volatility, velocity, and criticality. for volatility, managers are tasked with determining how many changes have already occurred or are about to emerge to the relationship due to the crisis (gao & eshaghoff, 2004b) . for velocity, the manager must decide how quickly the changes are taking place or how fast the situations in the pertinent domains are evolving as a result of the pandemic (c.f. palmatier et al., 2013) . for criticality, managers must decide how important it is for the company to consider the above changes in the relationship in formulating their crisis response strategies, both during and after the crisis (emerson, 1962; pfeffer & salancik, 1978) . a key dimension in relationship dependence (emerson, 1962; pfeffer & salancik, 1978) is importance, or the criticality of resources obtained from the external environment/partners. our notion of criticality is conceptually similar to the concept of importance in the discussions of external dependence, and it specifically pertains to the criticality of the volatile and fast-moving changes transpiring during a pandemic that impact the proper functioning of the relationship and call for appropriate company responses. while many of the contextual changes happening during one of the worst health and economic crises in modern history are threats (or having negative impacts) in nature, they all tend to have major impacts on the company's performance and could cause major short-term and long-term damages to the company if they are left unaddressed. in turn, the rare opportunities that do uniquely appear during a pandemic, if properly identified and capitalized on, could translate into major competitive advantages for the company (courtney, 2001) . the first section highlights the aforementioned contextual concerns. for example, managers will need to determine how much new healthrelated challenges (volatility) have appeared around a given b2b relationship, how quickly those changes are occurring and must be addressed (velocity), and how important those health-related concerns are to the relationship (criticality). this process should be completed for economic, regulatory, humanitarian, and opportunities concerns as well. managers may be able to identify which existing relationships should be adjusted or can be leveraged into addressing emerging health, regulatory, and humanitarian concerns in this section. managers should also be able to identify which partners can best assist with traditional goals, such as economic health and opportunity identification. the second section highlights the costs/benefits portion in both a short-term context (episodic) and a long-term context (relational). in this section, managers must ask how much the benefits and costs of each relationship may have changed or are expected to change (volatility), how quickly those changes are unfolding to the cost/ benefit structure of the relationship (velocity), and how important those changes are to the continuation of the relationship (criticality). thus, managers may realize in this section that they require a cost reduction from a supplier or perhaps an increase in benefits (e.g., access to new supplies) in this section. the third section highlights the current state of the relationship. for example, managers will be tasked with identifying how much trust has changed during the crisis (volatility), how quickly that trust has changed (velocity), and how important that trust is to the continuation of the relationship (criticality). this process should be completed for partner commitment to the relationship, relative dependence within the relationship, and relational norms (e.g., shared expectations of behavior between partners). this section is most useful for managers to determine how existing relationships may have changed during the pandemic and the relative importance of those changes. we also include a baseline information column to help the company record how things were right before the pandemic, mostly in terms of the value the relationship affords the focal b2b company and the relationship states as seen by the b2b company. our recommended baseline standard for relationship value and relationship states is the state of affairs in these key relationship properties existing immediately before the pandemic. while all partnerships chosen in this audit were deemed functional prior to the pandemic, much may have changed to each partnership from its surrounding context to its internal value and states, as seen from the focal b2b company's perspective. because not all good and functional relationships are the same, this baseline evaluation serves as a reminder on where things were before the pandemic started. the scales going from "least" to "most" help capture the evaluations of the changes in both the contextual factors and inherent properties of each relationship. given the variance of information across the evaluative areas and among different types of relationships, we do not recommend a fixed set of guidelines on how to assign the scores on each evaluative aspect. we submit that different companies could have different views on the severity and pace of changes. for example, while a complete lockdown mandate by the local government could certainly qualify a regulatory change in a particular relationship to a 5, other b2b companies could view a partial lockdown as severe enough to warrant a 5 assignment as well. the same understanding goes with adverse changes in episodic benefits where either an 80% or a 50% supply volume reduction could lead to scores of 5, pending on specific situations faced by two different b2b companies. we now include a summary column in the audit form to help the evaluator record the key events and changes triggering assignments of extreme scores in certain evaluative areas. by serving as a reminder on what kinds of events would qualify a relationship for a particularly high score in an area, such a column also helps increase consistency in a focal company's evaluations of different relationships. we recommend that managers add a summary description for any instance in which baseline evaluation: relationship value and states immediately prior to the crisis. key contextual factors (e.g., crisis-related factors) are excluded from this evaluation. volatility: the size of possible change in a factor caused by the crisis (gao & eshaghoff, 2004b) . velocity: the rate of change in a factor caused by the crisis (palmatier et al., 2013) . criticality: the factor's relevancy to strategic decision-making during the crisis (emerson, 1962; pfeffer & salancik, 1978) . summary notes: detailed explanation of any 4 or 5 scores. they give a score of 4 or 5, indicating a drastic change to a b2b relationship. thus, the focus for managers completing this audit will be to identify the instances in which the most dramatic change will occur. after conducting these evaluations, managers can tally up their totals to gauge what relationships require immediate attention. based on the total scores earned in the volatility, velocity, and criticality columns, the company can divide the partners into two group: high priority response group (with individual score ≥ 4 in any evaluative area) and low priority response group (all individual scores < 4). the high priority response group represents firm relationships that have already changed or are expected to change dramatically in the face of the crisis. in some instances, these relationships will take on increasing importance while in other instances, these relationships will become less important, perhaps obsolete. it should also be noted that some relationships may become crucial for addressing very specific concerns, hence the importance of the key contextual factors. for example, a relationship with a medical supplies firm may be very important in addressing emerging health-related concerns, but they may not have much impact on other factors. in this case, you would expect scores of 4 or 5 on volatility, velocity, and criticality across the "health-related concerns" row, but much lower scores on the other factors. thus, these relationships should still be addressed immediately even though the total scores may not be very high. in this section, we provide some guiding principles to b2b companies in their formulation of a pandemic response strategy. each one represents a different guideline, and when all are considered, we hope to offer companies a relatively complete set of thought processes needed in relationship management during a crisis. we will organize our discussions by addressing steps forward for 1) high priority response relationships (i.e., high volatility, velocity, and criticality), 2) low priority response relationships (i.e., low volatility, velocity, and criticality), and 3) managing the balance of the entire relationship portfolio. there are three major connections between this section and the previous two, in terms of the logical activity sequence, the theoretical basis of our formulated strategic recommendations, and necessary extensions to the current relationship portfolio. in terms of logical activity sequence, our above relationship audit tool enables the b2b firm to evaluate each major relationship and identifies the relationships and specific aspects of those relationships (from most salient contextual factors to most notable relationship value and state variables) to focus on in formulating their specific pandemic strategies. hence, the preceding sections provide necessary inputs for further decision-making in the current section. in terms of the theoretical linkage, we organize our entire article by following the contingency perspective of structural design (chandler, 1962; venkatraman, 1989) . according to this theory, a firm's structure, including its external structure or the way in which it relates to other organizations (gittell & weiss, 2004) should conform to a set of organizational, environmental, and inter-organizational factors to produce best performance. our view of external business relationships as an organizational design issue in the domain of inter-organizational structure is consistent with the view expressed in shi and tao (tony) gao (2016) p. 5). as much may have already changed in both the broader context and the essential properties of each business relationship, the b2b company should first monitor and categorize such changes and then, specifically based on conclusions developed above, formulate specific relationship management strategies. in terms of the necessary extensions to current relationship portfolio, the b2b company should go beyond the auditing of existing relationships to consider needs and opportunities for developing new relationships that were not part of the relationship audit. in this vein, the initial auditing results may illuminate areas that are lacking, thus requiring the establishment of new relationships. for example, if none of the current b2b relationships can be leveraged to address emerging regulatory concerns, this will become apparent from this analysis and a new b2b relationship should be sought after. below we recommend some steps forward based on the results of this relationship audit. because the high priority group requires the most pressing attention, we focus on these types of relationships first. for the high priority response group, we recommend the following strategies: • adjust the pace of relationship development based on fast evolving internal and external conditions. while all relationships go through the same five stages of development including awareness, exploration, expansion, maturity, and dissolution (dwyer et al., 1987; jap & anderson, 2007) , the pace of their developments across stages can vary, especially during times of major changes in a company's internal or external environments. the company should also recognize that as a partner migrates through different relationship stages over time, not all relationship marketing strategies (such as product mix, partner investments, communication, and compromise) will be equally effective (zhang et al., 2016) . this means that firms should be open to the expansion of some relationships, especially for high response and high criticality partnerships. however, firms should consider dissolution of other relationships, especially for high response but low criticality partnerships. • develop dynamic relationship management capabilities (learning from the pandemic, resiliency, response systems, etc.). drawing on the dynamic capabilities perspective (teece, 2007) , we propose that a company's ability to manage complex business relationships in conditions of rapid and unpredictable change, such as those experienced in a pandemic or economic crisis, may become a key source of competitive advantage. this means that the role of client facing employees, such as the sales force, will change. sales dinners have moved to virtual meetings and conferences have been cancelled which means sales teams must get creative. one example of this is the merging of outside and inside sales teams. while these sales force members historically would work in separate functions, rarely seeing each other in person, the coronavirus has forced teams to embrace virtual selling together. this movement away from separate functions within the salesforce today could lead to more functional and integrated sales forces in the future. in other words, traditional inside and outside sales forces could become a relic of the past, replaced by hybrid sales teams (carson, 2020) . • be responsible and humanitarian in treating key internal and external relationship partners. firms should work closely with local communities, charities, and governments to participate in publiccorporate partnerships for pandemic response. for example, cockroach labs, a cloud database start-up, has moved away from providing perks and giveaways to win over clients and have instead offered to donate on behalf of their clients (carson, 2020) . this is an example of one firm shifting their relational norms to satisfy humanitarian concerns while concurrently developing further trust and commitment with their clients. • explore possibilities of producing new product lines particularly needed during a pandemic, such as masks, ventilators, protective equipment, and disinfectants. for example, distilleries have begun to product hand sanitizer in recent weeks as the demand has skyrocketed (distilled spirits, 2020). in this example, distilleries are using equipment that they already have available, but our introducing a new product to the market. the distilleries are reassessing existing and new partnerships with customers and retailers while addressing health-related, economic, and opportunistic concerns. • retreat as needed and possible. firms will need to end certain relationships in the short-term, which could be a difficult idea to accept. the relationship audit is especially helpful in these scenarios as the auditing manager will be easily be able to identify relationships that have a low criticality score but high volatility and velocity scores. specifically, the cost/benefit portion of the template should helpful in identifying the relationships that should not be further pursued. the pandemic presents an opportunity to end a relationship that no longer contributes to the company's strategic objectives both in the near-term and long-term. partners who are unable to embrace a shift to modern technologies are perhaps the clearest example of partnerships that should be terminated during the coronavirus crisis. • identify and aggressively pursue new opportunities. while many firms have taken a survivalist approach to the crisis, we argue that firms must not overlook potential opportunities. depending on the firm, a crisis can actually be a great time to respond to a changing market. one example of this can be seen from the leavitt corporation, an everett, massachusetts based company that produces teddie peanut butter. as the coronavirus pandemic has changed dining habits in u.s. and across the world, the demand for peanut butter (which is shelf-stable, low cost, and high in protein) has increased drastically. as such, grocery stores have had an increasingly difficult time keeping peanut butter on the shelves, even being forced to ration the amount sold to customers. in response, the leavitt corp. has tripled production since the middle of march 2020. they leveraged current relationships with jar, lid, and label suppliers (economic criterion), while beginning new relationships with trucking companies that had lost business from other ventures shut down by the pandemic (opportunity criterion) (baker, 2020) . this example highlights how one firm identified high response, high criticality relationships and aggressively pursued new economic opportunities. • establish new relationships to address immediate threats arising from the pandemic. while the emerging threats during the pandemic are seemingly countless, one goal of the relationship audit is to identify the most immediate threats. for example, perhaps no current relationship provides the firm the tools needed to address new health-related concerns. thus, a new relationship is needed. in order to speed up production, leavvitt corp. did just this by buying facemasks and other health gear for employees in march 2020 and brought in outdoor porta-potties for the visiting truck drivers (baker, 2020) . in this example, new relationships were needed with a medical supply firm and a portable toilet rental firm. while these may appear to be relatively minor steps, they were necessary in order for leavitt corp. to keep their supply chain moving and to take advantage of the aforementioned opportunities. for the low priority response group, the response is to maintain relationships and consider contingency plans. although most b2b relationships will change due to the pandemic, some will change less than others. in these cases, it is appropriate to maintain a cordial relationship, but also consider contingency plans if any issues arise. the level of effort spent maintaining will also depend on the criticality of those relationships. for example, coca-cola's brand dasani processes and bottles water from detroit municipal sources. in this case, the relationship with the city of detroit has high criticality scores for coca-cola and thus should be nurtured, but the low volatility and velocity scores would indicate that little change is expected. as of april 23, 2020, there were no signs of a shortage of safe drinking water in the united states, thus the relationship should not change drastically (felton, 2020) . although demand changes are not expected, and the relationship with the city of detroit is less likely to change than other relationships, coca-cola should at least consider other potential sources of water as a contingency. marketing scholars have used the relationship portfolio approach to denote the range of business relationships a company forms with various types of actors such as customers, competitors, complementors, and suppliers (e.g., ritter, wilkinson, & johnston, 2004) . the b2b company should also view the entire existing relationship portfolio/ network as a whole and evaluate its updated capacity/performance to meet the company's key strategic goals (ritter et al., 2004) . drawing on this research tradition, we propose a balanced portfolio approach to the management of business relationships during the coronavirus pandemic and associated health and economic crises. that is, b2b companies should seek to establish a balanced portfolio of supplier and customer relationships that will enable to them to both weather the immediate challenges in the crisis and take advantage of unique strategic opportunities arising from the crisis. this approach inherently indicates that firms should expect to "lean in" to some relationships, while simultaneously adding new relationships, perhaps in replacement of suddenly failing, current relationships. in this context, we recommend that firms should consider the following steps: • first, firms should institute a new orientation toward relationship development during a pandemic by recognizing the pandemic as a whole new reality and becoming open to changing to the relationship portfolio. for example, leavitt corp. has offered a regular bonus for all employees while the state of emergency lasts and the factory runs at nights and weekends, thus addressing the emerging humanitarian concerns internally (baker, 2020) . in this case, leavitt corp. is nurturing a critical relationshipthe one with their employees. • second, firms should seek new relationship building opportunities (or embrace the pandemic, so to speak). while the relationship audit necessarily focuses on the reevaluation of all existing relationships, it is critical to recognize the need to develop new relationships using valuable and often transient opportunities emerging from a pandemic. in doing so, the company may need to increase resource commitments as needed (gao & sarraf, 2009 ), at a time when while many companies may be attempted to cut spending as a default crisis response strategy. • finally, we recommend that firms look at the results of the relationship audit holistically. in other words, we ask the managers to consider if they have addressed all concerns noted in the template. we argue that it is not enough to simply respond to the most critical relationships, but companies must also ensure that all relationships are complementary. general electric (ge) may provide a cautionary tale of how a firm can get in trouble for taking too narrow of a view. as the coronavirus began to spread in march 2020, ge did as many firms have done and laid off workers. however, they focused too sharply on their economic concerns and overlooked their humanitarian concerns, especially related to the production of ventilators. ge workers and the unions that represent them responded to the layoffs by protesting at various facilities in the u.s. demanding that recently laid off employees be allowed to produce ventilators needed to combat the coronavirus (jones, 2020) . while ge has since begun the production of ventilators, the firm could have avoided these protests by better balancing their various relationships and considering the humanitarian concerns surrounding mass layoffs. we hope that this paper is useful to all the various employees, firms, and customers in the b2b space who are affected by the coronavirus pandemic. we understand that managing a crisis is difficult for all firms and that a reliable "playbook" can be hard to come by. in this vain, we hope that the relationship audit template outlined in this paper can provide firms with an additional tool for managing a crisis. the 2020 pandemic has pushed practitioners and academics into a new reality that most of us are unfamiliar with. thus, we hope this paper can inspire an emerging stream of research and knowledge focused on crisis management in the b2b context. given the newly developed nature of this relationship audit framework, this framework still requires comprehensive, empirical testing. with that said, we have applied the framework to evaluate a relationship with a food services supplier on behalf of the university where the authors work. we believe this is an appropriate example as the authors have both familiarity and prior experience navigating the university's relationship with their primary food service provider. (see the appendix). even though the focus of this article is on managing relationships during a pandemic, relationships do not exist in a vacuum and concrete; essential marketing decisions about product, price, communication, channel distribution, and target marketing provide the foundation on which relationships are built and adjusted. as such, we also contend that all areas of marketing decision-making within a crisis context could be up for review and possible change. for example, new product opportunities may emerge, price levels may need to be adjusted, and new communication messages would need to be formulated. we hope that this article, along with many others, spurs a new line of research that considers the changes seen within industrial marketing brought about by a global crisis. as regular food services have halted, relational norms have shifted in the short-term. new norms will need to be developed to maintain the relationship in the short-term. baseline evaluation: relationship value and states immediately prior to the crisis. key contextual factors (e.g., crisis-related factors) are excluded from this evaluation. volatility: the size of possible change in a factor caused by the crisis (gao & eshaghoff, 2004b) . velocity: the rate of change in a factor caused by the crisis (palmatier et al., 2013) . criticality: the factor's relevancy to strategic decision-making during the crisis (emerson, 1962; pfeffer & salancik, 1978) . summary notes: detailed explanation of any 4 or 5 scores. everett-based teddie peanut butter has become one of the unsung companies called into action to fortify the backline assurance of security in maritime supply chains: conceptual issues of vulnerability and crisis management vertical trade relationships: the role of dependence and symmetry in attaining organizational goals buyer-supplier relationships and customer firm costs tech sales teams brace for missed quotas in the time of coronavirus strategy and structure. cambridge: ma making the most of uncertainty. the mckinsey quarterly38. distilled spirits (2020) an examination of the nature of trust in buyer--seller relationships developing buyer-seller relationships value creation in the relationship life cycle: a quasi-longitudinal analysis power dependence relations how coke and pepsi make millions from bottling tap water, as residents face shutoffs customer value change in industrial marketing relationships: a call for new strategies and research mncs' preferred responses to the argentine financial crisis: a classification and empirical investigation important decision factors considered by mncs in their reevaluation and/or modification of foreign entry modes during the argentine financial crisis enriching customer value research with a relational perspective: evidence from an empirical investigation of organizational buyers' value perceptions what causes multinational companies to increase resource commitments during financial crises in emerging markets?" special issue on multinationals in emerging markets coordination networks within and across organizations: a multi-level framework targeted social distancing design for pandemic influenza customer-employee rapport in service relationships the structure of commitment in exchange interorganizational governance in marketing channels do norms matter in marketing relationships testing a life-cycle theory of cooperative