Crisis Management and Reflection Report - Module Name and Details

This report comprehensively examines crisis management, focusing on its four key phases: prevention, preparation, response, and recovery. It discusses how organizations can mitigate risks associated with unexpected events, including natural disasters and other disruptive incidents. The report explores various strategies, such as collaborative emergency management, pre-season planning, and the importance of communication and technology in effective crisis response. It emphasizes the significance of employee involvement in crisis planning and the need for restorative practices during the recovery phase. Furthermore, the report incorporates a reflection on the group and individual activities undertaken during the completion of the assignment, analyzing the learning experiences and challenges encountered. The assignment draws on various academic sources and real-world examples to provide a comprehensive understanding of crisis management and its practical implications.

Running head: CRISIS MANAGEMENT AND REFLECTION
CRISIS MANAGEMENT AND REFLECTION
Name of Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Table of Contents
PART A: Crisis management..............................................................................................3
Introduction......................................................................................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................3
Crisis and disaster prevention......................................................................................3
Crisis and disaster preparation.....................................................................................4
Response to crisis and disaster....................................................................................5
Recovery from crisis and disaster................................................................................5
The ways in which managers should deal with emergency and crisis........................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................7
Kapucu, N., 2008. Collaborative emergency management: better community
organising, better public preparedness and response. Disasters, 32(2), pp.239-262...................7
Bibliography........................................................................................................................8
PART B: Reflection.............................................................................................................9
References..........................................................................................................................16
Appendix............................................................................................................................18

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PART A: Crisis management
Introduction
Crisis management includes the process of dealing with unexpected and disruptive events
that may put an organization into some risks along with its stakeholders. Crisis management
usually includes three main phases- the pre-crisis phase, the crisis response phase and the post-
crisis phase. The pre-crisis phase includes preparation and prevention activities, the phase of
crisis response includes- response of an organization to the crisis faced by it and on the other
hand the post crisis phase includes- recovery by organizations from the risks faced by it due to
the crisis. Therefore crisis management deals with all those strategies that are applied by any
organization for being prepared to deal with significant and sudden negative events. The main
aim of the paper is to discuss about the four phases of crisis including- disaster prevention,
preparation, response and recovery. The paper will discuss about the four phases of crisis
management.
Discussion
Crisis and disaster prevention
Crisis and disaster prevention includes- ensuring ensuring that the human activities or any
other natural phenomenon does not result in emergency or disaster (Connolly 2015). Therefore
prevention includes reducing, averting and avoiding risks by overcoming hazards and
vulnerability (Laugé, Hernantes and Sarriegi 2015). Disasters usually occur as a result of
combinations of factors such as different vulnerability conditions, hazards and the insufficient
measures for reducing the risks. These hazards and vulnerabilities are caused by a number of
factors such as socio-political, physical, economic and environmental factors (Ahrens and

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Rudolph 2006). The hazards includes all those physically damaging events, human activities that
result in environmental degradation, cause loss of life, and also damage property. Therefore it is
understood that institutional failures, including the failure of corporate governance system of a
country as identified in the paper, are a major reason behind susceptibility and underdevelopment
to various disasters and their interdependence. Therefore in order to prevent such kinds of crisis
and disasters, it is necessary for a country’s governance structure to implement and enforce such
public policies that are conducive to the nation’s social and economic development for
achievement of sustainable livelihood and reducing the susceptibility to disaster and crisis (Scott
et al. 2015). Some of the major features of such a governance structure includes- accountability,
predictability, participation and transparency that can help in the development of risk reduction
activities within a country (Ghasemi et al. 2014).
Crisis and disaster preparation
Crisis and disaster preparation or disaster preparedness includes- all those measures
undertaken for preparing and reducing the effects of various disasters (Loosemore, Chow and
McGeorge 2012). Therefore it includes the prediction and prevention strategies for mitigating the
impact of such disasters on the population (Mann 2014). It has been found from a research that it
is necessary to include the employees while planning crisis management because it is easier to
plan and discuss about the salaries, compensation, retention and recruitment of employees before
any crisis takes place as compared to after the crisis has taken place (Bull and Sepulveda 2012).
As it was found from the paper that after the Hurricane Katrina, companies had difficulty in
preparing their employees because they were not included in the emergency planning process.
Moreover by involving the people in planning crisis management they can be more prepared for
facing any unforeseen situation (Scanlon, McMahon and van Haastert 2007). Moreover the

