Book excerpt: Strategic Issues Management explores the strategic planning options that organizations can employ to address crucial public policy issues, engage in collaborative decision making, get the organization′s "house" in order, engage in tough defense and smart offense, and monitor opinion changes that affect public policy. In this fully updated Second Edition, authors Robert L. Heath and Michael J. Palenchar offer practical, actionable guidance that readers can apply to organizations from large Fortune 500 companies to nongovernmental organizations and start-up high tech companies. Features Includes a NEW chapter on brand equity, updated examples, theories and cases throughout, new information on activists and activism, and increased attention to the role that technology plays in issues management Explores ways public relations, risk communication, and crisis communication can be used to address crucial public policy options Advises managers on ways to lessen the chance of a crisis becoming an issue through an examination of crisis preparation and responses Addresses the topic of reputation management by exploring the connection between issues management and brand equity using examples from McDonald′s and Wal-Mart Challenges managers to engage in collaborative decision making with community leaders and residents to reduce the chance that undue fear will translate into unnecessary regulation or legislation Opens each chapter with case study vignettes and closes with summary questions and issues management challenges Strategic Issues Management is appropriate for courses in Corporate/Strategic Communications, Public Relations Management, Crisis/Risk Communication, Strategic Management, Public Relations Management, Organizational Communication, and Public Policy and Administration.