interorganizational relationships: movement across stages and performance ge workers demand to save jobs, make ventilators to fight coronavirus pandemic startups in times of crisis-a rapid response to the covid-19 pandemic the effects of perceived interdependence on dealer attitudes assessing reseller performance from the perspective of the supplier strategic development processes during economic and financial crisis strategic partners and strange bedfellows: relationship building in humanitarian supply chains a relationship-management assessment tool: questioning, identifying, and prioritizing critical aspects of customer relationships value in business markets: what do we know? where are we going? industrial marketing management interdependency, contracting, and relational behavior in marketing channels a conceptual model for building and maintaining relationships between manufacturers' representatives and their principals. industrial marketing management relationships between providers and users of market research: the dynamics of trust within and between organizations the commitment-trust theory of relationship marketing factors influencing the effectiveness of relationship marketing: a meta-analysis relationship velocity: toward a theory of relationship dynamics managing the co-creation of value the external control of organizations: a resource dependence perspective the economic impact of h1n1 on mexico's tourist and pork sectors the value concept in relationship marketing more is not always better: the impact of relationship functions on customer-perceived relationship value managing in complex business networks performance impacts of global account coordination mechanisms: an integrative study of boundary conditions strategic lessons from the asian crisis introduction to the special issue on humanitarian operations and crisis management explicating dynamic capabilities: the nature and microfoundations of (sustainable) enterprise performance the business effects of pandemics -a rapid literature review measuring customer-perceived value in business markets: a prerequisite for marketing strategy development and implementation. industrial marketing management the concept of fit in strategy research: toward verbal and statistical correspondence value creation in buyer -seller relationships: theoretical considerations and empirical results from a supplier's perspective. industrial marketing management partnering with resellers in business markets. industrial marketing management who inhabits a business ecosystem? the technospecies as a unifying concept the economic institutions of capitalism an integrated model of buyer-seller relationships consumer perceptions of price, quality, and value: a means-end model and synthesis of evidence dynamic relationship marketing key: cord-027960-qzg2jsz6 authors: royo, sebastián title: from boom to bust: the economic crisis in spain 2008–2013 date: 2020-06-28 journal: why banks fail doi: 10.1057/978-1-137-53228-2_4 sha: doc_id: 27960 cord_uid: qzg2jsz6 this chapter analyzes the overall economic crisis that started in 2008 in spain. it is impossible to disentangle the 2008 banking crisis from the overall economic crisis that affected the country at the same time. this chapter looks at the performance of the spanish economy throughout the 1990s and the first decade of the twentieth century. it examines the reasons for the success of the spanish economy in the 1990s and provides an overview of the main causes of the 2008–2013 crisis and the governments’ responses. the economic crisis that hit the country in 2008 cannot be separated from the subsequent financial crisis. in order to contextualize the banking games that inform the next chapters and to understand the overall consequences that the economic crisis had on spanish banks and cajas , this chapter examines the economic crisis and analyzes its causes and consequences. yet again, the performance of the spanish banking system was deeply connected to the performance of the spanish economy, and progress in the banking sector was marred by the performance of the spanish economy at large. the economic crisis that started in 2008, part of the great recession that engulfed most countries, had profound consequences for the spanish banking system. this book will show that the financial crises were the result of a political bargain in which incentives and a lax regulatory framework favored developers, property owners, and bankers, thus confirming a central tenant: the crucial importance of domestic political institutions, the rules of the game, and the role of domestic players operating within those institutions. from: sebastián royo, "after austerity: lessons from the spanish experience," in towards a resilient eurozone: economic, monetary and fiscal policies, ed. john ryan (new york: peter lang, 2015) . the 2008 economic crisis, while not fully unexpected, came as a relative surprise given the strong performance of the spanish economy during the first years of the twentieth century. the overall pattern of spanish economic history has been described, crudely, as a graph shaped like an upside-down version of the letter 'v'. that is, the graph rises-bumpily at times, through 600 years under the romans, 700 years under or partly under the moors, and a century of empire-building-to the peak of spanish power in the sixteenth century. after that, the history of the nation goes downhill until the 1970s. a vast empire was gradually lost, leaving spain poor and powerless. and there was much political instability: spain suffered forty-three coup d'états between 1814 and 1923, a horrendous civil war between 1936 and 1939, followed by thirty-six years of dictatorship under generalísimo franco. 1 after franco's death in 1975, the graph turned upward again. king juan carlos, franco's heir, oversaw the return of democracy to the country. a negotiated transition period, which has been labeled as a model for other countries, paved the way for the elaboration of a new constitution, followed by the first free elections in almost forty years. these developments were followed by the progressive return of spain to the international arena-where they have been relatively isolated during the dictatorship. the following decade also witnessed the socialist party being elected to actual power in 1982, bringing a new aura of modernity to the country. the 1980s also witnessed spain's integration into nato (1982) and the european community (1986). the following two and a half decades were a period of phenomenal growth and modernization. indeed, before the global crisis that hit spain in the spring of 2008 the country had become one of europe's most successful economies. 2 while other european countries had been stuck in the mud, spain performed much better at reforming its welfare systems and labor markets, as well as improving flexibility and lowering unemployment. over the decade and a half that preceded the 2008 global financial crisis, the spanish economy seemed to had been able to break with the historical pattern of boom and bust, and the country's economic performance was nothing short of remarkable. yet all this came to a halt when the global financial crisis hit spain in 2008. as a result, spain is suffering one of the worst crises since the 1940s (royo 2013) . following the transition to democracy and the country's european integration, spain was, prior to the 2008 crisis, a model country. but then the (debt fueled) dream was shattered and the country's economy imploded after 2008. how did this happen? policy choices and the structure of decision making; the role of organized interest; the structure of the state; and institutional degeneration all played an important role in explaining the severity of the economic crisis in spain; as did the country's membership under an incomplete monetary union. the country had to face a triple crisis: financial, fiscal, and competitiveness. this chapter seeks to provide an overview of the country's evolution since the transition to democracy, and to explain its economic collapse after 2008 (see royo 2000 royo , 2008 royo , 2013 . the first section of the chapter outlines the main features of the spanish growth model, and the challenges that it faced. section two describes the scale of the shock it underwent from 2008 onward and analyzes the triple crisis in financial, fiscal, and competitiveness performance. the chapter concludes with brief lessons from the spanish experience. european integration was instrumental in the modernization of the country. indeed, before the global crisis that hit spain in the spring of 2008 the country had become one of europe's most successful economies (see table 4 .1). propped up by low interest rates and immigration, spain was (in 2008) in its fourteenth year of uninterrupted growth and it was benefiting from the longest cycle of continuing expansion of the spanish economy in modern history (only ireland in the euro zone has a better record), which contributed to the narrowing of per capita gdp with the eu. indeed, in 20 years per capita income grew 20 points, one point per year, to reach close to 90% of the eu15 average. with the eu25, spain already reached the average in 2008. the country grew on average 1.4 percentage points more than the eu since 1996. unemployment fell from 20% in the mid-1990s to 7.95% in the first half of 2007 (the lowest level since 1978), as spain became the second country in the eu (after germany with a much larger economy) creating the most jobs (an average of 600,000 per year over that decade). in 2006, the spanish economy grew a spectacular 3.9%, and 3.8% in 2007. as we have seen, economic growth contributed to per capita income growth and employment. indeed, the performance of the labor market was spectacular: between 1997 and 2007, 33% of all the total employment created in the eu-15 was created in spain. in 2006, the active population increased by 3.5%, the highest in the eu (led by new immigrants and the incorporation of women in the labor market, which increased from 59% in 1995 to 72% in 2006); and 772,000 new jobs were created. the economic success extended to spanish companies, which expanded beyond their traditional frontiers (guillén 2005) . in 2006, they spent a total of e140 billion on domestic and overseas acquisitions, putting the country third behind the uk and france in the eu. of this, e80 billion were to buy companies abroad (compared with the e65 billion spent by german companies). in 2006, spanish foreign direct investment (fdi) abroad increased 113%, reaching e71.5 billion (or the equivalent of 7.3% of gdp, compared with 3.7% in 2005). 4 in 2006 iberdrola, an electricity supplier purchased scottish power for $22.5 billion to create europe's third largest utility; banco santander, spain's largest bank, purchased britain's abbey national bank for $24 billion, ferrovial, a family construction group, concluded a takeover of the british baa (which operates the three main airports of the uk) for £10 billion; and telefonica bought o2, the uk mobile phone company. indeed, 2006 was a banner year for spanish firms: 72% of them increased their production and 75.1% their profits, 55.4% hired new employees, and 77.6% increased their investments. 5 the country's transformation was not only economic but also social. the spanish became more optimistic and self-confident (i.e., a harris poll showed that spaniards were more confident of their economic future than their european and american counterparts, and a poll by the center for sociological analysis showed that 80% were satisfied or very satisfied with their economic situation). spain became 'different' again and according to public opinion polls it had become the most popular country to work for europeans. 6 between 2000 and 2007, some 5 million immigrants (645,000 in 2004 and 500,000 in 2006) settled in spain (8.7% of the population compared with 3.7% in the eu15), making the country the biggest recipient of immigrants in the eu (they represented 10% of the contributors to the social security system). this was a radical departure for a country that used to be a net exporter of people, and more so because it was able to absorb these immigrants without falling prey (at least so far) to the social tensions that have plagued other european countries (although there have been isolated incidents of racial violence) (see calavita 2005) . 7 these immigrants contributed significantly to the economic success of the country in that decade because they boosted the aggregate performance of the economy: they raised the supply of labor, increased demand as they spent money, moderated wages, and put downward pressure on inflation, boosted output, allowed the labor market to avoid labor shortages, contributed to consumption, and increased more flexibility in the economy with their mobility and willingness to take on low-paid jobs in sectors such as construction and agriculture, in which the spanish were no longer interested. 8 indeed, an important factor in the per capita convergence surge with the eu after 2000 was the substantive revision of the spanish gdp data as a result of changes in the national accounts from 1995 to 2000. these changes represented an increase in gpd per capita of 4% in real terms (the equivalent of slovakia's gdp). this dramatic change was the result of the significant growth of the spanish population since 1998 as a result of the surge in immigration (for instance in 2003 population grew 2.1%). the key factor in this acceleration of convergence, given the negative behavior of productivity (if productivity had grown at the eu 6 according to the financial times, 17% of those polled selected spain as the country where they would prefer to work ahead of the uk (15%) and france (11%). see "españa vuelve a ser diferente," el país, february 19, 2007, and financial times, february 19, 2007. 7 calativa provides a detailed analysis of the immigration experience in spain and exposes the tensions associated with this development. she also highlights the shortcomings of governments' actions in regard to integration, and the impact of lack of integration on exclusion, criminalization, and radicalization. see 2005. 8 "immigrants boost british and spanish economies," financial times, tuesday, february 20, 2007, p. 3. average spain would have surpassed in 2007 the eu per capita average by 3 points), was the important increase in the participation rate, which was the result of the reduction in unemployment, and the increase in the activity rate (the proportion of people of working age who have a job or are actively seeking one) that followed the incorporation of female workers into the labor market and immigration growth. indeed between 2000 and 2004, the immigrant population has multiplied by threefold. as a matter of fact, most of the 772,000 new jobs created in spain in 2006 went to immigrants (about 60%). their motivation to work hard also opened the way for productivity improvements (which in 2006 experienced the largest increase since 1997, with a 0.8% raise). it is estimated that the contribution of immigrants to gdp had been of 0.8 percentage points in the four years to 2007. 9 immigration represented more than 50% of employment growth, and 78.6% of the demographic growth (as a result spain led the demographic growth of the european countries between 1995 and 2005 with a demographic advance of 10.7% compared with the eu15 average of 4.8%). 10 they also contributed to the huge increase in employment, which was one of the key reasons for the impressive economic expansion. indeed, between 1988 and 2006, employment contributed 3 percentage points to the 3.5% annual rise in spain's potential gdp (see table 4 .1). 11 what made this transformation possible? the modernization of the spanish economy in the two and half decades prior to 2008 had been intimately connected to the country's integration in the european union. indeed, european integration was a catalyst for the final conversion of the spanish economy into a modern western-type economy. yet, membership was not the only reason for this development. the economic liberalization, trade integration, and modernization of the spanish economy started in the 1950s and 1960s and spain became increasingly prosperous over the two decades prior to eu accession. however, one of the key consequences of its entry into europe was that it consolidated and deepened that development processes, and it accelerated the modernization of the country's economy. indeed, eu membership facilitated the micro-and macroeconomic reforms that successive spanish governments undertook throughout the 1980s and 1990s. spain also benefited extensively from european funds those two decades: approximately 150 billion euros from agricultural, regional development, training, and cohesion programs. moreover, european monetary union (emu) membership was also very positive for the country: it contributed to macroeconomic stability, it imposed fiscal discipline and central bank independence, and it lowered dramatically the cost of capital. one of the key benefits was the dramatic reduction in short-term and long-term nominal interest rates: from 13.3% and 11.7% in 1992, to 3.0% and 4.7% in 1999, and 2.2% and 3.4% in 2005. the lower costs of capital led to an important surge in investment from families (in housing and consumer goods) and businesses (in employment and capital goods). indeed, emu membership (and the stability pact) provided the country with unprecedented stability because it forced successive governments to implement responsible economic policies, which led to greater credibility and the improvement of the ratings of spain's public debt (and consequently to lower financing costs). another important factor to account for the country's economic success was the remarkable economic policy stability that followed the economic crisis of 1992-1993. indeed, there were few economic policy shifts throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, and this despite changes in government. between 1993 and 2009, there were only two ministers of finance, pedro solbes (from 1993 to 1996 , and from 2004 to 2009 ) and rodrigo rato (from 1996 to 2004 ; and the country only had three prime ministers (felipe gonzález, josé maría aznar, and josé luís rodríguez zapatero). this pattern was further reinforced by the ideological cohesiveness of the political parties in government and the strong control that party leaders exercise over the members of the cabinet and the parliament deputies. in addition, this stability was reinforced by the shared (and rare) agreement among conservative and socialist leaders regarding fiscal consolidation (the balance budget objective was established by law by the popular party), as well as the need to hold firm in the application of restrictive fiscal policies and the achievement of budgetary surpluses: as a result, a 7% budget deficit in 1993 became a 2.2% surplus in 2007, and public debt decreased from 68% of gdp in 1998 to 36.2% in 2007. finally, other factors that contributed to this success included the limited corruption and the fact that politics were fairly clean and relatively open; that spain had a flexible economy; and the success of spanish multinationals: there were eight firms in the financial times list of the world's largest multinationals in 2000, and 14 in 2008. 12 the challenges however, this economic success was marred by some glaring deficiencies that came to the fore in 2008 when the global financial crisis hit the country, because it was largely a "miracle" based on bricks and mortar. 13 the foundations of economic growth were fragile because the country had low productivity growth (productivity contributed only 0.5 percentage points to potential gdp between 1998 and 2006) and deteriorating external competitiveness. 14 over the decade that preceded the 2008 crisis spain did not address its fundamental challenge, its declining productivity, which only grew an average of 0.3% during that decade (0.7% in 2006), one whole point below the eu average, placing spain at the bottom of the eu and ahead of only italy and greece (the productivity of a spanish worker was the equivalent of 75% of a us one). the most productive activities (energy, industry, and financial services) contributed only 11% of gdp growth. 15 12 according to 2007 data from the world bank governance indicators (http://info. worldbank.org/governance/wgi/sc_chart.asp), spain was ranked in the 75-100th country's percentile ranks in control of corruption, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and voice and accountability. 13 according to martinez-mongay and maza lasierra, "the outstanding economic performance of spain in emu would be the result of a series of lucky shocks, including a large and persistent credit impulse and strong immigration, underpinned by some right policy choices. in the absence of new positive shocks, the resilience of the spanish economy to the financial crisis might be weaker than that exhibited in the early 2000s. the credit impulse has ended, fiscal consolidation has stopped, and the competitiveness gains of the nineties have gone long ago." see martinez-mongay and maza lasierra (2009 moreover, growth was largely based on low-intensity economic sectors, such as services and construction, which were not exposed to international competition. in 2006, most of the new jobs were created in low-productivity sectors such as construction (33%), services associated with housing such as sales and rentals (15%), and tourism and domestic service (30%). these sectors represented 75% of all the new jobs created in spain in 2006 (new manufacturing jobs, in contrast, represented only 5%). furthermore, the labor temporary rate reached 33.3% in 2007, and inflation was a recurrent problem (it closed 2006 with a 2.7% increase, but the average for that year was 3.6%), thus the inflation differential with the eu (almost 1 point) had not decreased, which reduced the competitiveness of spanish products abroad (and consequently spanish companies were losing market share abroad). 16 competitiveness was further hindered by a deep process of economic deindustrialization, low value added and complexity of exports, and low insertion in global value chains. in addition, family indebtedness reached a record 115% of disposable income in 2006, and the construction and housing sectors accounted for 18.5% of gdp (twice the eurozone average). house prices rose by 150% since 1998, and the average price of a square meter of residential property went up from 700 euros in 1997 to 2000 at the end of 2006, even though the housing stock had doubled. many wondered whether this bubble was sustainable. 17 the crisis that started in 2008 confirmed the worst fears, and the implosion of the housing bubble fueled corruption and bad practices in the cajas sector of the financial system. moreover, between 40 and 60% of the benefits of the largest spanish companies came from abroad. yet, in the years prior to the crisis this figure had decreased by approximately 10 percentage points, and there had been a decline in direct foreign investment of all types in the country, falling from a peak of 38.3 billion euros in 2000 to 16.6 billion euros in 2005. 18 states; imports were 25% higher than exports and spanish companies were losing market share in the world. hence, the trade deficit reached 9.5% in 2008. 19 while there was overall consensus that the country needed to improve its education system and invest in research and development to lift productivity, as well as modernize the public sector, and make the labor market more stable (i.e., reduce the temporary rate) and flexible, the government did not take the necessary actions to address these problems. spain spent only half of what the organization of european co-operation and development (oecd) countries spent on average on education; it lagged most of europe on investment in research and development (r&d); and it was ranked 29th by the unctad as an attractive location for research and development. finally, other observers noted that spain was failing to do more to integrate its immigrant population, and social divisions were beginning to emerge. 