Maja Agerbo Ejsing - 2nd year PhD presentation

Supervisors: Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen & Winni Johansen
Discussants: Ann-Kristina Løkke Møller & Ingo Kleindienst

Abstract
The way in which authority and tasks are distributed in a hierarchy is important during crisis, however it may create certain challenges to the well-functioning of organizations during complex crises (Weick, 1988; Boin et al., 2019). Existing crisis management and crisis communication literature reflects the persistence of a dilemma, namely to what extent should organizations and its top management manage and communicate centrally (contraction in authority, often through a crisis management team, to assure strengthened decision-making, united actions and consistency) (Hermann, 1963, Boin et al., 2019), and to what extent should they decentralize and leave it up to middle management and employees (expansion of authority, to assure local presence/creativity, more breadth/competencies) (Weick, 1995, ‘t Hart et al., 1993, Boin et al., 2019)? This study seeks to demonstrate that the organization—especially middle management—faces a new and important role, along with increased authority of specific tasks and challenges, as crisis management and communication is decentralized from the crisis management team to middle management. By examining how crisis management teams decentralize authority of crisis related tasks (both strategic and operational) and communication to middle management, I aim to explore the potential implications and draw lessons for the broader discussion in literature on the advantages and disadvantages of centralization and decentralization during crises. To achieve this, I seek to answer the following overall research question: How and why do crisis management teams practice a decentralized approach to internal crisis management during a long-term crisis, and what are the implications for middle management?

Everyone is welcome!

The study is based on theory such as Weick (1995), Boin et al. (2019) and Heide & Simonsson (2019) as well as a case study of a private, Danish, international company of +1400 employees during Covid-19. Preliminary results indicate that decentralization can also foster frustration among middle managers.