Agent-based crisis management

Abstract

Crisis management is the process by which an organisation deals with a major unpredictable event that threatens to harm the organisation or the whole society. Three elements are common to most definitions of crisis: (a) a threat to the organisation, (b) the element of surprise, and (c) a short decision time [11]. Crisis management, or disaster management, is a relatively new field of management. Typically, proactive crisis management activities include forecasting potential crises and planning how to deal with them, for example, how to recover if your company's computer system completely fails, but also how to evacuate the city of Rotterdam in case of a major flood [10]. Hopefully, organisations have time and resources to complete a crisis management plan before they experience a crisis. Crisis management in the face of a current, real crisis includes identifying the real nature of a current crisis, intervening to minimise damage and recovering from the crisis. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.