The Structuration of Crisis Management: Guiding a Process of Repair

Abstract

Crisis management, specifically the communicative response to a threatening event, is intended to both inform and persuade. However, the approaches to crisis management may be contradictory at times, constraining the intended purpose of repairing a corporation’s image. Structuration theory provides a perspective for the enabling and constraining features of action as well as the unintended consequences that occur. Through a rhetorical criticism of press releases issued by BP in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the enabling and constraining features of crisis management are presented and a call to revisit best practices in crisis management is made.

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