This document outlines an assignment for a reflective essay on issues and crisis management in organizations. It provides guidance on the required content, including discussing organizational culture, environmental scanning, preparing for crises, and crisis communication. It also lists relevant readings and establishes a word limit and rubric for assessment. The student is asked to reflect on their learning experiences and apply course concepts and examples to discuss how they would act in a managerial capacity regarding issues and crisis management.

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QUESTION:
Reflective Essay - individual
This item of assessment is Compulsory.
This assignment is related to Learning Outcomes 1, 2 and 4.
Write an essay reflecting on your personal learning experiences in this paper, drawing on the
theoretical material and examples in the assigned readings (using APA referencing) and your
own understanding of events that have occurred in the past. You are also encouraged
to provide examples from your own experiences or the experiences of others in organisations.
This is a reflective essay in which you will consider how your learning in this paper has
developed your own understanding of issues and crisis management in an organisation. It is
important that you discuss the need for issues management and how environmental scanning
can contribute to an organisation's ability to foresee and plan for crisis; identify how
organisational culture contributes to the way organisations might deal with issues and crisis
management; and how you think you would act/behave in a managerial capacity in terms of
issues and crisis management.
Readings:
1.Coombs, W. T., 7 Holladay, S.J. (2010). PR strategy and application: Managing influence.
(pp. 217-235). Chichester, UK: Wiley Blackwell.
2. Coombs, W. T., (1999) Ongoing Crisis communication: Planning, managing, and responding
(pp. 17-37). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
LENGTH: 1,750 words maximum
Reflective Essay Marking Rubric
Criterion C B A Mark
Organisational
Culture (15)
Minimal or no
discussion on how
organisation
culture impacts on
issues and crises
Some discussion on
how organisation
culture impacts on
issues and crises
Comprehensive
discussion on how
organisation culture
impacts on issues
and crises
Identifying risk &
issues (15)
Some minimal
discussion on the
concept of
environmental
scanning and its
Discusses the concept
of environmental
scanning and how
issues can be identified
and contained; minimal
Discusses the
concept of
environmental
scanning with
development on its

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importance; no
reference to the
literature
or no discussion on
implementation; some
reference to literature
uses for
identification of risk
and issues; uses
references to the
literature to explain
Preparing for
crisis (15)
Limited discussion
and no clear
understanding of
requirements for
preparing for a
crisis
Discusses crisis
preparation with
reflection on its
importance in an
organisation; some
reference to the
literature and other
examples from
newspapers and
reading
Draws together the
main concepts of
preparing for a
crisis in terms of the
literature and
reflects on problems
that may arise
Crisis
communication
(15)
Some minimal
discussion on how
communication
works during a
crisis
Identifies important
aspects of crisis
communication but no
examples provided
Reflects on the
important aspects of
crisis
communication with
examples from
readings, news and
personal
experiences
Reflective writing
(15)
Does not discuss
personal
understanding of
the course; no
learnings identified
Provides some personal
reflective discussion on
the reading, the
experience of learning
about crises in
organisations and some
examples
Discusses personal
reflections on the
learnings in the
course, provides
examples and
discusses personal
preparation for
implementing
issues/crisis
management ideas
in future work.
Writing &
referencing (15)
Writing needs
improvement
Writing is good but
contains too many
errors
Writing is very good
with few errors
Holistic
judgement (10)

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UNIVERSITY | WORD LIMIT: 1756
DATE: 13TH JULY 2012
TOPIC: REFLECTIVE ESSAY
STUDENT NAME
PROFESSOR’S NAME
COURSE TITLE

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Candidate Statement
I hereby declare that this assignment is my own work and any use of materials from other
sources has been referenced accordingly.
Candidate Signature: Date:
Tutor Statement
I hereby confirm that this assignment, to the best of my knowledge, is the candidates own
work and they have not collaborated in the production of this assignment with any other
person. I also confirm that I have a record of this candidate’s progress tutorial/s.
Tutor Signature: Date:

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Learning of issues and crisis management in an organization…………………………4
2. Need for issues management…………………………………………………………...5
3. Environmental scanning contribution to an organization’s ability to foresee and plan
for crisis…………………………………………………………………………………...6
4. Contribution of organizational culture in dealing with issues and crisis
management……………………………………………………………………………….8
5. Behavior in terms of issues and crisis management……………………………………9
References………………………………………………………………………………..11

