Writing to Give Sense in an Unfolding Crisis: Examining Senior Executives' Pishi in the Chinese Administrative System

ABSTRACT Crisis sensegiving is a crucial leadership activity that aims to construct a ‘common operational picture’ between leaders and subordinates. While the role of language in sensemaking and sensegiving is well‐established, micro‐level linguistic practices in crisis sensegiving, particularly of high‐ranking executives, remain underexplored. This paper examines senior executives' crisis sensegiving based on a unique dataset of 123 pishi – short written directives by 123 senior executives within the Chinese administrative system, on internal reports during simulation exercises. To decode these written directives, we developed an analytical framework that uses the concept of discursive accounts to link the themes and types of speech acts and their linguistic features. Through content and cluster analysis, we identified five crisis sensegiving styles, including diagnostic , direct‐intervention , procedural‐compliance , symbolic‐guidance , and public‐communication sensegiving . These styles vary along dimensions of action specificity (concrete task directives versus abstract principles), linguistic urgency, and relational positioning (signaling expertise versus avoiding blame). Our findings challenge the assumption that short written texts may lack depth to convey meaning, showing instead that executives strategically employ speech acts and linguistic cues (such as urgency, modality, and ambiguity) to signal priorities or manage accountability. We contribute to crisis management theory by bridging crisis sensegiving and linguistic perspectives, and highlighting practical implications for crisis leadership training.