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employees play an important role in emergency planning because the employers can make use
of their skills and knowledge for recovering and responding to the crisis (Baker 2007). Hence, it
is necessary to address the HR issues at the time of crisis planning for keeping the employees
prepared for the same.
Response to crisis and disaster
Response to crisis and disaster includes- the reaction of the people in case a disaster
occurs and also includes their reaction in the emergency situations (Bergström, Uhr and Frykmer
2016). In order words, response includes the way people react which can include both positive
and negative reactions of the people. People tend to react in a positive manner when they are
prepared as they feel that have control over the situation (Kapucu 2008). For this purpose,
businesses can make use of collaborative emergency management techniques. The collaborative
practices are based upon the planning and communication of precautions in order to face severe
disasters (Ghasemi, Rahmani and Naimi 2014). People tend to respond to disaster or emergency
situation in a better way when coordinative practices are used. The paper identified the case of
four hurricanes in Florida in the year 2004 for assessing the response of the community to such
repeated threat. Some of the major factors affecting the response of the people includes-
planning, better communication and also use of technology (Galambos 2020). Moreover people
need to be continuous informed of the actual scenario such that they can be prepared to face the
situation and respond properly to the same (Shover 2007).
Recovery from crisis and disaster
Crisis or disaster recovery includes- the ability of people to respond and recover from
emergency situations or disruptive events (Thomas et al. 2019). The paper identified the role of
psychological resilience or behaviour based on the critical infrastructure system (Scholtens

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2008). The recovery stage also includes all those decision and activities that can help in bringing
normalcy in everyday activities and for re-stabilizing everything like it was before the crisis
occurred (McCreight and Harrop 2019). Although the recovery stage sounds easier, it is actually
the most difficult stage of the crisis management process because it depends entirely upon the
ability of the leaders to take proper decision for the purpose of bringing normalcy (Adams and
Stewart 2015). However, it has also been found out that leader tend to focus too much on
preparation and prevention planning and therefore fail to focus on restorative practices (Jung,
Song and Park 2018).
The ways in which managers should deal with emergency and crisis
In order to properly out carry out crisis management, managers are required to first carry
out preventive practices in order to avoid any such activity that can lead to a crisis and they can
also engage in contingency management, they need to prepare the employees for dealing with
any crisis situation by making them a part of the planning process and discussing the way task
orientation will the place after the crisis, then in case the organization is faced with any crisis
situation, the employees need to respond actively to the same. Moreover the organization should
also plan for restorative practices.
Conclusion
Therefore from the above discussion, it can be concluded that crisis management can help
an organization in being prepared for meeting with any kind of unexpected and unforeseen
events in a better way through prevention strategies, preparation, response and recovery.
Therefore from the paper, it is understood that the four stages or phases of risk management
helps the managers and its employees in being prepared for meeting such challenges in the future
also. From the paper, the views of different authors on the four phases have been understood and

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the key findings regarding the way managers deal with crisis and emergency have also been
understood from the paper.

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References
Adams, T.M. and Stewart, L.D., 2015. Chaos theory and organizational crisis: A theoretical
analysis of the challenges faced by the New Orleans Police Department during Hurricane
Katrina. Public organization review, 15(3), pp.415-431.
Ahrens, J. and Rudolph, P.M., 2006. The importance of governance in risk reduction and disaster
management. Journal of contingencies and crisis management, 14(4), pp.207-220.
Baker, M., 2007. Creating Order from Chaos: Part I: Triage, Initial Care, and Tactical
Considerations in Mass Casualty and Disaster Response. Military Medicine, 172(3), pp.232-236.
Galambos, C., 2020. Natural Disasters: Health And Mental Health Considerations.
Ghasemi, F., Rahmani, E., Naimi, Q. and Dalir, M., 2014. To Study the Effect of Crisis
Management in Reducing the Damages Caused by Earthquake in Urban Decay;(Case study:
Chahbahar Town). Kuwait Chapter of the Arabian Journal of Business and Management
Review, 3(10), p.59.
Jung, K., Song, M. and Park, H.W., 2018. Filling the gap between bureaucratic and adaptive
approaches to crisis management: lessons from the Sewol Ferry sinking in South Korea. Quality
& Quantity, 52(1), pp.277-294.
Kapucu, N., 2008. Collaborative emergency management: better community organising, better
public preparedness and response. Disasters, 32(2), pp.239-262.
Mann, S., 2014. Human resources and emergency planning: Preparing local governments for
times of crisis. Public Administration Quarterly, pp.163-205.

