Constructing Crisis Leaders, Crises and Claims of Urgency

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.

Bert Spector is Associate Professor of International Business and Management at D'Amore-McKim School of Business, Northeastern University, Boston. His research interests include organizational change, leadership, business model innovation and management history. His previous book Discourse on Leadership: A Critical Appraisal (Cambridge, 2016) received the 2017 Choice Award for an Outstanding Academic Title.