Crisis Management

Crises—whether related to public health, the environment, security, or business—are often tests of an organization or agency’s leadership and management capacity. The cases in this section put students in the center of such scenarios, where careful decisions need to be made, sometimes quickly, with serious implications. Among the topics and skills covered are the forming of partnerships and coordinating across agencies, strategies for communication and decision-making, and the role of politics and policy.

  • Teaching Case - The City of Chicago and the 1995 Heat Wave (A)

    The City of Chicago and the 1995 Heat Wave (A)

    $3.95

    Publication Date: January 01, 2002

    The heat wave that swept across the Great Plains and Midwest in mid July 1995 was one of the deadliest in U.S. history. Regarded as one of the worst disasters ever to strike the City of Chicago, it claimed 522 lives by one count, and 733 by...

  • Teaching Case - Anthrax Threats in Southern California

    Anthrax Threats in Southern California

    $3.95

    Publication Date: May 1, 2000

    This case, one of a series written for the Kennedy School/US Department of Justice Executive Session on Domestic Preparedness, explores the question of how law enforcement agencies should respond to a threat with the potential for catastrophe...

  • Teaching Case - Discussing Disaster: "God's Will" (B)

    Discussing Disaster: "God's Will" (B)

    $3.95

    Publication Date: April 01, 1999

    This is both a crisis management communication case and a case about the relationship between civil servants and local government in a fledgling democracy. Set in Hong Kong, the case describes the confluence of events which lead to what is...

  • Teaching Case - Discussing Disaster: Picking up the Pieces (D)

    Discussing Disaster: Picking up the Pieces (D)

    $3.95

    Publication Date: April 01, 1998

    This is both a crisis management communication case and a case about the relationship between civil servants and local government in a fledgling democracy. Set in Hong Kong, the case describes the confluence of events which lead to what is...

  • Teaching Case - Discussing Disaster: Apology? (C)

    Discussing Disaster: Apology? (C)

    $3.95

    Publication Date: April 01, 1998

    This is both a crisis management communication case and a case about the relationship between civil servants and local government in a fledgling democracy. Set in Hong Kong, the case describes the confluence of events which lead to what is...

  • Teaching Case - Discussing Disaster (A)

    Discussing Disaster (A)

    $3.95

    Publication Date: April 01, 1998

    This is both a crisis management communication case and a case about the relationship between civil servants and local government in a fledgling democracy. Set in Hong Kong, the case describes the confluence of events which lead to what is...

  • Teaching Case - FDA, Blood Donor Policy, and the Advent of AIDS

    FDA, Blood Donor Policy, and the Advent of AIDS

    $3.95

    Publication Date: January 01, 1997

    The emergency of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s has been widely viewed, in retrospect, as having been handled poorly by those responsible for US public health measures and its blood supply. But how was it seen by those facing key decisions...

  • Teaching Case - Swine Flu Decision: An Analytic Summary

    Swine Flu Decision: An Analytic Summary

    $3.95

    Publication Date: January 01, 1996

    This case invites students to use public policy tools to consider what to do when the government faces a possible, but not certain, outbreak of "swine flu."Learning Objective:The case invites students to use benefit-cost analysis and decision...