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1. Learning of issues and crisis management in an organization
Crisis management is the crucial topic of attention in the organization. Through
crisis, the organizations refers to pandemics, terrorist bombings, and large-
scale blackouts, natural disasters such as, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis.
Through my learning, I have learned that Crisis and issues often occur in
the organization when organizational board and management concern about the
production deadlines, short/long term performance, and operational
issues instead planning for crisis management programs (Adler, 1996).
From my personal learning, I can say that crisis management has shifted from an
underdeveloped and set of policy issues into the high position of officials, mass-media,
politicians, and academia. Through this shift crisis managers are working
towards extensive investments in pre-crisis planning, high-tech intelligence,
and crisis agency government structure. I explore that despite time consuming, costly,
and resource intensive efforts, organizational real life experiences of crisis, and resource
intensive efforts, officials, politicians, and organizations fail to meet the demands
of public when crisis strikes.
I have personally experienced the crisis while working in an Exxon Valdez. In the
year, 1989 employees of Exxon were stigmatized and experience the shame for working
with such a huge company that does not care for the environment. I experienced the 11
millions gallons oil spilled into the Alaska’s Prince Willam Sound. This was one of the
biggest disasters in the history of United States. After this disaster I have to move to the

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Alaska where I worked for more weekly hours than the previous norms (Hore &
Carrington, 2007).
From my personal experience I have learned the best way to manage a crisis is to
prevent it by recognizing the warning signs. These signs show that a situation has the
capacity to develop into a crisis. Through reading and personal experience I can say that
virtually every business firm, especially crisis can be expected to occur on the
horizon, presently that expect in full force or that has passed through the combination
thereof. Through the constant existence of crisis in the business world, I have learned that
crisis can occur with no or little warning, anytime, and anywhere. Crisis can occur in
every industry that is operating its business in national or international market. It is
the reality that crisis looms in every organization; therefore, its vital that crisis managers
should accept that and make a correct frame of mind accept
the contention and formulate the advanced contingency plan, preparation,
and relevant recognition so that there could be positive opportunity side to crisis.
2. Need for issues management
Issue Management is not included in the rationale and strategies for responding
proactively to learn during the monitoring process. Issue management is the gap between
the organizational policies and expectations of stakeholders. Issues management,
stakeholder’s relations and risk assessment contribute into the crisis scanning. According
to me, crisis managers should integrate the three functions of the organization in
the effective crisis scanning mechanism (Robert, 1997). In order to mitigate the issues,

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managers should have the understanding of sources to scan, how to gather information,
and how to evaluate the information for potential of crisis.
Issues occur in every organization, but the main point is to resolve these issues for
that environmental scanning is the better tool that is used for managing the issues. From
my experience I learned that every organization must implement the issues management
so that they could manage the potential image-damaging situations. Through
issue management managers can easily track the issues and can resolve the problem. In
my learning I came across the case of Nike recall 38,000 pairs of athletic shoes and then
them to apologize to Muslims. As Nike has flame logo on basketball shoe that resemble
the Arabic script for “Allah”. Therefore, one compliant can create the criticism for
the organization and impact its goodwill in the market.
I think, managers should analyze the internal and external environment prevailing
across the organizations, so that prevailing issues could be resolved. It is crucial from the
side of manager that while collecting information about issues they should analyze
whether the information contains prodromes (Blaikie, 1994). Managers should use two
criteria for evaluating the issues: impact and likelihood. Through likelihood mangers
would know about the probability of an issue, and through impact they
could know how strong is issue can whether it could affect the operations and profits of
the company.
3. Environmental scanning contribution to an organization’s ability to foresee and
plan for crisis

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Through the different papers I have gained the understanding about the
importance of environmental scanning, which is a crucial element in identifying the risk
areas. Corporate identifies the risk areas all across the organization that includes various
issues and events that influence over the management priorities, performance,
and achievement of organizational objectives. I learned that environmental scanning
includes scanning of both internal and external factors and risks through which trends and
changes could be analyzed that are appropriate in giving the early warning of potential
risks that affect the output (Chiles, 2001). I have the systematic approach for scanning the
periphery, whenever I travel, I randomly select the book at the airport and read it from
cover to cover; therefore, at every trip I learned something new and that helped me in
viewing the world in a different manner.
Whatever I learned or regain the new ideas I try to implement in my organization,
in order to get the best outcome. I believe that through widening the knowledge and
thoughts we can mitigate many issues and prevent the crisis, this can be done through
scanning the internal and external environment of the organizations. Internet is the best
place for analyzing the environment, as internet comprises of a large pool of information
that helps in coming at the results (Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA),
2000).
I learned that environment could be scan through brainstorming, surveys, and
scenario planning, or it can also be analyzed through the performance reports,
management information systems, and audit reports. Most of the organizations organized

