Chapter 12

Crisis Communication
Definitions
Crisis Management Process
Theories related to Reputation Repair in Crisis
Use of Denial in a Crisis
 The Warning
• No organization is immune from a crisis.
• Communication matters in a crisis.
• Be prepared to communicate effectively in a
crisis.
 What is a Crisis?
• “the perception of an unpredictable event
that threatens important expectancies of
stakeholders and can seriously impact an
organization’s performance and generate
negative outcomes” (Coombs, 2007, pp. 2-3).
 Key Aspects of a Crisis
• Unpredictable: can anticipate but not predict
when a crisis will hit.
• Crises violate how constituents expect an
organization to act.
– Violating expectations creates angry constituents
who will alter how they interact with an
organization.
 Key Aspects of a Crisis
• Crisis is a serious threat that can disrupt
organizational operations and/or has the
potential to create negative outcomes.
– Negative outcomes include deaths, injuries,
property damage, negative publicity, reputation
loss, financial loss, and environmental damage
• An organization is in a crisis if key constituents
perceive a crisis.
 What is Crisis Management?
• “a set of factors designed to combat crises and
to lessen the actual damage inflicted”
(Coombs, 2007, p. 5).
• General goal is to prevent or lessen the
negative effects of a crisis.
• Crisis management serves to protect
constituents, organizations, industries, and
the environment from harm.
 Crisis Management as Process
• The set of factors that form a process.
• The crisis management process can be divided
into three parts:
– pre-crisis
– crisis event
– post-crisis
The Crisis Management Process
 Pre-crisis Phase
• Emphasize prevention and preparation
• Identify and act on warning signs
• Prepare to manage crises
– Develop and test Crisis Management Plan (CMP)
– Select and train Crisis Management Team
– Select and train Crisis Spokespersons
 Crisis Management Plan
• Rough guide, not step-by-step “how to.”
• Has no value unless tested.
• Update regularly.
 Crisis Event Phase
• Organization experiences a crisis.
• Crisis team is mobilized.
• CMP is used as a guide.
• Organization responds to crisis through words
and actions (part of crisis communication).
 Post-crisis Phase
• Return to business-as-usual.
• Provide updates to constituents.
• Evaluate the crisis management effort.
 Crisis Management Lessons
1. Preparation
2. Communication channels
3. Spokesperson training
4. Initial crisis response
5. Reputation repair
 Preparation
• Preparation improves speed and effectiveness
of crisis response.
• Should have CMP and crisis team.
• Exercises need to test and refine CMP and
crisis team.
• Pre-draft messages you know you might need.
• Exercises and pre-drafted messages allow for a
quicker response.
 Communication Channels
• Web sites should be used.
– Create dark sites
– Separate web site or linked from home page
• Intranets useful for employees.
• Mass notification systems help reach
constituents.
 Spokesperson Training
• Media training for anyone who might speak
during a crisis.
• Avoid “no comment”, people hear “guilty.”
• Avoid speculation, you could be wrong.
• Avoid jargon and technical language, can create
confusion.
• Fully brief all spokespersons.
• Avoid markers of deception such as lack of eye
contact or vocal disfluencies.
 Initial Crisis Response
• First set of messages in a crisis.
• Be quick with your side of the story.
• Be accurate with your information.
• Be consistent with your information, unless
there is a surprising twist to the crisis.
 Initial Response
Initial response should address the following:
• Instructing information.
• Adjusting information.
 Instructing Information
• Instructing information: tell people how to
protect themselves from the dangers posed by
the crisis.
– Includes evacuation or shelter-in-place orders and
recall information
 Adjusting Information
• Adjusting information: helps people to cope
psychologically with the crisis.
– Includes counseling for stress and expressions of
sympathy
 Reputation Repair
• Number one priority in a crisis should be
constituent safety.
• Reputation repair is addressed after the
instructing and adjusting information is
delivered.
 Four Research Areas of Crisis
Reputation Repair
1. Corporate apologia
2. Image restoration theory
3. Rhetoric of renewal
4. Situational Crisis Communication Theory
(SCCT)
 Corporate Apologia
• Crisis threatens social legitimacy because an
organization appears to be incompetent
/violated expectations.
• Violation is a character attack.
• Corporate apologia offers a defense of the
organization’s reputation in an effort to
restore legitimacy.
 Corporate Apologia
Crisis Response Strategies
• Denial: the organization denies any wrongdoing.
• Counterattack: the organization denies wrongdoing
and claims the accuser is the one at fault.
• Differentiation: the organization attempts to distance
itself from guilt for the crisis. There is an admission of
responsibility but factors are identified that limit the
organization’s responsibility.
• Apology: the organization accepts responsibility and
promises not to do it again.
• Legal: the organization allows the legal team to handle
the crisis and avoids public statements.
 Image Restoration Theory (IRT)
• Communication is goal directed.
• One goal of communication is to protect one’s
reputation .
• Dominant recommendation that emerges
from IRT research is that mortification
(publicly accepting responsibility for the crisis)
is the preferred response to a crisis.
 IRT Crisis Response Strategies
1. Denial
- simple denial: did not do it
- shift the blame: blame someone or something
other than the organization
2. Evading responsibility
- provocation: response to someone else’s actions
- defeasibility: lack of information about or control
over the situation
- accidental: did not mean for it to happen
- good intentions: actor meant well
 IRT Crisis Response Strategies
3. Reducing offensiveness.
- bolstering: reminder of the actor’s positive
qualities
- minimize offensiveness of the act: claim little
damage from the crisis
- differentiation: compare act to similar ones
- transcendence: place act in a different context
- attack accuser: challenge those who say there
is a crisis
- compensation: offer money or goods
 IRT Crisis Response Strategies
4. Corrective action: restore situation to pre-act
status and/or promise change and prevent a
repeat of the act.
