A Complexity Approach for Crisis Response Communication Management

In an increasingly hostile business environment, organizations are susceptible to changes and uncertainties that can create a crisis situation at any stage of a project's life-cycle. There are numerable incidents and crises that can interrupt the progress of construction projects. The crisis response phase puts the project organization's established normal communication systems and processes under enormous and additional pressure. Complexity theory, as linked to social systems and organization studies has shown that the human communication systems can be viewed as a complex adaptive system. This paper proposes a complexity-informed framework to analyze the crisis response communication of Chinese construction firms during the Sichuan earthquake in May 2008. Organizational variables affecting the communication effectiveness and adaptability of the construction firms in the management of a crisis situation were examined and presented through a questionnaire survey of the Chengdu construction firms. It is suggested that the proposed complexity-informed framework can provide a good analytical foundation of offering a new mental model to understand the organizational communication behavior and decision-making practice in response to a crisis situation.