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According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a crisis is “a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger.” A crisis typically represents a decisive turning point and an unstable situation where difficult and crucial decisions must be made. The origin of the word crisis is revealing. The word has origins in the Latin word crisis (decisive moment), which comes from the Greek word krisis (decision, judgment) and from the Greek word krinein (decide, judge). It also has origins in the Old French word crise and the Middle English medical word crisis, denoting “the turning point in a disease; a sudden change for better or worse.” Based on the origin of the word, a crisis is an event or turning point that brings, or has the potential to bring, great reputational, financial, psychological, and/or physical harm to an individual, group, population, organization, or institution. Examples of a crisis include a major industrial accident, a major spill of toxic materials, a major storm, or a pandemic. Crises can human‐made or natural. The cause will influence how others view the situation and the response.

Coombs and Holloday offer a more complex definition of crisis. ²⁴ They offer four defining attributes of a crisis: (1) unpredictability, (2) threat to stakeholder expectations, (3) impact on organizational performance, and (4) potential for negative outcomes. A similar definition comes from Ulmer, Sellnow, and Seeger, who also define crisis with four attributes: (1) the unexpected nature of the event, (2) the nonroutine demands on the organization, (3) the production of uncertainty, and (4) the threat to achieving organizational goals.²⁵

By combining aspects from these various definitions, for purposes of this book, I offer a shorter and a longer definition of the word crisis. The shorter definition is: a crisis is a significant risk manifested. This definition is consistent with the definition offered by Heath and O’Hare: a crisis is a threat with significant potential adverse impacts that has materialized.²⁶

A longer definition is: a crisis is a risk manifested that characteristically (1) is abrupt and unexpected, (2) exceeds the expectations of those affected, (3) disrupts normal processes, (4) places nonroutine and unique demands on the responding organizations, (5) produces high amounts of uncertainty, (6) challenges organizational performance, and (7) poses a significant chance of harm or loss to individuals and organizations.

Crises typically cause disruptions in our normal lives, high levels of stress and high concerns about adverse consequences, confusion, fear, and an active search for leadership and support. Four characteristics can cause leaders to label a situation a crisis: (1) there are imminent dangers and significant consequences, (2) resolution requires quick action, (3) they feel unprepared, and (4) there is knowledge of the event or situation by the outside world, particularly the media. Therefore, when a leader is trained and feels better able to handle a situation, it is less likely to be perceived as a crisis.

Researchers have debated the difference among a crisis, a disaster, and an emergency. They are often used interchangeably, although crisis is a broader term. For example, in his definition of the term disaster, Oliver‐Smith noted:²⁷

Disaster is a term that is used fairly liberally in popular parlance. Many events or processes are colloquially referred to as disasters—everything from a failed social event to a regional hurricane.

One of the most widely accepted definitions of the term disaster in research literature is offered by the United Nations (UN). According to the UN, a disaster “is a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society involving widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses and impacts, which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources.”²⁸ This definition has elements of the definitions of the term crisis offered earlier in this chapter. It also aligns with what many might call an emergency.

Despite the interchangeability of the terms in many studies, there are arguably important differences. For example, disaster and emergency can be distinguished by their familiarity and severity. Disasters are typically characterized by large‐scale direct and indirect adverse effects. These adverse effects include loss of life, loss of property, damage to infrastructure, and loss of revenue and unemployment. As pointed out by Lindell, Prater, and Perry,²⁹ the term emergency is typically used to describe:

…an event involving minor consequences for a community—perhaps a few casualties and a limited amount of property damage. In this sense, emergencies are events that are frequently experienced, relatively well understood, and can be managed successfully with local resources—sometimes with the resources of a single local government agency. Emergencies are the common occurrences we see uniformed responders managing—car crashes, ruptured natural gas pipelines, house fires, traumatic injuries, and cardiac crises.

Lindell, Prater, and Perry offer another usage of the term emergency when the goal is to communicate the imminence of an event rather than the severity of its consequences. In this context, emergency refers to a situation where a higher than normal probability of an extreme event occurring exists. The term disaster is reserved for the actual occurrence of an event that produces casualties and damage at a level exceeding a community’s ability to cope.

There is no universal definition of crisis or disaster but both share common characteristics. Crises and disasters are typically (1) sudden and abrupt; (2) cause, or have the potential to cause, significant human, material, economic or environmental harm; and (3) challenge the immediate capacity or ability of individuals, organizations, communities, or societies to respond.

Differences among researchers about core definitions, such as those described above, are not unusual. For example, Kroeber and Kluckhohn, after surveying the literature in anthropology, found 164 definitions of the term culture – a core concept in anthropology.³⁰ These definition differences are not without consequences. They often lead to different theories, principles, approaches, methods, and tools. For example, 20 years ago, many authors failed to clearly discriminate between the concepts of crisis prevention, crisis preparedness, crisis mitigation, and crisis management. Adding to the confusion, many authors used the same term to discuss different phases or dimensions of a crisis. For example, some authors used the term crisis management to describe only the immediate response to a triggering event. Other authors used the term crisis management to describe the immediate response to a triggering event but also to crisis prevention and preparation.