5. Mortification: ask for forgiveness; admit guilt
and express regret.
 IRT Crisis Response Strategies
• Emphasis the positive view of the
organization’s future and helping victims.
• Is about an organization creating a new
direction and sense of purpose after emerging
from a crisis.
• Is an extension of accommodative strategies,
adjusting information, and compensation.
 Criteria for Renewal
1. Organization has a strong pre-crisis ethical
standard.
2. Constituency-organization pre-crisis
relationships are strong and favorable.
3. Focus on life beyond the crisis rather than
seeking to escape blame.
4. Desire to engage in effective crisis
communication.
 Situational Crisis
Communication Theory (SCCT)
• Combines elements of the rhetorical
approaches to crisis communication with
Weiner’s (2006) conceptualization of
Attribution Theory.
 Attribution Theory
• People search for causes of negative and
unexpected events.
• Cause is attributed to either the person
involved in the event or circumstances
surrounding the event.
 Application to Crises
• Crises are negative and unexpected.
• Constituents attribute cause to:
– Organization in crisis
– Circumstances surrounding the crisis
• Attributions of crisis responsibility have
serious implications.
 Crisis Responsibility
Increased crisis responsibility:
• Intensifies the reputation damage from a
crisis.
• Reduces purchase intention.
• Increases anger.
• Increases the likelihood of negative word-of-
mouth.
 SCCT and Communication
• Start with base of instructing and adjusting
information.
• Match the response to the reputation threat
posed by the crisis.
 Assessing the Reputation Threat
• Two-step process.
• Step one, identify the crisis type — how crisis
is being framed.
 Three Categories of Crisis Types
• Victim crises: very weak crisis responsibility.
• Accident crises: minimal crisis responsibility.
• Intentional crises: strong crisis responsibility.
 Victim Crises
• Natural disasters: acts of nature such as
tornadoes or earthquakes.
• Rumors: false and damaging information
being circulated about your organization.
• Workplace violence: attack by former or
current employee on current employees on-
site.
• Product tampering/malevolence: external
agent causes damage to the organization.
 Accidental
• Challenges: stakeholders claim that the
organization is operating in an inappropriate
manner.
• Technical error accidents: equipment or
technology failure that causes an industrial
accident.
• Technical error product harm: equipment or
technology failure that causes a product to be
defective or potentially harmful.
 Preventable Crises
• Human-error accidents: industrial accident
caused by human error.
• Human-error product harm: product is
defective or potentially harmful because of
human error.
• Organizational misdeed: management actions
that put stakeholders at risk and/or violate the
law.
 Assessing the Reputation Threat
• Step two, check for intensifiers
– Past crisis histories intensify threats
– Unfavorable prior reputation intensifies threats
 Assessing the Reputation Threat
• SCCT rates crisis response strategies according
to accommodation — concern for victims
• The greater the reputational threat, the more
accommodative the crisis response strategy.
 Crisis Response Strategies in SCCT
Deny strategies: seek to eliminate crisis responsibility.
⁻ attack the accuser: confront person or group claiming a
crisis exists
⁻ denial: claim there is no crisis
⁻ scapegoat: blame someone else for the crisis.
Diminish strategies: seeks to minimize the crisis
responsibility.
⁻ excuse: deny any intent to do harm and/or claim inability
to control the event
⁻ justification: seek to minimize perceptions of damage
from the event
 Crisis Response Strategies in SCCT
Rebuild strategies: seek to repair the reputation.
⁻ compensation: offer gifts or money to victims
⁻ apology: accept responsibility and ask for forgiveness
Reinforcing strategies.
⁻ bolstering: remind people of past good works by the
organization
⁻ ingratiation: praise people who help address the
event
 Caution
• Do not automatically use the most
accommodative strategies.
• Most crises with low levels of crisis
responsibility do not benefit from the most
accommodative crisis response strategies.
• Crisis managers risk a boomerang effect if a
crisis response is too accommodative for the
crisis.
 SCCT Crisis Response Strategy
Recommendations
• All victims or potential victims should receive
instructing information, including recall information.
This is one-half of the base response to a crisis.
• 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.
• For crises with minimal attributions of crisis
responsibility and no intensifying factors, instructing
information and care response is sufficient.
 SCCT Crisis Response Strategy
Recommendations
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
 SCCT Crisis Response Strategy
Recommendations
• For crises with strong attributions of crisis
responsibility, add compensation and/or apology
strategies to the instructing information and care
response.
• The compensation strategy is used anytime
victims suffer serious harm.
• The reminder and ingratiation strategies can be
used to supplement any response.
• Denial and attack the accuser strategies are best
used only for rumor and challenge crises.
 Denial
• Research is deceptive.
• Only effective if no evidence to contradict it.
• If evidence does suggest guilt, using denial
worsens the crisis threat.
• Also consider how constituents are evaluating
the evidence.
 Reflection Points
• What are the arguments for and against
partial disclosure?
• What are the arguments for and against and
full disclosure?
• Why does partial disclosure raise questions of
ethics?
 Reflection Points
• Why is transparency relevant to the crisis
response?
• How can the rhetoric of renewal be misused?
• How can effective crisis management result is
problems not being fully addressed?
 Reflection Points
• Is crisis management too corporate-centric?
• How can crisis management be too rational?
• Should more attention be given to constituent
concerns in crisis as opposed to the focus on
organizational concerns?