After early attempts to create universal models guiding managers in times of crisis - more recent attempts have focused on situational factors and the relationships between organizations and stakeholders in times of crises. Albeit this shift, structural conditions are often overlooked in the main bulk of research on crisis communication and if they are integrated they are defined as context and as such often excluded in the analysis. This is our point of departure for bringing neo-institutional theory into crisis communication research recognizing the importance of cultural, political, technological, and institutional environments of organizations. By this we shift focus from agency to structure and the social preconditions for organizational activities. However this is not to say that institutions are static or deterministic in the way they influence organizations and their behavior. On the contrary, institutions are open for innovations and interpretations. In this paper we put forward the concept of translation to illustrate and explain how organizations actively relate to and handle institutional pressure, thereby escaping the legal and moral/normative boundaries of institutions. Hereby we aim to contribute to the growing debate within the crisis communication field on new theoretical venues in understanding crisis communication as a practice but also as societal phenomenon. In our conclusion we suggest that the appliance of neo-institutional frameworks will help us understand the conditions under which crisis communication is carried out and in doing so allow researchers and practitioners to have a realistic stance on the limitations and possibility on communication in crises. Further, the framework will increase our abilities to understand the development of crisis communication, its institutionalization and the conditions for these developments.