Communications assistant professor's research examines emotional responses to organizational crisis.
Elon University School of Communications assistant professor Lucinda Austin co-authored an article appearing in the September 2014 edition of Public Relations Review. The article is titled “Scale development for measuring publics’ emotions in organizational crises.”
This published article proposes a scale for measuring publics’ emotional responses in times of organizational crisis. Three main types of crisis emotions are identified, and the scale provides a valid and reliable psychometric tool for researchers and crisis managers in organizational crisis situations. Study findings suggest that the processes of emotional experience are different in crisis situations compared to non-crisis situations.
The research was completed with colleagues from the University of Georgia and the University of Maryland College Park. The full article is available online at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0363811114000848.