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McCreight, R. and Harrop, W., 2019. Uncovering the real recovery challenge: what emergency
management must do. Journal of homeland security and emergency management, 16(3).
Thomas, J.E., Eisenberg, D.A., Seager, T.P. and Fisher, E., 2019. A resilience engineering
approach to integrating human and socio-technical system capacities and processes for national
infrastructure resilience. Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, 16(2).
Bibliography
Bergström, J., Uhr, C. and Frykmer, T., 2016. A complexity framework for studying disaster
response management. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 24(3), pp.124-135.
Bull, M.T. and Sepulveda, J., 2012. Efficiency in pre-defined hospital networks for disasters. A
methodological approach. In IIE Annual Conference. Proceedings (p. 1). Institute of Industrial
and Systems Engineers (IISE).
Connolly, J., 2015. The “wicked problems” of governing UK health security disaster
prevention. Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, 24(3), pp.369-382.
Ghasemi, F., Rahmani, E. and Naimi, Q., 2014. To Study the Effect of Crisis Management in
Reducing the Damages Caused by Earthquake in Urban Decay : Case Study : Chahbahar
Town. Kuwait Chapter of Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review, 3(10), pp.59-
74.
Laugé, A., Hernantes, J. and Sarriegi, J., 2015. Analysis of disasters impacts and the relevant role
of critical infrastructures for crisis management improvement. International Journal of Disaster
Resilience in the Built Environment, 6(4), pp.424-437.

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Loosemore, M., Chow, V. and McGeorge, D., 2012. Modelling the risks of extreme weather
events for Australasian hospital infrastructure using rich picture diagrams. Construction
Management and Economics, pp.1-16.
Scanlon, J., McMahon, T. and van Haastert, C., 2007. Handling Mass Death by Integrating the
Management of Disasters and Pandemics: Lessons from the Indian Ocean Tsunami, the Spanish
Flu and Other Incidents. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 15(2), pp.80-94.
Scholtens, A., 2008. Controlled Collaboration in Disaster and Crisis Management in the
Netherlands, History and Practice of an Overestimated and Underestimated Concept. Journal of
Contingencies and Crisis Management, 16(4), pp.195-207.
Scott, D., Brandow, C., Hobbins, J., Nilsson, S. and Enander, A., 2015. Capturing the citizen
perspective in crisis management exercises: possibilities and challenges. International Journal of
Emergency Services, 4(1), pp.86-102.
Shover, H., 2007. Understanding the Chain of Communication During a Disaster. Perspectives
In Psychiatric Care, 43(1), pp.4-14.
PART B: Reflection
Reflection refers to the process of interpreting and examining past experience for the
purpose of gaining a new understanding. Moreover, reflection helps in transforming the
experience into learning such that an individual can be more prepared when they are faced with a
similar situation in future (van Seggelen-Damen and van Dam 2016). Reflection helps an
individual in gaining and developing their problem solving and critical thinking skills. Reflection
also includes challenging the basis assumption of people, it also helps people in identifying and

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exploring new approaches and ideas for thinking or doing things differently. Through self-
reflection, individuals can improve themselves by identifying their strengths and weaknesses and
also addressing the identified weaknesses. The main aim of the paper is to carry out a self-
reflection for the group and individual activities undertaken during the completion of the
assignment. The paper will therefore discuss about the reflection on my group assignment and
also my contribution to the same.
For the purpose of this assignment, we were divided into different groups and therefore I
was also put into a group. Then we were given this topic of crisis management and each group
was explained what was required to be done by them as a group. Our task was to prepare the
report on the 4 identified phases of the crisis management process and also identify the key
findings of the articles for providing recommendations to the mangers for managing crisis
efficiently and effectively. Once the task was explained to us, we all decided to divide the task
among ourselves such that we could all participate equally in the assignment or the group work.
Therefore everyone was given a few articles to read and identify the same with the phases of the
crisis management process. Similarly, I was also given a few articles to read and identify the
issues and also make suggestions for proposing how the managers could deal with crisis
management and emergency. We all decided that we would discuss our assignment with each
other with the help of social media platforms and video chats. Therefore we decided a particular
time when we would conduct video call with each other for knowing each other’s progress with
the task on a daily basis and discussing any issues that were being faced by us. And along with
the video calls, we decided to meet in every 3 days after our classes were over where each
member of the group had to show how much they have already done in order to identify who
were lagging behind. After everything was decided, I started reading our module and class notes