20 by the summer of 2008, the effects of the global crisis were evident in spain, and between 2008 and 2013 the country suffered one of the worst recession in modern history. this collapse was not wholly unexpected. the global liquidity freeze and the surge in commodities, food, and energy prices brought to the fore the unbalances in the spanish economy: the record current account deficit, persisting inflation, low productivity growth, dwindling competitiveness, increasing unitary labor costs, excess consumption, and low savings, had all set the ground for the current devastating economic crisis (see royo 2013) . as we have seen, the imbalances in the spanish economy came to the fore in 2007-2008 when the real estate market bubble burst and the international financial crisis hit spain (see table 4 .2). in just a few months the 'debt-fired dream of endless consumption' turned into a nightmare. by the summer of 2013, spain faced the worst economic recession in half a century. according to government statistics, 2009 was the worst year since there has been reliable data: gdp fell 3.7%, unemployment reached over four million people (eventually reaching over 27% in 2012, with more than 6 million people unemployed), and the public deficit reached a record 11.4% of gdp (up from 3.4% in 2008). consumer confidence was shattered, the implosion of the housing sector reached historic proportions, and the manufacturing sector was also suffering. initially, the zapatero government was reluctant to recognize the crisis, which was becoming evident as early as the summer of 2007, because of electoral considerations: the country had a general election in march 2008. and after the election, the zapatero government was afraid to admit that it had not been entirely truthful during the campaign. by 2007, there was increasing evidence that the model based on construction was already showing symptoms of exhaustion. yet, the spanish government not only refused to recognize that the international crisis was affecting the country, but also that in spain the crises would be aggravated by the very high levels of private indebtedness. as late as august 17, 2007, finance minister solbes predicted that 'the crisis would have a relative small effect' in the spanish economy. when it became impossible to deny what was evident, the government's initial reluctance to recognize and address the crisis was replaced by frenetic activism. the zapatero government introduced a succession of plans and measures to try to confront the economic crisis, and specifically to address the surge of unemployment (royo 2013 ) (see fig. 4.1) . the sharp deterioration of the labor market was caused by the economic crisis and the collapse of the real estate sector, and it was aggravated by a demographic growth pattern based on migratory inflows of labor: in 2007, there were 3.1 million immigrants in the country, of which 2.7 million were employed and 374,000 unemployed. in 2008, the number of immigrants increased by almost 400,000-3.5 million (representing 55% of the growth in the active population), but 580,000 of them were unemployed (and 2.9 million employed), an increase of 200,000. in the construction sector alone, unemployment increased 170% between the summer of 2007 and 2008. meanwhile, the manufacturing and service sectors (also battered by the global crisis, lower consumption, and lack of international competitiveness) proved unable to incorporate these workers. the pace of deterioration caught policy-makers by surprise. the zapatero government prepared budgets for 2008 and 2009 that were utterly unrealistic in the face of rapidly changing economic circumstances (as did all other advanced countries, the g-20 agreed on a plan for fiscal stimulus that would later prove relatively ineffective and dangerous for spain as it increased the country's debt). as a result, things continued to worsen over the new four years. the most significant decline was in consumer confidence, which was hammered by the financial convulsions, the dramatic increase in unemployment, and the scarcity of credit. as a result, household consumption, which represented 56% of gdp, fell 1% in the last quarter of 2009 for the first time in the last 15 years. according to the bank of spain, this decline in household consumption was even more important in contributing to the recession than the deceleration of residential investment, which had fallen 20%, driven down by worsening financial conditions, uncertainties, and the drop in residential prices. the government actions had limited effect stemming this hemorrhage, and their efficacy was inadequate. finally, the impact of the global economic crisis was felt well beyond the economic and financial realms. the crisis also had severe political consequences. spain followed in the path of many other european countries (including ireland, portugal, greece, and france) that saw their governments suffer the wrath of their voters and have been voted out of office. the socialist party (psoe) was re-elected in a general election on march 9, 2008. soon thereafter, economic conditions deteriorated sharply and the government's popularity declined rapidly. between march 2008 and march 2012, there were a number of electoral contests in spain at the local, regional, national, and european levels. at the national and european levels, the one common pattern was the outcome: the defeat of the socialist party and the victory of the popular party (pp). and at the regional and local levels the socialists suffered historical losses, losing control of regional government that they ruled for decades (notably, castilla-la mancha and extremadura), and even losing the election for the first time in one of its historical strongholds, andalusia (although they were able to reach a coalition with a smaller leftist party to stay in power). in the end, the economic crisis ignited a pattern of political polarization, instability, and fragmentation of the party system that crystallized in 2015 (following the pp's absolute majority) and lasts through today: as of fall of 2019, spain has had 4 general elections in 4 years. one of the most common misinterpretations regarding the crisis in southern europe was attributing it to mismanaged public finances. many policy-makers across europe, especially in the creditor countries (crucially germany), still insist today (2019) that the crisis was caused by irresponsible public borrowing, and this, in turn, led to misguided solutions. in fact, with very few exceptions, notably greece, that interpretation is incorrect. in spain, the crisis did not originate with mismanaged public finances. on the contrary, as late as 2011, spain's debt ratio was still well below the average for countries that adopted the euro as a common currency: while spain stood at less than 60% of gdp, greece stood at 160.8%, italy at 120%, portugal at 106.8%, ireland at 105%, belgium at 98.5%, and france at 86%. on the contrary, prior to 2007, spain seemed to be in an enviable fiscal position, even when compared with germany. 21 spain ran a budget surplus in 2005, 2006, and 2007 . it was only when the crisis hit the country and the real estate market collapsed that the fiscal position deteriorated markedly and the country experienced huge deficits. the problem in spain was the giant inflow of capital from the rest of europe; the consequence was rapid growth and significant inflation. in fact, the fiscal deficit was a result, not a cause, of spain's problems: when the global financial crisis hit spain and the real estate bubble burst, unemployment soared, and the budget went into deep deficit, caused partly by depressed revenues and partly by emergency spending to limit human costs. the government responded to the crisis with a massive e8 billion public works stimulus. this decision, combined with a dramatic fall in revenue, blew a hole in government accounts resulting in a large deficit. furthermore, the conditions for the crisis in spain were created by the excessive lending and borrowing of the private sector rather than the government. in other words, the problem was private debt and not public debt. spain experienced a problem of ever-growing private sector indebtedness, which was compounded by the reckless investments and loans of banks (including the overleveraged ones), both integral components of the bank bargains that we examine later in the book, that were aggravated by competitiveness and current account imbalances. in spain, the private sector debt (households and nonfinancial corporations) was 227.3% of gdp at the end of 2010; total debt increased from 337% of gdp in 2008 to 363% in mid-2011. yet, although spain entered the crisis in a relatively sound fiscal position, that position was not solid enough to withstand the effects of the crisis, especially being a member of a dysfunctional monetary union with no lender of last resort. the country's fiscal position deteriorated sharply-collapsing by more than 13% of gdp in just two years. looking at the deficit figures with the benefit of hindsight, it could be argued that spain's structural or cyclically adjusted deficit was much higher than its actual deficit. the fast pace of economic growth before the crisis inflated government revenues and lowered social expenditures in a way that masked the vulnerability hidden in spanish fiscal accounts. the problem is that it is very difficult to know the structural position of a country. the only way in which spain could have prevented the deficit disaster that followed would have been to run massive fiscal surpluses of 10% or higher during the years prior to the crisis in order to generate a positive net asset position of at least 20% of gdp. 22 this, for obvious reasons, would not have been politically feasible. there is another way to look at the crisis. many economists argue that the underlying problem in the euro area was the exchange rate system itself, namely, the fact that european countries locked themselves into an initial exchange rate. this decision meant, in fact, that they believed that their economies would converge in productivity (which would mean that the spaniards would, in effect, become more like the germans). if convergence was not possible, the alternative would be for people to move to higher productivity countries, thereby increasing their productivity levels by working in factories and companies there (or to create a full fiscal union to provide for permanent transfers, as argued by oca theory). time has shown that both expectations were unrealistic and, in fact, the opposite happened. the gap between german and spanish (including other peripheral country) productivity increased, rather than decreased, over the past decade and, as a result, germany developed a large surplus on its current account; while spain and the other periphery countries had large current account deficits that were financed by capital inflows. 23 in this regard, one could argue that the incentives introduced by emu worked exactly in the wrong way. capital inflows in the south made the structural reforms that would have been required to promote convergence less necessary, thus increasing divergence in productivity levels. in addition, adoption of the euro as a common currency fostered a false sense of security among private investors. during the years of euphoria following the launching of europe's economic and monetary union and prior to the onset of the financial crisis, private capital flowed freely into spain and, as a result as we have seen, the country ran current account deficits of close to 10% of gdp. in turn, these deficits helped finance large excesses of spending over income in the private sector. the result did not have to be negative. these capital inflows could have helped spain (and the other peripheral countries) invest, become more productive, and "catch up" with germany. unfortunately, in the case of spain, they largely led to a massive bubble in the real estate market, consumption, and unsustainable levels of borrowing. the bursting of that bubble contracted the country's real economy and it brought down the banks that gambled on loans to real estate developers and construction companies. at the same time, as noted above, the economic boom also generated large losses in external competitiveness that spain failed to address. successive spanish governments also missed the opportunity to reform institutions in their labor and product markets. as a result, costs and prices increased, which in turn led to a loss of competitiveness and large trade deficits. this unsustainable situation came to the fore when the financial shocks that followed the collapse of lehman brothers in the fall of 2007 brought "sudden stops" in lending across the world, leading to a collapse in private borrowing and spending, and a wave of fiscal crisis. a third problem had to do with the banks. as we will see in much greater detail later in the book, this problem was slow to develop. between 2008 and 2010, the spanish financial system, despite all its problems, was still one of the least affected by the crisis in europe. during that period, of the 40 financial institutions that received direct assistance from brussels, none was from spain. in december 2010, moody's ranked the spanish banking system as the third strongest of the eurozone, only behind finland and france, above the netherlands and germany, and well ahead of portugal, ireland, and greece. finally, santander and bbva had shown new strength with profits of e4.4 billion and e2.8 billion, respectively, during the first half of 2010. spanish regulators had put in place regulatory and supervisory frameworks, which initially shielded the spanish financial system from the direct effects of the global financial crisis. indeed, the bank of spain had imposed a regulatory framework that required higher provisioning, which provided cushions to spanish banks to initially absorb the losses caused by the onset of the global financial crisis. and there were no toxic assets in bank´s balance sheets. nevertheless, this success proved short-lived. in the summer of 2012, spanish financial institutions seemed to be on the brink of collapse and the crisis of the sector forced the european union in june (2012) to devise an emergency e100 billion rescue plan for the spanish banking sector (see chapter 1). when the crisis intensified, the financial system was not able to escape its dramatic effects. by september 2012, the problem with toxic real estate assets forced the government to intervene and nationalize eight financial institutions. altogether, by may 9, 2012, the reorganization of the banking sector involved e115 billion in public resources, including guarantees. as we will examine later in the book, there are a number of factors that help account for the deteriorating performance of the spanish banks after 2009. the first was the direct effect of the economic crisis. the deterioration in economic conditions had a severe impact on the bank balance sheets. the deep recession and record-high unemployment triggered successive waves of loan losses in the spanish mortgage market coupled with a rising share of nonperforming loans. like many other countries such as the united states, spain had a huge property bubble that burst. land prices increased 500% in spain between 1997 and 2007, the largest increase among the oecd countries. as a result of the collapse of the real estate sector had a profound effect in banks: five years after the crisis started, the quality of spanish banking assets continued to plummet. the bank of spain classified e180 billion euros as troubled assets at the end of 2011, and banks were sitting on e656 billion of mortgages of which 2.8% were classified as nonperforming. a second factor was concern over the country's sovereign debt. as mentioned before, the crisis in spain did not originate with mismanaged public finances. the crisis has largely been a problem of ever-growing private sector debt, compounded by reckless bank investments and loans, particularly from the cajas , as well as aggravated by competitiveness and current account imbalances. to place the problem in perspective, the gross debt of household increased dramatically in the decade prior to the crisis, and by 2009 it was 20 percentage points higher than the eurozone average (86% of gdp versus 66%). but the austerity policies implemented since may 2010 aggravated the fiscal position of the country. the ratio of spain's debt to its economy was 36% before the crisis and reached 84% in 2013. in sum, spain fell into the "doom loop" that had already afflicted greece or portugal and led to their bailout. the sustainability of the spanish government debt was affecting spanish banks (including bbva and santander) because they had been some of the biggest buyers of government debt in the wake of the ecb long-term refinancing operation liquidity infusions (the percentage of government bond owned by domestic banks reached 30% in mid-2012). again, the doom loop was a result of emu weakness, namely the lack of a banking union with a centralized eu funded mechanism to bail out banks. spanish banks were also suffering the consequences of their dependence on wholesale funding for liquidity since the crisis started, and, in particular, their dependence on international wholesale financing, as 40% of their balance depends on funding from international markets, particularly from the ecb. borrowing from the ecb reached e82 billion in 2012, and spanish banks had increased their ecb borrowings by more than six times since june 2011, to the highest level in absolute terms among euro area banking systems as of april 2012. the crisis also exposed weaknesses in the policy and regulatory framework, part of the banking bargains that we will examine later in the book. the most evident sign of failure was the fact that the country had already adopted five financial reforms in three years and had implemented three rounds of bank mergers. the results of these reforms were questionable at best. the fact that spain had five reforms in less than three years, instead of one that really fixed the problem, says it all. they had been perceived largely as "too little and too late," and they failed to sway investors' confidence in the spanish financial sector. finally, the financial crisis can also be blamed on the actions (and inactions) of the bank of spain, one of the key actors involved in the bank bargains. at the beginning of the crisis, the bank of spain's policies were all praised and were taken as model by other countries. time, however, tempered that praise and the bank of spain was criticized for its actions and decisions (or lack thereof) during the crisis. spanish central bankers chose the path of least resistance: alerting about the risks but failing to act decisively. the economic crisis that started in spain 2008 was largely a problem of ever-growing private sector debt, aggravated by competitiveness and current account imbalances, and compounded by reckless bank investments and loans, particularly from the cajas , which by over-lending freely to property developers and mortgages contributed to a real estate property bubble. this outcome was a result of the political bargains at the heart of the game of bank bargains focus of this book. the bubble contributed to hide the fundamental structural problems of the spanish economy outlined in the previous sections and had an effect in policy choices because no government was willing to burst the bubble and risk suffering the wreath of voters. furthermore, cheap credit also had inflationary effects that contributed to competitiveness losses and record balance of payment deficits. therefore, three dimensions of the crisis (financial, fiscal, and competitiveness) are interlinked in their origins. the crisis exposed the underbelly of the financial sector and showed that many banks (particularly the cajas ) were not just suffering liquidity problems but risked insolvency, which led to the eu financial bailout of june 2012. the bailout had onerous conditions attached and it limited national economic autonomy (see dellepiane and hardiman 2011) . finally, the financial and fiscal crises were made worse by the incomplete institutional structure of emu and by bad policy choices at the eu level (excess austerity and refusal to act as a lender of last resort for sovereigns by the ecb) (royo 2013) . in the end, the crisis exposed the weaknesses of the country's economic model. indeed, despite the previous two decades' significant progress and achievements, the spanish economy still faced serious competitive and fiscal challenges. unfortunately, the economic success the country prior to the crisis fostered a sense of complacency, which allowed for a delay in the adoption of the necessary structural reforms. and this was not a surprise as the spanish economy was living on borrowed time, despite all the significant progress, and the country still had considerable ground to cover, given the existing income and productivity differentials, to catch up with the richer eu countries and to improve the competitiveness of its economy (see royo 2013) . the sudden collapse of the spanish economy came as a shock. yet, in retrospect it should not have been such a surprise. the policies choices and political bargains taken during the previous decades led to an unsustainable bubble in private sector borrowing that was bound to burst. moreover, as we will examine on chapter 7, the institutional degeneration that led to systemic corruption and contributed to the implosion of parts of the financial sector made the crisis almost unavoidable. as we have seen, much of spain growth during the 2000s was based on the domestic sector and particularly on an unsustainable reliance on construction. as we will later in the book, this outcome was part of a political bargain in which tax incentives and a lax regulatory framework favored developers, property owners, and bankers (particularly cajas ). the particular regulation of the cajas proved fatally flawed, as it provided incentives that favored local and regional government actors' access to finance at the expense of an environment that would have provided a stable and efficient banking system. on the contrary, it led to a form of crony capitalism spanish style, in which they invested massively in the construction sector in search of rapid growth and larger market share. these decisions proved fatal once the real estate bubble burst, and they led to the nationalization of several cajas , including bankia, and the financial bailout from the european union. membership in the european single currency was not the panacea that everyone expected to be, thus confirming the crucial importance of domestic political institutions and how domestic players operate within those institutions. in spain, the adoption of the euro led to a sharp reduction in real interest rates that contributed to the credit boom and the real estate bubble. however, it also altered economic governance decisions. successive spanish governments largely ignored the implications of emu membership and failed to implement the necessary structural reforms to ensure the sustainability of fiscal policies and to control unitary labor costs. these decisions led to a continuing erosion of competitiveness (and a record current account deficit), and a huge fiscal deficit when the country was hit by the global financial crisis. indeed, the experience of the country shows that eu and emu membership had not led to the implementation of the structural reforms necessary to address these challenges. on the contrary, emu contributed to the economic boom, thus facilitating the postponement of necessary economic reforms. this challenge however is not a problem of european institutions, but of national policies. the process of economic reforms has to be a domestic process led by domestic actors willing to carry them out. the spanish case serves as an important reminder that in the context of a monetary union, countries only control fiscal policies and relative labor costs. spain proved to be weak at both. it failed to develop an appropriate adjustment strategy to succeed within the single currency, and it ignored the imperative that domestic policy choices have to be consistent with the international constraints imposed by euro membership. on the contrary, in spain domestic policies and the imperatives of participating in a multinational currency union stood in uneasy relationship to one another. the crisis was the tipping point that brought this inconsistency to the fore, which led to the worst economic crisis in spanish modern history (before covid-19). next we turn to the elements of domestic bargains that underline the financial crisis. immigrants at the margins ucd geary institute discussion series chapters the rise of spanish multinationals competitiveness and growth in emu: the role of the external sector in the adjustment of the spanish economy from social democracy to neoliberalism royo, sebastián. lessons from the economic crises in spain after austerity: lessons from the spanish experience key: cord-031232-6cv8n2bf authors: de weck, olivier; krob, daniel; lefei, li; lui, pao chuen; rauzy, antoine; zhang, xinguo title: handling the covid‐19 crisis: toward an agile model‐based systems approach date: 2020-08-27 journal: nan doi: 10.1002/sys.21557 sha: doc_id: 31232 cord_uid: 6cv8n2bf the covid‐19 pandemic has caught many nations by surprise and has already caused millions of infections and hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide. it has also exposed a deep crisis in modeling and exposed a lack of systems thinking by focusing mainly on only the short term and thinking of this event as only a health crisis. in this paper, authors from several of the key countries involved in covid‐19 propose a holistic systems model that views the problem from a perspective of human society including the natural environment, human population, health system, and economic system. we model the crisis theoretically as a feedback control problem with delay, and partial controllability and observability. using a quantitative model of the human population allows us to test different assumptions such as detection threshold, delay to take action, fraction of the population infected, effectiveness and length of confinement strategies, and impact of earlier lifting of social distancing restrictions. each conceptual scenario is subject to 1000+ monte‐carlo simulations and yields both expected and surprising results. for example, we demonstrate through computational experiments that maintaining strict confinement policies for longer than 60 days may indeed be able to suppress lethality below 1% and yield the best health outcomes, but cause economic damages due to lost work that could turn out to be counterproductive in the long term. we conclude by proposing a hierarchical computerized, command, control, and communications (c4) information system and enterprise architecture for covid‐19 with real‐time measurements and control actions taken at each level. f i g u r e 1 confirmed deaths per million people as of july 21, 2020 makes it a systemic crisis and not only a pure health crisis. the closest analog we have at a global scale is the h1n1 influenza pandemic of 1917-1919 ("spanish flu") which killed between 17 and 50 million people worldwide. 