Risk Management & Mitigation Flashcards
7 cards from real APR practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Risk Management & Mitigation flashcards as text
Which of the following BEST describes 'reputational risk' as a distinct category in PR?
Answer: The potential for stakeholder perception of the organization to deteriorate, reducing trust and support
Reputational risk is the threat that stakeholder trust and favorable perception will erode, impairing the organization's ability to achieve its goals.
In scenario planning for risk management, PR teams develop multiple future scenarios primarily to:
Answer: Prepare flexible response strategies for a range of plausible futures
Scenario planning prepares organizations for uncertainty by stress-testing strategies against diverse plausible futures, improving adaptability.
A utility company must communicate a planned service outage. Which timing strategy best reduces negative public reaction?
Answer: Provide advance notice with clear timelines and reasons before the outage occurs
Proactive advance notice with explanations allows stakeholders to prepare, demonstrating respect and reducing outrage compared to last-minute or reactive communication.
Which legal concept most directly limits what a PR practitioner can say during an ongoing lawsuit?
Answer: Litigation communications privilege and counsel-directed restraint
During active litigation, legal counsel typically restricts public statements to avoid prejudicing the case or creating admissions of liability.
Risk appetite in an organization's PR strategy refers to:
Answer: The level of risk the organization is willing to accept in pursuit of its objectives
Risk appetite defines how much uncertainty and potential downside an organization accepts when making strategic decisions, shaping PR thresholds for action.
When managing third-party risks (e.g., a supplier's scandal affects your brand), the PR team should FIRST:
Answer: Assess the degree of association and prepare messaging that distinguishes your organization's values
Assessing association depth before acting allows the PR team to calibrate whether distancing, silence, or solidarity best protects organizational reputation.
The Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) by W. Timothy Coombs recommends matching crisis response strategies to:
Answer: The level of crisis responsibility attributed to the organization by publics
SCCT posits that the more responsibility stakeholders attribute to the organization for a crisis, the more accommodative (accepting blame, offering remediation) the response strategy should be.