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What Lies Beneath? The Role of Informal and Hidden Networks in the Management of Crises
Author(s) -
FischbacherSmith Denis,
FischbacherSmith Moira
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
financial accountability and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.661
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1468-0408
pISSN - 0267-4424
DOI - 10.1111/faam.12038
Subject(s) - unobservable , agency (philosophy) , business , public relations , informal organization , knowledge management , industrial organization , political science , economics , sociology , computer science , social science , econometrics
Crisis management research traditionally focuses on the role of formal communication networks in the escalation and management of organisational crises. Here, we consider instead informal and unobservable networks. The paper explores how hidden informal exchanges can impact upon organisational decision‐making and performance, particularly around inter‐agency working, as knowledge distributed across organisations and shared between organisations is often shared through informal means and not captured effectively through the formal decision‐making processes. Early warnings and weak signals about potential risks and crises are therefore often missed. We consider the implications of these dynamics in terms of crisis avoidance and crisis management.