Crisis Communication Inas A Hamid Crisis is defined

Crisis Communication Inas A. Hamid

Crisis is defined as an event or issue that requires decisive and immediate action from the organizations. Crises have the potential to damage an organization’s reputation and the relationships with its stakeholders. It is important for organizations to anticipate and plan for probable crisis scenarios and prepare crisis communication plans.

How to manage a crisis

Because of modern communication and information technologies , people are increasingly aware of the issues and risks associated with organizations and their industries. These technologies also afford a way of voicing concerns on these issues, providing a direct challenge to organizations and their attempts to manage health, safety and environment risks.

The objective of crisis management and crisis communication is to exert control, insofar as possible, over events and organizational activities in ways that ensure stakeholders that their interests are cared for and that the organization compiles with social, safety and environmental standards.

The impact of a crisis on corporate reputation A crisis typically emerges as a sudden and unexpected event that disrupts an organization’s operations and poses both a financial and a reputational threat.

A crisis may also damage the image or the reputation of the organization more generally , which may lead to a loss of earnings in the long run. As a result of the crisis, the company’s reputation may shift from favorable to unfavorable then stakeholders may change how they interact with an organization

A company with a poor reputation may be stigmatized as a result of a crisis, and may struggle to cover from such a stigma that leads stakeholders to single out and discredit the organization

Crisis Communication One key objective for corporate communication practitioners is to protect the company’s reputation following a crisis and to limit the damage to its image

The crisis situation demands that communication practitioners begin their efforts by releasing information to the media and by using communication to address the physical and psychological concerns of those directly affected by the crisis.

During and in the immediate aftermath of a crisis, those directly affected, such as victims and their families need to be supplied with information on what happened. They also need to know how the company is managing the crisis and what corrective actions are taken to protect them from something similar happening again in the future. This information is also an expression of concern on behalf of the organization towards those directly affected by the crisis.

Effective crisis response needs: disseminating information openly and engaging with those affected in a dialogue on the crisis through direct meetings, newsfeeds and blogs. The second crucial step is to determine the organization’s responsibility for a crisis and to communicate about its actions to a broader range of stakeholders group.

Not all crisis are self-inflicted by organizations or emerge from widely debated public issues. Coombs defines four types of crisis based on two dimensions: Unintentional - Intentional External Internal Faux Pas Terrorism Accidents Transgressio ns

The internal-external dimension refers to whether the crisis resulted from something done by the organization itself (the actions of managers) or instead was caused by some person or group outside of the organization. The intentional-unintentional dimension relates o the controllability of the crisis. Intentional means that the crisis event was committed deliberately by some actor. Unintentional means that the crisis event was not committed deliberately by some actor.

A faux pas Is unintentional action which is transformed into a crisis by an external actor. It often begins as an issue between an organization and a particular external actor who challenges the appropriateness of the organization’s actions. Often the organization does not engage in debate with this actor. Terrorism Refers to intentional acts taken by external agents to harm the organization directly or indirectly. Social responsibility programs tend to be the focal point of this type. Accidents Crisis type matrix Accidents are unintentional and happen during the course of normal organizational operations. Product defects, employees injuries and natural disasters are all examples of accidents. Accidents can be acts of nature or human induced errors. Stakeholders are less likely to attribute blame and react negatively to acts of nature than to human induced error. Transgressions are intentional acts taken by an organization that knowingly place stakeholders or publics at risk or harm as selling dangerous products , violating laws, …

Classifying crises into these types is useful because it provides a basis for identifying the most appropriate crisis communication strategy.

crisis response strategies (CRSs) which the organizations can use to manage their crisis denial strategy that can be employed when the challenge is unwarranted The diminish strategy (excuse and justification) is recommended to reduce organizational responsibility thus being useful for the accident crisis type that has low crisis responsibility attribution The rebuilding response strategy : (compensation and apology) is recommended for cases of the preventable crisis type. bolstering response strategies , which includes “reminding stakeholders about past works and ingratiation