Crisis management skills of public institutes: A survey on Samsun Metropolitan Municipality

Recent crises influence institutions and stop their activities. Those crises not only affect institutions but also their employees. It is known that the possibilities of adverse conditions decrease by means of effective methods adopted against crises. By crisis management, it is possible to prevent crises before arising or resolve them within the light of strategic methods. Also, it can be said that crisis management skills of institutions may help to solve of crisis. In this study, it is aimed to determine the current situation of crisis management skills of Samsun Metropolitan Municipality taking into consideration of manners of employees. As a result of the literature review, no study could be find which showed the current status of crisis management skills in the sample of Samsun Metropolitan Municipality. In this respect, the study is expected to contribute to the literature and provide a new approach to the activities that the institutions will implement in crisis management. In the study which was limited in the sample of Samsun Metropolitan Municipality, not all of the employees could be reached due to time constraints and cost difficulties. For this reason, simple random sampling method was preferred when determining the sample of the study and the study was conducted with 406 participants. Face to face questionnaire technique, one of the qualitative research methods accepted in social sciences field, is chosen for study method and data are analysed in terms of confirmatory factor analysis, two unpaired t tests, Anova, correlation and regression analysis. 406 employees of Samsun Metropolitan Municipality constitute the sample of the study. Accordingly, in November 2018 a confidential poll has been conducted to employees of the institution. Findings have been evaluated by analysing data from the poll. It is discovered that the institution has been incapable of doing activities such as being more sincere to its employees, mutual communication and organize training programs about crisis management. On the other hand, perception points of participants related to crisis management skills differ according to gender and this difference occurs only in sub-dimensions of management skills of crisis period and post-crisis. Besides, it has been confirmed that perception points of participants related to crisis management skills differ according to the education level. According to this result, it can be said that as the education level of employees increase, interest and awareness of crisis situation and crisis management skills in a institution may arise. Considering general outcome of the study, it is clear that the current crisis management skills of the institution are of "intermediate level".