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Adaptive Strategizing: The Role of Affective Expressions for Effective Crisis Management

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Abstract

This study sets out to investigate the role of affectivity in crisis management groups and its connection to effective crisis management. We studied the affective reactions in 23 crisis management groups in a major global corporation that participated in a global training program of crisis management. Our results elucidate a condition of asymmetrical affectivity, where positive expressions are associated with negative outcomes and negative expressions are associated with positive outcomes when groups commit to making sense of a crisis. These patterns were moderated by prior crisis experience at the organizational level as well as managerial behavior at the individual level. To explain this multi-level and dynamic complexity of crisis management effectiveness, we theorize a model of adaptive strategizing building on the strategy-as-practice perspective. The model contributes to the strategic management literature on organizational crisis, and especially the stream that focuses on social-emotional aspects of crisis management, by explaining why some organizations’ crisis management groups strategize more effectively than others.

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