CRISIS

Corporate Crisis Management

Corporate Crisis Management

Introduction

Crises are situations that pose threats to fundamental and core business of the organization and response time is very limited. A corporate crisis is an event that has a low probability to occur, but its occurrence has very high impact. Quick and immediate decisions must be made to combat these crisis situations (Sandin, 2009, pp. 109-116). Management Information Systems (MIS) play a key role in corporate crisis management situations. Managers must have the right information at the required time to bridge the gap between need and expectation (Nayak et al., 2012, p. n.d). The author of this research analysed MIS at the Border Guard's General Directorate in Saudi Arabia (Al-Zhrani, 2010, p. 1230).

Aims and Objectives

This study aims to investigate the role, management information system plays, in the decision making process of the corporation. It focuses on its role during a crisis situation. It also examines weaknesses and threats in organizational processes that prevent the usage of MIS. The study examines the extent to which the organization uses information and technological resources. The aim of the research is to determine if the organization adequately uses Management Information Systems. It presents recommendations for its effective and efficient use in decision making process. The Border Guard's General Directorate adopted MIS to assist management in producing accurate and in-time data from system (Al-Zhrani, 2010, p. 1230).

The Border Guard's General Directorate is government security organization of Saudi Arabia. Border Guard duties are; guard the land and sea borders of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, combat smuggling and infiltration, warn any unusual movements, perform search and rescue operations, and control security within the ports and harbours (Ministry of Interior, 2013, p. n.d).

Approach and Philosophy

This study uses descriptive research method. Descriptive research methods describe situations. They are not used for predictions or determining cause and effect relationship (Cherry, 2013, p. n.d). This research employs survey method of descriptive research. In survey method, participants are given questionnaire or they are requested to appear for a face-to-face interview. Researcher analyses and describes the responses of participants. Questions may be closed-ended, open-ended, partially open-ended, ranking, or rating-scale (Instructional Assessment Resources, 2007, p. 1). This study uses partially open-ended questions. The population for this research is all officers of Border Guard's General Directorate.

Sampling methods can be classified as probability and non-probability samples (Adolphus, 2013, p. n.d). Probability samples can further be classified into simple and stratified sampling. Stratified sampling involves the stratification of the population into mutually exclusive and totally exhaustive subsets, and selection of sample items from each stratum (RandomSampling, 2013, p. n.d).

This study uses stratified random sampling and stratifies the population into groups of administrative officers and department heads. Sample size is 350. The researcher distributed 350 questionnaires. He received 250 questionnaires back. He found 21 questionnaires unsuitable for analysis and tabulated results for 229 respondents.

Survey method is not suitable for this study. Observational method, where the researcher would closely observe implementation of information systems in the organization using naturalistic method would have produced more insights ...