O'Shea Michael, Mou Leping, Xu Lu, Aikins Ross
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, 252 Bloor St W, Toronto, ON M5S 1V6 Canada.
Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, 3700 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA.
High Educ Policy. 2022;35(3):629-650. doi: 10.1057/s41307-022-00276-y. Epub 2022 Jun 24.
The study aims to examine how higher education institutions (HEIs) in three countries responded to the challenges of COVID-19 over a six-month period at the outbreak of the global pandemic. Employing document analysis, we examined 732 publicly available communications from 27 HEIs in Canada, China, and the USA. Through theoretical frameworks of crisis management and Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), we explore how HEIs respond to the pandemic and protect campus stakeholders. The study revealed common patterns in communication strategies during different stages of the pandemic that include accepting responsibility, emotional reassurance, and compensating victims. It also revealed key differences across social contexts and environments and distinct leadership styles. Findings offer insight into how HEIs communicated at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic and inform the application of SCCT and crisis management theory to institutional behavior in the context of prolonged and intersecting disasters.
该研究旨在考察三个国家的高等教育机构（HEIs）在全球大流行爆发后的六个月内如何应对新冠疫情的挑战。我们采用文献分析法，研究了来自加拿大、中国和美国27所高等教育机构的732份公开通信。通过危机管理和情境危机沟通理论（SCCT）的理论框架，我们探讨了高等教育机构如何应对疫情并保护校园利益相关者。研究揭示了疫情不同阶段沟通策略的常见模式，包括承担责任、给予情感安抚和补偿受害者。研究还揭示了不同社会背景和环境之间的关键差异以及不同的领导风格。研究结果为高等教育机构在新冠疫情初期的沟通方式提供了见解，并为情境危机沟通理论和危机管理理论在长期和交叉灾难背景下的机构行为应用提供了参考。