6 thus, handling the current covid-19 crisis requires a holistic approach taking into consideration an extremely complex system, ie., society as a whole. another important aspect of the covid-19 crisis is that the pandemic propagation has been very fast, thus demanding rapid decisionmaking. moreover, and we think that this is a structuring feature of this crisis, the incubation time of the disease introduces a delay-that has been estimated as being up to two weeks according to epidemiologists (refs. 7, 8, or 9 )-between the implementation of countermeasures and the observation of their effects. this is compounded by the fact that a significant fraction of the virus carriers appear to be asymptomatic, causing a large difference between the numbers of actual cases and of known or confirmed cases (see refs. 1, 3, or 5) . this explains why the problem of monitoring the covid-19 crisis can be seen as a controltheoretic problem with delay in the feedback loop used to stabilize the situation in addition to the problem of low or only partial observability of the true system states. we shall elaborate further on this point. from a system-theoretic perspective, the above characteristics raise several difficult problems. the first one, which is rather expected, regards scalability: can our current systems engineering and modeling methods (cf. for instance, refs. 10-16, or 17) be extended to a system, or more precisely a system-of-systems (cf. ref. 18 or 19) , as large and as complex as human society as a whole? this question is clearly not easy to solve and appears moreover poorly addressed by the only known models of such scope, ie., the so-called world models, based on generalized volterra equations, that followed the seminal work of forrester in the 1970s (see refs. 20, 21, and 22) . a second problem is caused by the emergence of local and partial solutions which is significant since the covid-19 crisis impacts all sectors of society, including the medical, financial, transportation, manufacturing, and overall economic systems. society therefore needs fast and innovative solutions in order to mitigate as much as possible the consequences of the crisis. time pressure favors local and partial solutions, but also a strong coordination among actors in order to avoid contradictory strategies. a central question is therefore how to favor the emergence of bottom-up local actions while, at the same time, ensuring top-down monitoring and coordination of such actions, with short feedback loops. this calls for an agile approach (see refs. 23, 24, or 25) to the global covid-19 crisis. stating the above problems, we made a clear choice in this paper: we do strongly believe in the use of models, and more precisely of systemic models to think through and manage the crisis. models as we consider them here are, however, not platonic ideals, but observational models which rely on the observation of the reality of the covid-19 crisis, including the effects of the decisions made based on them. such models are intended to capture the systemic nature of the crisis in order to achieve a better understanding of the situation and to allow a better communication among stakeholders. in that respect, models have two main roles: first, the concrete calculation of key performance indicators to support the decision-making process through experiments in silico; and a second more metaphorical one, to help us think better about the dynamic evolution of the systems at stake. the remainder of this paper is organized as follows. in section 2, we discuss which systemic models may support better management of the covid-19 crisis. then, in section 3, we advocate for an agile approach for crisis management. section 4 completes the paper with several recommendations. the general impression which emerges from the large and rapidly expanding literature dedicated to the covid-19 pandemic is that this crisis was first and foremost analyzed as primarily a health crisis (cf. ref. 26 or 2) . economic impacts of the crisis were of course quickly understood, but, as far as we could observe, they were rather considered as an inevitable consequence of the health crisis that has to be managed as a second priority. 27 however, the aggressive mitigation measures that were set up in many countries were and are at the same time quite efficient from a health-preservation point of view (see, for instance, ref. 28 or 29) and highly inefficient from an economical perspective due to their global economic impact on all of society (see ref. 30 or 31) . in this matter, there is-to the best of our knowledge-no rational discussion in the scientific literature on what could be the best tradeoff for jointly minimizing both the health impact and the economic impact of the covid-19 crisis. perhaps the biggest ethical issue around such trade-offs is that it would require placing an explicit economic value on human lives, as discussed for instance in ref. 32 . this is something that no national or regional government in the world has apparently been willing to do. moreover, what shall one do if the health crisis remains endemic in the near future which is one of the possible scenarios (cf. section 2.2.2)? as one can see, thinking from a global rather than a purely local perspective can deeply change the way one addresses the crisis and its consequences. this situation is probably the consequence of the fact that the crisis is mainly observed on daily basis, through for instance the daily covid-19 reports provided by the world health organization, 5 by other institutions, 3 and by each local government, leading to a rather shortterm vision of the crisis. however, changing the time scale of observation gives us immediately a totally different point-of-view on the covid-19 crisis. if we are, for instance, observing the crisis at the time step of a quarter of a year (three months), it becomes almost instantaneous and can be considered as an event-in the classical meaning of synchronous modeling 33 -without any duration. thus, the choice of time step and sampling frequency is critical as it is for any control system. this perspective change forces us to think what could be the next state of the system under observation, ie, human society, which may be on its way toward a deep economic crisis, at least in western countries. continuing the analysis at the same coarse time scale, a possible catastrophic evolution scenario would be a financial crisis result-f i g u r e 2 a possible catastrophic scenario that could result from the initial covid-19 health crisis ing with some delay from an economic crisis initiated by the health crisis, thus generating the specter of a deep and prolonged recession, as pointed out as a possibility by some economists (ref. 27 or 31). moreover, this situation could then also lead to more "classical" health crises in the future (see figure 2 ) due to the two-sided coupled interaction between the public health system and the economic system. in such a catastrophic future scenario, extending the duration of people's confinement in western countries in order to minimize the short-term health impact during the initial crisis could, for instance, result in deeply debilitating the health of more or less the same population in the mid-to long-term future. such a possible paradox is typical in optimal control theory where the optimal trajectory of any nonlinear system can never be obtained through local optimizations alone. 34 in order to take into account and to avoid such paradoxical consequences, one must choose a systems approach to analyze the covid-19 crisis, integrating all existing domains of knowledge into a common understanding of the crisis, in order to obtain a global vision, both in space and time and at different possible observation scales, and thus giving a chance to find the global optimum for human society as a whole. we can thus see that there is another crisis, hidden within the covid-19 crisis, which is a crisis of models. the global community is indeed focusing on short-term health-specific models to better master the crisis, but these models are inadequate as soon as one wants to address the crisis from a longer-term society-wide perspective which requires systemic models. in this matter, let us recall that a model is an abstraction (in the meaning of abstract interpretation theory 35 ) of reality, but not reality itself, as expressed, for instance, by the famous assertion "a map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness," popularized by korzybski 36 or the well-known "all models are wrong, some are useful" by box. 37 "models" which are not actually reflecting reality within some error bounds are in fact not models in that observational definition and may even have negative impacts on reality since they will lead to wrong decisions or control actions. these negative impacts of wrong "models" can of course be amplified in the context of a systemic crisis such as covid-19. our point of view is clearly supported by an analysis of the 2020 scientific literature to date. a search of the keyword "covid-19" on google scholar 38 in april 2020, revealed that, at this moment of time, only 10 papers-ie., around 1%-of the first 900 most cited papers on covid-19 were not discussing primarily health issues (health covering here biology, epidemiology, medicine, and health policy and management), but rather focusing on the societal and economic consequences of the crisis. moreover, in terms of citations, most of these 10 papers were poorly cited: two were cited around 20 times, three around 10 times, and the remaining ones less than 5 times, while the average number of citations per paper was 15 in our sample. only very few health-oriented papers, such as ref. 39 , also discuss mixed strategies involving economic or psychological considerations to fight the coronavirus. it seems therefore that the majority of the scientific effort is focused on the short-term, without taking into account what might be the mid-and long-term societal consequences of the covid-19 crisis. one may also notice that there is probably another crisis of medical models that can be observed due to the covid-19 crisis. this other crisis focuses around the merits of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a possible treatment of covid-19, as proposed by raoult and his team. 40 this has since then been shown to be a proposal which was not supported by a rigorous methodological approach according to medical methodologists. 41 however, medical statistical methodology (see ref. 42 for an introduction to this domain) appears also to be questionable from a modeling perspective: the frequency-based models used in methodological medicine usually cannot have probabilistic interpretations due to a lack of large series of experiments required to apply the law of large numbers; 43 hence such frequency-based models can only find correlations between proposed medications and observe effects on structurally limited series due to the high costs of clinical studies. 44 but since correlation is not causation, it is just not possible, without any understanding of the underlying biological mechanisms, to scientifically deduce anything from such studies, as long as we agree on the fact that science deals with causal explanations, which does however not prevent using correlation-based results from a practical perspective as soon as they are established in a sound way. 72 in this analysis, the debate around the rigor of the pragmatic and agile approach followed by raoult may just be a new popperian debate 45 opposing different medical methods for addressing an infectious health crisis, similar to the debates that existed in physics around aristotelian theory in the 16th century 46 or aether theory in the 19th century. to conclude this initial discussion on the crisis of models, we point out that if the scenario that we highlighted in figure 2 comes true, we may also eventually be forced to deal with another crisis of models, namely, the crisis of mathematical models used in finance. these other "models" are not necessarily models in the observational sense that we are using in this paper since they suffer from many well-known issues such as reflexivity, 47 which refers to the fact that mathematical financial models are essentially observing other mathematical financial models, or more deeply the lack of evidence for the market equilibrium hypothesis, 48 which is at the heart of the probabilistic framework used in mathematical finance, but which is in fact rarely observed in practice (see, for instance, ref. 48 or 49), especially in a financial crisis situation where the market is of course highly unbalanced and volatile and therefore out of equilibrium, as pointed out by several researchers. the covid-19 crisis is thus forcing us to open our eyes and to look for the "right" models to use for effectively managing human society. one should use models that are effectively capturing the reality as it is and not as we would like it to be, if we want to make nondominated decisions in the face of a crisis of such magnitude and have a chance to tackle it successfully. as stated above, there is a crucial need for constructing a realistic observational system model of the covid-19 crisis. we shall now present the main ingredients of such a systemic model. taking a systems approach leads us naturally to construct first a systemic framework for modeling the covid-19 crisis. the first step toward that objective is to understand what are the main systems 10 involved in or impacted by the crisis. in that respect, the following ones are quite obvious: • the natural environment from which the coronavirus which initiated the crisis is coming, • the social system, which contains the population that is or can be infected by the coronavirus, • the health system which attempts to cure the people infected by the coronavirus, • the governance system which has to choose the optimal health policy to face the pandemic, • the economic system which may be indirectly impacted by the covid-19 crisis. note that the impact of the covid-19 crisis on the economic system depends of course on the health policy choosen by the governance (political) system. if a health policy recommends or forces-as often done 5 -a large fraction of its population to stay home, it causes a double shock, 31 first on the supply side since economic actors which are lacking a work force must reduce their production and secondly on the demand side since people who are not working anymore are usually paid less or not at all and thus are also consuming less. we can now sketch the first item of our generic covid-19 systemic framework which is the high-level environment 10 that we modeled in figure 3 . this first system view exposes the exchanges of matter, people, information, and money-plus coronavirus here-that exist between the main systems involved in the covid-19 crisis. note that the overall system taken into account here, ie., human society as a whole, including its natural environment, is a closed system on our home planet earth. as a consequence, the only levers to solve the crisis are internal to this global system. using that technique, the point is thus to be able to construct realistic domain-specific lifecycle scenarios for each system involved in the covid-19 environment. we first focus only on the social and economic systems, since we are considering here the situation that occurs after the end of the covid-19 health crisis (see figure 2 ). we can then see that: • the lifecycle of the social system can be analyzed to first order in terms of wealth and health, where these features can be, respectively, in a systems approach, we will thus have to construct the different possible global lifecycle scenarios that can be achieved in this way (see figure 4 for an illustration of this classical process), to evaluate their probabilities and to define means to mitigate the worst consequences. to obtain more detailed models, we shall moreover refine them in terms of space, to capture the geographic dimension of human society, and time, and to make optimal trade-off decisions between the shortand long-term impact of the covid-19 crisis. note also that these lifecycle scenarios are of course highly country-dependent due to the central role of the governance system in the resolution of the covid-19 crisis, as well as the susceptibility of the population which is an initial condition. the last element of our covid-19 systemic framework is finally a mission statement, 10 ie, the core high level requirement regarding human society which expresses the objective that the governance system wants to fulfill. one can indeed understand that the behavior of our system of interest-human society-will be different depending on whether one wants to minimize the impact of the covid-19 crisis on the social, health, or economic system or to find the best balance between the impacts on these three systems. this is a multiobjective optimization problem for which we provide a sample result below, and that we intend to explore more in details in a forthcoming paper. it is therefore of high importance-as system theory tells us (see refs. 10, 14, or 16)-to be able to clearly define the mission to achieve. taking a systems approach to the covid-19 crisis requires instantiating our systemic framework per country. each country has its own specificities, associated with its own history and culture, that one must consider in any systems approach: for instance, chinese traditional medicine and rigorous group behaviors are specific to china, while a centralized governance system and poorly followed health rules are specific to france, while a heterogeneous health system that favors more affluent consumers and differentiated laws and policies by state are specific to the united states of america. these types of compartmental models have significant limitations since they only consider the human population in a macroscopic way, reacting globally in a uniform manner to an epidemic, which is not the case in reality. furthermore, in a classic sird model, eventually 100% of the population is infected, which is never observed in practice. in the covid-19 pandemic, one can also observe clusters where the epidemic seems to recursively focus, 5 which rather suggests a fractal epidemic propagation, as also mentioned in an older paper by jansse et al in 1999 55 which did not seem to have been further explored by the epidemiology community. such fractal behavior is however not at all captured by the classical sird-like compartmental models. note also that, quite surprisingly, we did not find significant scientific papers studying the geometric multiscale structure of the geography of the covid-19 pandemic, which also suggests that this dimension has not yet been analyzed in depth. in order to better integrate geography, which is one of the most important features of the human population system, we choose a as, for instance, in ref. 56 . in such an approach, the human population is modeled as a network, that is to say a nondirected graph, 57 where each node of the network represents an individual or a group of people, eg., a family, and each edge represents a connection between people. for the purpose of our study, we used networks randomly generated according to the barabási-albert model, 58 which is believed to capture the most important features of real social networks. we shall recall that the barabási-albert model generates networks by introducing nodes one by one (after an initial step). a degree d is chosen for each new node, which is then connected to d other nodes chosen at random from the nodes already in the network. to simulate a social network, the average value of the degree d is usually chosen between 2 and 3. the barabási-albert model produces randomized scale-free networks in which most of the nodes have a low degree (below 10), but some may have a very high degree. in order to understand how an epidemic propagates in a population modeled in this way, we used networks with 100 000 nodes and an average degree d for new nodes of 2.1. with these features, the degree of nodes in a social network is typically distributed as shown in table 1 . potential "superspreaders" are individuals with large degree >20. to model the propagation of an epidemic in this network, we discretized a classical sird-like model (see refs. 52 and 54 and figure 5 ) which leads us to represent the evolution of the state of each f i g u r e 6 stochastic state automaton modeling the possible evolution of a node in the social network node of the social network that models the human population by a stochastic finite automaton whose possible transitions are described in typically gaussian-for incubation and sickness times. we, however, think that our experiments can give us a better qualitative understanding of epidemic propagation since we believe that this social-network approach better captures the fundamentals of the social system, compared to the simpler compartment-type models. it may thus be helpful for constructing more realistic epidemic propagation models, even if it would require a very significant amount of data collection and fine tuning. the use of contact tracers in health systems is, for instance, a direct, but laborious, way to reconstruct such social networks to quickly identify infected people and to isolate them before they infect others. 60 our first experiment consisted of simulating increasingly virulent epidemics by assuming increasing values of the probability ρ of infecting somebody (1000 trials were done per value of ρ). our results are described in table 2 . they show a remarkably interesting phenomenon: for all values of the probability ρ, only a tiny fraction π of the population is eventually infected in most of the number ν of simulations (less than 1 of 1000 persons in more than 90% of the cases), or when a significant proportion (greater than 1%) is infected, the fraction of infected people π depends on ρ. in simpler terms, this can be stated as follows: there are a lot of viruses circulating in the population, but only a few of them give rise to epidemic outbreaks. the reasons for which a virus gives rise to an epidemic outbreak are intrinsic to the virus itself, but ta b l e 2 proportion π of the population that is infected, for different values of the propagation probability ρ. also dependent on external factors such as who is infected first, eg, a person with few contacts and low nodal degree or a superspreader with high nodal degree as shown in table 1 , and also the behavior of the population which impacts ρ. this may explain, at least to some extent, why some countries or regions are more stricken than others, which suggests again a fractal interpretation of the geographical scope of an epidemic, as already mentioned above. the second experiment that we shall report on in this section aimed at studying the effects of the deconfinement of a confined population that has been ordered to shelter-in-place. we studied here different proportions τ of the population that becomes sick before the epidemic becomes observable (ie., roughly between day 10 and 20 in figure 5) and different values of the duration γ in terms of days of confinement. we considered that there was a delay δ of 20 days before confinement was put in place and took ρ = 0.015. we also simulated the efficiency of the confinement by reducing the capacity of edges in the social network to propagate the disease by a factor 1 − ε with 0 ≤ ε ≤ 1. this factor represents the degree of adherence of the population to sanitary guidelines for social distancing, wearing face masks, and so forth. at each step of the simulation, representing one day, an infected node has thus probability ρ × (1 − ε) to infect an adjacent healthy node. in our experiment, we took ε = 0.66 (= 2/3). we then reported the computed values of the resulting lethality in table 3 . we assumed that γ is as large as necessary, which is clearly not realistic since confinement cannot be maintained too long for both economic and psychological reasons, but the results give the underlying trend. each measure reported was obtained by means of a monte-carlo simulation of 2000 trials. as expected, the longer the confinement, the fewer deaths. note however that, to be fully efficient, the confinement must be rather long, several months (>90 days) in our virtual experiment. the most interesting part of this experiment comes however from the observation of the total duration of the epidemic outbreak. table 4 shows these durations for the same values of τ and γ as in table 3 . if the confinement is sufficiently long, the lethality drops significantly (in some cases below 1%), but also the total duration of the epidemic outbreak is shortened. if the confinement is not maintained sufficiently long, it is still partially effective, in that it reduces the lethality, but it has a quite paradoxical consequence: the epidemic outbreak lasts longer than if no countermeasures were taken at all. a short confinement does not prevent the disease from significantly propagating: it just slows down the propagation and avoids the sharp peak of infected shown in figure 5 around day 40, which seems to be its main motivation in order not to overwhelm the capacity of the health care system. for this reason, when the population is deconfined too early, the disease is still present and remains endemic. the above experiments do not pretend to fully represent reality, but are just to motivate the use of social-network models for epidemic modeling. as pointed out by stattner and vidot, 56 "network models turn out to be a more realistic approach than simple models like compartment or metapopulation models, since they are more suited to the complexity of real relationships." one of the limitations of existing network models is, however, that they do not distinguish between recurring social links with family members and coworkers and casual links based on one-time encounters such as in public transportation or at large events. they should therefore be further refined and integrated into a model-based agile approach for crisis management, while taking into account their limitations. in this section, we model the potential impact of the epidemic as a function of different actions of the governance system on the economic system (see figure 3 ). in order to do so we must expand the prior analysis by not only considering lethality in terms of deaths (see table 3 ), but also the value of lost economic activity during confinement. reverting back to the simplified sird model in figure 5 , but now accounting for the fraction of population ε actually adhering to confinement during a lockdown of duration γ, which is ordered with some delay δ after a critical cumulative threshold τ of the population has become infected, we run a set of simulations. the baseline run of the model shown in figure 5 is considered as scenario 0 with no countermeasures and it is gradually modified using the one-factor-at-a-time (ofat) technique to test a number of actions by the governance system, including reducing the delay δ to order a lockdown, increasing the level of rigor ε of the confinement, as well as its duration γ . table 5 shows the results of a number of numerical experiments to probe these trade-off in terms of the value of human lives lost, versus productive work lost in the economic system. in order to estimate the economic impact of the epidemic a number of assumptions were made: in the baseline scenario 0, we do not take any countermeasures and the bulk of the $4.38b total loss is due to the deaths of 4% of the population. the $312m in lost work are due to the inability of the infected and sick population to perform work during their illness, which is assumed to last for 14 days. this is the kind of situation we would expect to see in a country with a government that is either unable or unwilling to intervene in the crisis. scenarios 1-3 institute a partial lockdown (ε = 66%) after either 10 or 20 days delay after recognizing the onset of the epidemic and the confinement lasts either 30 or 60 days. the results are not satisfactory, since the total damages exceed the baseline case where no action is taken. this outcome is due to the fact that one-third of the population does not adhere to the confinement and continues to be infected, making the disease endemic. a prolonged partial lockdown for 60 days with only 66% effectiveness as shown in scenario 3 is the worst case and leads to both a high number of deaths (about 4000) as well as high economic damages totaling $6.1b due to the prolonged shutdown, which ultimately is ineffective. this scenario is representative of the overall situation in the united states in mid2020. in scenarios 4-7, we shorten the reaction time to trigger the confinement after only five days (quick government action) and we gradually