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for understanding the four major issues and completing my task of identification of the articles
with the issues. Meanwhile, we also carried out our group sessions through video calls as we
could not meet each other personally. This also helped us in checking every team members
progress and ensuring that everyone was actually working. I used to ask my doubts to my group
members through social media applications and we also shared notes on the same platform.
However, some of the major issues that were faced by our group was that everyone was not
progressing at the same pace- some were taking the assignment seriously, whereas others were
casual and they were also casual about the video calls and therefore would not pick up the same
on time. Moreover, a few members were not actively participating in the group work which
made it difficult for us to proceed at times and a lot of time got wasted in the same. Moreover,
there were times when we were faced with barriers to communication due to network issues. I
was taking a lot of time to understand the concept because I did not have clarity of the concept
before undertaking this assignment and therefore I was lagging behind others in my part because
I took too much time in understanding the concepts. I also had a number of doubts some of
which were solved by my group member and some of which I solved through in-depth study into
the same. Therefore the overall group experience was good because we got to learn a lot from
this group activity and the most important thing I learned was that communication is of utmost
priority for the success of any group activity because it is only through communication that
different conflicts can be overcome. Moreover, with the help of communication each team
member can understand what they are expected to do in a better way, and the objectives of the
group activity can be achieved efficiently and in lesser time. With the help of continuous
communication, we had been able to complete our assignment on time.

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However, our group had decoded to divide the work and therefore everyone was given a
few articles to read and we had to identify those articles with issues of- crisis and disaster
prevention, preparation for the crisis or disaster, response to the disaster or crisis and recovery
from the disaster or crisis. Therefore, I decided to start my assignment by first gathering
knowledge about the concept of crisis management (Choe et al. 2017). Before undertaking this
assignment I did not understand the difference between the phases of the crisis management
process and understood the concept as one. However, after reading about the concept of crisis
management, I understood about the different phases in details so as to be able differentiate them
properly from each other. One of the major challenges that I faced while understanding about the
phases of the crisis management was that very less information was available on the phases of
response and recovery and in many places both were shown as one phase or it was shown as the
response and recovery phase. Then I decided to take the help of my group members who all
helped me in identifying the difference between the two phases. Therefore after much detailed
investigation and with the help of my group members, I understood the difference between the
response and recovery phase although the two are interdependent. While gathering information
about the different phases, I understood that quite often people prepare for the first three phases
of crisis management that is- planning or prevention, preparation and response however they
tend to ignore the planning for the last stage. Therefore restorative planning is not done in
advance many times. And although, the restoration phase may sounds very easy. It is the most
difficult phase especially if the leader had not planned about it from beforehand. This is so
because depending upon the amount of loss that has been caused by the crisis the restorative
practices can become difficult and this phase also become a lengthy one. For instance: if a crisis
has done too much loss then it will take quite a lot of time to restore or reestablish the situation

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as it was from before. Moreover, the planning of the leader about the restorative practices may
also go wrong (Reynolds and Vince 2017). Once, I had gathered information about the concept
of crisis management and the phases, I decided to read all the articles one by one as all the
articles were to be identified with the four phases and that was quite difficult (Thudt et al. 2018).
Therefore I started reading the articles and identifying them with the four main phases or issues
lone by one. It was difficult for me because first of all identification of the articles with the
stages was not very easy and secondly it took me a lot of time and therefore I had to spend a lot
of time for this assignment (Knapp, Gottlieb and Handelsman 2017). Moreover, I was also
having other assignment and therefore time management became a big issue for me as I was
spending too much time on this completion of this assignment. Then after having identified the
assignment with the four issues next I was required to list down the major findings from all the
readings and the way the same can help the managers in dealing with crisis. Therefore I was
required to make recommendation of the way the findings of the different articles could be used
by the manager for the purpose of managing crisis within their organization and I also focused on
the role of employees engagement in the planning process for crisis management (Mezirow
1998). Moreover, I was lucky enough to have such supportive group members who helped me a
lot during completion of my part.
Initially I was finding it difficult to write my part as I did not have much idea about the
concept and had a number of doubts once I gathered information about the concept of the topic
and all its phases and issues, I found it much easier to write my part (Kawaguchi et al. 2018).
The most difficult part for me for that I was not being able to cope up with my group members as
they were much faster than me that made me feel anxious for some time. But then my team
members and my tutors helped me with my work and I was able to cope with up with others. I

