UMD Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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Subject: search.filters.subject.crisis management

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    The Communication Solution for Attentional Bias Among Project Decision Leaders during Critical Incident Stress Phase of Crisis
    (2020) Djolevic, Natalija; Baecher, Gregory; Civil Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This research addresses barriers and solutions to crisis communication challenges based on existing crisis communication theories. The theories highlighted and expanded upon are integrated crisis mapping theory (ICM) and situational crisis communication theory (SCCT). Using these two theories, a new theory, attention crisis communication theory (ACCT) is postulated as a solution for attentional bias. Attentional bias is observed in crisis management teams during the onset of the critical incidence phase or at the beginning of a crisis trigger event. Other theories including real options decision theory and networks theory are considered and discussed as potential alternatives to ACCT.
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    Effectiveness of School-Based Crisis Intervention: Research and Practice
    (2005-11-23) Croft, Ivan A; Strein, William O; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Research comprehensively examining the efficacy of school crisis intervention procedures and strategies is limited and often restricted to either author-based recommendations or descriptive accounts of crisis responses. The purpose of this study was to identify research-supported practices in school crisis intervention and complete a program evaluation of a local school system's crisis intervention procedures. Three procedures were incorporated. A set of decision rules were developed based on research in evidence-based practices to discern crisis intervention strategies that are strongly recommended, recommended, not recommended, or bearing insufficient data based upon the quality and degree of support available for the practice in the literature over the last 20 years. Upon completion of the literature coding, the crisis intervention procedures employed by a school system were evaluated by assessing the degree of match between the documented procedures and the established research-supported practices in crisis intervention. The third procedure evaluated the perceived level of effectiveness of crisis responses in the school system through structured debriefings completed with school-based crisis teams after a crisis response. Results of the literature coding revealed patterns of scholarship detailing 98 separate crisis intervention strategies with 7 meeting the criteria for strongly recommended, 23 for recommended, 4 for not recommended, and 64 showing insufficient data. A pattern analysis showed the majority of strategies reflecting insufficient data to code due to a lack of operational evidence or inconsistent operational definitions or implementation across studies. Results of the program evaluation indicated that the school system procedures disaggregated more broadly than the literature with fewer discrete strategies identified. A comparison of strategies showed 6 school system procedures matching with strongly recommended practices, 17 with recommended, 19 with insufficient data, and 0 with not recommended. Transcriptions from the structured debriefings were analyzed using the constant comparison method. Results revealed six categories of feedback (crisis preparedness, pre-response planning after a crisis, information flow, student support, staff support, and follow-up) with multiple themes nested within categories. Practices perceived by crisis responders to be effective or ineffective in each category were discussed. Implications on current crisis intervention practices and future research were discussed.
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    THE EMPLOYEE-PUBLIC-ORGANIZATION CHAIN IN RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT: A CASE STUDY OF A GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION
    (2004-04-30) Rhee, Yunna; Grunig, James E; Communication
    This dissertation examined the critical roles that employees play in an organization's relationship-building process with its publics. By conducting an in-depth case study of a government organization's exemplary community relations programs, the researcher explored links among three focal concepts: employee-organization relationships, employee-public relationships, and organization-public relationships. Field research was conducted over the course of seven weeks. Data were collected through long interviews, participant observations, and document analysis. Based on the findings of this study, a normative public relations theory of integrative internal and external organizational relationship management was proposed. The findings suggest that employees who have positive employee-organization relationships (i.e. employees who have high level of commitment) and those who are capable of using symmetrical cultivation strategies contribute significantly to the development of positive organization-public relationships. The study also found that when the external publics have positive interactions and develop trusting individual relationships with employees, they tend to evaluate the overall organization positively. In other words, when employees have positive employee-organization relationships and employee-public relationships, external publics who interact with those employees tended to develop positive organization-public relationships. The study also found that employee empowerment can occur through employees' participation in public relations programs for external publics. Employees in this study believed they were acting as "the ears" of the organization and that they were contributing to the betterment of the organization and the community at the same time. Employees also developed personal networks with other employees through participating in public relations programs, which contributed to the building of an internal community. The study showed that public relations programs that tap into the intersection of internal and external publics contribute to the simultaneous development of positive relationships within and between both arenas. Visible leadership, continued dialogue, listening, face-to-face communication, and educational communication were newly identified as significant strategies effecting the development of positive organization-public relationships. In conclusion, this dissertation proposes that in order for public relations to enact its role as an integrated relationship management function for both the internal and external publics, it should be organized according to the principles outlined by the excellence theory and practice symmetrical communication.