Through the looking glass: A qualitative study of crisis communications as a function of intercultural public relations

As globalization intensifies, American public relations practitioners assume the role of cultural translators as they work to facilitate communications between their organizations and their audiences in other cultures. A crisis adds additional management responsibilities to the communications programming where professionals must conduct their outreach quickly, while striving for effective and culturally sensitive communications. This study considers how American public relations professionals resolve crisis situations by identifying the differences and similarities in communications styles between cultures. The researcher postulates that practitioners frame their communications around the values of individualistic and collectivistic cultures and their corresponding low- and high-context communications styles. However, practitioners say that good relationship management and careful localization tactics direct their business and personal communications more than do categorical descriptions of cultures' expected communications habits.