Dr. Ryan Fuller Helps Organizations Prepare for Crises

From fires to fraud, all organizations face internal and public crises, and their responses to these events can shape their corporate identity for years. Dr. Ryan Fuller, UALR Assistant Professor of Speech Communication, is helping organizations better prepare for crisis communication before devastating events occur, thanks to a $2,000 grant from the C.R. Anderson Research Fund (CRARF) Board of the Association for Business Communication.

Centered on the communication readiness evaluation he has designed, Dr. Fuller’s project, titled “Readiness for Renewal: A Service-Learning Research Project in the Crisis Communication Course,” will be twofold: he will further refine this tool, and, in the spring of 2016, he will lead UALR graduate and undergraduate students in service learning projects that implement it in local organizations. The tool is research-based and meets a critical need for companies, as most existing crisis management tools address how well a situation was handled after the fact.

Dr. Fuller’s evaluation tool focuses on preparing an organization’s crisis communication plan holistically. Rather than simply make an organization sound good, this tool helps organizations make sure that they are ready to respond honestly, think progressively, and communicate positively during and after a crisis. As a result, organizations that use Dr. Fuller’s tool will be prompted to form communication plans that build crisis resilience rather than just survival.

The project will not only benefit organizations, but UALR students and the crisis management research field as well. Participation in service learning gives students hands-on professional experience with real clients—letting them practice the communication principles that Dr. Fuller teaches. His students will work with an organization in the community, selected with the help of the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center, to identify its crisis management concerns, stakes, and current readiness level. They will then develop a personalized plan for crisis communication that takes into account that organization’s audience, mission, needs, and brand, while also prioritizing honesty and responsibility.

The CRARF grant will enable Dr. Fuller to employ an undergraduate student to assist in the project work. By the end of the spring semester, the project hopes to create more self-reflective, crisis-ready organizations, as well as communication career-ready students.

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