Types of Crisis | Categories of Crises (Lerbinger, Coombs)

In his book "The Crisis Manager: Facing Risk and Responsibility" (1997), Otto Lerbinger distinguishes seven categories of crisis:

1. Natural crises: earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, storms, volcanic eruptions, floods, tsunamis, droughts.
2. Technological crises: oil spills at see, industrial accidents, software failures
3. Confrontation crisis: boycotts, blockades, occupation of buildings, disobeying
4. Crises of Malevolence: kidnapping, espionage, terrorism, tampe bringing with products
5. Crises of skewed management values: crises of deception, crises of management misconduct
6. Crises of deception
7. Crisis of management misconduct

In his book "Ongoing Crisis Communication: Planning, Managing, and Responding" (2007), Coombs mentions nine types of crises:

1. Natural disasters
2. Malevolence
3. Technical breakdowns
4. Human breakdowns
5. Challenges
6. Megadamage
7. Organizational misdeeds
8. Workplace violence
9. Rumors