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the surveys through the help of diverse groups of experts in order to identify the thoughts
of potential future changes occurring in the environment and weave the diverse insights
on demographic and technological shifts. Through surveys specific markets and firms can
be easily analyzed. From different papers I have learned that environment scanning focus
on the detecting the increasing issues, potential issues,
and circumstances that determine the future of the organization.
In my organization information is providing the manger and that information is
used for directing the management in preparing the future plans. This information is
used for evaluating the strength and weakness of the organization in terms of the threats
and opportunities. Through environment scanning information that is collected can be
used for making decisions. I believe that as in present time fast changes are occurring in
the market and in the emerging business practices it is possible for organizations to fall in
the regulations, technology, and rising trends; therefore, environment scanning helps in
reducing the possibility of blindsided. I learned that environmental scanning helps the
various companies in gaining the knowledge about the possible influences from the
external environment (Harvard Business Review, 2000).
4. Contribution of organizational culture in dealing with issues and crisis
management
Through reading the various papers and from personal experience I have
understood that in today’s business environment robust, enterprise wide plan is
needed for dealing with the unexpected crisis. In the crisis management reputation of the

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company, and brand along with the loyalty and trust of the stakeholders is
the critical factors (Laye, 2002). Managers have the significant role in organizational
sustainability for contributing in the tangible deliverables by including the safety,
leadership development, security initiatives, and solid communication plans for
supporting the crisis management.
Organization culture regularly monitors the nature and changes taking place in the
external forces and how these focus impact the organization. According to my
experience, there are many organizations that focus on mitigating and try to reduce
the disaster in order to broaden the operational planning (Kotter & Heskett, 1992). Most
of the organizations appoint the emergency managers that look for the external forces
such as, new technologies, laws and regulations, and business requirements. Managers
use recovery programs, approaches, and planning tools for mitigating the issues.
I analyze that organizations deal with the ambiguities and uncertainties by
adapting the organization through the new and changing requirements. There are many
organizations that deal with the day to day issues and even with the severe crisis.
According to my experience many organizations use the different tools such as, warning
signals, signs, and forecasting in order to deal with the crisis (Mileti, 1999).
Organizations also provide training to the employees so that they could manage the
situation at the time of crisis. It is the responsibility of the manager to analyze the every
possible situation and conduct the analysis for mitigating the various issues and occurring
crisis within the organization. Through the organizational learning I have learned that

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there are many other tools for reducing the crisis situations such as, early warning signals,
damage containment, business recovery, prevention, and organizational learning. It
is important that every employee should be aware about these tools, and in creating
awareness about the tool, it is the manager who is responsible (Boin, 2008).
5. Behavior in terms of issues and crisis management
I believe that organizations should look after the all the possible situations
whether it is positive or negative in order to reduce the problematic situations. With the
changing time, functions and responsibilities of the organization has increased that
can create the changes of crisis to most likely occur. It is extremely crucial that
organizations should mitigate the challenging situations so that each task of the company
could be conducted in best possible manner. Through the articles and papers I have
learned that organizations should adopt the crisis management and issue management
programs. Under these programs responsibilities should be diverted to the managers in
order to conduct each task in the better manner. I have also learned about the
environmental scanning which is the crucial tool used by the managers now a day in
order to analyze the internal and external environment. I have also mentioned in the essay
about some of my experiences and crisis in the organization, and though I have learned
that organizations should analyze the environment across the company, and
even broaden their thoughts so that they could be ready to face the challenges and move
on with their activities in the challenging environment.

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References
Adler, N. (1996). International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior. Cincinnati:
Southwestern.
Blaikie, P et al. (1994). At Risk. London: Routledge.
Chiles, J.R. (2001). Inviting Disaster: Lessons from the edge of technology. Harper
Business.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). (2000). "Planning for a Sustainable
Future: The Link Between Hazard Mitigation and Livability". Retreived July 15,
2012, from http://www.fema.gov/mit/planning_toc.htm
Harvard Business Review. (2000). Harvard Business Review on Crisis Management.
Harvard Business School Press.
Laye, J. (2002). Avoiding Disaster: How to keep your business going when catastrophe
strikes. John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
Kotter, J. & Heskett, J. (1992). Corporate Culture and Performance. New York: The
Free Press.
Mileti, D. (1999). Disasters by Design: A Reassessment of Natural Hazards in the
United States. Joseph Henry Press.
Boin, A. (2008). Crisis Management. Los Angeles. SAGE.
Hore, J. & Carrington, W. J. (2007). Labor Market effects of the Exxon Valdez Oil. The
B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy 11(1), 1-16.

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Robert, L. H. (1997). Strategic issues management: Organizations and public policy
challenges. UK: SAGE.
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