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Table 6: Crisis Types by Attribution of Crisis Responsibility |
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Victim Crises: Minimal Crisis Responsibility |
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Natural disasters: acts of nature such as tornadoes or earthquakes. |
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Rumors: false and damaging information being circulated about you organization. |
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Workplace violence: attack by former or current employee on current employees on-site. |
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Product Tampering/Malevolence: external agent causes damage to the organization. |
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Accident Crises: Low Crisis Responsibility |
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Challenges: stakeholder claim that the organization is operating in an inappropriate manner. |
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Technical error accidents: equipment or technology failure that cause an industrial accident. |
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Technical error product harm: equipment or technology failure that cause a product to be defective or potentially harmful. |
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Preventable Crises: Strong Crisis Responsibility |
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Human-error accidents: industrial accident caused by human error. |
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Human-error product harm: product is defective or potentially harmful because of human error. |
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Organizational misdeed: management actions that put stakeholders at risk and/or violate the law. |
The second step is to review the intensifying factors of crisis history and prior reputation. If an organization has a history of similar crises or has a negative prior reputation, the reputational threat is intensified. A series of experimental studies have documented the intensifying value of crisis history (Coombs, 2004a) and prior reputation (Coombs & Holladay, 2001; Coombs & Holladay, 2006; Klein & Dawar, 2004). The same crisis was found to be perceived as having much strong crisis responsibility (a great reputational threat) when the organization had either a previous crisis (Coombs, 2004a) or the organization was known not to treat stakeholders well/negative prior reputation (Coombs & Holladay, 2001; Coombs & Holladay, 2006; Klein & Dewar, 2004). Table 7 is a set of crisis communication best practices derived from attribution theory-based research in SCCT (Coombs, 2007b, Coombs & Holladay, 1996; Coombs & Holladay, 2001; Coombs & Holladay, 2006).
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Table 7: Attribution Theory-based Crisis Communication Best Practices |
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1. All victims or potential victims should receive instructing information, including recall information. This is one-half of the base response to a crisis. |
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2. All victims should be provided an expression of sympathy, any information about corrective actions and trauma counseling when needed. This can be called the “care response.” This is the second-half of the base response to a crisis. |
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3. For crises with minimal attributions of crisis responsibility and no intensifying factors, instructing information and care response is sufficient. |
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4. For crises with minimal attributions of crisis responsibility and an intensifying factor, add excuse and/or justification strategies to the instructing information and care response. |
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5. For crises with low attributions of crisis responsibility and no intensifying factors, add excuse and/or justification strategies to the instructing information and care response. |
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6. For crises with low attributions of crisis responsibility and an intensifying factor, add compensation and/or apology strategies to the instructing information and care response. |
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7. For crises with strong attributions of crisis responsibility, add compensation and/or apology strategies to the instructing information and care response. |
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8. The compensation strategy is used anytime victims suffer serious harm. |
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9. The reminder and ingratiation strategies can be used to supplement any response. |
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10. Denial and attack the accuser strategies are best used only for rumor and challenge crises. |
In general, a reputation is how stakeholder perceive an organization. A reputation is widely recognized as a valuable, intangible asset for an organization and is worth protecting. But the threat posed by a crisis extends to behavioral intentions as well. Increased attributions of organizational responsibility for a crisis result in a greater likelihood of negative word-of-mouth about the organization and reduced purchase intention from the organization. Early research suggests that lessons designed to protect the organization’s reputation will help to reduce the likelihood of negative word-of-mouth and the negative effect on purchase intentions as well (Coombs, 2007b).
Post-Crisis Phase
In the post-crisis phase, the organization is returning to business as usual. The crisis is no longer the focal point of management’s attention but still requires some attention. As noted earlier, reputation repair may be continued or initiated during this phase. There is important follow-up communication that is required. First, crisis managers often promise to provide additional information during the crisis phase. The crisis managers must deliver on those informational promises or risk losing the trust of publics wanting the information. Second, the organization needs to release updates on the recovery process, corrective actions, and/or investigations of the crisis. The amount of follow-up communication required depends on the amount of information promised during the crisis and the length of time it takes to complete the recovery process. If you promised a reporter a damage estimate, for example, be sure to deliver that estimate when it is ready. West Pharmaceuticals provided recovery updates for over a year because that is how long it took to build a new facility to replace the one destroyed in an explosion. As Dowling (2003), the Corporate Leadership Counsel (2003), and the Business Roundtable (2002) observe, Intranets are an excellent way to keep employees updated, if the employees have ways to access the site. Coombs (2007a) reports how mass notification systems can be used as well to deliver update messages to employees and other publics via phones, text messages, voice messages, and e-mail. Personal e-mails and phone calls can be used too.
Crisis managers agree that a crisis should be a learning experience. The crisis management effort needs to be evaluated to see what is working and what needs improvement. The same holds true for exercises. Coombs (2006) recommends every crisis management exercise be carefully dissected as a learning experience. The organization should seek ways to improve prevention, preparation, and/or the response. As most books on crisis management note, those lessons are then integrated into the pre-crisis and crisis response phases. That is how management learns and improves its crisis management process. Table 8 lists the Post-Crisis Phase Best Practices.
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Table 8: Post-Crisis Phase Best Practices |
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1. Deliver all information promised to stakeholders as soon as that information is known. |
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2. Keep stakeholders updated on the progression of recovery efforts including any corrective measures being taken and the progress of investigations. |
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3. Analyze the crisis management effort for lessons and integrate those lessons in to the organization’s crisis management system. |
Conclusion
It is difficult to distill all that is known about crisis management into one, concise entry. I have tried to identify the best practices and lessons created by crisis management researchers and analysts. While crises begin as a negative/threat, effective crisis management can minimize the damage and in some case allow an organization to emerge stronger than before the crisis. However, crises are not the ideal way to improve an organization. But no organization is immune from a crisis so all must do their best to prepare for one. This entry provides a number of ideas that can be incorporated into an effective crisis management program. At the end of this entry is an annotated bibliography. The annotated bibliography provides short summaries of key writings in crisis management.
Kaynak
http://www.instituteforpr.org/topics/crisis-management-and-communications/