increase the rigor of the confinement to 90% (strong government enforcement). it turns out that these actions are highly effective, yielding a best-case scenario 7 with only 66 deaths, a short epidemic duration of 61 days and only $740m in damages, mainly due to the strict but short 30-day confinement in which 90% of the population participates. this essentially prevents the epidemic from blossoming and quickly snuffs out the disease. the ta b l e 5 scenario analysis with sird model for assessing total human and economic damages: n, number of daily contacts, ρ, probability of infection, τ, fraction of population infected to trigger confinement, ε, fraction of population adhering to confinement, δ, delay to confinement start, γ, confinement duration, t, duration of epidemic, total number of deaths, lost work in millions $m, and total damages including lost human lives and lost work in billions $b, n = 100,000 population size figure 7 . this may reflect the situation in countries that the economic analysis shows that the initial conditions, speed of response, and rigor of response by the governance system are crucial in determining the outcome. figures 8 and 9 , respectively, show the sharp contrast between the ratio of human loss (deaths) and economic work loss for scenarios 0 (do nothing) and scenario 5 (rapid and strong government response). there is indeed a trade-off between deaths and lost work, as in sce in the previous section, we identified a deep crisis of models that has been exposed by the covid-19 pandemic and proposed to mitigate this issue by constructing a systemic model of the crisis. in this section, we shall deal with some possible solutions to master the crisis using a systems approach. as is well known in any scientific discipline, the solution of a problem highly depends on the clarity and rigor of the way the problem is framed. we will therefore dedicate this short section to the statement of the problem that we need to solve in the context of the covid-19 crisis. a first characteristic of the covid-19 crisis is its global impact on human society. this crisis can thus be considered as a common cause failure-in the meaning of system safety theory 61 -for all main systems forming human society. if we are taking a safety approach, the first problem to solve is thus to mitigate the impacts of the crisis on the vulnerable systems forming human society, that is to say the social, health, and economic systems, as results from the system analysis of section 2.2.1. a second characteristic of the covid-19 crisis comes from the need to take into account strong feedback delays. in this matter, a first type of delay comes from the fact that it is most of the time too late for deploying mitigation actions to limit the epidemic propagation when significant numbers of infections are observed somewhere, since the effects of these actions will only be observable two weeks later. this was clearly shown in table 5 in scenarios 8-10. moreover, a secondtotally different type of delay comes from the fact that focusing on short-term health impacts of the crisis may lead to long-term issues of an economic nature, which forces to arbitrate between short-and longterm consequences of a given action. finally, a last characteristic of the covid-19 crisis is uncertainty. due to the global nature of the crisis and the rather short period of time on which it is concentrated, uncertainty is everywhere. clinical data about the infection are permanently partial, so difficult to interpret. understanding of the real social system network structure is never easy to capture. the exact nature and size of the impact on the economic system are difficult to evaluate. precise data on the capabilities on which to rely may be tricky to obtain. last, but not least, the crisis also results in a massive, heterogeneous and often contradictory amount of data in which the really interesting signals may be either weak or hidden. synthesizing these three features of the crisis, the problem to solve in our context can now be clearly stated: how to optimally mitigate the short-and long-term consequences of the covid-19 pandemic on human society, taking into account delays and uncertainties that are specific to this crisis? one can notice that this statement is a typical control problemin the sense of control theory 62 -integrating here delay and uncertainty, which can be addressed by many existing techniques (see refs. 63 and 64) . consequently, the objective should be to design a new system that can support this controllability objective. based on the closed-loop control principle, which is the only one that allows to achieve a given target behavior along the time axis, 62 such a f i g u r e 1 0 high-level covid-19 environment integrating a specific decision-aid system that has yet to be designed covid-19 decision-aid system (shown as the gray box at the top of figure 10 ) will have to measure the current state of the main systems forming human society in order to provide effective feedback actions on the social system through the governance system, the only legitimate one to make decisions and take control actions. figure 10 depicts how such a decision-aid system could be integrated into the high-level covid-19 environment. there is at least one domain where making decisions under structural uncertainties on an underlying geographic scope is quite well known since a long time in human history, which is the military domain. architecting a covid-19 decision-aid system using the typical architectural pattern of a computerized, command, control, and communications (c4) system (see ref. 65 or 66) , used in the defense area, seems thus quite a natural idea, as it is also quite often used in a system-of-systems engineering context (see ref. 18 or 19) . this leads us to propose an organization for a covid-19 decision-aid system based on the following three hierarchical layers, that correspond to three natural levels of abstraction associated with a given geographic scope (that may be either the international, country, and local levels or country, region, and city levels in practice), exactly like c4 systems are organized: 1. the strategic layer is the place where global situational awareness is required to master the crisis on a given large-scale geographic scope: its mission is to monitor at a high level the crisis and to elaborate strategic decisions based on an overall vision, fed by tactical information; 2. the operation layer is intended to master the crisis on a given medium-scale geographic scope: it is thus a distributed system which has to capture and synthesize tactical information and make operational decisions on their basis in accordance with the upper strategic decisions; 3. the tactical layer is intended to master the crisis on a local geographic scope: it is thus again a distributed system which has to capture and synthetize field information and make tactical decisions on their basis in accordance with the upper operational decisions. note that this architecture shown in figure 11 shall be understood as a hierarchical enterprise architecture, which defines how an organizational system, supported by suitable information systems and systemic models as discussed previously, shall be organized and behave. the main idea underpinning it is the principle of subsidiarity: decisions should be taken as close as possible to the level that is the most appropriate for their resolution. this principle means in particular that an upper level shall avoid to make decisions that are too intrusive at a lower level in order to let each local level take always the more appropriate actions depending on the real local conditions that it can observe, while following at the same time global orientations when locally relevant. this is crucial in the military sphere, but even more so in the context of the covid-19 crisis where speed of decision making is fundamental due to the latency of the epidemic propagation as seen in section 2. note that one shall also capture weak signals of systemic importance at each level of the proposed architecture: to illustrate that point, the fact that a police officer is infected in a certain area is, for instance, a typical weak signal since we may infer from it that there is a certain probability that the whole police force in the concerned area is or will be infected, at least in the near future (since the number of daily contacts or nodal degree of police officers may exceed n > 10, see tables 1 and 5 ). proposing the previous hierarchical architectural pattern is, however, of course not enough to specify how a covid-19 decision-aid system shall work. in this matter, the first point is to organize the systemic model that we sketched out in section 2.2 according to the hierarchy that we just presented and which is used to organize the proposed decision-aid system. hence, such a model shall not be monolast, but not least, the covid-19 decision-aid system that we sketched here shall behave in an agile way, in the meaning of agility in software or industrial development (see refs. 68-70, 71 or 24) . a pending problem is to have a plan, do, check, and act process that can quickly adapt to a quite fast-changing reality. agility allows to solve that issue by structuring in a very rigorous way the analysis, decision, and action processes, while providing a lot of flexibility to all involved actors, which are two mandatory features for addressing a complex crisis like covid-19. in practice, an agile covid-19 decision-aid process has typically to be organized around regular agile rituals-managed in this paper, we draw attention to the core importance of having realistic system models to manage and to mitigate a systemic crisis of the order of magnitude such as the covid-19 crisis. we also sketched out what could be an agile approach to use in this kind of crisis. our purpose was of course not to propose some definitive solution which is probably impossible. we do, however, think that the ideas contained in this paper are valuable contributions that may be of interest in the context of the covid-19 crisis, especially due to the fact the underlying health crisis will probably be endemic for a certain period of time (at least for 200-300 days according to most of our simulation runs) and be coupled with future short-and mid-term economic outcomes. while there are economic impacts due to strong mitigation actions such as mandated confinements (causing lost economic activity), the value loss due to human deaths at an estimated lethality rate of 4% would far exceed the economic losses. we have shown that this depends strongly on the average valuation of a human life, which is in itself a highly controversial issue. there are of course many detailed aspects of the proposed covid-19 decision support system that require further detail and elaboration. we focused on the issue of delay and rigor of action in the overall epidemic control system in this paper. however, as we discover more about the particular nature of this particular coronavirus, the issue of observability of human 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statistics sections of the american public health association multiple risk functions for predicting coronary heart disease: the concept, accuracy, and application the authors would like to thank the three anonymous referees for their valuable comments which contributed to a substantial improvement of the paper. we would finally like to stress the fact that systems engineering has an important role to play in the covid-19 context since it can enable the necessary collaboration of the various disciplines-such as biology, economics, engineering, epidemiology, finance, geography, health policy management, immunology, logistics, manufacturing, medicine, safety, sociology, urban systems, and so forth-that are all providing a piece of the complex puzzle posed by the global covid-19 crisis. key: cord-264974-hspek930 authors: timmis, kenneth; brüssow, harald title: the covid‐19 pandemic: some lessons learned about crisis preparedness and management, and the need for international benchmarking to reduce deficits date: 2020-05-03 journal: environ microbiol doi: 10.1111/1462-2920.15029 sha: doc_id: 264974 cord_uid: hspek930 nan if, despite the explicit warning of the world health organization in 2011 that 'the world is ill-prepared to respond to a severe influenza pandemic or to any similarly global, sustained and threatening public-health emergency' (https://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/wha64/a64_10en.pdf), it was not apparent to those in charge, and to the general public-i.e., those suffering from covid-19 infections and the funders of health services (tax/insurance payers)-that existing health systems had inherent vulnerabilities which could prove to be devastating when seriously stressed, the sars-cov-2 pandemic (e.g., see brüssow, 2020 ) has brutally exposed it now. in some countries, preparedness, despite being officially considered to be of strong operational readiness against health emergencies (kandel et al., 2020) , was inadequate at multiple levels (e.g., horton, 2020) . similarly, a fundamental lack of preparedness is the case for a number of impending non-health crises (e.g., global warming, poverty, the soil crisis, etc.). once we are over the covid-19 pandemic, important questions will be: what have we learned/can we learn and how can we improve our systems? below, we argue for the necessity for major realignment of crisis responsiveness, and indeed of health system operationality, based on international benchmarking and adequately funded preparedness. international benchmarking is mandatory, because it has become clear that there is a wide range of effectiveness in the ability of different countries with developed economies to respond to this crisis (and probably others), and the tax-paying public has no compelling reason to tolerate perpetuation of factors underlying poor responses to crises. disparity in country/regional responses to sars-cov-2 leaving aside for the moment decisions about whether to robustly contain the outbreak-to kill it by throttling-the classical strategy of infection control, but which leaves most of the population susceptible to a new outbreak, or attempt to manage an outbreak to achieve herd immunity and a population unsusceptible to a repeat outbreak, it is obviously imperative to know how the outbreak is spreading and how effective are any containment measures that are instituted, so that a change in course of action remains an option. widespread testing for the viral pathogen, with correct sampling and analysis procedures, is thus essential. this enables, inter alia, calculation of reliable mortality (case fatality) rates, 1 which ordinarily play a key role in determining crisis response policy, calculation of the basic reproduction number, r 0 , and reliable modelling of transmission and mortality trends. there have been enormous differences in testing coverages among countries. early predictions of transmission and mortality trends are only as good as the adequacy of the information fed into models so, with inadequate testing, prediction of trends are unreliable. mortality-based policy formulation for sars-cov-2 responses in some countries was based on incomplete information. • diagnostics and widespread testing are the basis of informed policy development for crisis management of infectious disease epi/pandemics and must become its centrepiece the disparity of sars-cov-2 testing coverage in different countries is much discussed but the reasons are sometimes rather opaque. there are many tests available (e.g., see https://www.finddx.org/covid-19/pipeline/), so one bottleneck would appear to be a limitation in authorized testing facilities. scaling up testing in existing official centres requires not only acquisition of the appropriate instrumentation and reagents, but also of competent personnel disposing of the necessary expertise, which may constitute a bottleneck. however, it is abundantly clear that the instrumentation and expertise needed to carry out sars-cov-2 testing are widespread in academic research laboratories, as is the eagerness of many research groups to contribute to efforts to combat the pandemic. while issues of safety, quality control, logistics, data reporting and security and so on, need to be addressed, a failure in some countries to harness early in the crisis the expertise and enthusiasm of young researchers to fulfil a key need and, with it, the opportunity to acquire data that could have resulted in responses that saved lives, is regrettable. paradoxically, while there have been frantic efforts to open new hospital facilities to accommodate covid-19 patients, and to recruit the health professionals needed to operate them, there has been an indiscriminate closing of research institutes capable of carrying out diagnostic work, and thus of identifying infected and, importantly for frontline health professionals, non-infected individuals. • rapidly developing pandemics necessitate rapid responses. getting diagnostics and testing facilities up and running that are able to handle large numbers of samples are key to efforts to manage the disease. crisis preparedness demands not only formulation of strategies to enable rapid scale up official facilities, but also advance identification of relevant available resources outside of the health system, and strategies of how to promptly and effectively harness them. widespread testing for viral rna must be complemented by widespread testing, or at least the testing of sentinels of the population, for anti-viral antibodies. this is essential for relating the dynamics of infection to virus shedding (being infectious = infective for others) and to symptom development. and if (and this is a big if) the presence of antiviral antibodies reflects protective immunity, antibody testing is essential for herd immunity policy scenarios, to provide the data needed for monitoring and modelling immune population densities/granularity, and also for identification of those in the population who are in principle protected and hence able to return to normality and spearhead safe exit strategies from lockdown measures. • contingency planning requires identification of facilities or alliances able to promptly develop, produce in quantity and distribute easy-to-use antiviral antibody tests. patients having contracted covid-19 are grouped into three categories: in the china outbreak, 81% experienced mild, 14% severe and 5% critical infections (wu and mcgoogan, 2020) . for those requiring hospitalization, and those with the most acute symptoms requiring intensive care, two key variables in treatment capacity seem to be bed availability generally, and in intensive care units particularly (images of patients lying on the floors of some hospitals made this abundantly clear to the entire world), on one hand, and ventilator/intubation tube availability for patients needing intubation, on the other. there are enormous differences between countries in terms the availability of hospital beds/1000 population (e.g., japan 13.1, germany 8.0, france 6.0, switzerland 4.5, italy 3.2, uk/canada/denmark 2.5, india 0.5: https:// data.oecd.org/healtheqt/hospital-beds.htm), icu beds/1000 population, and numbers of available ventilators/intubation tubes (here, ventilators can be considered a proxy for any other clinical device that may be needed in a health crisis). an insufficiency of beds (and often health professionals) also resulted in 'non-critical' interventions 2 being postponed in some countries, and who, among critically ill patients suffering from different ailments, should be given an icu bed. there are different reasons for insufficient beds and clinical devices. but the fact remains: some countries manage better than others; some countries do not have enough beds for even small increases representing normal fluctuations in patient needs and anticipated seasonal variations, let alone exceptional demands made by epidemics. • it is essential to increase bed, especially icu bed, capacities in many countries, in order to reduce stress situations where patients cannot receive required treatment, and to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed in times of crisis, when there is a spike in patients requiring hospitalization. one new development triggered by the covid-19 pandemic was the creation of so-called 'fangcang shelter hospitals'-rapidly constructed, large scale, low cost, temporary hospitals, by converting existing public venues into healthcare facilities in wuhan to manage the rapidly increasing covid-19 patient numbers (chen et al., 2020) . instead of being delivered to regular hospitals, covid-19 patients were sent to shelter hospitals, where they were isolated and received basic medical care and frequent monitoring. patients whose mild disease state transitioned to severe were then transferred to regular hospitals where they received intensive care. although new emergency hospitals have been created in other countries, the purpose of these is generally to receive spillover from traditional hospitals, when these become overwhelmed by patient numbers. the purpose of fangcang shelter hospitals is, in contrast, to centralize clinical management of the epi/pandemic outside of the traditional hospital system. covid-19 patients are channelled to shelter hospitals, thereby minimizing viral ingress into hospitals and infection of health professionals, and helping to maintain staffing levels and normal functioning of outpatient and inpatient facilities. it is important to note that shelter hospitals constitute low-cost clinical settings-they require fewer health professionals and diagnostic-treatment infrastructure than normal hospitals, because all patients have the same clinical issue and most have only mild-to-moderate disease-and thereby relieve pressure on traditional hospitals with sophisticated infrastructure in limited capacity that constitute high-cost clinical settings (the creation of parallel low-cost clinical settings to relieve pressure on limited capacity high cost clinical settings is more broadly applicable over and above epi/pandemic response situations: see timmis and timmis, 2017, for an example in primary healthcare). • shelter hospitals should be incorporated into pandemic planning as the primary destination for pandemic patients, to allow traditional hospitals to continue functioning as normal as possible (or normally as long as possible). it may seem so trivially obvious to say, but obviously needs saying because it was not apparent from the health system responses of a number of countries: those most at risk of infection are those in contact with the infected, i.e., front-line doctors and nurses. and as they become infected, the numbers of available health professionals left to treat patients goes down as patient numbers go up. and, of course, infected health professionals become transmitters of infection among one another, and to uninfected patients, since in the hectic reality of emergencies, they may not always be able to practice adequate physical distancing. this obviously means that the greatest protection from infection must be accorded the front-line professionals. however, there were substantive differences between countries in terms of the availability and use of best practice protective clothing (personal protective equipment, ppe) in the early days of the covid-19 crisis; these differences were mainly in different degrees of deficiencies. the incomplete protection of front-line health professionals that occurred in a number of countries in the early days of the crisis, and that resulted in many infections and some deaths, is an unacceptable deficit in their health systems, particularly since the covid-19 outbreak was, from end of january 2020, a predictable disaster of international magnitude. then there are those one might designate accessory front-line professionals: those who transport infected individuals, like ambulance drivers, non-medical workers in hospitals, and so forth, carers ministering to people in care homes or in private homes, and others like some pharmacy and supermarket staff who, because of the nature of their work, come into physical contact with many people and cannot always achieve prescribed physical distancing. these are also particularly vulnerable to infection and to becoming infection transmitters. since the people they care for are, because of their ages and underlying morbidities, often themselves particularly vulnerable to severe outcomes, infected carers may, unknowingly and unwillingly, become 'angels of death'. accessory front-line professionals thus also require best ppe. there are wide regional and occupational differences in the availability and use of such clothing by these professionals. in addition to the issue of ppe, there is the issue of hygiene in the workplace-the surfaces that become contaminated and sources of infection. while traditionally these have been cleaned by auxiliary staff, such people are themselves at considerable risk of being infected in such environments and, as a result, there may be an insufficient number to continue carrying out this task, thereby raising infection risk. robots are in principle able to carry out various mechanical operations, so might take an increasing share in disinfection of high-risk, high touch areas (e.g., robot-controlled noncontact ultraviolet surface disinfection), and indeed other hospital tasks, such as delivering medications and food, diagnostic sample collection and transport, and so forth, (yang et al., 2020) , that may reduce both the work burden of overstretched staff and their infection risk. • the incorporation of robots into appropriate hospital operations should be energetically explored leadership in times of crisis is crucial to ongoing damage limitation and outcome severity, quite apart from its importance in planning crisis preparedness. although we need to look back when all this is over, and take stock of what went right, what was wrong, and what went wrong (i.e., to perform a gap analysis), at this point it seems that most countries were on their own, acting largely independently of others during the sars-cov-2 outbreak, at least in the early days. however, a pandemic is by definition an international crisis, requiring an international response (national-self-interest-policies may even be counterproductive in times of pandemics). extensive and effective cooperation, coordination and sharing of resources were not evident (e.g., see herszenhorn and wheaton, 2020) . leadership quality and effectiveness varies significantly among countries and among relevant international agencies. where leadership is suboptimal, dissemination of misinformation flourishes, and people are