Crisis-related research in communication and business journals: An interdisciplinary review from 1992 to 2011

• A content analysis of patterns in crisis communication research using an interdisciplinary approach.
• Crisis research in communication focused on crisis management effects, quantitative methods, content analyses, and media articles.
• Business crisis research concentrated on crisis evaluation, qualitative methods, narrative analyses, and practitioners.
• Crisis articles in communication were more interdisciplinary in terms of theory and authorship, whereas those in business were more interdisciplinary in terms of methodology.

This content analysis sheds light on research topic, method, theory, and authorship in crisis communication research published in communication and business journals and assesses which field has been more “interdisciplinary” in approach. Crisis research in communication has focused heavily on the effects of crisis management, using a quantitative approach and content analyses, with media articles as data sources. Business crisis research has concentrated mainly on evaluation of crisis events, using a qualitative approach and narrative analyses, and with practitioners as data sources. The data suggest that, in the past 20 years, crisis research in communication has been more interdisciplinary in terms of theory and authorship, whereas business has been more interdisciplinary in terms of methods.