Constructing Crisis
Leaders, Crises and Claims of Urgency

Crises aren't real objective events. Instead, Spector demonstrates they are claims of urgency imposed by leaders to assert power and exert control.

Bert Spector (Author)

9781108427357, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 5 September 2019

316 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 1.9 cm, 0.62 kg

'… this book will be of great interest to social constructionist scholars and scholars sympathetic to a sociology of knowledge framework. Academics who specialize in crisis may find the conceptual approach refreshing, and the book is written with such engaging and vivid examples that its appeal is likely to extend well beyond the ivory tower.' Michael Adorjan, International Sociology

There is no such thing as a crisis. Rather than an actual, corporeal thing, a crisis is a claim asserted from a position of power and influence, intended to shape the understanding of others. A constructed crisis by a leader may or may not be legitimate, and, legitimate or not, the content of a claim alone does not determine whether people decide to believe it. Rather than viewing crises as the result of objective events, Spector demonstrates that leaders impose crises on organizations to strategically assert power and exert control. Interpreting crisis through a critical lens, this interdisciplinary book encompasses not just management and organizational literature, but also sociology, history, cognitive science, and psychology. The resulting wide-ranging, critical, and provocative analysis will appeal in particular to students and academics researching leadership and crisis management.

Preface: there's no such thing as a crisis
1. Undertaking a new interpretive effort
2. Crisis as a reification of Urgency
3. Advancing the crisis-as-event model
4. Problems, crises, and contextual constructionism
5. An objective description and a subjective Uh-Oh!
6. Believing claims of urgency – or not
7. The power of a good (crisis) narrative
8. To create such a crisis, to foster such a tension
9. Beyond forged-in-crisis leadership
10. So what?
References.

Subject Areas: Organizational theory & behaviour [KJU], Management: leadership & motivation [KJMB]