subjected to unnecessary levels of uncertainty and associated stress. • effective and decisive, biomedical science-guided, national and international leadership and coordination is absolutely crucial in pandemics, to prevent-hindermanage-minimize damage, acquire-integrate-learn from collective experience, make recommendations for crisis management, publish best practice procedures and standards. there is significant room for improvement. it is well known that experts have been warning of impending deadly epi/pandemics, including coronavirus outbreaks, for a long time (e.g., turinici and danchin, 2007; ge et al., 2013; menachery et al., 2015; https:// www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_the_next_outbreak_we_re_ not_ready?language=en; editorial (2016) predicting pandemics, lancet doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736 (16)32578-8; https://apps.who.int/gpmb/assets/annual_ report/gpmb_annualreport_2019.pdf; https://www. weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/a-visual-history-ofpandemics/). now while the nature, evolution, timing and source of novel emerging infectious agents is uncertain, pandemics are always counteracted by the same timehonoured strategy: interruption of infection chains and anticipation of a surge in need for treatment of acute disease (here, we are nearly in the same situation as in the world confronted by spanish flu in 1918). we, therefore, only need one epidemic preparedness. despite this, the sars-cov-2 outbreak has clearly exposed how unprepared we were. there are multiple reasons for this, including. contingency planning is long term, lacks immediacy and 'wow factor' and so may not always enjoy high political priority, and thus is often neglected a primordial responsibility of government is to protect its citizens. this includes effective contingency planning for pandemics. however, due to the global nature of pandemics, coordination with neighbours (and factoring in potential flashpoints located more distantly, such as refugee camps in greece and elsewhere, which could become, if not cared for, sources of a second wave of infection when the first is over), and intergovernmental cooperation is essential. adequate contingency planning for deadly and devastating infectious disease outbreaks is not an optional policy, and the public have the right to insist on it, even if it becomes politically or economically expedient to neglect. for the public-the key stakeholders in this-transparency is essential and it must have access to information on the current state of preparedness, and future plans of government, and those of different political parties during election campaigns. trusted biomedical science organizations must support the public in this by providing expert scrutiny and assessment. governments must become accountable for the efforts they make to protect us. • governments must engage the public in issues of crisis preparedness and publish their contingency plans for scrutiny. • scientific organizations should have press/web groups that become trusted sources for evidencebased information for the public. catastrophe prediction/management expertise is not always at the heart of government, and thus able to inform and influence policy governments establish the presence of experts in key posts for topics they consider to be vital for informed policy and legislative activities. such experts exert an influence in policy development by providing input that is upto-the-minute in a changing world. while some governments contain epidemic/catastrophe experts, others do not. without such expertise, responses to catastrophes will generally be slow, ad hoc and inadequate, as has been the case in some countries in responding to the sars-cov-2 outbreak. for governments to fulfil their responsibilities to protect their citizens, it is essential that they have expert-informed contingency planning. learned societies and academies also have a major responsibility to seek to inform and influence government. the royal society, uk, and the american society for microbiology exemplify strategic influencing of national and international policy; other learned societies could be more proactive. • expert scientists must be embedded in the heart of government to enable development of evidencebased informed policies contingency planning involves inter alia the acquisition and maintenance of resources, such as beds, icu capacity, stocks of ventilators, protective clothing, and so forth, in the case of pandemics (e.g., kain and fowler, 2019) , that are by definition surplus to day-to-day requirements, and that will only be used if and when the catastrophe occurs. it also includes the development of generic platforms for rapid responses; in the case of pandemics, the development and testing of diagnostics, vaccine candidates, and effective treatments (see also below). this entails a significant recurring budgetary commitment. political and economic viewpoints that such costs are not cost-effective are fundamentally flawed because they generally only take into account the immediate cost elements, not the potential overall cost of the crisis and all its knock-on effects. these are being brutally revealed by the unfolding sars-cov-2 outbreak which, at this still early stage, is involving governmental support of national economies amounting collectively to trillions of dollars. and this is only the tip of the economic iceberg. bankruptcies, loss of employment, recession, loss of tax revenues, large scale deterioration of existing medical conditions in populations, potentially wide-scale deterioration of mental health, and so forth, and the economic costs of these, also need to be taken into account when reflecting on the cost of the contingency planning insurance policy. as an illustration of knock-on effects, global economic estimates of the benefits of vaccination have also shown that they extend well beyond those estimated from prevention of the specific disease in vaccinated individuals (bloom, 2015) . it is also worth comparing crisis preparedness costs with military expenditures. the latter are indeed budgetary commitments for preparedness for another type of crisis, namely a military conflict (excepting countries that use their military for internal affairs). and, as is the case in epi/pandemic preparedness, a considerable fraction of military resources is dedicated to surveillance operations. while accepting that military expenditures are also justified in terms of deterrence of hostile actions, and a multitude of non-combat roles armed forces may undertake, it is not self-evident that future military conflicts may result in losses of life and economic damage as high as the current covid-19 pandemic. in any case, in terms of protecting citizens, it should be abundantly clear that effective contingency preparedness for pandemics, and other crises, 3 should be equated with military preparedness, and budgeted accordingly. • the principle of citizen protection demands that governments budget for adequate crisis preparedness in the same way that they budget for military preparedness. it is simply one of several essential 'insurance premiums' to which the state must commit. from earlier infectious disease outbreaks, we can assume that the most probable source of a new pandemic will be an animal virus, probably a coronavirus, whose natural host is a wild animal, possibly a bat (e.g., see brüssow, 2012) , that mutates and, as a result, becomes infectious for humans, or for an intermediate host, from which it subsequently jumps to humans. close contacts between humans and the animal host provide the opportunities for transmission. reducing such close contacts will reduce the probability of spillover and thus of an outbreak. close contacts between wild animals and humans occur in wet markets in asia, small-scale mixed farming activities with ducks and pigs, and so forth, or when humans encroach into wildlife habitats, e.g., through ecotourism, or destroy wildlife habitats for economic activities, forcing wildlife to enter human habitats (e.g., the destruction of rainforest for palm oil cultivation appears to have catalyzed a nipah virus outbreak; brüssow, 2012) . in any case, although pathogen:host interactions underlying disease are generally well studied, current knowledge about the ecology of infectious agentswhere pathogens are and what they are doing prior to infection of humans, especially those having alternative hosts, and how they are circulating and evolving new pathogenic and host-range potentialis inadequate. in order to transit from response mode to pro-active ecological measures to prevent outbreaks from occurring, there needs to be a major research effort to obtain a fundamental understanding of pathogen ecology (see e.g. timmis, 2001) . • greater efforts are needed to reduce human:wildlife contacts and habitat overlaps, in order to decrease the probability of viral pandemics • effective outbreak prevention measures require acquisition of fundamental knowledge about pathogen ecology contingency planning and the public memory. it is human nature that, once this crisis is over, people, except those who lost loved ones, employment, and so forth, will generally want to forget it as quickly as possible and get back to normal. the number of individuals who try to keep it in the forefront of memory, in order to institute new measures that adequately protect us from the next crisis, and there will undoubtedly be new crises (see above), will be few and far between. some, not all, leading politicians who now (often for the first time) insist that their responses are being guided by the best scientific evidence and advice, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, will quietly shed themselves of their scientific credentials and revert to business as usual, even when unpleasant issues like global warming, the antibiotic resistance crisis, our vulnerability to terrorist and cyber-attacks, 4 again come to the fore. in order that our collective memory retains the crucial need for crisis preparedness, it is essential that each year governments publish updated and independently audited contingency plans. literacy. and the public-the central stakeholders in, and funders of, government policy/actions-must be able to understand the issues and personally evaluate the sometimes vague policy statements they hear. to do this, society must become knowledgeable about/literate in such things. in the case of infectious disease crises, such as the one currently ravaging humanity, and the contingency plans necessary for these, literacy in relevant microbiology topics is, as we have previously argued, essential (timmis et al., 2019) . interrupting the transmission chain in a pandemic may require lock-down, which imposes major personal sacrifices on the public, including confinement: loss of freedom of movement/social activities/family visits; closure of workplaces/loss of employment and income, resulting in economic hardship/increases in debt; closure of schools/ places of worship/hospitality venues/fitness studios/clubs of all sorts; restrictions on shopping; and elevated stress/ worsening of psychiatric conditions. it is, therefore, crucial that such measures are accepted and supported by the public. for this, people must be engaged and presented with coherent lock-down plans that are convincingly justified, in order to solicit compliance, solidarity and sharing of responsibilities. federal structures, like those in the usa, germany and switzerland may lead to uncoordinated actions in different parts of the country that are unsettling and unconvincing, because the public perceives them as arbitrary. such countries require coherent national plans that are consistent for the entire country. of course, all people in lock-down want an exit as soon as possible, and it is essential for governments to develop and communicate as soon as possible their exit strategy, and the determining parameters and assumptions upon which it is based. interestingly, some members of the public favour staggered exit plans, which implies a willingness to accept an infection risk. it will, therefore, be important for the government to have a public discussion on different risk scenarios, to obtain, present and discuss human/economic cost:benefit estimates (e.g., human lives against cost in loss of income /economic prosperity underlying the lock-down versus herd immunity approach-how much unemployment averts how many deaths or years of productive life when considering the age structure of death). and this discussion needs to take place in the context of the probabilities of loss of life through other adverse causes, such as annual influenza epidemics. family-friend contacts with terminally ill patients. one of the most shocking aspects of the covid-19 pandemic is the daily reporting of relatives of terminally ill patients who are unable to be with their loved ones at the end, and to pay last respects before burial. while this may be understandable in the context of patient isolation, social distancing, and the unbelievable hectic in overwhelmed icus, serious effort should be made to find a solution, perhaps moving terminally ill patients to an environment that permits both end-of-life patient care and limited safe contact with loved ones. • governments must publish annual audited overviews of the national state of crisis preparedness, with critical analyses of its strengths and weaknesses and plans to address the weaknesses • governments and education ministries must raise public awareness of crisis potential and promote understanding of key elements of crisis management, inter alia through investing in school curricula changes and public information campaigns that increase literacy in topics such as microbiology and public health • governments should involve civil society in discussing restrictive measures because this increases compliance and the solidarity to shoulder the consequences. achievement of optimal preparedness for, and operational responses to, a pandemic demands two things: international benchmarking and transparency/accountability in health systems (and of those who regulate and finance them). this includes chains of command and shared administrative responsibilities, procurement services, reliance on external suppliers of essential materials, and so forth. the disparities in responses we have listed above, that demonstrate significant differences between countries in the ability to respond to pandemics, are not justifiable in terms of operational efficiency, protection of frontline professionals, clinical outcome, and so forth, and cannot be allowed to persist, to be manifested again in future crises. health systems worldwide largely operate within narrow national perspectives, with little interest in better systems elsewhere. we urgently need objective and transparent benchmarking, and automatic mandating of adoption of the best practices in the world, where feasible. transparency and convincing justification for failure to adopt the benchmark must become the norm. of course, different health systems operate in different frameworks-payers, insurance, authorization and recommendation agencies, and so forth-but the tail cannot be allowed to wag the dog. existing frameworks can no longer be accepted as default excuses not to improve. they must be adapted to allow adoption of the benchmarks, where possible, not the other way round. in the final analysis, there are only two elements relevant: the person in the icu, who pays tax/insurance, and hence for the health system, and the government, which is responsible for health system functioning/evolution and protection of its citizens. both of their goals are in principle aligned, so there should be no controversy: provision of the best achievable health system that is adequately prepared for catastrophic pandemics. • governments and health systems must subject national health systems, and national health system crisis preparedness, to international benchmark scrutiny, and transparently strive for attainment of best international standards. it is the responsibility of government to protect its citizens and the role of industry to innovate and create commercial products and services. these two goals are not always aligned for current clinical exigences. but to provide a vital health system, government and industry must align and form alliances that create synergies. there are, of course, many successful examples of such beneficial alliances. however, there is sometimes an unrealistic perception of the role of industry, particularly by some governments when confronted with a crisis for which they are not prepared, as articulated in the generic cry: why do not we have a vaccine for this, why do not we have a drug for that? for example, regulatory and payment hurdles incentivize industry to develop cancer drugs rather than antimicrobials, so it is irrational and unwarranted to complain about the poor state of pipelines for new antivirals in the time of covid-19, of antimicrobials in the time of the antimicrobial resistance crisis. if industry is to realign its research priorities towards current clinical priorities, it needs incentives to do so, e.g., through adequately funded creative governmentindustry-academia-clinical-regulatory strategic alliances. we have previously proposed a mechanism to create novel pipelines for accelerated discovery of new drugs and diagnostics (timmis et al., 2014 ; and, simultaneously, to promote long-term revival of struggling economies, interestingly in response to a financial crisis-that of 2008-which the sars-cov-2 pandemic will again unleash with considerable severity). this proposal calls for the use of infrastructure budgets (not overstretched research-education-health budgets) to be targeted to the creation of new strategic national/ regional alliances between (i) cell biology and microbial diversity research groups, to discover and develop new diagnostics, drug targets and assays, and new drug leads from new microbes, (ii) biochemical engineers, chemists and pharma, to produce, evaluate and develop drug candidates, (iii) pharma, clinical research and regulatory agencies to assess clinical efficacy and safety of, and develop new drug candidates. in the context of the sars-cov-2 pandemic, an alliance between virology, cell biology, microbial diversity, and synthetic microbiology groups in upstream discovery would accelerate new antiviral discovery and populate antiviral drug pipelines, but also pipelines of new antimicrobials urgently needed for the treatment of bacterial superinfections responsible for some of the covid-19 mortalities. and: while advanced age, underlying co-morbidities and infection dose are identified as predisposing factors for development of severe covid-19 disease, deaths among young healthy individuals also occur for reasons currently unknown. once predisposing factors for this group have been elucidated, diagnostics to identify young people at risk, especially those most exposed to sars-cov-2, will be needed in order to reduce their exposure. vaccines, despite their proven value in protecting against disease and their much-heralded pivotal importance for lockdown exit and herd immunity, are the cinderellas of clinical practice and, in normal times, not only attract little interest from governments but also are controversial, due to negative publicity from vociferous anti-vaccine groups propagating unfounded claims. the development and use of a number of current vaccines/vaccine candidates are orchestrated and funded, not by industry and public health systems, but by philanthropic organizations, like the gates foundation, working with agencies like cepi (coalition for epidemic preparedness innovations) and gavi (global alliance for vaccines and immunizations). indeed, the gates foundation is also playing a leading role in the search for, and development of, a vaccine against covid-19 (https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ media-center/press-releases/2020/02/bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation-dedicates-additional-funding-to-the-novel-coronavirus-response). however, it is the duty of national governments and international organizations, as part of their pandemic preparedness, to finance vaccine development platforms that are able to rapidly create new vaccines in response to an outbreak. once a new vaccine candidate is shown to be safe and protective, its rapid large-scale production and distribution requires the infrastructure of large pharmaceutical companies. as epidemics cannot be planned, industrial managers cannot be expected to promote projects without a market. governments must therefore intervene to maintain the interest and technical capacity of industry in developing vaccines and antibiotics (a smouldering fire) by creating a market in form of governmental orders. assessments of value-for-money of these strategic alliances must be made in the context of the global costs of pandemics like that of sars-cov-2. • pandemic preparedness requires rapid creation, production and distribution of effective materials for diagnosis, prophylaxis and therapy. this necessitates significant long-term investment in research and development involving unconventional alliances of disparate academic science and medical research groups, industry, philanthropic foundations, vaccine enabling coalitions, and crisis preparedness taskforces. there is great diversity in stress resilience (e.g., the ability to deal with peaks of illness) of different health systems, with some being at least regionally overwhelmed during the winter influenza season. the less resilient systems will generally be the first to become overwhelmed in a health crisis. while there are numerous parameters involved in health system resilience, and experts know most of the pinch points and solutions that can deal with these (but also what is uncertain and what needs to be understood before effective 'solutions' can be formulated), three elements worth consideration in efforts to increase health system resilience are discussed here. healthcare systems are by and large extremely large, complex, heavily bureaucratic and fragmented. the often system-wide, multi-level consultations, decisions and responses needed in times of emergencies are challenging and often slow, usually slower than crisis development, which means that healthcare systems follow and react to events, rather than managing them. crises are in some ways analogous to wars, and bureaucracies are not designed to manage wars, which is the job of the military. in crises, we need crisis strategy-tactics specialists, a taskforce with short, well defined and effective chains of command, tasked with overriding normal procedures and taking charge of supply chains and requisitioning of assets, (re)deployment of personnel, organization and prioritization of allocation of infrastructure, managing logistics, and so forth. these could be specially trained taskforces of existing staff within healthcare systems, external taskforces or combinations of both. of course, for taskforces to operate optimally, they, together with the best available scientific minds, must also plan in advance the required resources, supply chains, personnel, strategic options, and so forth. they must also organize regular 'infection games'/public health manoeurvres (https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_the_ next_outbreak_we_re_not_ready?language=en) = crisis 'fire drills', to train nationally and transnationally, refresh skills and explore and anticipate unexpected events to ensure preparedness, so that appropriate responses can be rolled out rapidly anywhere, independently of national borders. 