Crisis Response and IT Use Literature Review and Suggestions for Future Research

Crisis response highly depends on managers’ use of information technologies (IT). Given the growing frequency of crisis, it is urgent to concretely investigate IT use in crisis response. Still, crisis characteristics have been tacitly overlooked in the literature on IT usage. As a result, both researchers and managers rely on a routine view of IT usage that does not match to the reality of crisis. Knowledge on IT usage in crisis response is missing and managers lack specific recommendations regarding IT use. The objective of this paper is to respond to that gap by proposing a literature review of the variables that affect crisis response and are likely to differ from routine to crisis situation. From this review, we suggest some potential questions for future research on IT usage. Doing so, we promote more salient recommendations on IT use to managers and IT professionals.