Crisis response communication management of Chinese construction firms based on complexity theory

Abstract

The number of crisis and their severity is rising along with the growing complexity of technology, society and the environment. There are numerable incidents and crises that can interrupt the progress of construction projects. The crisis response phase puts the project organization's established normal communication systems and processes under enormous and additional pressure. Complexity theory, as linked to social systems and organization studies has shown that the human communication systems can be viewed as a complex adaptive system. This paper proposes a complexity-informed framework to analyze the crisis response communication of Chinese construction firms during the Sichuan earthquake in May 2008. A survey of Chengdu construction firms was conducted to gauge the importance of the 59 identified organizational variables in communication management in the aftermath of the earthquake crisis through a self-administered postal questionnaire. The study also revealed that professionals from LSEs (Large Scaled Enterprises) and SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) firms generally agreed on the significance of the organizational variables identified. It is suggested that the proposed complexity-informed framework can provide a good analytical foundation of offering a new mental model to understand the organizational communication behavior and decision-making practice in response to a crisis situation.