5 another, mandatory, task for the taskforce would be to conduct regular 'stress tests' of healthcare system resilience, as have been instituted for banks to ensure that they have adequate resources (= resilience) to withstand crises. such stress tests should be designed by health experts, epidemiologists-modellers, procurement agencies, representatives of the diagnostics-vaccine-drug industry, and so forth, and the design and implementation of the stress tests overseen by the taskforce. • national crisis task forces consisting of dedicated strategy-tactics specialists need to be established to plan crisis preparedness, make recommendations to improve health system resilience, and carry out regular crisis "fire drills" and stress tests. an important aspect of the sars-cov-2 outbreak is that, in most countries, it has become more difficult to obtain consultations with primary healthcare clinics/physicians, because of social distancing practices, illness or involvement in crisis management (e.g., see keesara et al., 2020) . as time goes on, the inability to access many primary healthcare services leads to progressive worsening of existing and new conditions in some individuals. access to primary healthcare, which in some countries was already unsatisfactory before covid-19, is becoming a new crisis. this has resulted in the 'flight to the web' for information (sometimes obtaining disinformation in the process): the web is becoming a substitute for clinical consultations, in terms of obtaining information relating to symptoms experienced. this will ultimately have a significant impact on how the public views the computer as a facilitator-mediator of primary healthcare. while classical telemedicine-the ad hoc consultation of a remote, unknown physician who can advise on the symptoms presented-may be helpful in times of inadequate access to regular primary healthcare facilities, it cannot replace clinical advice informed by patient case histories and personal knowledge of the patient. reduced access to primary healthcare below a certain threshold constitutes itself a significant health hazard and is counter to a government's duty to protect its citizens. what to do to increase resilience of primary health care and increase access? one important contribution will be the 'digital healthcare revolution' (keesara et al., 2020) , i.e., some traditional one-on-one meetings between patient and doctor being replaced by web-based consultations. but also imagine teleconsultations based on (i) complete personal case histories, combined with (ii) up-to-date population epidemiological information, combined with (iii) individual patient best practice recommendations based on precision medicine analyses/predictions: welcome to the national clinical informatics centre (ncic; timmis and timmis, 2017) , informing in real time a virtual doctor, a clinically-programed, ai-evolving server. this doctor, interfacing with both the patient and ncic, diagnoses according to detailed case history and patient symptom input via computer (and aided, where necessary, by diagnostic information obtained through in-home patient self-diagnosis with apparatus/diagnostic materials promptly delivered by a medical logistics service), and makes treatment recommendations (timmis, 2020) . in some countries/regions, access to primary healthcare already involves significant waiting periods. the additional restrictions on access to primary healthcare resulting from the sars-cov-2 outbreak are resulting in further suffering and frustration that will surely make the prospect of a consultation with a virtual doctor providing personalized medicine, who is instantly available 24/7, an increasingly attractive future possibility. of course, many health issues cannot be handled remotely via the web (though the proportion will increase steadily with the development of informatic infrastructure and easy-to-use home diagnostics), and will result in referral to a clinician. but, web-based consultations can significantly reduce numbers of patients requiring clinician consultations and the associated stress on the health system. • it is essential that health systems urgently develop centralized, secure informatic infrastructure needed to underpin web-based machine learning-facilitated precision medicine, and evolve web-based consultations, available on demand 24/7, as an integral mainstream component of primary healthcare services. the current sars-cov-2 outbreak has brutally exposed the current vulnerability of society to pandemics, even those that have been long predicted and anticipated (ge et al., 2013; menachery et al., 2015) . most healthcare systems have not evolved for resilience in times of catastrophe, nor for effective rapid responses to pandemics. a key principle steering evolution has been value-for-money within a fixed budget; contingency planning within this framework (outlays for materials that may never be used) may be considered to be a nuisance that diminishes what can otherwise be done with limited funds, and so to a greater or lesser extent may be postponed. for this reason, it is crucial that budgets for contingency planning are separate from health system budgets. equally important, it has emphasized the fact that some healthcare systems have for a long time been on the edge of the cliff, just waiting for an event to push them over. their adaptation to changing needs has often been through a 'sticking plaster' response. evolution has been ad hoc, via responses to new developments and challenges, and often led to fragmentation rather than coherence. the lessons to be learned are thus not only to take scientifically-founded pandemic predictions seriously into account in policy elaboration, but also to streamline and institute changes in healthcare systems that impose an evolutionary trajectory that increases coherence, efficiency and preparedness, and the necessary mechanisms to maintain these as new exigencies arise (e.g., see timmis and timmis, 2017) . and, especially because this crisis has revealed enormous disparities in responsiveness, effectiveness and the quality of responses in different countries, both preparedness for pandemics and the general improvement of healthcare mandate international benchmarking for contingency planning and the evolution of healthcare systems. comparisons/benchmarking within countries-within single systems-is no longer acceptable. many healthcare systems need substantive improvements through strategic investments, in most cases targeted to system changes, not just extra funding of existing services. and above all, they need crisis taskforces embedded in them that can prepare for, and take charge in times of, impending catastrophes. another lesson learned is that the sars-cov-2 outbreak has revealed new synergy potentials, such as the manufacture of ventilators by engineering companies not normally active in the manufacture of medical devices. it is not unreasonable to assume that new innovations can and will emerge from new interactions between creative engineers and clinicians. for example, best practice for breathing difficulty and poor blood oxygenation is intubation and ventilation. the paucity of ventilators is a 'critical control point' for best treatment practice in some hospitals, which has been discussed above. anecdotal evidence suggests that, of those individuals who die, despite best treatment practice involving intubation, the cause of death is often due to superinfection by antibiotic resistant bacteria (vincent et al., 2020) . the cause of this may indeed be intubation, causing perturbation of normal lung physiology and creating susceptibility to superinfection. there are, however, less invasive means of increasing blood oxygen levels. perhaps engineers, together with clinicians, will devise new or improved non-invasive approaches to blood oxygenation. and once creative engineers from the non-medical field start to expertly scrutinize current medical devices, perhaps we will see new approaches and new designs that significantly advance medical practice. but perhaps the most important lesson learned is about our frontline health professionals ministering to covid-19 patients, especially those with severe disease. these clinicians and nurses who willingly and selflessly work long, sometimes multiple shifts to the point of utter exhaustion, often not able to see their families for long periods because of the danger of infecting them, always under unbelievable stress working in what are essentially war zones with the accompanying horrors (e.g. see http:// www.sixthtone.com/news/1005474/i-spent-seven-weeksin-a-wuhan-icu.-heres-what-i-learned?utm_source=sfmc& utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2716680_agenda_ weekly-17april2020&utm_term=&emailtype=newsletter), sometimes without adequate protective clothing and always in danger of contracting covid-19, sometimes becoming infected, and sometimes paying the ultimate price. these are the heroes of the pandemic, the faces of resilience of covid-19 healthcare, exceptional citizens demonstrating exceptional fortitude, personal sacrifice and professional dedication: they are our role models of the 21st century. real estimates of mortality following covid-19 infection valuing vaccines: deficiencies and remedies on viruses, bats and men: a natural history of food-borne viral infections the novel coronavirus-a snapshot of current knowledge fangcang shelter hospitals: a novel concept for responding to public health emergencies isolation and characterisation of a bat sars-like coronavirus that uses the ace2 receptor offline: covid-19 and the nhs: "a national scandal preparing intensive care for the next pandemic influenza health security capacities in the context of covid-19 outbreak: an analysis of international health regulations annual report data from 182 countries covid-19 and health care's digital revolution a sars-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence estimating case fatality rates of covid-19 the diy digital medical centre biological land mines: bioterrorism underscores major knowledge deficits in the ecology of infectious agents the home clinic or all in a day's work of dr the urgent need for microbiology literacy in society pipelines for new chemicals: a strategy to create new value chains and stimulate innovation-based economic revival in southern european countries the sars case study. an alarm clock prevalence and outcomes of infection among patients in intensive care units in 2017 characteristics of and important lessons from the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) outbreak in china combatting covid-19-the role of robotics in managing public health and infectious diseases key: cord-310775-6d5vi2c5 authors: brinks, verena; ibert, oliver title: from corona virus to corona crisis: the value of an analytical and geographical understanding of crisis date: 2020-06-09 journal: tijdschr econ soc geogr doi: 10.1111/tesg.12428 sha: doc_id: 310775 cord_uid: 6d5vi2c5 the term ‘crisis’ is omnipresent. the current corona virus pandemic is perceived as the most recent example. however, the notion of crisis is increasingly deployed as a signifier of relevance, rather than as an analytical concept. moreover, human geography has so far little contributed to the interdisciplinary crisis research field which is fixated on the temporal aspects of crisis but neglects its spatiality. against this background, the first aim of the paper is to demonstrate the value of thinking about crisis analytically. therefore, we introduce theoretical knowledge developed within a recently emerging literature on crisis management. second, we demonstrate the relevance of including geographical thinking into crisis research more systematically. based on the tpsn‐framework by jessop et al., we illustrate spatial dimensions of the ‘corona crisis’, its perception and handling in germany. the empirical references are based on media reports. the spread of the coronavirus has turned into a crisis. this finding is hardly surprising and the majority of readers will agree. but when and how did it turn into a crisis? this question is much more difficult to answer, mainly due to the fact that the term 'crisis' is anything but easy to grasp. it is omnipresent and frequently used in very different contexts. the term is, for instance, used to signify the enhanced relevance of the respective research. as a consequence, the notion of crisis is mainly deployed intuitively, rather than analytically. similar to other disciplines, most geographical contributions related to crisis dynamics are driven by an empirical phenomenon, which is framed as being in crisis. in economic geography, the 'financial crisis' has received particular attention and geographers have made significant contributions by exploring the manifold spatial references of this global phenomenon (e.g. aalbers 2009; martin 2011) . within the geographic discipline, diagnoses of 'crisis' are often associated with neoliberalism and capitalism apparently producing manifold social, economic and political stresses (jones & ward 2002; larner 2011) . particularly, geographers in marxist tradition (most prominently represented by david harvey) deploy crises as an inherent and recurring feature of capitalism; or to cite harvey (2011, p. 11) : 'capital never solves its crisis tendencies' (emphasis in orig.). in addition, climate change, rising religious fundamentalism and newly emerging economic powers outside the traditional industrial centres pose challenges of truly global scope that invoke crises in all parts of the world (larner 2011) . this literature emphasises that we live in times of crises and doubtlessly provide important insights on the social, economic and political configurations that contribute to crisis diagnosis. however, so far little attention has been paid to specify the nature of 'crisis' itself as an exceptional and stressful human experience. if we accept the diagnosis that we live in times of crises, it becomes more important than ever to develop a more profound understanding of crisis as a particular context for action and a possibility for intervention. in this paper, we therefore propose a conceptual shift from the structural conditions that cause crises to an actor-centric approach focused on the practical consequences of crisis for individual and collective agency. we introduce theoretical knowledge developed within a recently emerging, interdisciplinary literature on crisis management. moreover, we illustrate this analytical understanding with reference to the recent 'corona crisis' to connect abstract ideas on the general characteristics of crises with empirical observations. the term crisis is ripe with temporal implications. these temporal aspects predominate in the crisis management literature. what lacks so far, however, is a systematic conceptualisation of the spatial aspects of crisis. while the crisis management literature does use spatial categories, such as epicentres, distance, scaling or territories, it lacks a systematic approach to integrate spatial imaginations into theories and practices of crisis management. social and economic geographers could thus contribute to the inter-disciplinary discourse by integrating the spatial dimension into the conceptualisation of crisis. in this paper, we set out to suggest a conceptualisation of the 'geography of crisis' informed by social and economic geography. the empirical material presented in this paper stems from different media sources. it has to be mentioned that this paper does not draw on an already fully-elaborated or finalised media analysis but is inevitably provisional and selective due to the highly dynamic development at the time this paper has been written. the analytical and conceptual thoughts presented here are based on current research on crises (brinks & ibert 2020) . within different research contexts, we analysed literature on crisis (management) and also benefited from empirical insights collected in interviews with crisis experts and own participation in interdisciplinary workshops on crisis and crisis management. the paper is subdivided into two main parts. first, the subsequent chapter introduces our definition of crisis based on literature from the interdisciplinary practice of crisis management and social scientific crisis research. second, we outline a geographical perspective on crisis, by exploring different dimensions of the spatiality of crisis. we use the tpsn approach as suggested by jessop et al. (2008) to systematise our observations. the paper concludes by highlighting the added value of a geographical approach. a crisis is related to, yet distinct from other terms, such as 'problem'. a problem denotes a gap between an observed condition and a desired condition (rittel & webber 1973) . such a gap is present in every crisis as well, for example, the gap between the fastgrowing numbers of people who became infected with the corona virus and the general desire that the population should be healthy. yet, such a gap is not a sufficient condition for a crisis. in order to talk of a crisis, a few more ingredients are necessary: uncertainty, urgency and threat (boin & 't hart 2007) . uncertainty denotes 'that we cannot predict or foresee what will happen when acting or not acting' (aspers 2018, p. 133) . in the corona case, uncertainty is caused by a lack of knowledge (e.g. about the ways of infections, dark figures of a-symptomatic cases), ambiguous signals (e.g. unspecific symptoms), a lack of viable means to counter the epidemic (e.g. the absence of an effective medicine and vaccination) and undetermined timeframes (e.g. when will a vaccination be available), to mention only few. the second ingredient, urgency, refers to the necessity to act, despite high degrees of uncertainty. in crisis, inactivity and non-decision are no options as they will only exacerbate the serious situation. yet, as acting has to take place under conditions of uncertainty, routines are no longer available and action has a strongly improvisational or experimental character (boin & rhinard 2008; milstein 2015) . the last ingredient to crisis is an existential threat of highly valued societal assets. the corona pandemic does not only threaten the health and lives of wide parts of the population, but also imperils economic interests and core institutions of the political order. due to the underlying fundamental uncertainty, 'the emotional response to crisis is not fear (such as fear from fire) but existential angst, which has no identifiable object that could offer a grip for a learnt response' (kornberger et al. 2020, p. 242) . in addition to these fundamental characteristics of crisis it is important to unpack the term a bit further. it is important to understand how crisis becomes enacted in practice. a crisis as an empirical observation cannot be deduced directly from the underlying societal conditions. rather similar, objectively measurable conditions (like unemployment rates, levels of distrust in political institutions) sometimes entail crisis diagnosis, and sometimes do not. sometimes relatively unimportant issues are treated as a crisis (the 'brent spar' controversy is a widely cited example of an escalating risk communication; löfstedt & renn 1997) , while even the most alarming scientific reports about climate change are not sufficient to mobilise a collective sense of urgency. what all crises share in common, thus, is not only a severe problem, but a shared perception of uncertainty, threat and urgency around that problem. the key importance of perceptions can also be found in the corona case. in our observation of the public discourse in germany, at the beginning of 2020 the government as many others in the western hemisphere looked at the early epicentre of the pandemic, the wuhan region in china, 'with a combination of fascination and fear' but without any sense of urgency or immediate threat until new information about corona infections in europe emerged (boin et al. 2020) . not earlier than 26 february 2020, we noticed a shift from 'corona epidemic' to 'corona crisis' in the german speaking debate for the first time in an article published in the online portal of the german newspaper der spiegel. two days earlier, in many parts of germany, carnival was celebrated on the streets -a mass meeting with thousands of people standing close to each other. from 16 march onwards, all public events of major size were prohibited, schools were closed across all federal states in germany and a few days later restaurants, production plants and retail shops followed. it was a matter of days, during which the publicly shared framing of the situation has changed fundamentally. typically, at some stage in the public 'framing contest' that takes place in advance of a crisis, the public opinion transcends an invisible 'tipping point' beyond which a problematic situation turns into a crisis (boin et al. 2009 ). however, this tipping point can only be noticed ex post, while it is impossible to determine it in advance. for most participants, thus, crisis comes unexpected. crisis is not only a matter of perception; it also unfolds performative qualities. here, performative means that the crisis diagnosis is not a mere description of the state of reality rather, a crisis diagnosis changes reality and therefore contributes to the enactment of crisis: 'if individuals (and the media) define a situation as a crisis, it is a crisis in its consequences' (rosenthal & kouzmin 1997, p. 286) . for decision-makers, once in place, the crisis immediately ascends the first place of the agenda. due to the performative qualities, the crisis unfolds its dynamics irrespective of subjective interpretations or experiences. for individual decision-makers, it is for instance no longer possible to ignore the crisis, or, if one tries, like donald trump did until the first weeks of march, it happens at immense political and economic costs. for professional crisis managers, the declaration of a crisis has very practical and robust consequences. they perceive a crisis as an effective 'coping structure' (term used in crisis management practice jargon) societies and organisations have to prioritise a certain topic and to mobilise resources to address a problem. crisis diagnoses emerge in multi-stakeholder constellations. some stakeholders even support the escalation of a crisis or reframe the crisis diagnosis in ways that exert pressure on organisations or states. crisis diagnoses thus are contested and the framing is subject to controversy in the public debate (boin et al. 2009 ). in contrast to the term 'catastrophe', the term crisis highlights that despite existential threats, it is not yet too late to prevent the disaster (boin & 't hart 2007) . in medicine, crisis marks the decisive phase in the course of an illness in which a positive or negative outcome is still possible (ricoeur 1988) . crisis, in other words, is strongly associated with the idea of an open future (kornberger et al. 2020 ) that can be created through individual or collective agency. in the current crisis, the first discussions emerge about the potential long-term structural effects of the corona crisis. for instance, visionaries from silicon valley highlight the enhanced possibilities to establish new practices of remote digital learning and work (thrun 2020) . at the same time, warning voices (sennett 2020 ) point at potentially problematic long-term effects of lockdown policies and the increased use of surveillance technologies on the human rights situation and vulnerable democratic institutions in weak democracies. when we think of or undertake research on crisis, we should also be aware of one additional observation. as mentioned above, decisions in crisis have to be made while the present is uncertain and the future is open (kornberger et al. 2020) . under such conditions, action does not take place within a given frame of meaning. rather, in crisis participants are forced to learn by interpreting the situation tentatively while acting on it. therefore, crises are usually perceived twice. in a first loop, participants encounter a critical turn in the course of events surprisingly. they experience an open-ended phase of chaos and escalation during which they struggle to regain control while action and sensemaking remain incompletely connected. in contrast to the abrupt beginning, the end of the acute crisis comes much more gradually. as a first step toward a (new) normality, after having responded to the challenges, participants eventually perceive a slowing down in the dynamic of escalation and try out new interpretations of the situation. however, against the background of the previously experienced uncertainty, participants tend to distrust this new stability. they remain unsure, how far their explanations will hold and whether or not the absence of another surprising turn is just a pause in the course of escalation or already a (re)turn to (new) normality. the ultimate end of the crisis, however, has to be 'declared' by decision-makers, which is another performative act. in a second loop, the course of events that led to the acute crisis is reconstructed ex post in the light of the newly established sense and certainty. as an interpretative act of sensemaking, the starting point and the end of the second loop are not fixed and can never be defined in advance. according to weick (1988, p. 306) , sensemaking is enacted since 'parts of what the explorer discovers retrospectively are consequences of his own making'. by the very process of acting in crisis, a rising stream of new information and experiences have to be included in the sensemaking process. thus, the second loop always starts after the first loop but usually at an early stage in the crisis course. in this second loop, the crisis is deliberately embedded in the classical phase model encompassing the phases of pre-crisis, acute crisis and post-crisis (e.g. fink 2002) , while the boundaries between the phases are still in motion. during sensemaking the considered timeframe is expanded both, into the past and the future. when reflecting on the pre-crisis phase, the focus is on weak warning signals that have been neglected beforehand or wrong decisions that contributed to an escalation of events. the post-crisis phase, in contrast, provides the (oftentimes missed) opportunity to learn from the crisis (birkland et al. 2009 ). once the crisis is overcome, time is ripe to reiterate the acute crisis several times in order to get a detailed understanding of the sequential order of actions. of course, the acute crisis itself cannot be repeated. yet, the pre-and post-crisis phases cannot emerge without the experiences made during the acute crisis. the awareness of these two loops of crisis experience is helpful to keep in mind for the corona crisis. while writing this paper, we are still witnessing the escalation of events and the tentative form of sensemaking while acting on the situation. yet, we can already discover first signs of time expansion. presently the public debate has already turned towards the past by discovering early warning signs that have previously been ignored. for example, a paper published in march 2019, in which the authors warned against (at that time) future outbreaks of a corona virus caused by cross-species transmission (fan et al. 2019) has received broader attention in the last weeks, that is one year after publication. in china and in italy suspicious accumulations of pneumonia cases attract the attention of epidemiologists aiming at reconstructing the outbreak. at about the same time, governments around the world start to plan for the future. they design graduated schemes back to normality, envisioning the possible ends of the crisis and speculating about new post-corona normalities. finally, the severity of a crisis is widely associated with its perceived scope. the scope of the crisis describes the degree to which the perceived escalation of problematic events can be contained within separable units of society. critical events are much more likely perceived as severe crises, the more they 'spill over' (bundy et al. 2017 ) existing boundaries. on the territorial level, 'transboundary crises' (boin & rhinard 2008) have an inter-regional or even an inter-national character. transboundary also denotes the overstepping of institutionalised boundaries, for example, the vertical sectoral responsibilities of political or administrative bodies (boin & rhinard 2008) . a true sense of crisis tends to emerge if multiple boundaries are overstepped and causes and effects of a crisis spill over from one compartment into the other. the scope of a crisis is also dependent on the sources of uncertainty. sometimes, these sources are clearly external, for instance, an earthquake or a cyber-attack. such external events can unfold disruptive qualities, yet they are usually easier to manage, as no decision-maker can be directly blamed for them. it thus seems sufficient to manage their negative consequences before returning back to old normality. more difficult are crises that are driven by internal sources. for instance, the structural crisis of a whole industry to a wide degree is caused by the insufficient strategic capabilities of the core decision-makers. here, the crisis is interpreted as a 'brutal audit' (orton & o'grady 2016 ) that unveils the lack of foresight and understanding of decision-makers. crises caused by internal factors enact a much higher degree of uncertainty, as any framing of the problem goes hand in hand with blaming of responsible persons or organisational units (boin et al. 2009 ). of course, in practice, it is difficult to clearly separate internal from external sources of uncertainty, as often critical external events raise the awareness of internal deficiencies. in the case of the corona pandemic, the crisis fulfils the character of a 