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was lacking clarity of the concept and therefore I was finding it difficult to identify the articles
with the phases or the issues (Cottrell 2017). Therefore from the assignment I have understood
that in case I am faced with a similar situation in future where I have to carry out a lot of
research, I will spend less time to think about the same and start working first because what I did
in my assignment took me a lot of time to cope with others. Therefore I need to be confident
enough to properly understand the concepts so that I do not get confused among them. I have
also understood from the assignment that sometimes I get too dependent upon others for support
that I stop trusting myself. Therefore if I want to become a good leader I will first have to start
trusting myself and then only I can ensure better trust between the team members of group
members (Civitillo et al. 2019). I also have to improve my research skills because once I start
researching I keep on doing the same and then get lost between different ideas and concepts.
Therefore I feel that by improving my research skills and critical thinking, I will be able to
become a better team member of a team leader in case of future group assignments. In order to
improve my self-confidence, I need to be decisive and improve my strengths (Baldwin 2016). In
order to improve my research skills I need to surf more information online and also visits my
librarian once in a while such that she can help me with the same. Moreover by developing my
research skills, it will help me in my future as well. However, I have understood about the
importance of communication between the members in a group. It is only with the help of
communication, that conflicts between group members can be solved, and the group will be able
to complete its activities on time. Moreover it was only through open communication that I was
able to solve my doubt and start working on my assignment.
Therefore from the above discussion, it can be concluded that self-reflection plays a very
important role in developing our critical thinking and problem solving skills as it helps in

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challenging our basic assumptions. With the help of self-reflection, we can improve ourselves
because we can identify our strengths and weaknesses from the same process. Moreover with the
help of self-reflection we can develop our understanding that can be used by us in taking
appropriate actions for the future if we are faced with a similar situation. I feel that I am in a
better position now to work in teams and groups as I have been able to develop my knowledge
on the same by reflecting on my group activities. Through the self-reflection, I have identified
the areas that I need to improve in order to become a good team player in future also. After
undertaking this assignment, I have understood that I need to improve my research skills.

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References
Baldwin, M., 2016. Social work, critical reflection and the learning organization. Routledge.
Civitillo, S., Juang, L.P., Badra, M. and Schachner, M.K., 2019. The interplay between culturally
responsive teaching, cultural diversity beliefs, and self-reflection: A multiple case
study. Teaching and Teacher Education, 77, pp.341-351.
Cottrell, S., 2017. Critical thinking skills: Effective analysis, argument and reflection. Macmillan
International Higher Education.
Kawaguchi, A., Morita, T., Okamoto, Y., Nakaaki, S., Kawaguchi, T., Kan, H., Yamada, T.,
Akechi, T. and Sadato, N., 2018. Neural Basis of Self-Reflection on Self-Face Image in Patients
with Social Anxiety Disorder. Anxiety Disorder Research, 10(1), pp.29-44.
Knapp, S., Gottlieb, M.C. and Handelsman, M.M., 2017. Enhancing professionalism through
self-reflection. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 48(3), p.167.
Mezirow, J., 1998. On critical reflection. Adult education quarterly, 48(3), pp.185-198.
Reynolds, M. and Vince, R., 2017. Organizing reflection: An introduction. In Organizing
reflection (pp. 15-28). Routledge.
Thudt, A., Hinrichs, U., Huron, S. and Carpendale, S., 2018, April. Self-reflection and personal
physicalization construction. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in
Computing Systems (pp. 1-13).
van Seggelen-Damen, I. and van Dam, K., 2016. Self-reflection as a mediator between self-
efficacy and well-being. Journal of Managerial Psychology.

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Choe, E.K., Lee, B., Zhu, H., Riche, N.H. and Baur, D., 2017, May. Understanding self-
reflection: how people reflect on personal data through visual data exploration. In Proceedings of
the 11th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for
Healthcare (pp. 173-182).

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Appendix

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The daily log:
Days: Activity undertaken
Day 1: Gathering knowledge about the concept of
crisis management before reading the articles.
Day 2: I understood the phases of the crisis
management process
Day 3: I started reading the articles one by one
Day 4: I tread the articles and tries understanding
which articles is related to which issue
Day 5: Once I had identified the articles with the
issues I started writing
Day 6: I also made use of external sources for better
understanding
Day 7: I identified the key findings
Day 8: I finally finished my assignment.