Crisis in Context: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Crisis Management, Perceptions, and Organizational Responses in Iceland

Since the global financial crisis of 2008, there have been increasing frequency of global crises, including large-scale conflicts, the COVID-19 pandemic, the environmental crisis, and a general worsening of geopolitical tensions and structural inequality. Despite the global impact of these intersecting crises, the way in which they have been understood and responded to has been far from uniform. This edited volume focuses on the concept of ‘crisis’ through an interdisciplinary lens, analysing the term and comparing how it is being applied in different disciplines and across different sectors of society. 

The volume focuses on cases of crisis from Iceland, a small country with a high visibility in certain crises. This scope allows the contributors to cover a broad section of the Icelandic economy, government and society, offering a uniquely rounded analysis and extensive global comparison. It will be of great interest to scholars and students across different disciplines in social sciences, such as business, anthropology, sociology, change management, as well as practitioners and policymakers in the business of resilience and strategic crisis management.

Throstur Olaf Sigurjonsson is a Professor at the University of Iceland. His research areas are corporate governance, business ethics, policymaking, and policy implementation. He has published over 100 articles, books, chapters, and cases. He leads international research projects in corporate governance and sustainability, focusing on the impact of digital development on governance and the effects of economic and social shocks on the dissemination of governance content. 

Kristín Loftsdóttir is a Professor in anthropology at the University of Iceland. Her research has focused on racism, colonialism, whiteness, precarious migrants, crisis, nationalism, in addition to the tourism industry, development cooperation, and the concept of Nordic exceptionalism. She has conducted research in Iceland, Belgium, Spain Italy and Niger. Her publications include Creating Europe from the Margins (Routledge, 2023) and We are all African Here: Race, Mobilities and West Africans in Europe (Berghahn, 2021).

Stefan Wendt is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Business and Economics at Reykjavik University, Iceland. From 2021 to 2024, he was a professor and Dean of the Department of Business at Bifröst University, Iceland. His fields of interest include corporate finance and governance, financial markets, sustainable and digital finance, and behavioral finance. His research has been published in, e.g., the Journal of Financial Services Research, Journal of Multinational Financial Management, International Review of Financial Analysis, Journal of Behavioural Finance, and International Journal of Managerial Finance.