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Rice U. expert available to comment on Dallas Catholic diocese raid aftermath

by Jeff Falk

Last week’s raid on the Catholic Diocese of Dallas, which police say hasn’t fully cooperated with a sexual abuse investigation, comes in the wake of dozens of Catholic bishops releasing lists of the priests in their dioceses who were credibly accused of child abuse.

The raid is symbolic of a crisis of faith in the organization and its leadership, according to a reputation management expert at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business.

Anastasiya (Annie) Zavyalova, associate professor of strategic management at Rice Business, is available to discuss Catholic dioceses’ crisis and reputation management with the media. Zavyalova said releasing the names has been a small step in the right direction, particularly toward healing relations with parishioners.

In Dallas, trust repair will be a long-term process, Zavyalova said. “Its effectiveness will be contingent on who drives the process: In this situation, in order to work, the repair will have to be initiated by the laity, not by those in power at the church,” she said.

Zavyalova’s recent research includes an in-progress study of how parishioners reacted to the names of priests released by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in 2005. Her general research focuses on negative events in organizations and the role of the media and organizational identification for stakeholder support following such incidents.

To schedule an interview with Zavyalova, contact Jeff Falk, associate director of national media relations at Rice, at jfalk@rice.edu or 713-348-6775.

Rice University has a VideoLink ReadyCam TV interview studio. ReadyCam is capable of transmitting broadcast-quality standard-definition and high-definition video directly to all news media organizations around the world 24/7.


Follow the Jones Graduate School of Business on Twitter @Rice_Biz.

Follow Rice News and Media Relations on Twitter @RiceUNews.

Related materials:

Zavyalova bio: http://business.rice.edu/person/anastasiya-zavyalova

Jones Graduate School of Business: http://business.rice.edu