'transboundary crisis' (boin & rhinard 2008) in an almost ideal-typical sense. the spread of the virus is no longer restricted to any geographically confined territory, vertical segments of society or particular societal layers. rather, within a few months, the virus is present almost everywhere on the globe, justifying the whoclassification as a 'pandemic'. further, it affects several societal systems, most crucially the health services, but beyond that also has severe spill-over effects to almost every economic sector, a wide range of institutions of political order and all parts of society. the tendency to transgress boundaries also makes the corona crisis particularly threatening. while the origin of the crisis is external to society, the corona pandemic can be seen as a brutal stress test that unveils internal dysfunctionalities in national health systems, social security programmes or value chains. even though the geographical dimensions of crisis are recognised by some crisis scholars, a systematic and theoretically-guided analysis of the spatiality of crisis has not yet been advanced in this field. such a systematic exploration, we argue, is a possible contribution of economic and social geography to social scientific crisis research. the agenda we suggest here is thus a bit different from previous geographical studies that use the term crisis prominently to signify they are dealing with severe problems within specific empirical fields, like, for instance, the bursting of financial bubbles in mortgage and real estate markets (e.g. aalbers 2009) or emergency practices in humanitarian aid (e.g. fredriksen 2014 ). we suggest the use of the tpsn framework (territory, place, scale, network), as developed by jessop et al. (2008) to explore the geography of crisis. according to gailing et al. (2019, p. 15 ) it provides a useful heuristic that can be flexibly applied to diverse empirical fields 'to allow for a synoptic perspective on this field'. at the same time, the authors also warn that tpsn should not be mistaken as a 'complete answer to everything' (gailing et al. 2019, p. 15) , as it lacks the necessary, field-specific theoretical terminology. hence, they argue that tpsn needs to be complemented with the respective theoretical terminology to unfold its full explanatory potential. for our agenda, the absence of theoretical assumptions in the tpsn-heuristic is an advantage. crisis, as we understand it, is not an 'empirical field' in the sense of gailing et al. (2019) , but rather a conceptual endeavour to advance a general understanding of practices and dynamics prevailing in situations of uncertainty, threat and urgency. in the following paragraph, we thus use theoretical claims from social scientific crisis research and combine it with spatial dimensions as suggested in the tpsn heuristic in order to delve deeper into the so far underdeveloped spatial aspects of crisis theory. in the following, some starting points for such an investigation are indicated by referring to the corona crisis as one illustrative empirical field (table 1) . even though crises increasingly cross territorial boundaries, the territorial dimension remains particularly important. the corona crisis produces countless cartographic visualisations documenting the spread of the pandemic. the number of infections announced by the johns hopkins university (2020) has become an internationally much-cited data source for tracing the dynamic development of the spread as well as regional differences worldwide. the total number of confirmed cases worldwide is presented on the national level. recently, a further map demonstrating the intensity of the outbreak in us counties has been launched by the university (johns hopkins university 2020). the territorial representation of the corona crisis is largely caused by the report system of public agencies which are bound to territorial units. likewise, many institutional crisis responses, such as the official declaration of an emergency situation, are bound to territories. however, territory affects crisis even beyond administrative responsibilities. the crossing of a territorial boundary, for instance, frequently cause shifts in the perception of crises as being more threatening (since the perceived distance to crisis declines) and escalating (fear of losing control). 'patient 1' as the first documented case in a certain territory is well reported as well as the first case of covid-19 outside of china on 13 january. manifold media reports refer to 'first cases' or 'first deaths' inside or outside a specific territorial unit. some places are more affected by crisis than others (see aalbers 2009 for the financial crisis). some crises culminate in a single epicentre. a school shooting creates such a mono-centric geography and 'place renewal' can be an adequate way for crisis recovery (wombacher et al. 2018 ). more typically, however, crises unfold complex, multi-local geographies. in the case of the corona pandemic, we can already identify several symbolically charged places. above all, the huanan seafood market in wuhan has been reported as the point of origin of the outbreak. related to that, the use of the term 'wuhan virus' by the us government can be conceived as a framing and blaming strategy jessop et al. 2008) . portrayal of outbreak according to territorial entities activation of territoriallybound resources 'first case' inside or outside a territory place emergence of places of crisis such as supermarkets 'epicentre' and 'superspreader' locations scale assignment of responsibility inter-national organisations such as the who network expert communities '#flattenthecurve' (boin et al. 2009 ) through spatial dissociation and association (ibert et al. 2019) . further places, such as the notorious après ski bars in ischgl in austria, or the football stadium in milan have become spots of investigation as potential 'super spreader' locations from where the virus disseminated across europe (merlot 2020) . surprisingly, supermarkets have emerged as relevant places of the corona crisis. as places of food provision, in times of lockdown these facilities have transformed rapidly into critical infrastructures equipped with additional safety precautions. in contrast, hospitals represent classical institutions of crisis response. yet, when becoming activated for this crisis, their regular safety standards needed to be adapted to the particular challenges of the corona pandemic. the notion of scale is closely related to spatial hierarchies (jessop et al. 2008) . it is a particularly important dimension in crises when it comes to negotiation of responsibility and coordination of action (which scale is the right one to (re)act on crises?). the corona crisis provides a vivid example here. in germany, for instance, the corona crisis induced a discussion of the federal constitution. where in other states, the national governments decided about the closing of retail stores, etc., the national government in germany is not authorised to decide about such measures since infection protection is situated at the federal state-level (bundesländer) (leitlein & schuler 2020) . moreover, the health authorities, which report about confirmed corona infections and are authorised to impose measures such as quarantine, are based on the level of administrative districts (landkreis) or district-free cities in germany. located at an inter-national scale, the who receives particular attention in these days. though not authorised to impose measures, the who has an important function in terms of policy recommendation. the who's declaration of the covid-19 outbreak being a 'pandemic' on 11 march can be interpreted as a means justifying considerable state interference with fundamental rights. the network perspective on crisis focuses on the relations between nodes (of every kind). it can be enriched by deploying the concept of 'relational proximity' (gertler 2008 ) and the function of medical experts in the corona crisis. medical professionals such as epidemiologists and virologists currently receive particular attention as policy advisors. they are embedded in trans-local professional communities. they share knowledge about the corona virus internationally, for instance, through rapid publication practices in academic journals (see for instance the lancet). members of these professional communities are characterised by relational proximity, which means that based on a shared repertoire of practices and similar expertise they are able to collaborate closely even across physical distance. another example of the network dimension are social media having an enormous relevance in the corona crisis in terms of establishing a common understanding of the situation and sharing (similar) experiences across distance. calls such as 'flatten the curve' or 'stay at home' went viral online and contributed to a shared perception of the corona crisis even when the locations and individual concerns with the corona virus are different. as jessop et al. (2008) argue, the empirical reality cannot be separated into the categories territory, place, scale and network. rather, the dimensions are interwoven in 'sociospatial relations'. similarly, gailing et al. (2019) find typical nexuses between several dimensions when studying empirical cases from the german energiewende. the following sub-sections aim at providing some examples of such interactions between spatial dimensions in the corona crisis -importantly, without any claim of completeness and admittedly presented in a rather sketchy and unsystematic fashion. at the present state, it would be an impossible endeavour to outline all spatial relations, too dynamic is the escalation in the course of events. therefore, we focus on three nexuses that can be detected in prominent public discourses to demonstrate the principle of our approach. network-place: topologies of interconnected places -as mentioned earlier, supermarkets have turned into strategic places in the fight against the pandemic across the globe. during the past few weeks, we witness a gradual reshaping of their physical setup and practices of staff to accommodate these places to the new requirements of 'social distancing' while maintaining a high turn-over of people. items from hospital environments, like surgical masks and gloves have been transferred to supermarkets in order to protect staff and clients. planes of acrylic glass have been fixed at checkout counters to minimise the physical contact between cashiers and customers and tapes attached on the floor remind shoppers to hold minimum distance. at the same time, familiar items, such as customer divider bars, loyalty cards or cash money have been banned from some supermarkets as they are now reinterpreted as potential carriers of the virus. however, it would be inaccurate to primarily conceive supermarkets as singular places. most supermarkets are not single-owned stores but rather branch stores belonging to chains of multi-national retail chains. of course, supermarkets are places, though places that belong to wider networks operated and orchestrated by grand retailers. supermarkets, in other words, are part of networks of practices (brown & duguid 2001) . the concrete local practices and settings are thus not idiosyncratic, but depend strongly on the affiliation to a certain retail chain. moreover, these practices might vary slightly from chain to chain while they are made similar from place to place through standards orchestrated through the respective networks. a similar topological perspective on crisis has been elaborated by fredriksen (2014) . the author focuses on emergency infrastructure which is used in different humanitarian crises. according to the author, emergency tents as material objects, which have constantly been developed further after crisis experiences, represent 'lessons learned' from different crises. moreover, since they are highly mobile and used at different sites affected by crisis, the places resemble one another and thus become nodes in a 'network topology' of crises (fredriksen 2014) . in a longer timeframe, experiences gained in supermarkets will most probably turn out to be extremely important for all kinds of retail stores. as soon as legislation will step by step relax the regulations on social distancing, the network of practice will most likely expand from the realm of supermarket(s) (chains) to other retailers, for instance in fashion retail or book stores. negotiation of crisis governance -the connection of scale and territory is obvious in crisis settings since public crisis response strategies are usually immediately connected to territorial units. scaling in the sense of deciding which level is the most effective one for coping with crises is a key question in crisis management (e.g. boin et al. 2005) . the different levels usually present territorial units where the smallest level is always fully integrated in the next larger level (municipal level, national scale, european scale, etc.). this leads to the key issue of coordination in crises. a certain threatening situation has to be assigned to a specific scale, responsible for crisis response. these responsibilities are usually determined beforehand. in the corona crisis, the formal assignment of authority in epidemic events (as mentioned, the federal states (bundesländer) are responsible instead of the national government in germany) is now critically eyed and political efforts have been started to change the respective law in order to allow the upscaling of competencies to the national level in such crises (waschinsky 2020). at the same time, local hubs of the outbreak are intensively investigated such as the district of heinsberg in the federal state of north rhine-westphalia in germany. authorities aim at deriving strategies for larger territorial areas, arguing that 'the district of heinsberg portrays the nationwide occurrence of infections in a nutshell' (ärzteblatt 2020) . however, in the corona crisis some of the limitations of thinking of crisis in territorial units and instruments of territorial scaling also come to light. even though the corona virus crosses geographical and territorial boundaries, the virus does not spread homogeneously in space. as in many other countries, the shutdown of public life in germany is a nationwide strategy (with variances across different federal states). this also means that more and less affected areas are treated the same way. when discussing potential strategies for the time after the shutdown these questions of territorial on a more general level, the corona crisis demonstrates the interplay of territory and scale by pointing to strategies, limitations and challenges of upscaling and downscaling processes (see also boin et al. 2005, on upscaling) . also fundamental differences occur between centralistic and federal states. determining the right scale, activation of respective structures when necessary and flexible adjustments in territorial scaling are central issues of crisis management. yet, as observed in other cases, the transgressive forces driving the corona crisis requires complex settings of multi-level governance that includes several scales and political sectors (bundy et al. 2017) . another interesting question is whether or not the scale of the crisis and the scale of crisis response always have to be congruent for most effective crisis management. territory-place-network: 'social distancing' policies -the spreading of the corona virus takes place from human to human being. without changes in the social behaviour, every infected person in average spreads the virus to 2-3 other people. therefore, most national authorities have enforced so-called 'social distancing' policies. the aim is to reduce the ratio of infection, in the ideal case below 1 (which means in the long run the epidemic will run out because then, statistically, each infected person infects less than one other person). a chain of infections can be interpreted as a network (kuebart & stabler, 2020) , with every infected person representing a node and every infection from person to person representing a tie. in the terminology of structural network analysis, decreasing infection rates lead to decreasing network connectivity. from a geographically informed perspective on proximity and distance, the term 'social distancing' is a bit misleading, as it suggests that social contacts should be avoided. in fact, rather on the contrary, social distancing encompasses a set of behavioural regulations that seek to allow social contacts, yet in a way that minimises physical proximity and thus promises to disrupt the chain of infections. 'social proximity' thus enables physical distancing since through grown and trusted relationships, familiar face-to-face interaction in physical co-presence can partly be substituted by online media and the like (boschma 2005) . social distancing policies do not only address interaction between people, they also include the spatial setting in which interaction occurs. the discourse on super-spreaders, for instance, focuses not only particular persons who spread the virus at disproportionally high rates, but almost always also includes particular types of places, where the infective encounters took place. hence, social distancing policies almost always are place sensitive and frequently entail the closure of the respective venues (night clubs, pubs, sports stadiums, concert halls, even playgrounds). finally, social distancing policies are enforced on a territorial level, most typically by the national states. however, different territorial approaches co-existed. while today most countries pursue social distancing policies, not all did so or did not from the very beginning. for instance, sweden, the netherlands and the uk preferred another approach of isolating only the most vulnerable individuals while the rest of the population can face the risk of infection in order to reach 'herd immunity' sooner rather than later. other countries, especially in asia, concentrated on infected persons and followed the strategy of preemptive mass-testing to identify infections early on and of isolating infected persons from the rest of the population. territorial differences in terms of crisis response are also known from other crises. regarding the h1n1 pandemic 2009 (better known as swine flu), baekkeskov and öberg (2017) analysed different vaccination policies of denmark and sweden, each supported by the dominant national expert opinions. while sweden followed the approach of vaccinating large parts of its population, denmark decided to recommend vaccination for risk groups only. both policies were supported by the majority of expert opinions reported in the respective national mass media. their findings emphasise that territorial differences in policy strategies are reflected by public discourses on the crisis in the territories. even though the general direction of social distancing policies is similar everywhere, there is much variation in detail between territories. for instance, italy and spain sought to decrease the amount of social contacts by imposing a lockdown, hence people are no longer allowed to leave their private homes apart from buying food or for health services. in germany, in contrast, authorities declared a prohibition of social interaction. german citizens are thus still allowed to leave their homes, as long as they follow the commandments of keeping a minimum distance to other citizens of 1.5 metres and seeking only the company of members who live in the same household or at most one other person. as a federal state, however, germany resembles a fragmented patchwork of territories with slightly different rules and approaches (see above). another set of interesting territorial differences in social distancing policies occur in the attribution of surgical masks in public spaces. in japan, for instance, 'mask-wearing since the 2000s … became a civic duty of those who sneeze and cough not to be a source infection, while for the healthy general public, mask-wearing embodies neoliberal ethics of being self-caring and self-responsible to one's health' (horii 2014) . while japan is the internationally most well-known example, similar practices can be observed in other countries, especially in east asia, as well. in the european context, by contrast, the same practice has been widely dismissed by public opinion until very recently. here, the wearing of surgical equipment is seen as part of a professional practice that is little useful when used inappropriately by laypersons and outside of the professional setting. therefore, surgical masks played a major role in some national policies in the east-asian context while they have been ignored in most western contexts. however, the perception of masks has shifted quickly recently, as austria exemplifies, whose government decreed at the beginning of april 2020 the duty of wearing a mask when entering a supermarket. in germany, the national government recommended the use of masks in the public space in mid-april. one by one, the federal states governments did not only take up this recommendation but, similar to austria, even tighten the rule by declaring the obligation of wearing masks in retail stores or in public transport. in this paper we set out to suggest a conceptually grounded notion of crisis and to explore its geography. the present corona crisis served as an illustrative empirical background to substantiate the analytical spatial dimensions with concrete examples. the term crisis, we suggest with references to contributions from crisis management and organisation studies, encompasses the elements of uncertainty, urgency and threat. crises are related to societal problems, yet cannot directly be deduced from them. rather, a crisis becomes only a crisis, if the situation is collectively perceived and declared as a crisis. moreover, crisis has performative qualities. a crisis diagnosis thus is not primarily a proper description of reality, but a creator of a new reality in which uncertainty, urgency and threat predominate, no matter if decision-makers like it or not. right because of the performative nature of crisis diagnoses, the discursive framing of the crisis is a highly contested issue in public debates. it takes place in complex, multi-stakeholder settings and different interests and worldviews are mobilised. some stakeholders might even be driven by a strategic interest in further escalating the situation (löfstedt & renn 1997) . while crisis management has spent considerable effort to theorise on the temporal aspects of crisis, reference to its spatial aspects remained sparse. against this background, we suggest that human geography can contribute to inter-disciplinary research on crisis by unpacking the geographical aspects systematically. we used the tpsn heuristic as suggested by jessop et al. (2008) to delve into the different dimensions of the spatiality of crisis: we explored its territorial dimension, its scalarity, place-based accounts and the relational spaces of networks. furthermore, the corona crisis served as a vivid example to illustrate that the tpsn approach is not primarily valuable to disentangle empirical observations and rearrange them along separate dimensions. rather on the contrary, we used the examples of the recently observable restructuring of supermarket spaces, of flexible re-scaling of crisis response policies and of social distancing policies to demonstrate that it seems much more promising to scrutinise the multiple forms of interaction and overlap of several spatial dimensions in the same empirical observation. what is the particular contribution of a conceptually informed, geographical understanding of crisis? we see at least three distinct qualities of such an approach: first, an emerging topic related to the corona crisis is regionally specific response strategies. here a geographically informed understanding of crisis has much to contribute to the debate. it could support approaches that seek to adapt policies to different regional characteristics (e.g. social distancing policies for urban or rural regions) or to regionally unequally affected areas (e.g. hotspots of the crisis vs. little or no affected areas). second, and related to the first point, systematically thinking about the geography of crisis can contribute a lot to the question of scalarity in crisis. the corona crisis (as many other crises) demonstrates the challenge of defining the scale of the crisis and respective crisis response strategies (which scale is the right one to (re)act on crises? how to choose the right scale? does the chosen scale necessarily have to match with a territorial unit?). in fact, due to its transboundary character it evades any single scale and instead calls for complex strategies of multilevel governance adapted to the institutional idiosyncrasies of different nation states. third, the corona crisis forces the rapid implementation of several new practices such as avoiding hand contact in supermarkets. thus, specific places transformed into critical localities, rapidly equipped with special safety infrastructure. the transformation of specific places is observable in our daily lives; however, it cannot fully be understood without references to other similar places. geography established an analytical understanding of the relations between mobility of practices (supermarket a and supermarket b) and context dependency of practices, enabling a more profound understanding of currently emerging crisis topologies. the corona crisis will certainly occupy us for a long time. a variety of studies and research projects will surely start in the near future (some already started) in order to reflect on specific aspects of the crisis. our aim in this paper was to closer investigate the notion of crisis and how a crisis diagnosis changes the present, as well as the view of the past and the future. crises unfold in time and space. the exact geography of a crisis, of course, depends on the empirical case. however, just as thinking about the temporality of crisis, the spatiality of crisis is worth investigating. we made one proposal by drawing on the tpsn framework (jessop et al. 2008 ) but possible approaches are far from exhausted. we argue for a stronger engagement with 'crisis' within human geography since its spatiality is so far kind of an empty space in crisis research. geographies of the financial crisis heinsberg-studie zur klärung von ansteckungswegen beginnt forms of uncertainty reduction: decision, valuation, and contest freezing deliberation through public expert advice disasters, lessons learned, and fantasy documents the corona crisis: a creeping crisis managing transboundary crises: what role for the european union? 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