FEATURE DOI: 10.1002/joe.21814 54 © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/joe Global Business and Organizational Excellence. 2017;36(6):54–61. Whether a crisis is big or small, if it is not handled effectively, it can have serious implications for a company’s short-term operations and even threaten its long-term sustainability. In the public sector, where companies provide essential services such as electricity, the stakeholder and customer-service aspects of an organization’s cri- sis management capability (CMC) are of particular importance. A proposed frame- work comprising strategic human resources development, organizational behavior in preparation for and response to a crisis, and government’s attributes as a stakeholder can be used to assess the CMC of a public-sector organization. According to the framework, the organization’s strategic human resources development will have a direct impact on CMC, while organizational style and the role of government will moderate the relationship between the enterprise’s strategic human resources devel- opment and its ability to manage a crisis. 1 | INTRODUCTION An effective crisis management program is essential for ensuring that an organization’s leaders can handle an unex- pected negative event, regardless of its magnitude. Indeed, crisis management is key to corporate sustainability, help- ing to guarantee long-term operations and survival (Per- rini & Tencati, 2006). Therefore, it is no surprise that crisis management capability (CMC) has gained the attention of researchers concerned with how to prevent crisis events and mitigate their impact on complex organizations (Hernantes, Rich, Laugé, Labaka, & Sarriegi, 2013). The CMC of any organization needs to align with the nature of the crises it is likely to experience (Moynihan, 2008). Therefore, a main goal should be to prepare well- trained teams to offer immediate response in any cir- cumstance. Human resource development can be used to enhance an organization’s capability in virtually all stages of crisis management (Castillo, 2005; Hutchins & Wang, 2008; Seeger, Ulmer, Novak, & Sellnow, 2005). In par- ticular, a strategic human resource development (SHRD) approach can help organizational leaders address cri- sis management planning and implementation. Such an approach focuses on the development of internal learning capabilities based on lessons learned from previous cri- ses. In so doing, the organization acquires the knowledge needed to identify future needs, develop individual capa- bilities, and adapt to new conditions. During the past 20 years, differences in organizations’ styles of preparing for and responding to crisis, as well as the impact of stakeholders on crisis response, have been brought to light. Although many studies have addressed crisis man- agement in the private sector, little attention has been paid to how public-sector companies, such as electric utilities, approach this task. This is a serious gap, given that outages and other service interruptions continue to plague the deliv- ery of essential electrical service in emerging economies. For example, research has indicated that deficiencies in the delivery of electrical service in Pakistan is caused by poor management (Khan, Begum, & Sher, 2012) and has ham- pered attempts to implement human resource development programs to enhance crisis management capabilities. The Keeping the lights on: A conceptual framework for understanding crisis management capability in the public sector Amran Rasli | Maqsood Haider | Chin Fei Goh | Owee Kowang Tan Funding informaton This research was supported by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Educaton and the Universit Teknologi Malaysia under research grant Vot. 4F709.